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WE MADE IT THROUGH the party without bloodshed. Emil had calmed down after his second glass of blood. He joked with his friends and managed to keep his eyes off Aurora’s throat for several minutes at a time. His gaze always crept back to her, so she didn’t get a chance to relax. I’d been tempted to swap seats with her, but she’d shaken her head when I’d mimed my intentions. The demon didn’t want to make a scene and draw attention to herself.
When it was finally time to leave, we all got up to file outside. Kye’s friends and colleagues returned to the catacombs on foot. There was apparently an entrance to the tunnels somewhere nearby. Mom’s friends hugged her, then climbed into their cars. Emil sent a lingering look at Aurora over his shoulder before flashing away.
Kye gave Aurora an apologetic look. “Sorry about Emil. He’s not usually like that.”
“You mean creepy enough to make my skin try to crawl off my body?” she joked.
“Yeah,” he said lamely.
“I thought Saige was going to have to stake him,” mom said without a trace of amusement.
“Me, too,” he confessed.
“You need to keep your eye on him,” I warned Kye. “He might be turning rogue.”
“I hope not,” he said with a shudder. “It sucks having to kill my friends when they lose their minds.”
“You’ve had to kill other vampires who went rogue?” Aurora asked.
He nodded and put his arm around mom’s waist. She slid her arm around him in return, giving him the comfort he was seeking. “It’s happened a couple of times during the past few years,” Kye said. “They seemed fine one day, then the next, they were murdering humans and needed to be put down.”
“I hope we can put a stop to it one day,” I said quietly. My instincts told me this was all connected to the war the overlords were planning to bring to our world, but I didn’t know how or why.
“Have you decided on a wedding date yet, Pearl?” Aurora asked.
“We’re still talking about it,” mom replied. “There’s no rush. It’s not like either of us are going to die from old age anytime soon.”
Kye grinned, happy that they would get to spend at least a few centuries together. He leaned in for a kiss and I held my hand up to block the sight of them locking lips. “Tell me when it’s over,” I said to my bestie.
Aurora put her hand over her mouth and giggled in delight. “They’re so adorable,” she said affectionately. “You can look now,” she said when they finally broke apart.
“I’d better get to work,” Kye said after checking his watch. “I’ll see you when I get home, babe.”
Mom gave him another brief kiss, then he zoomed off with spooky speed. “I love that bloodsucker,” she said with a lustful sigh.
“Really?” I said in mock surprise. “You hide it so well.”
She smirked at me, then drew us both in for a hug. “You’ll get your turn to have an engagement party eventually, Lil Bish,” she said.
A lump formed in my throat. “I really doubt that,” I replied. “You know I can’t marry the guy I’m occasionally banging.”
Aurora snorted out a laugh, then we were all snickering together. “You have such a way with words, my delicate daughter,” mom said. “I know your situation is tricky, but I have faith it will work out in the end.”
I gave her a skeptical look, but didn’t bother to argue. Just because the Sterling women could now sleep with whoever they wanted to didn’t mean I was going to have a happily ever after. My relationship with the weredragon was so mismatched that it had been doomed from the start.
“Let’s go home,” Aurora urged me. “I want to mow down a bunch of zombies for a couple of hours before we call it a night.”
“I’ll see you girls online soon,” mom said, then headed for her yellow sedan. Aurora had driven us in her SUV, since she hated riding in my car. We climbed inside her vehicle, waved to mom, then headed home.
I listened to Aurora singing along to the radio on the way home, but I didn’t join her. The uneasy feeling I’d had for the past couple of hours hadn’t faded. I kept looking in the rearview mirror, searching for a tail.
Picking up on my mood, my bestie fell silent a few blocks from our apartment. “Is someone following us?” she asked.
“I’m not sure. I haven’t spotted anyone, but I can feel eyes on us.”
“So can I,” she said, slowing down to turn onto our street.
We drove in silence to our parking lot and she pulled in next to my pockmarked orange hatchback. I climbed out and closed the door, then sensed a vampire coming towards me at warp speed. My lightning reflexes kicked in, but I was already airborne before I could pull a weapon out of my kill-bag.
Aurora screamed as I sailed across the lot and landed on a dumpster. A snarl of rage ripped from my mouth as I sat up and pulled a silver stake out of my handbag. Emil’s hands were clamped around the sex demon’s shoulders, but he’d frozen with his fangs an inch from her neck.
Caught in a fantasy, he didn’t get a chance to orgasm and fall unconscious. My stake whistled through the air and punched into his back, piercing his heart. Instantly turning to ash, his empty clothing collapsed to the ground.
I rolled off the dumpster and ran to Aurora. “Are you okay?” I asked, searching her for injuries.
She nodded shakily and wrapped her arms around herself. “He didn’t bite me,” she said, voice quavering slightly.
“Was he a psycho like the werehyena who attacked you a while ago?”
She shook her head. “I think he snapped and turned rogue tonight. His fantasy was to bleed me dry while having sex with me. He’d never had a graphic fantasy like that before.” She was able to scan their minds when her magic struck and glean their deepest, darkest desires from their subconscious.
“It isn’t your fault he went insane,” I told her, seeing guilt fill her gorgeous green eyes. “He would have targeted someone else if you hadn’t caught his eye. I don’t think anything can stop the process once they lose their minds like that.”
“Lord Gilden would have been able to stop it from happening,” she said as I bent to pick up Emil’s clothes.
“I guess so,” I conceded. “But I doubt he’d want to be bonded to thousands of unstable creatures. Just having Ruen attached to him with an invisible leash must be enough of an ordeal.”
She snickered a little as I scattered Emil’s ashes with my shoes. I carried the clothes to a dumpster while she locked her car up tight. Feeling soiled by the assault that she’d almost been subjected to, she took a shower. I called mom to fill her in, since she was waiting for us to join her online.
“I had a feeling Emil was going to lose it,” she said heavily.
“We all did,” I said. “At least Kye didn’t have to kill another one of his friends.”
“He’s going to be upset about this,” she said sadly.
“I’m sure you’ll find a way to lift his spirits,” I said wryly. “Don’t tell me the details,” I added before she could tell me about any of her ideas.
Aurora emerged from her side of the combined apartment, smiling slightly at our conversation. “Tell Kye we’re sorry we had to kill Emil,” she said, knowing mom could hear her without her raising her voice.
“I will,” mom agreed. “Are we still going to game, or do you want to skip it?”
“Give us five minutes to make coffee and we’ll see you online,” my bestie replied. She was an addict, just like mom and me. Gaming was a good way to destress after her ordeal.
