Page 45

“I’m not planning to kill her, Laria.”

That got her attention.

“You’re not?”

A valid question. He’d spent hours considering his mission, and when it came down to it, Lawrence was right, as much as he hated to admit it. He couldn’t bring himself to kill Alessandra. If he hadn’t done it when they were alone in his house, in a place where Lawrence could not reach her, he wasn’t going to do it.

He barely understood his own motivations, so he certainly didn’t wish to explain himself to Laria Derrickson.

“No. I’m not.”

Explaining his actions, when he could hardly understand them himself, was not on his list of things to do today.

“Stay away from her,” he said, turning away.

“Oh no, you don’t.”

A strong hand gripped his arm, spinning him back around.

“This is hardly the place for a public spat, Laria.”

They’d already brought attention to themselves by purchasing the town’s biggest mansions, neither of which had been for sale. But a brawl in the street was to be avoided at all costs. It risked revealing them for what they were—or, at the very least, for what they weren’t. It was the only unwritten rule among their kind, and any vampires who failed to follow it eventually ended up paying with their lives. Younger vampires were sometimes schooled by their elders, though his family and Lawrence’s were the oldest and most powerful. They could only be controlled by the Cheld.

In this case, Alessandra and any family she had left.

“That’s it? For the first time since the fourteenth century you’re allowing a Cheld to walk away unscathed, and I’m supposed to just believe it’s out of the kindness of your heart? One you haven’t had since, well, never.”

“He’s in love with her.”

Just what he needed. Another Derrickson.

Rather than refute Lawrence’s claim, Kenton turned on him and growled, “We had a deal.”

“And Laria came to town of her own accord. I did not ask her to be here.”

Kenton looked back and forth between the two. “I don’t like it.”

With his own family far away, he felt outnumbered. And on edge. The second more concerning than the first.

“I don’t give a shit what you—”

“Laria,” her brother said. “I told you there was no need to worry.”

Fire shot from her eyes, but thankfully, it was directed at Lawrence this time.

“Not worry? We are talking about Kenton Morley. The man who hates the Cheld more than anyone—”

“Except for my brother,” Kenton said with a grin, enjoying his ability to rile Laria.

“Look at him,” Laria spat. “Does that look like a man who will honor his word?”

“‘Lawrence gave his word, and therefore you have mine,’” he said, repeating what she’d said to him not a minute before. “What will it be? Are we to trust in a gentleman's agreement . . . or not?”

Laria’s eyes narrowed. “I am no gentleman.”

“No. You certainly are not.”

“But I suppose you have never betrayed your word,” she snapped. “You have always been upfront about being the worst kind of bastard.”