Ever since she’d come to Merhaine, small things like this had begun happening to her. She wanted to ask Gus about it, but he seemed suddenly tense and waved her to the sofa that faced very strangely toward the wall adjacent to the entrance hall.

She sat down. He fiddled with the drapes that spanned most of the wall, pulling them back slowly. What a surprise when the entire entrance hall came into view as through a soft haze. She could see everyone and when Gus flipped a switch off to the right, she could hear everyone as well.

How was this done?

“Don’t worry. We can’t be heard but I can see your question. How is it done?”

She nodded.

He gestured with a sweep of his arm the length of the viewing window. “You know that big landscape in the entrance hall? It’s painted on a very fine mesh screen.”

“Oh, I see. Do you come here often to observe?”

“No, not often.”

Gerrod had his back to the wall. He turned slowly until he was almost facing the painting. Then he was in her mind. Abigail? Are you in the viewing room?

She was so startled, she jerked in her seat. She also felt as though she was spying on him. Yes, I’m here. How did you know?

Not sure, just a feeling. His brow puckered, a familiar sight.

Gus brought me here, she explained. Should I leave? Please say no.

Stay if you like. You’ll learn another reason why I want you to leave.

There was more than one reason?

He turned back into the room but stepped off to the side in a very casual manner so that she had a better view of what was going on. The room was full of notables. She recognized them from having read the various Merhaine newspapers.

But in the middle, beneath a very large round wood chandelier, a fae and an elf, both male, stood almost touching chests. Did she hear growls?

“Humans are vermin,” the elf said.

“That’s absurd. There are good humans and bad humans. The baker is quite acceptable. I think she smiles too much, but beyond that her intelligence is sufficient and her cupcakes are quite good, excellent in fact.”

“Here, here,” moved about the room.

But others grumbled.

Abigail wasn’t hearing anything new, perhaps not as vehement as usual, but humans weren’t universally accepted.

The elf continued. “You allowed this. You made a push to pass through all the permits for her bakery and I’ll bet you a bushel of fall apples that she’s the one that brought the Invictus tonight.”

Abigail couldn’t have been more surprised. How on earth did her presence at a fae wedding bring on an attack of the Invictus?

Gus elbowed her. “Don’t listen to that. There’s always some dimwit in the crowd that will cast another as a scapegoat for any bad occurrence. A few thousand years ago, he’d be the sort to throw his own child into a volcano in hopes of getting the gods to stop the neighboring tribe from marauding.”

“What a lovely image.”

Gus laughed. “But true, no?”

It was at this point, however, that the entire assembly of civic leaders started shouting, making their points with flying hands. Several trolls were dancing on their feet, leaping side to side, faces red.

Abigail glanced at Gerrod, ready to offer a telepathic joke, but she was stopped by the fierce look on his face and the way his hands had balled up.

“Enough,” he shouted.

The room fell silent.

“We almost lost a child tonight, but thanks to Mistress Abigail’s courage, the boy lives.

“We need to stay on point that this recent incursion won’t be the last. We have more critical things to resolve than the presence of a bakery in our midst. Please return to your homes and we’ll begin the process of developing strategies and organizing our civic volunteer Guard. I’ve brought out all the Guard to patrol through the night, but with forty dead, the Invictus won’t hurry back, that much I can promise you.”

Abigail knew that the Invictus were more of a deadly gang than a marauding army. She also understood, however, that what happened tonight had never happened before.

The crowd muttered but began to ease toward the large castle door in the southeastern corner of the room, as though the plug to a drain had been pulled.

She glanced back at Gerrod and saw that his left hand twitched. He shook it slightly and even rubbed his hands together. When he released his hand, and the strange shaking continued, he shoved his hand into the deep pocket of his leathers.

“What’s wrong with his hand?” Abigail asked.

“Did you see something?”

“A twitch. A tremor maybe.”

Gus sighed, a deep rush of air. “This isn’t good. I need to contact one of his doneuses.”

Abigail felt light-headed suddenly. She knew what a doneuse was, a polite French expression that meant blood donor in Realm terms. She wanted to protest. She felt strangely protective of Gerrod suddenly. He’d kissed her. She didn’t want another woman, no matter the specie, offering up her wrist or her neck or any other vein of her body, to the Mastyr of Merhaine.

