So, here is my attempt at a smut filled vampire romance.

...Yaaaaaay. #enthusiastic #notreally

Disclaimer: Not mine.

DEATH AND THE BAD LUCK KID

CHAPTER 1: THE FINAL NAIL IN THE COFFIN

I've never been good with loss. Death, or any finite thing in general, has never been a concept I could handle with any form of grace—never since I was old enough to understand it. I don't cope well. Like, at all. I go completely off my rocker just thinkin' about it. I'm not a strong person. I'm not even a strong minded person. A stiff wind could blow me over and a strong word could bring me to tears in seconds. Everybody who knows me would tell you the same thing. Well, everyone except for my mama, that is…

There's a story here. Somewhere. I suppose I should probably tell it to you. It's pretty long though, and I suck at telling 'em—hard to know where to begin, ya know? It's also pretty complicated… Scratch that. Really, really complicated. And with the vamps out of the coffin now, it's like the entire world is going crazy. Not that it wasn't crazy to begin with. Picture a regular old hornets' nest. Now picture a stupid kid poking it with a stick. That stupid kid would be the vamps. Don't tell any of 'em I said that though. Then you'll never get to hear the end of the story.

I suppose it all started with my cat Fluffy.

Yes. I know. It's a lovely, dignified old name for a lovely, dignified old tom cat. The originality of six-year-olds is staggering, right? I loved that grumpy cat more than I could possibly express. His whiskers always had dust caught up in 'em from chasing mice in the upper lofts in the barn, and his big, black bottlebrush tail twitched when he was annoyed with me and my cousin Anthony for touching his ears. And he absolutely hated our big muscly pitbull, Gus. He was my pop-pop's dog—a rescue from the fight pits that he rehabilitated himself. He was friendly enough now, but I was always afraid of him, and Gus absolutely hated Fluffy.

It was only inevitable that one day Gus would kill him.

He was a bigger, stronger predator, Grandpop said. Couldn't blame him, he said. The cat provoked him, he said. You don't ever run from a predator, Grandpop told me. They like the chase. They can smell your fear, hear the pulse and twitch of your frantic heartbeat in your chest. The chase what a predator lives for. And that's just what Gus did. Chased Fluffy right up our hundred year oak—the one with the tire swing Anthony pushed me on. Fluffy would've been fine if he'd stayed there, just like every other time Gus went berserk. But the window in Fluffy's loft was open, and he tried to make the jump…

Despite rumor to the contrary, not all cats land on their feet…

No, Fluffy was old, and his reflexes were dim. Fluffy landed on his neck, and he didn't move again. Mama managed to get to him before Gus could, calming the mad dog with a touch. Her and Pop-pop were the only two who could do that. But there was nothing she could do for Fluffy. Not anymore, she told me. There was nothing to be done, other than to put Fluffy in a box in a hole in the ground. I was six, and it was the first time I really, fully understood what it meant to die.

It terrified me.

And I couldn't accept it.

I wouldn't.

It was around that same time that Anthony and I found some of Mama's old trunks and Tony taught me how to pick the padlocks with some bobby pins. The trunks had come with her when she married Daddy, Pop-pop said. Pop-pop never really liked Mama too much, or at least he never acted like he did. Called her a witch. But she just smiled, and cooked him breakfast every morning. And Pop-pop let her stay at the farm, even after Daddy got run over by a tractor when I was two.

My family was a little weird, what with Aunt Dede being an alcoholic and leaving Anthony at the farm with us all the time, and Daddy getting run over by the tractor, and Uncle Lex disappearing—and no one ever talked about Mama's side of the family; Pop-pop said they were all a bunch of lunatics, and Mama didn't say anything confirm or deny it. She was always strangely tight lipped about her people, and as far as I was concerned, her life began when she became my Mama. Or at least that's what she told me. But after Tony and I found those books in her trunk along with a whole bunch of other weird stuff—animal bones, various silver instruments I didn't know the function of, ornate knives, bundles of herbs, crystals, oils, and a vial of something that looked vaguely like blood—I started to think that wasn't strictly the truth…

The books were all ancient looking and handwritten on yellowed parchment paper—at least I think it was paper…it was almost thick enough to be…and the consistency was close to…ugh… I didn't understand a lot of the rituals these books described, but Anthony automatically recognized them for what they were: Spell books. Mama really was a witch, he said. And since I worshiped the ground Anthony walked upon back then, I believed him.

