Jared’s words were spoken through clenched teeth. “I don’t want her here.”

Although I had no idea who this woman was, I strangely felt a prick of jealousy. “Who are you talking about?”

“Jared, you must have anticipated that she would want to meet Sam.” Antonio didn’t look pleased about that. “Given who you are, there was no way that she would not hear about the upcoming ceremony.”

“She’s not going anywhere near Sam,” Jared stated firmly. “You contact her, and you tell her that she isn’t to come here.”

Starting to feel a little unsettled, I pressed, “Who is not going anywhere near me?”

“I don’t think she will harm Sam,” said Sebastian reassuringly.

“I don’t care.” Jared set his jaw. “She’s not getting near her.”

That was it. I’d had enough. Sucking the energy around me into my palms, I released an air blast harsh enough to have everyone’s hair rising. “Who the f**k is ‘she’?”

Jared rubbed my nape soothingly, but I wasn’t soothed. “Magda is” – a heavy sigh – “the woman who Turned Evan and me.”

“A woman Turned you?” This time, jealousy bolted through me.

Sensing it, he gently squeezed my nape. Hey, you don’t have to feel even the slightest bit jealous. I f**king hate her.

Maybe that should have made me feel better, but it didn’t. To me, ‘hate’ wasn’t a measure of dislike, it was an emotion. A very strong emotion. To feel such a strong emotion for someone, they had to have affected you in a very deep sense. I had to wonder if she was more than just the woman who Turned him, if she was an ex-partner − maybe even the reason why he was so guarded.

Evan had once told me that Jared had never really liked a woman in more than a physical sense before me, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t. No matter how close you were to a person, there would always be something about them that you didn’t know. There was really no ‘knowing’ anyone. Well, in my experience anyway.

Sebastian sighed, flicking his peppery black hair from his face. “She heard the announcement that the Heir has claimed someone. I think we can safely guess that she has not taken it well, though she says she simply wants to meet the woman you have claimed and to…”

“And to what?” I prodded, though I was pretty sure what the answer would be.

“To be present at your Binding ceremony, as is her right as the vampire who Turned Jared.”

“And it’s such a bad thing that she’s present because…?” No one answered me.

“She won’t be present.” Jared’s nostrils flared. “Fuck her rights.”

“Why do you hate her so much?” He didn’t answer me. So I kicked him under the table. “At least tell me why you’re so determined to keep us apart?”

His eyes were sad. “Because she likes to hurt people who mean something to me.” Again, the shutters went down.

Oh he was a pain in my arse.

Jared stood, sighing. “I guess it’s time we go get the squad. First, I need to call Evan.”

I could guess why: he wanted to warn his brother about Magda. As he went to the corner of the room to take the call, I arched a brow at Antonio. “If he’s not going to tell me anything about this woman, can you at least shine a light on things?”

Antonio shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “I would prefer not to involve myself in what may become a domestic argument.”

When I switched my attention to Sebastian and Luther, they both stood so sharply that the table shook and the pen came rolling down to me; I knew they were intending to scarper before I had the chance to question them. Cowards. Huffing at Luther, I handed him the pen. It was as he touched it that he gasped and his entire body tensed. The surprise in his eyes was quickly replaced with worry and unease.

“What?” I demanded, though my voice was shaky. He simply shook his head. “I know you had a vision, and it obviously spooked the hell out of you. What did you see?”

His smile was forced. “Yes, it was a vision, but it did not concern you.”

“Bollocks.” I leaned across the table. “You listen to me, Gandalf. I’m about to walk into what could potentially be a trap. If there’s something to worry about, I want to know what the bloody hell it is.”

“I’m sorry, Sam, but I fear that this is a path you must take.”

“What’s wrong?” asked Jared as he returned to my side.

I pointed at Luther. “It’s him over there doing his ‘riddle me this, riddle me that’.” And right then, I didn’t have the patience for it. “Let’s go before I set his beard on fire.”

Narrowing his eyes at the three Kejas opposite us, Jared linked his fingers with mine. There was a queasy sensation in my stomach, and then we were in the living area of his rather impressive apartment. He pulled me flush against him, locking his arms around me. “I’ll go pack my stuff so we can drop it at your place before we leave. Are you sure I can’t talk you out of going to check out the bungalow?”

“Nope.”

Resting his forehead against mine, he exhaled heavily. “Just promise me one thing. Promise me you won’t Merge with anyone.”

Although vampires each only had one gift, Bestowers like Antonio could impart power to another vampire and, thus, allow them to develop another gift. He had done this for me once as a reward, and had done it twice for Jared. “It’s one of my gifts—”

“And it’s a dangerous one. The last time you used it, you nearly got too overwhelmed by power, and I almost lost you.”

I grabbed the lapels of his matrix-style leather jacket. “Look, it’s sweet that you’re so determined to protect me, but I’m a big girl.”

“Yes, and you’re my girl. I want you safe and here with me. Promise me.”

“I only use it as a last resort.”

“Sam.”

A sly thought came to me. Ordinarily, I wasn’t a sly person, but when needs must…“I’ll make you a deal. You tell me about Magda, and I’ll promise not to use that gift at any time tonight.”

He narrowed his eyes. “That’s a shitty deal.”

“It’s the only one you’re getting. You close yourself off from me all the time, Jared. It’s not fair. I trusted you with all my shit. Now I’m asking you to do the same.”

After a long moment, he nodded and took a seat on his corner leather sofa. It was a minute or so before he finally spoke. “Evan and I already knew about vampires before we Turned. One night on our way home, we were walking down an alley, and we saw this guy chomping on some girl’s neck. He heard us coming and looked up; his irises were glowing amber, and his fangs were showing.

