“I’d like to think you wouldn’t let yourself into my house and tell me not to give up on us if you were seeing someone else.”
Her gaze flicked toward the door.It was a long time before she spoke again.Or maybe it was only seconds, but those seconds felt long, like time was giving them the benefit of the doubt.Something was supposed to be said.The universe wanted closure.
“I should get back to work,” she said.
“Yeah.Me too.Alex is still out there.”
“Is there anything else I can do to help?”
He narrowed his eyes for a moment.“Do you know of anything that can be used to control vampires?Like control their minds?”
“Only a sire bond.”
“No, I mean for someone who is not a vampire to control a vampire.”
She shook her head.“No.Why?”
“Just curious.Something I heard.Don’t worry about it.”
She smiled and drifted toward the door.
“Goodbye, Soleil.”
She gave one last beaming smile as she slipped out the front door.“Don’t say goodbye, Silas.It sounds too final.”
Goodbye did sound final, but the three-ton weight on his chest told him that was exactly what this was.He watched her slip into the early-morning light and wasn’t sorry to see her go.
He needed to call Logan.It was time to change the locks.
ChapterEight
Every once in a while, Silas wondered if he’d chosen the right profession.Usually those thoughts occurred when he was doing desk work, like now, leaning over a massive tome titledDr.Mortimer’s Potent Spells and Balms.He had skimmed the ancient text for the better part of three hours and had yet to find a single potion that could make a vampire stab himself in the heart.
“Knock, knock.”Grateful Knight poked her head into his office, looking like she’d fought through a crowd of angry cannibals to reach him.Her honey-blond hair was tied up in a messy bun that was messier than usual, and the skin under her eyes was a spectrum of purple hues.
“You look like hell,” he said.
“Thanks,” she said dryly.Her hand rubbed the top of her pregnant belly rhythmically.“Lucas won’t stay in his crib anymore.And he never sleeps.Ever.And the diapers.Oh gawd, the diapers.And I am so ready to pop this kid out.What’s your excuse?”
“I was up late last night.”He told her about the stakeout and the suicidal vampire.
Her eyes widened.“Suicidal vampires are serious business, as is what I came here to discuss with you.”
“Do tell.”
She pulled a small vial out of her purse, filled to the brim with a black, powdery substance.“This is what I collected from your sister’s wound.”
“Uh-huh.So what is it?”
“This is a rare mineral.So rare that most humans don’t know it exists.It’s called sulfralite.”
“Sulfralite?So where’d it come from?”
“I couldn’t figure it out.But Rick remembered the smell.Sulfralite is only found in one place—a place none of us ever want to go.The underworld.”
“My sister was injected with a mineral from hell?”
Grateful nodded.“My hellmouth—the cemetery behind my house, the place I send supernatural criminals who break the natural law—opens at night.It’s why Rick and I have to police the gate.All manner of supernatural baddies emerge from the underworld after sunset.And they sometimes smell like this.”