I really probably would've been better off if I hadn't…

We were two kids playing with forces we didn't understand in the slightest. There were a reason Mama's tools of trade were locked away. Looking back, I don't even know how we managed to break the lock without losing fingers. It probably had something to do with the fact that I was the one to do it. Anthony just walked me through it. He liked to teach me things, I remember. And after studying Mama's spell books in the secrecy of the loft, he told me we were going to bring Fluffy back.

Anthony's heart was in the right place. It always is. But that night will be one that I will never forget until the day I die. Magic is a funny thing. Magic is life. For there to be life—magic—there must be an equal sacrifice. Blood, tears, you name it; it varies by the type of magic you're performing. And that night, Anthony and I had absolutely no idea what we were trying to accomplish. Well, we were pretty sure we knew what we wanted to happen, but we had no true understanding of what that meant yet.

That night, we tapped into the universe.

When we're young, we think we know everything. The world is our oyster, and there's nothing that could possibly jar our understanding of it. There are rules that dictate the way things are, and nothing can deviate from them. We are safe in this understanding. Nothing can hurt us… We were so very, very wrong. That night, when we reached out into the darkness, blindly, unknowing…something reached back. It saw us. And we had no idea what it was. It wasn't sentient—not like we understand it. But it was unfathomably vast, and powerful. It was everything. Everything around us, everything in us, everything that had been, and everything that would ever be; life, death, everything. And in that moment before I came apart, before I became one with it, I understood all of it.

I think it was god.

Not that thing people worship at church, nor any other religion as far as I know. Perhaps I am just unreceptive to such practices, but the warm, safe, giving feeling that comes with worship had nothing to do with this. This was beyond worship. Beyond supplications of any kind. You do not pray to it. It does not care about us. It does not hear you. It knows only sacrifice, and what comes in return. You get what you give. And you get what you deserve. These are the rules of the universe plays by. And Anthony and I were playing without knowing any of them, and I paid the price for it.

I died for a little while the night we brought Fluffy back.

A life for a life.

If Anthony hadn't found Mama in time, I would've stayed dead.

A life for a life.

I never got to say goodbye to her.

Things were never the same again after that night.

I didn't speak for several months, no matter how fervently Anthony or Pop-pop would entreat me to. I merely stayed in bed and held my cat—now very much alive, I might add, and so was I, but Mama wasn't. It was ten months after her funeral, ten months after I had died and come back to life that Pop-pop finally called Aunt Sage. We'd met at the wake. She said to call her when we were ready. Pop-pop told her to get off his property that day, but when I woke up screaming for the umpteenth time, the stubborn old man finally gave in to Anthony's pleading and called the number on the woman's business card.

She sat down in my room one day without saying a word.

Fluffy—oddly enough, since he doesn't like anyone—jumped down from the foot of my bed and right into the woman's lap. He'd been acting strange ever since the incident, hardly leaving my side once—which was strange, since he was normally a very independent cat. The woman whose lap he had claimed shared the same bright red-auburn hair as my mom and I. It was easy to tell the family resemblance; high, rounded cheekbones with little attractive hallows beneath, cupid's bow lips, and a pointed chin, just like Mama. The only difference with me is that my eyes were a deep green instead of the aqua blue Mama shared with her sister.

Those eyes fixed pointedly on Fluffy's orange ones and the crisply dressed woman addressed the feline chastisingly, "Well you've caused quite the spot of trouble, my fine furry friend. Just what in the world am I to do with the two of you? Not to mention the boy… He'll be trouble too, I'm sure."

She patted Fluffy aimlessly, transferring her piercing gaze to me next. I was already staring back at her, stiff and wary, but unwilling to commit to ejecting her from my bedroom. She'd leave eventually once she got tired of having a one way conversation. But it seemed Aunt Sage had no issue with that whatsoever. It soon became clear that she had come with something to say, and not the intention to listen.