That was her job.

That was her job?

What on earth was she thinking?

But certain pieces of this weird puzzle began to fall into place, how drawn she was to Gerrod, that she could communicate telepathically with him, that she could access his personal frequency. She could no longer deny that she had a serious connection to this man, to this vampire. She didn’t know what it was, but the thought that he needed to take blood, reminded her of how sluggish her blood always felt, especially in Merhaine, as though her body had decided all on its own that she needed to be Gerrod’s doneuse.

She sighed. But what did all of this mean? Could she donate her blood? Part of her shouted a resounding yes. But another part was much more sensible and seemed to stand, hands on hips, and say, Vampires? Really?

Gerrod was right. She needed to go home and she really did need to rethink the Hollow Tree bakery, especially with tonight’s horrible turn of events in which, thanks to Gerrod and his Guard, no one at the wedding died.

Her thoughts turned to her sister. Abigail had been Megan’s caregiver for the past nine years. Well, to be fair not exactly nine. After all, Megan had gotten married three years ago to a wonderful man and she’d birthed two children in the process.

But she believed she would always feel a profound sense of responsibility toward Megan. Her sister had been sickly most of her life and when their parents died those nine years ago, Abigail had been able to keep them together as a family because she’d been eighteen. Life insurance had paid off the house, and had given them funds to get through the early years, then later to open the bakery. Of course, Abigail had worked full-time as well, but she had always felt blessed that she and Megan had been able to stay together.

But Megan hadn’t been well those first four years, in and out of the hospital with breathing difficulties, a chronic case of asthma that had taken her to the emergency room numerous times.

Much of that was behind Abigail now and in-between, she and her sister had built the bakery together. The expansion into Merhaine had been because of their extensive troll and elf customers. For the past three years the castle alone had been a major part of their success, which had led Abigail here, staring at Gerrod’s back, at the constant tension in his shoulders, at the fact that he still held his hand deep in the pocket of his battle-leathers.

“He’s always blood-starved, you know.”

She put a hand to her chest, aware of her laden heart all over again. She had developed a strange medical condition in which her body produced too much blood. The doctors still didn’t know what to make of it but she had become a regular and welcome donor to the Flagstaff blood bank.

Abigail turned toward Gus. He rose to his feet and looked down at her. She could barely make out his features. “Why is that? Why is he always blood-starved if he has donors?”

Gus shrugged. “Something about being a mastyr vampire. They’re all blood-starved in the Nine Realms, the mastyr vampires who rule. Although, I don’t know about any of the other Continents. He even has three doneuses, but he hates to use them. They’re all married. He feels like it’s a violation.”

“Okay, so how long has he been blood-starved? I know he’s three-hundred-years-old. Tell me it hasn’t been that long?”

Gus shrugged. “Not sure. I think he reached mastyr status a hundred and fifty years ago, but there had to have been a long transition. I can’t believe he’d just suddenly be starved.”

“So, why doesn’t he just get more doneuses, add to his little harem, and take more blood?”

Gus just stared at her. “Well, you’d probably have to ask him that, but I wouldn’t. There’s more to blood-taking than I think you or I can understand. I think it’s one reason the vampires hate the Invictus wraiths as much as they do.” He turned to close the curtains across the wide landscape at the now empty room and flipped off the switch. “Because the victims are unwilling, I’ve heard them call it a blood-rape.”

“Oh, God.”

“Yes, exactly.”

The door opened and light from the hall formed a rectangle of yellow on the floor behind the couch shaded by Gerrod’s massive shadow. Funny, she always seemed to forget how big he was until he stood in a doorway. He filled it from side to side, the top jamb clearing his head by only a few inches.

He held his left hand in his right now, and rubbed his wrist back and forth. “Everything okay?”

His voice was a deep hole.

“Sure,” she said. But what Gus had told her had knocked her out of stride.

She was about to ask to be taken back to Flagstaff, but Gus was before her. “I’m putting Mistress Abigail in one of the guest rooms.”

Gerrod looked around. “She should go back to Flagstaff.”

“It’s a long trip by car and all the way east. Is there a Guard in that direction? Someone watching the plane access point?”

Gerrod shook his head. “We have never needed guards at the access before.” He scowled, harder now. “Very well. We certainly have enough guest rooms.”