Sarah rolled her eyes. “Are you kidding? Immortals and their Seconds bet on everything.”
Tracy took out her phone. “Hold on. Let me check.”
Dana looked around. “What was the bet?” It couldn’t have been about her. They had just met her.
Tracy typed furiously on her cell phone. “The bet was when Seth would kiss a woman or vice versa. And it looks like…” She growled in frustration. “Damn it! Darnell won. Again. How does that handsome devil always know these things?”
Ami laughed.
Tracy’s face brightened. “Ooh. I wonder if Darnell bet on when Seth will fall in love again.”
The women’s faces lit with renewed excitement.
“Look it up,” Sarah encouraged her eagerly.
Silence fell, heavy with anticipation that Dana found hilarious while Tracy again typed furiously on her phone.
Tracy stopped. “He did.”
“Well?” Krysta pressed. “When does he think it will happen?”
Tracy’s jaw dropped as she raised wide eyes. “Holy crap.”
Aidan awoke at full strength and wondered how long he had slept. Stretching, he rolled over and reached for Dana… only to find her side of the bed empty.
He sat up, his heart beginning to hammer.
Where was she? No sounds came from the bathroom. The sheets were cold, indicating she had been gone for a while. Had Gershom popped in while he was asleep and taken her?
The bedroom door opened.
Dana entered and closed it behind her. “Hi.”
He smiled, instantly feeling lighter upon seeing her. “Hi. Have you been up long?”
She shrugged. “A few hours.”
“Everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine,” she said, but her expressive face said otherwise. Instead of smiling, she watched him warily.
“What is it? Has something happened?”
“Are you reading my thoughts?”
“No. I told you I wouldn’t read them again unless you projected them or it was an emergency and your life was in danger. Why?”
She bit her lip.
“Is something wrong?” he asked, unsure of her mood.
“Okay, here’s the thing,” she said, speaking faster than normal. “I’m going to tell you something because I don’t want you to happen upon it unexpectedly and have it catch you off guard if you read my thoughts again at some point in the future, and if I don’t tell you, I’ll worry about it, but it isn’t a big thing and I don’t want you to get upset.”
Aidan blinked. “Okay.”
She drew in a deep breath. “After lunch, the women all kind of cornered me and asked me if it was true that I had kissed Seth and wanted to hear all about it when I admitted I had.”
Aidan clamped his lips together to keep from laughing. He could imagine how that had gone. “Let me guess. They wanted to know if it was good, and you told them it was.”
“Yes,” she admitted in a small, hesitant voice as though she expected him to explode.
“Of course it was good,” he said. “He’s Seth. He’s older, wiser and better at everything than everyone else. It doesn’t surprise me that he’s better at kissing, too.”
She smiled, her shoulders wilting with relief. “I didn’t say he was better. Just that he was good.”
He grinned. “You mean he didn’t make your toes curl?”
Shaking her head, she climbed onto the bed and crawled toward him. “Only you can do that.”
“So you like my kisses better, do ya?”
Nodding, she straddled his lap. “Very much.” She leaned in for a kiss.
Eager to oblige, Aidan slid his arms around her waist and indulged himself in a long, deep, pulse-spiking kiss.
“Thank you for not being jealous,” she murmured.
He slid one hand down over her lovely bottom. “The fact that you wanted to drive your knee into his groin after you kissed him erased any jealousy I felt.” Or most of it anyway. The words she had just spoken eradicated the rest.
Laughing, she kissed him again. And again. And again, teasing him with her tongue. “We still have a couple of hours to kill before the meeting,” she murmured.
“Yes, we do.” He settled his hands on her hips, his blood heating. “How would you like to spend them?”
She nipped his lower lip with her teeth, then whispered in his ear.
Lust struck him hard and fast. Growling his approval, Aidan rolled her beneath him.
3
This scene takes place in Chris Reordon’s boardroom when Seth, David, and Zach are healing Aidan, Ethan, and Heather after Gershom took Dana. In the original manuscript, it was longer.
Across the room, Heather’s eyes flew open. “Oh shit,” she whispered, then lunged upright. “Seth!” She started to fumble in her pockets, then seemed to forget what she’d intended to do.
Ed hurried to her side as others flowed toward her.
Heather looked around with wild eyes. “What happened? Where’s Ethan? Is he okay? I was going to call Seth, but I can’t remember why, just that Ethan needed him…” She trailed off as Ed took her hands. Her eyes met his, took in his grave expression, and filled with tears. “No. No, no, no. Don’t say it. Please, don’t say it, Ed.”
“He’s alive,” her Second told her.
Her throat worked in a swallow. Her eyes acquired a bright amber glow. “But?”
“He’s in bad shape,” Ed said, his hoarse voice telling her without further words that the wounds Ethan had suffered could not be healed with a simple blood infusion.
“Where is he?”
Ed helped her off the gurney and guided her to Ethan’s side.
Tears spilled down her cheeks.
When she reached out to take Ethan’s hand, Ed stopped her. “You can’t. Not while Seth is trying to heal him.”
The word trying seemed to hit Heather like a kick in the gut. She gripped Ed’s hand. “We were at UNC. I remember his eyes and nose bleeding. Did Gershom fuck with his brain?”
Ed nodded. “Seth is doing what he can to heal him.”
More tears dampened her cheeks as she glanced around. “Aidan and Dana were there, weren’t they? Are they okay?”
Aidan leaned to one side so she could see him through the throng. “I’m okay, Heather.”
The crease in her brow relaxed just a bit when she saw he was all right. She searched the crowd around them, then met his gaze. “Where’s Dana?”
He drew in a deep breath. “Gershom took her.”
“Oh no.” Hurrying across the room, she threw her arms around his neck. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” she cried, her tears dampening his shirt. “I can’t remember all of it, but I think it was my fault. I wasn’t fast enough and didn’t—”
Aidan patted her back. “It’s not your fault. If with anyone, the fault lies with me. I expected Gershom to attack us as he did before, by posing as Seth and striking with words and swords. But he didn’t. He again played the magician Sheldon named him. He distracted us with a standard vampire attack, then blindsided us while our guard was down.”