"Do you understand what happened that night?" she asked briskly, her eyes knowing. Her accent sounded Scottish.

Hesitantly, I nodded. Yes, I understood very well what had happened that night. Intimately. That didn't mean I wanted to talk about it. In fact, I'd be very happy to never think about it again. I was through with magic. I never wanted to have anything to do with those spell books or anything remotely supernatural in my life.

"Good," Aunt Sage nodded back. "Although I can't say the same for your imbecile cousin. I take it most of this was his idea, no?"

Again, I gave a solemn, hesitant nod, feeling vaguely as if she had read my mind.

"I suspected as much," she sighed, shaking her head. "The boy is shaken up, without a doubt, but I don't see it dampening his enthusiasm any time soon. Pity. You, on the other hand, my dear… You have not come out so unscathed." She eyed my form up and down, ending up on my face as she studied me carefully, petting the cat on her lap with serene motions. "You're changed. As you all are—the boy, the old man, even the cat—but you especially."

I stared down at my hands in my lap.

"You died that night Amity," she said quietly, "this much I think you know. But do you know why you are still alive?"

A sudden crushing weight felt like it was pressing upon my insides, and I felt my face crumple as tears stung at my eyes, but didn't fall. "Mama…" I managed to choke out, my voice hoarse from disuse.

"That's right." The woman leaned back in the rocking chair Mama and I used to sit and read together in, and looked upon me dispassionately. "My sister gave up her life to fix your mistake. Her life, is now your life," She scratched behind Fluffy's ears with a wry sort of twist to her lips, "just as your life, is now this handsome little fellow's life. The two of you are connected now—though it's a rather unorthodox way of earning a familiar. Rather like killing an ant with a sledgehammer." She eyed me pointedly. "That was a very dark ritual you and your hick cousin performed. Very advanced. Younglings of our order would have been out of their minds before they attempted such a thing. They know better. Your mother should have brought you to us years ago. An event like this needn't have happened otherwise. And now the boy is involved as well… What a mess…" She didn't seem to be talking to me anymore. "What would be a fitting punishment for him, I wonder?" She looked back at me and said, "The goddess has already punished you enough, I'll wager, but the boy is another issue entirely. You've forcibly opened yourselves up to powers of nature that you don't understand in a very dangerous and uncontrolled way—completely outside of ritual and tradition—you especially. You'll both need to be instructed—there's no way around it… But there must also be censure, especially where the boy is concerned… Ignorance is no excuse. A life has been taken. There must be retribution for that."

I would soon come to know the ways of witches were not always pleasant.

"They're just little'uns!" Grandpop argued at the dinner table that night. "You can't hold 'em accountable for something like that! They didn't know—"

"Ignorance is no excuse," Aunt Sage said again. "A life has been taken—an extremely powerful McCarthy at that—"

"She weren't no McCarthy!" the old man protested vehemently, pounding his hardy fist on the table. "She died a true Hartly! Brave! She sacrificed her life for that little girl, and she'd do it again if she could! That makes her a Hartly in every way that counts as far as I'm concerned!"

Gus growled in apparent agreement.

It was around that point that I finally started crying. For grumpy old Grandpop to admit something like that, he had to have meant it, even if he was always squabbling at Mama for some reason or another. Grandpop was very serious about the name Hartly; whenever he invoked the family name, you knew he meant business. To be called a true Hartly was the highest compliment one could be afforded from Pop-pop. And for him to call Mama a Hartly instead of the usual derogatory 'Witch' just broke my heart.

"I w-w-wish she coulda heard you say that," I sobbed, shoulders shuddering as Tony held me, quietly rubbing my back as I cried. "She woulda been so ha-happy… I w-w-wish…"

"Me too, kid," Grandpop seemed to be trying very hard to keep a straight face, but the watery sheen of his hooded eyes gave him away. "Me too."