“He told us to turn around, to forget what we had seen and take another route to where we were going. I could feel the power, the push in his voice, but…I don’t know, it just didn’t work. The same went for Evan. I know now that he’d obviously had the gift to hypnotise, but for whatever reason it hadn’t worked on us. The vampire realised and started laughing. He seemed fascinated with us, and we actually became friends.”

Sensing his reluctance to go on, I perched myself on the sofa beside him and nudged his knee with mine. He gave me a put-out look but continued.

“Evan and I went to a club with him one night. It was a place where a lot of vampires went. Magda was there. I’ll be honest, I was a little mesmerised by her. It was mostly because of the natural glamour that comes with vampirism, I guess” – Hmm, not feeling good about Magda right now – “but it was never more than sex to me. She told me she loved me, but I hadn’t felt the same. I’d thought I cared about her at the time, though. In truth, I’d really just been kind of…I don’t know…a little infatuated with her.”

Did that make me feel a little better? No. Although I’d never been a possessive person, I could be quite possessive with Jared and I even had my jealous moments. This was to be one of those moments.

“She said that she wanted to Turn me. I probably should have considered it. My job bored the hell out of me and it didn’t exactly pay well. My apartment was a shithole. I owed a serious amount of money to some seriously bad people. But there was Evan. I wouldn’t have left him like that. And, although I’d thought I cared about her, I still hadn’t wanted to give up my life for her. So I said no. She looked pissed, and I thought she was going to Turn me anyway. Instead, she told me to spend the next day thinking it over. But I hadn’t changed my mind, so I didn’t go back to the club that night.

“It was later that same night that I got a call from Evan’s cell. Only it wasn’t Evan. It was Magda. She’d Turned him, Sam. She’d Turned Evan against his will. She said she’d done it for me, so that I’d have Evan when she Turned me. But she hadn’t done it for me, she hadn’t loved me. She’d done it out of spite because I hadn’t gone back to her – I knew it, she knew it. But how could I have said no? It was my fault that she’d done it to him, how could I have left him alone to live that life? So I let her Turn me. She could have just Turned me and left Evan out of it, but she hadn’t because she’d wanted to hurt me. She used Evan to do it.”

Feeling his pain and guilt, I straddled him and cradled his face with my hands. “Evan would never blame you.” The brothers were too close for that.

His arms immediately went around me. “I know. But the dumb f**ker should. Instead, he jokes how weird it is that in both our human life and vampire life we were born on the same day, yet both times he was born an hour before me.”

That was typical of Evan; he could find humour in just about any situation. “What happened after that?”

“Once he and I had a good hold on our bloodlust, we left her.”

“Has she ever been in touch?” I couldn’t envision her letting him leave without a struggle.

“In the beginning, she tried to track me down. But when none of the vampires she sent ever returned to her – courtesy of my gift of electrokinesis – she stopped sending any. So I haven’t seen her since we left, and that was the way I’d wanted it to stay.”

“I guess Sebastian’s right. She won’t be happy about us.”

“No, she won’t. And I don’t want her near you.”

“You don’t need to protect me from her.”

He started playing with my hair, stroking it and combing his fingers through it. “I know that. You’re stronger and more powerful than she is. But I also know she’ll try to play mind games with you. It’s what she does. And she’s good at it, because her gift is to sense a person’s fears and insecurities. Underneath your bitchy streak, you have the biggest heart, and I don’t want her playing with it. She’s toxic, Sam.”

Well now I understood why he was so concerned. Admittedly, he had good reason to be. I’d met someone with that gift once. In a bitch’s hands, it could be very destructive.

“She’ll feed your insecurities, and she’ll do her best to come between us. I don’t want that.”

“I get why you want to keep her away from me and I grant you that, yes, her gift is notable. But so are both of mine. If she tries to play with me, I’ll make sure she’s sorry she did it.”

He grinned. “So bloodthirsty…I love it. And yes, you can take care of yourself.” His smile turned apologetic − falsely apologetic. “Having said that…Although you don’t need me to protect you from her or anyone else, I’ll always do it. I’ll kill anyone who tries to hurt you. Make your peace with it.”

Stubborn sod. But I was more stubborn, which was why I wasn’t willing to drop my earlier question. Softly, I coaxed, “Tell me why you don’t want to go to your mother’s funeral.”

Instantly, his entire body stiffened. “I just don’t.”

“You must have a reason.”

He shrugged. “It’s not important. She’s not important. You are.” He brushed his lips against mine. “I love your mouth.”

“Jared.”

He exhaled a long, heavy, tired sigh. “Why do you want to hear about it?”

“Why don’t you want to tell me about it?”

Another sigh. He lifted me from his lap and placed me on my feet. When he was upright, he stepped away, releasing me completely. Just like that, I felt cold. Not simply because his body heat was gone, but because I literally felt frozen out. “We’ll talk about it another time. Right now, we have other things to concentrate on.”

Although I wasn’t satisfied with that response, I said nothing as he headed for his bedroom to begin packing his things. One thing I could be sure of was that his relationship with his mother had been somewhat strained, but that didn’t mean that her death was necessarily good news. And if he did find it good news, he’d undoubtedly feel guilty about it − that was the way Jared’s mind worked. The last thing I wanted was him hurting, especially during the week of our Binding.

But I’d noticed the determined set to his jaw; it wouldn’t matter how much I pressed him right now, I wouldn’t get any answers. Fine. If he needed to think that I was going to drop it, then I’d let him think that. I’d lull him into a false sense of security where he thought question time was over, and then I’d probe again when his guard was back down.

Maybe that was a little ruthless, but Jared could be his own worst enemy sometimes. He needed to talk, and maybe even vent. So that was exactly what I’d make him do.