Quickly, quickly, fleet of foot and keen of ear, he raced through the various pantries and ante-rooms until he came up to the foyer. Pausing before he stepped out into the space, he prayed to the Virgin Scribe, the Fates, destiny, fucking anything, that the vast open area would not just be empty, but remain so as he made a mad dash to the front door.

After that? He would have to run far enough to find some safety and call his cousins. Then the Brotherhood.

Blood slavery had been outlawed by the King—so there might well be a legal way of seizing this living, breathing chattel who should never have been property. But Assail wasn’t leaving the male behind just so that he could show up with a bunch of Brothers, head down to the basement, and find out that Naasha had disappeared the slave into a grave because something had tipped her off.

Just let there be a way out of this house, he thought. Please . . .

“Through the front door,” he whispered. “We’re going right out the front door. You ready? Try to hang on to me.”

The male nodded over and over again and tightened his hold a fraction.

“Here we go.”

Assail broke out into the space, moving fast, the chains clanking, his cargo slipping, all that dirty, damp hair slapping—

He had to stop dead not even halfway to their goal.

FIFTY-FOUR

“Please,” Bitty said. “Please tell me how you met?”

Mary glanced at Rhage and wondered which one of them was going to take a stab at it. When he nodded at her with a smile, she shrugged and rubbed his hand.

“Okay, so,” she started. “It was a—”

“Dark and stormy night,” Rhage jumped in.

“Well, it certainly was a dark night.” She thought back to what seemed both forever ago and two seconds back. “I had been doing some work with this helpline. You know, for people who needed a little advice.” Okay, it had been the Suicide Prevention Hotline, but editing that out seemed appropriate. “And this person kept calling in. I eventually met with him, and my next door neighbor recognized him for what he really was—a pretrans caught in the human world. Long story short, I ended up going with them to the Brotherhood’s training center to translate—”

“John Matthew can’t speak verbally,” Rhage said. “And she knows American Sign Language. She helped him communicate.”

“So there I was, wondering where I was—”

“When I came down the hall. And it was love at first sight for us.”

“Okay, he was blind at the time—”

Bitty spoke up in alarm. “Why?”

Mary glanced at Rhage, and they both froze. “Ah . . .”

“It’s a long story,” he said.

The waitress came back with Rhage’s two Cokes. “Let me know if you need a refill, okay?”

“Thank you.” Rhage took a draw off one of the big/talls as the woman went on to the next table. “Anyway, I couldn’t see, but the instant she spoke? I was in love.”

“What did you think of him?” Bitty asked.

Mary ducked her eyes as a smile wide as the table hit her face. “Well, at first I was overwhelmed. There’s a lot of him to go around, as you know. And I didn’t know where I was or who he was—and I couldn’t figure out why he was giving me so much attention.”

“It’s because you’re beautiful. That’s why—”

“Anywaaaaaaaaaaaay.” Mary batted away the compliment—and then stopped herself as she wondered what kind of impression that would have on a young female. “I, ah . . . thank you.”

Was she blushing? Why, yes, yes, she was.

Rhage got up and leaned all the way over, giving her a kiss. “That’s more like it.”

Mary tried to hide her fluster behind taking a sip of her water. “So we dated—our first date was actually right here in this restaurant.”

“Really?” Bitty said.

“At that table—”

“At that table—”

As they both pointed across the way, Mary finished, “Right over there. And yes, he ordered this much, too.”

Rhage sat back as the waitress delivered his appetizers. “Oh, thank you—and listen, we don’t need to wait if our entrées are ready. Just bring ’em all out. Mmmm, wanna try some, Bits?”

“It does smell good.” The little girl edged closer. “Yes, please.”

“Get your fork and dive in. The potato skins are awesome. Bacon is the source of all goodness.”

As the two of them danced their way around the plates, Mary thought back to those early days: Rhage asking her to say “antidisestablishmentarianism” in the training center’s corridor. Him meeting her here and staring across the table as if she were the single most captivating thing he’d ever seen. Him showing up at her house at four in the morning . . .

“Penny for your thoughts?” Rhage asked.

“I—ah . . .” As Bitty also looked at her, Mary wondered how much to say. “Well, to be honest, I was thinking about the moment you found out . . .”

Mary stopped herself. She didn’t want to talk about her own illness, her own strange situation to Bitty. There was just too much already going on.

Rhage got somber. “I know exactly what you’re remembering.”

Mary crossed her arms and braced them on the tabletop. Leaning in, she said to Bitty, “When he came to my house the first time, I didn’t expect him. I’d woken up at four a.m., and I was opening a can of coffee—I sliced my thumb pretty deeply. Of course, I didn’t find out until later—well, I didn’t know he was a vampire at that particular moment.”