My cries seemed to unsettle everyone in the little country kitchen, Tony holding me tighter as if that would make it stop. Even Gus came over and put his head in my lap with a pitiful whine. It was the first time I had cried since Mama had gone. And for a while, the tragic sounds and hiccupping sobs were the only things that filled the silence, everyone else too lost in their own grief and distress to say a word, comforting or otherwise.

It was Aunt Sage who finally shattered the quiet with a sigh. "Fine. I suppose it's a possibility that I might pull some strings with the covens, but heed my words, old man…" she said ominously, "without guidance…" her eyes flicked to Tony pointedly, "something like this will happen again."

"W-what are you looking at me for?" the boy cried, unnerved at the icy blue stare aimed at him. "I didn't do nothin' wrong!"

"Keep quiet!" Grandpop snapped, making Tony flinch hard enough to jar me in his arms.

"And here we arrive at the crux of the problem…" Aunt Sage said dryly, narrowing her eyes at my cousin. "What say you, boy? Now that you've had a taste of true power, would you be so willingly inclined to give it all up for good? To never lay hands upon another spell book? To deny magic entirely for the rest of your miserable days on this backwater ranch?"

Tony exuded a very heavy silence, every muscle in his body going tense behind me as he glared at the woman.

She merely smiled in satisfaction. "Predictable." She turned to regard Farmer Hartly knowingly and jerked her chin at the two of us. "The girl has learned her lesson, but the boy has learned absolutely nothing. In time, he will try something again. And now that they've opened themselves up, it's only a matter of time until something nasty gets ahold of one—or both of them. Evil and vengeful spirts, cults, rogue warepacks, and—goddess forbid the vampires ever find out about this—" She shifted uncomfortably at the thought, shaking her head at our incredulous looks. "The world is a much bigger and unknown place than any of you can possibly realize, and you've just painted big red targets on your backs for anything supernatural in a hundred mile radius. I suppose we should only be thankful you called me when you did, before anything else could get here first…" Her face was intense when she told the old man meaningfully, "I'll need to take the children."

"The hell you will, you witch—"

"Indeed. I am a witch," Aunt Sage interrupted, then pointed to us, "and so are they. Very young, very powerful, very impressionable witches. We've not seen this amount of raw talent for an age. Perhaps not since the inquisition, and if something else gets to them first—"

"You expect me to believe you've been around since—"

"I've been alive for almost five hundred years, Mr. Hartly," she interjected again forcefully, standing halfway from her seat and leaning towards the old man with one hand placed firmly on the round kitchen table, "please don't interrupt me when I am speaking—it makes me very angry." The shadows in the room rippled threateningly, making Gus whine and Fluffy on the counter gave a low yowl. "I don't believe you want to see me when I throw a tantrum. The last one was legendary enough to be written down in your history books."

"If you—then—then Casey was—" he stammered.

"Cassia," Aunt Sage corrected the name with a strange accent, different from her normal Scottish drawl, and sat down again, "would have been somewhere around her millennium this year, if I'm not mistaken." She scoffed. "A millennium witch. Such a waste. She stopped practicing—wanted to live a normal life, have a couple of brats, and die… Well, she certainly got her wish." She let out a bitter huff, leaning back in her chair with her arms crossed over her chest, and shook her head, "But I digress. This is irrelevant. Do you see now?" She gestured at us flippantly. "These children have been submerged in a world that is separate from your own. And now they must be educated with the skills to survive in it. Especially now, with the vampires acting all secretive—they're plotting something, and it can't be good—it never is. They've got it out for our kind. This couldn't have happened at a worse time, and at my age, believing in coincidence is like believing in Santa Clause." She cast a derisive look at our stricken faces. "Sorry, kids. Not real."

Yes. Aunt Sage ruined Christmas for Tony and me forever that night.

That was also the night we packed our bags and said goodbye to the Texas ranch forever.

We were going with Aunt Sage to England.

That was sixteen years ago.

Tonight I'm getting off of a plane at Fort Worth Airport and staring at everything like a tourist. Even though this is the city I was born in, I feel like a foreigner. I haven't been back to the states since I was six. It feels weird but the muggy weather is awesome. I hate the cold. And even if the air is suffocating and smoggy, I'll take hot and dry over wet and cold any day.

