“So, you’re saying—”

“Vampires and villains, danger and mystery…that is your real world. I mean, if you could forget all this and go back to the life you had before, would you even want to?”

“I don’t know,” Beatrice murmured.

“If it meant losing Gio? And Carwyn? Or missing the chance to find your dad someday?”

“No,” she whispered. “I’d never choose that.”

“Then I think you know what your ‘real life’ is, don’t you? It’s not the Huntington and the harmless boyfriend and a house in the suburbs.”

She rolled her eyes. “Setting aside the suburbs comment, I know what you’re saying, but I don’t want to lose you, Dez.”

“Please,” she snorted. “Like you could. This shit is so damn cool, I’m dragging myself along with you.”

Beatrice laughed, wiping tears from her eyes and swallowing the lump that had formed in her throat. “Oh, Dez, thanks for the perspective. I have to call and quit my job later today and I know that’s not going to go well.”

“Quitting over the phone from thousands of miles away? Nope, I don’t think you’re going to get a shining reference after that.”

“No kidding. Well, I’m going to tell them it’s an emergency, and it can’t be helped. That’s the best I can do. I have no idea when I’m going to be back in the States.”

“Tell them it’s a family emergency. Because it is.”

“Yeah.” Beatrice smiled, looking at Giovanni’s coat, which lay on the back of a chair, tangled with her own. “I think it is.”

They talked for another half an hour, chatting about mundane details like bills, houseplants, and cleaning out offices; but when Beatrice hung up the phone with her best friend, she felt like she had a new outlook on her life.

On her real, supernatural, hanging out with dangerous immortals, running from danger, plotting to kill, searching for elusive fathers and hidden books life.

And she finally felt like she could handle that.

“I want you to teach me how to fight better.”

Giovanni arched his eyebrow at her as he stretched on the bed. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea. You already have good self-defense skills; that’s enough.”

She sat up and crossed her arms over her chest. She had fallen asleep after an upsetting phone call with her former boss. Though she understood the woman’s anger, Beatrice was longing for her kickboxing class; she really wanted to punch something.

“Why shouldn’t I learn how to fight?”

He sat up next to her, raking his hands through his hair before he crossed his arms across his chest. “In what way are you equipped to fight a vampire, Beatrice? You are not as strong nor as fast. You don’t have any elemental—”

“I know all that, all right?”

“So unless you’re ready to talk about possibly turning—”

“So not ready for that discussion, Gio.” She glared at him.

Giovanni examined her, looking every bit the five-hundred-year old, stubborn man that he was before he shrugged. “Then you learning how to fight vampires is a moot point.”

“It wasn’t a vampire who kidnapped me from the library. That was an old man with a gun that scared me to death and caught me by surprise.”

“Beatrice—”

“It wasn’t a vampire that guarded me on Lorenzo’s island. It was a bunch of humans who were doing his work during the day.”

He remained silent, staring into the fire with a stubborn set to his jaw.

“During the day,” she reasoned, “I can be as strong, or stronger, than anything in this world, mortal or immortal. But I need to know more. I have self-defense training, but I don’t know much about weapons or offensive fighting. You know about all that stuff, and I want you to teach me.”

Giovanni didn’t say anything, and she was beginning to think he was going to just ignore her request.

“I cannot help you learn to fight.”

“Why not?”

He turned with a clenched jaw. “Because the mere thought of harming you, even while practicing, goes against every natural instinct I have! You cannot ask me to try to hurt you when everything in my being tells me to protect you. It is not an option for me, Beatrice.”

She took a deep breath and lifted a hand to stroke his hair, calming him until she could no longer feel the flair of heat coming off his body.

“And don’t ask Carwyn to help you. I would end up hurting him, and I don’t want that.”

She rolled her eyes but continued to stroke his hair, moving further down his bare back as she soothed him. A thought occurred to her. It wasn’t pleasant, but she gritted her teeth and forced herself to ask.

“What about Gemma?”

“Have Gemma train you?” She could see him tilt his head as he considered it. “Well,” he began, “that idea has some merit. I suppose if I told her to be very careful…If you’re going to insist on it, she would be the person to ask. She’s a fierce fighter, but I know she wouldn’t be too harsh with you.”

Beatrice forced herself to hold in the snort and focus on her goals. If anyone in the house would go easy on her, it most definitely would not be Gemma.

“Again!”

Beatrice blinked back the tears that dripped from her eyes and forced herself up to her knees. Even after years of martial arts training and a week with the vampire, she felt as if she was hitting a rock wall every time she came at her opponent. Gemma may have looked like a “lady of the manor,” but her fighting style was far more “hooligan in the pub.” It was nothing like she had imagined, and she was rethinking her determination to improve her fighting skills.