Unknown - Scorched

“But you’ll give him a try?”

She gave him a wicked look. “If you insist. Although he’ll have to cut a fine figure to shoulder past Mr. Darcy.”

Mac rewarded that look with a kiss.

“Do you know...” she said, trailing off into an uncertain sigh.

“What?” He touched his finger to her chin.

“I want you to know there’s a place you can always lay your head.” She shimmied up his torso until her face was poised above his. “Wherever I am. Sometimes it helps to know where you can go when everything else turns upside down. I’ll always take you in.”

“Would you?”

She hesitated. “You don’t have a family standing behind you. Everyone needs a family. You’ll get lost if you’re all alone.” Her eyes were serious.

Just like that, she had turned the tables on him. He had promised her protection. Now she had just done the same. The solemn look on her face said she meant it.

Mac felt a pang of tenderness in his chest. She’d found his soft, marshmallow center and sunk her dainty fangs right in. Crap, I am lost. But he didn’t care. Not one little bit. A dark yearning stirred inside, but it was dark and sweet at once, like melting chocolate.

Constance survived in a violent world. She might be small, but she had to be tough to have made it this far. Clever and stubborn enough to keep her values in one piece. That moved him.

Logic said the bond they had formed was instant and intense, the kind that happened during wars and disasters. Perhaps there was something supernatural to it, too—the result of the room, or his new body, or her vampire nature.

None of that mattered. He knew one thing with conviction, something that no sorcery could ever change. He wasn’t letting Constance Moore slip out of his life. In the most unlikely place of all, he’d found a forever kind of woman.

“You did what to my sister?” It was the closest Holly had ever come to a shriek.

Alessandro was fairly sure he’d made a tactical blunder. “She’ll like it in the Castle. There’s lots there to kill.”

“When did you put her there?”

“Right after she tried to stake me. And bit me.”

Holly’s angry eyes seemed to fill her face. “What. Time. Did. It. Happen.”

Alessandro balked. The housekeeping spell Holly had laid on the vacuum cleaner suddenly wound down. The motor died with a sickly wheeze.

“Um. This afternoon.”

Holly clenched her teeth. “She’s only human, Alessandro. She doesn’t even have her witch’s powers anymore. She’s my big sister. She used to read me stories.”

He sighed, but it was an angry sound. “What should I have done, Holly? She tried to kill me in my bed. She damned near succeeded.”

Holly dropped into the nearest chair, covering her face with her hands for a moment. He knelt in front of her, sorry that he’d snapped, and captured her hands, one by one, and drew them from her cheeks.

Her eyes were moist, catching the lamplight like stars. “She’s my sister. How could you do that?”

Oh, no. He’d made her cry. It was the first time. A heavy, bleak feeling threatened to crush him to the carpet. “I’m so sorry.”

He could have torn out his own heart then and there. How could I be so stupid? Vampire logic isn’t human logic.

“I don’t know what you should’ve done,” Holly said, her voice thick with tears. “I don’t blame you. You had to do something, and I don’t have any answers. I could kill her myself.”

Confusion washed over him. How could he fix this? “I can go look for her. Bring her home. Right now.”

“No!” She squeezed his hands. “If she doesn’t get you, the guardsmen will!”

Alessandro blinked, his male pride flattened to road kill. “I can look after myself,” he said gently. “I was the queen’s champion swordsman. I’m still pretty good with a blade.”

“Of course you are.”

“I’m in and out of there all the time.” Long enough to toss someone in, at least.

“I know.” Holly closed her eyes, and fell silent.

The house was silent but for the ticking clock. A car whooshed by outside. From the kitchen, the cat was crunching kibble. They were home sounds. Sounds Alessandro had begun to treasure.

Holly swallowed. “I can’t bear to risk you right now.”

“But Ashe ...”

She shook her head. “I don’t know what to do about her. She’s not the same person I remember, the one I want her to be so badly. It’s like I keep trying to fix her in my mind, fit the old Ashe over the new one, but it doesn’t work.”

“Do you think the sister you remember is inside her somewhere?”

“Goddess knows. I think an awful lot has happened to her over the years, and I know she blames herself for our parents’ deaths.”

“I think she’s angry,” he offered. Was the stake the first clue?

“Whatever. I don’t want her back in this house. Who knows what she’d do next.” Holly let go of his hands and wiped her face dry with her fingers, clearly exhausted. “But we can’t leave her there. Sweet Hecate, I can’t believe my family is fighting like this.”

Alessandro put his hand to her cheek. As always, she felt warm to him, hot and vital. “I’m part of your family?”

She looked at him, her brows drawn together. “Absolutely. The most important part.”

“Thank you.” Then are you really afraid to introduce me at the reunion? Does it bother you that I can’t give you children? Will you still love me when you realize the cost of living with a man who is so different? Who has no family of his own?

He knew some of his doubts were Ashe’s poison at work. Alessandro forced himself to let them go. “What do you want me to do?”

“Just—let Mac deal with it.”

“Mac?” That was the last thing he expected her to say. “What can he do that I can’t?”

Holly shrugged, trying to look casual and missing by a mile. “Finding a missing person is kind of, y’know, cop stuff. He’s trained to talk to crazy people, and Lore said Mac’s going into the Castle, anyway. Plus, Mac owes me.”

“And he’s expendable if Ashe decides to take him out?”

“Of course not!”

“Then why is it okay to risk him?”

“Have you talked to Lore today?”

“No.” He intended to tear the alpha a new one about the hounds’ poor guard duty performance. He had a feeling the hound, like any smart dog with a mess to its name, was making himself scarce.

Holly seemed to slump even more. “Mac’s ... well, from the sound of it, the demon caught up with him in this other weird way.”

Alessandro’s eyes narrowed. “How weird? In what way?”

“Physically.” Holly told him what Lore had told her.

Unable to sit still any longer, Alessandro got to his feet and started to pace. “I was just beginning to trust Mac. It seems I was wrong.”

“I’m not sure about that. He didn’t sound, y’know, evil.”

For how long? If the demon taint was on a roll, who knew what else might change? “I should have asked this before. Is there any way you can reverse what’s happening to him? Your magic made him half human before.”

Holly shook her head. “That was a complete accident. The only thing I know how to do with demons is fry them to cinders. Pure blunt force. I’d kill him.”

“Then is he powerful enough to deal with your sister? She’s a good fighter.”

“Sounds like he is.”

Alessandro wasn’t sure he liked that answer. He took a few more steps, then stopped. “It isn’t that I want Ashe dead. I hoped putting her in the Castle would teach her a lesson. Show her there are worse things than a vampire trying to keep the town safe. That we’re not...” He trailed off, unable to find the right words.