I manage to find my way to the baggage claim—miraculously. Normally I can't find my way out of a paper bag; Aunt Sage says I have the sense of direction of a midge-fly. It's the sound of one very unhappy kitty that beckons me through the crowded airport. Fluffy gets air sick. He won't forgive me for weeks after this, I just know it—grumpy old thing. He's still kicking after all these years. And, strangely enough, I don't think he's going anywhere. He appears to be stubbornly attached to life, and goes wherever I go. I try not to think about it too much. Question things too deeply and you end up finding out things you never wanted to know. Fluffy is one of these things I don't question. It's better that way for both of us, I think.

"Calm down, just quiet down now," I ease to him gently as I can manage while dodging busy passersby. Fluffy's yammering is drawing unpleasant stares that I wilt away from timidly. "I'll let you out as soon as we get out of this place, okay?"

Unfortunately, right as we're moving through people traffic, I get a call. Unfortunately, it's not on my mobile phone. Cursing under my breath as the familiar pressure builds in my head, I nearly bowl people over to get to the exit, nearly going flying a few times, especially after tumbling past a rather solid, tall, blond stranger who refused to dodge my warpath. When I finally get out of the airport and manage to find a secluded space, my head feels like it's going to explode. I fumble through my abnormally large purse, fighting not to let out a pained whimper as my head gives a particularly nasty throb, and finally get ahold of my hand mirror. Flipping it open hurriedly, I cast a hand over it with a few hastily murmured words and sigh with relief when a familiar face appears in the reflective surface—only, it's not mine.

"I see you made it there in one piece," the reflection remarks derisively.

The headache subsides slowly, but the lack of building pressure is a palpable respite from the mounting migraine that can cause nose bleeds if ignored long enough. "Hello, Auntie. Have I mentioned that I absolutely hate it when you do this? I do have a phone, you know."

"Ugh," she sniffs in disgust. "Awful contraptions. I don't know how you people deal with all these new mechanical contraptions and so-called 'modern conveniences' cropping up all over the place. Don't get me started on Facebook—I rue the day you and that blasted cousin of yours signed me up for that demonstration for human degradation."

"That seems a fairly apt assessment for Facebook, I have to admit…" I agree, "but, Auntie, please just call me next time? For my sanity?"

"I had to see that you were well," she insists. "You know I don't trust those flying tin cans—all packed in like sardines and hurtling through the air at several hundred miles per hour—it's not natural—"

"I love you too, Auntie."

"That's a bit presumptuous of you, don't you think?" she huffs. "I'm only concerned as to your whereabouts, dear, seeing as you should know damn well the trials are coming up on the solstice, and I've agreed to be your much anticipated sponsor. There are expectations here that are driving me up the ruddy walls—"

"Politics don't suit you at all…" I demure softly in sympathy.

Her face contorts and her cheeks go red and I can practically see the steam blowing out of her ears as she finally lets out a howl of frustration, tugging on her hair, pacing back and forth out of the frame of my mirror, "OHH, it's that Agnes! She's been taunting me for decades, going on about how I've never managed to ferry an apprentice through the trials, and I've had it, I tell you! I've bloody well had enough!" She threw her hands manically as she spoke. "If it weren't against the Covenant, I'd murder each and every last one of those uppity crones with my bare hands! I'd bathe in their blood like a ruddy vampire! I'd wring their skinny chicken necks, and beat them to death with their own limbs! Oh, I'd love to see their faces when—"

She goes on like this for another solid five minutes. When she gets on one of her tirades, it's best just to look sympathetic, and nod in agreement whenever she pauses for breath. She means every word she says and it's best not to anger her further. Tony and I learned this the hard way.

"Anthony is just sweet as can be, and makes up for the rest with enthusiasm—he takes after me, you know—but we both know he's not going to make the cut," she goes on fervently. "It has to be you. You're my only hope of ever saving any amount of face in this coven." She glares at me intensely with her aqua eyes burning, "You find out what that old man wants and you get your little arse back here before the solstice, Missy. I don't care if you have to swim, just do it fast."

"I'll try, Auntie," I murmur dryly.

"No, no—there will be no trying, only doing," she commands. "Do I make myself perfectly clear?"

"Yes, Auntie," I sigh.

"Once more, with feeling," she conducts.

I suck in a deep breath and recite, "Yes, Auntie. Whatever you please, Auntie. I am at your disposal, Auntie."

"That's better." She grins—more of a barring of teeth, really—and trills, "Bye-bye now! Give the old man a kick for me, will you?"

I close my eyes and let out a deep sigh as the image in the mirror fades back to my own reflection. I luxuriate in a moment of peace for a moment, but when I open my eyes again my face is no longer the only reflection in the mirror. For the briefest of moments, I almost believe it's Aunt Sage playing a trick on me (as she is oft to do) but I am sorely mistaken.

"She sounds like a bitch," a deceptively smooth, pleasant voice comes from behind me. I drop the mirror in utter shock, shattering at my feet when I whirl around to face the presence of the tall blond stranger I knocked into while tearing out of the airport. He's so tall that he looms over my own diminutive height, and his blue eyes burn into me intensely, making my throat close up uncomfortably. I have to quell down an instinctive urge to bolt.

When I grasp my wits again, I manage to choke out, "No. Worse. She's a witch."

"I gathered that," he agrees. His voice is soft, but I can sense the danger in it, sharp as razor blades. His eyes trace my figure slowly from top to bottom, ending up on my feet, and he points out, "You're bleeding."

"Right," I say hastily, observing the cuts from the broken mirror in a detached sort of way with another sigh. "Thanks for that. Nine years of bad luck—that should be an adventure."

He lets out a curiously mischievous chuckle that doesn't sit well with me and remarks, "That's a bright way of looking at it. I take it you're superstitious…" He eyes the growling black cat still unhappily shut in his carrier. "Interesting choice in pets."

"He's not a pet," I correct him indolently, kneeling over the shattered pieces of glass scattered around and embedded in my sandaled feet, holding my hands over them and muttering a few words. Instantly, the shards mold themselves back together as if time is reversing itself—a neat little charm I learned a few years ago. Pity it doesn't work on enchanted objects. Straightening, I ask bluntly, "Is there something I can do for you, Mr. Vampire?"

"You're a very powerful witch," he notes just as bluntly, brows raised in appreciation.

An abrupt and very unladylike snort escapes me despite my wariness of the situation, and I end up snickering at him impertinently, shaking my head. "You mustn't've met many witches then." I can't help grinning somewhat manically at him with another hysterical giggle. The pressure from the trials must be getting to me. I'm slowly losing it. "Haaa…fuck my life—and Auntie too."

"Maybe later," the vampire grins back. "For now, might I have the pleasure of knowing your name?"

Mimicking his archaic speech—I was used to it from Aunt Sage and several of the other coven members—I quip back in a perfect English accent, "Tell me yours, and I shall tell you mine."

"It appears the lady knows how to negotiate," he laughs, playing along. I'm hoping he continues to humor me. For now, the best course of action is to appear non-threatening.

"Names are powerful things. My Auntie would rip me a new one if she knew I was considering telling mine to a vamp. Not without something in return, of course. Law of equal sacrifice—witchery 101."

"There's a school for witches?" he questions with amusement. "Any relation to Harry Potter?"

"Pfft. You're funny. I like you," I laugh. "Really, I do. And I'd love to stay and chat, but, unfortunately, at the moment I'm running late for a prior engagement…" I trail off when I meet his intense eyes, and sigh at the realization, "I'm not going anywhere, am I."

"You're an intelligent one," he showers me with false praise.

I let out a long sigh, and pick up my bags, muttering dismally, "Honestly, I don't know how I get myself into these situations. Why does it always have to be vampires?" I eye said vampire expectantly. "Well? Where are we going?"

He arches a brow at me. "Really? No shooting lightning out of your fingers or summoning a plague of locusts?"

"In public?" I balk at him, gesturing to the throngs of people getting out of the airport, meeting families, loading luggage onto busses. "Do you really think that's a good idea? I mean, you'd be surprised what people can pass off as their minds playing tricks on them, but I think lightning and locusts might be a little over the top…"

"Well, what would you suggest?" he places an icy hand firmly on my shoulder—unnatural in the hot muggy night, sending an unpleasant shiver down my spine—steering me skillfully through the droves of people. He grabs up my extra duffle as if it weighs nothing. How thoughtful.

I wince slightly at the thought. "You know, I'd really rather not think about it unless I have to. Not all of us are like Auntie. I don't exactly like to make a habit out of beating people to death with their own limbs when they piss me off." I add as an afterthought, "It's very immature when you think about it." Then I shrug. "After all, you seem like a perfectly reasonable vampire. I'm sure you have an equally reasonable purpose for abducting me."

"Abduction is such an ugly word," he says in my ear as we approach a stately limousine, sending another nasty shiver down my spine. "Think of it as an unscheduled detour."

"Right, well, since I like you, I feel it's only fair I should warn you…" I precaution him as I watch him throw my luggage unceremoniously into the trunk, "in the unfortunate case that this 'detour' should turn sour—I think you should run."

"Me?" he looks up from the trunk with blatant amusement, "I should run?"

I nod very solemnly, holding Fluffy's carrier as the vampire slams the trunk shut, ominously giving me the premonition of someone slamming shut the lid of a coffin with my name on it. "I have instinctive defenses in place that don't react well in…tense situations. Trust me when I say you won't find it pleasant. I'd really rather avoid any unpleasantness all together, to be honest."

"Then we are of the same mind." He grins, gesturing me into the vehicle ahead of him. "That's what this little side trip is all about."

"I don't suppose you could be any vaguer, could you?" I seethe quietly, sliding into the limo with vast discontent.

"And I don't suppose you could shut that pretty mouth before I shut it for you," he returns in the same pleasant tone he's been using all night.

I merely settle him with a disgusted look as he seats himself across from me with a smug smirk and scoot as far away from him as I can. I let Fluffy out of his carrier and mentally implore him to shed as much as felinely possible on the plush leather seats. Instead he settles in my lap and stares at me with flat orange orbs; he exudes stern disapproval.

My eye twitching in frustration, I snap, "Stop looking at me like that—it's not my fault." Even more disapproval. "It's not! You want someone to blame? Take a look at the great hulking blond beast over there!"

The vampire sits very still as the cat sets the strong feline glare upon him next, and hesitates for a moment—clearly contemplating the sanity (or lack thereof) in seriously engaging a cat in conversation—before shrugging. "In my defense, if you had not slammed into me with all the force of a raging bull, I might not have taken notice of you at all, and we might have avoided this situation entirely. Conversely, if you cannot accept the blame yourself, you may also blame your raging bitch of an aunt."

I blink at him for a moment before nodding. "That's acceptable." I go back to talking to my cat like he's a person (and as far as I'm concerned, he is), "There you have it, Fluffy. It's all Auntie's fault."

The vampire lets out a surprised bark of laughter. "Fluffy? You actually named your cat—"

I'm quick to cover said feline's ears, and abruptly interject with, "Shh! He's extremely sensitive about his name. I was six, okay? And I didn't know how to tell girl parts from boy parts…"

"You are either a very cruel mistress, or an utterly insane one." He spreads his arms out languidly over the back of his seat. He's very attractive, honestly—oozing sex appeal from every miniscule pour, I'll wager—but he uses it like a weapon. They all do. "I haven't figured out which it is yet. Either way, I suppose it doesn't matter. You are endlessly entertaining, little witch."

"It's a distinct possibility that I have lost my mind, yes, I will agree with you there." I nod fervently. "But I'm ever so glad I still have enough mental faculties to provide you with entertainment—I do try so very hard, because I like you so much. Goddess forbid you be deprived of your giggles…" He grins wider, and a slow sinking feeling assaults my insides. "You're going to drag this out, aren't you."

"Oh, yes. I think so." He doesn't even try to deny it and adds, "I like you too."

And that, friends, is the final nail in the coffin for Amity Hartly.