Chapter 2
E
lizabeth
heeled down the kickstand of her motorcycle just as the rain started to fall in large, cold splats around her. She’d parked the large black Harley Night Rod as close to the side of the building as she could, hoping that would shield it from some of the water. With quick steps, she approached the bar, working the chinstrap of her helmet and pulling it off just as she stepped through the door.
She glanced around, searching for her brother. She located him behind the bar, where he poured a mug of beer from the tap. The sight still gave her pause. Christian. Her brother. Her family. The family she’d believed was gone forever. The fact that the wealthy brother she remembered now tended bar in a backwoods watering hole just added to the surrealism of the scene.
“
Elizabeth
,” he greeted her with a smile that seemed just a little amazed as well.
As she walked up to him, her boots thudding loudly on the worn floorboards, she wondered if his expression reflected his own amazement that she was alive, too. The fact that she and her brothers had been reunited for nearly three months now hadn’t diminished their wonder. Her beloved brothers.
Christian’s eyes left her face, dropping to her outfit for just a fraction of a second. Some of her joy fled. Maybe the amazement in his eyes had more to do with the fact that she was nothing like the little sister he remembered.
But whether he was shocked by who she was now or not, his pale eyes shone with pleasure as he came around the bar and gave her an enveloping hug.
“Hey, I’m glad you stopped by tonight,” he said after he released her. “Jolee and I were thinking about coming up to your place to be sure you were all right. You’ve been a real recluse since you moved there.”
Guilt filled her. When she’d believed her brothers were dead, she’d cried over the loss for years. She’d begged to have them back. Yet now that she finally had them, she had a hard time facing them.
“My research is keeping me very busy,” she told him, feeling the excuse was lame, even though it was true. Just not the whole truth.
She feared that her brother wouldn’t understand, much less like, the person she was now. She was so, so different from the young, naive girl her brother once knew. But she didn’t want to be. She had her family back now, and she wanted that girl back, too. That long-gone girl.
Whereas, aside from being more handsome, stunningly so, Christian was unchanged. He looked just like the brother she believed dead in 1822. But time had no effect on vampires, except to make them more attractive. He was still the Christian she remembered.
She knew he didn’t see the same arrest of time in her. She’d once been the baby of the family—nearly ten years Christian’s junior—but now she’d caught up to him. In fact, she was his same age exactly. And that was just the start of the changes.
Did he wonder where the frivolous, carefree, innocent sister he’d once known had gone? And who was this older, leather-clad, toughened woman who stood in front of him now?
“You look great,” he said as if he guessed what she was thinking. He hugged her again.
This time, she closed her eyes and hugged him back. God, she had missed him.
“So this is the long-lost sister, eh?”
Elizabeth
glanced toward the gravelly voice that sounded behind Christian. Even though she’d only been to Christian’s—or rather his mate, Jolee’s—bar once or twice since moving here, she recognized the speaker. An old, thin man with a bushy beard and watchful eyes. On the same bar stool where she’d seen him last with a mug of beer in front of him and a cigarette hanging from his lips.
“
Elizabeth
, you remember—” Christian started, but the old man cut him off.
“Just call me Trader Vic.”
Elizabeth
frowned at the amused look on the old man’s wizened face, then realized the joke. So this old coot knew the truth about her. Given that, she supposed it
was
hard to pass up a good Warren Zevon joke. “Werewolves of
London
” was like a national anthem for her kind.
She expected to be irritated that this stranger, this mortal, knew what she was, but something in the old man’s eyes reassured her that her secret was safe with him.
“Hey, Vic. So I guess you know that I’m
not
Little Red Riding Hood?”
The older man chuckled, then reached for his beer.
Christian cast a puzzled look between the two, then shook his head. “Okay. Introductions have been made—I think. Take a seat here,” he gestured to the stool beside the old man’s, “and let me get you a drink.”
Elizabeth nodded, placing her helmet on the floor next to her seat. Damn, she needed a drink. She started to ask Christian for a whiskey, straight up, then stopped.
What would her brother think of that? The baby sister who’d never had more than a few sips of watered-down punch, asking for a shot of hard liquor.
“I’ll, um, take a light beer—whatever kind you have.” That was an acceptable compromise, wasn’t it?
“Sure.” Christian seemed fine with it as he reached for a mug.
Vic leaned toward her, his wise eyes twinkling. “That wasn’t what you wanted, was it?”
Elizabeth shook her head and smiled slightly, already feeling camaraderie with the old man.
“Elizabeth,” called Jolee as she came down from the back of the bar. The sound of her full name on someone’s lips other than her brother’s gave Elizabeth pause.
She was used to thinking of herself as Elizabeth—somehow she’d always managed that. And Christian calling her Elizabeth was just natural. But everyone else, for years and years, had called her Lizzie. Somehow that nickname had been easier, as if Elizabeth had died with her family and Lizzie had been born. But now, people wanted Elizabeth back. She was just afraid that person was gone.
She cast her thoughts aside and forced a smile at the tall, beautiful redhead. This woman was now her family, too. Another wave of guilt and anxiety coursed through her, making her shift on her bar stool. Jolee probably knew all about her. Or rather all about the “other” Elizabeth. Another person who expected her to be someone she no longer was.
“How are you?” Jolee asked, her slow, drawling accent and her wide, warm smile making it impossible to believe she was a vampire.
Elizabeth supposed a vampire with warm southern charm was as appropriate as one with aristocratic, European charm, making her brother and Jolee a well-suited match.
Charm
being the operative word to describe most vampires.
Charm
wasn’t a word applied to werewolves. At least, not the ones she knew.
She refocused on her sister-in-law’s question. “I’m fine,” Elizabeth said automatically.
She was so far from fine, but that would require her to reveal just how far away she was from the Elizabeth of the past.
“Is the house working out?”
Elizabeth nodded, a small but real smile touching her lips. “Yes, I love it there.” She really did, even if she had been edgy and tense since moving there. “West Virginia is beautiful.”
Jolee grinned back, and again the room seemed to fill with warmth. It was little wonder why Christian served beer in this backwater bar. Elizabeth suspected he’d do anything Jolee wanted—just for that smile alone.
“If Jolee had her way, she’d get our whole family moved to this godforsaken place,” Christian said, joining them and placing the pale beer in front of Elizabeth. Then he squeezed Jolee affectionately to temper his words. She elbowed him, but grinned at his teasing.
“Can you picture Sebastian ever leaving the city?” Jolee laughed. “That brother of y’all’s is far too in love with the perks of urban living to come here. But Rhys... ” She cocked an eyebrow like the idea of getting Rhys and his wife, Jane, to West Virginia might hold merit.
“You can work on them, then maybe Sebastian and Mina will follow.” Christian leaned in to kiss his mate’s cheek, more respect and love in his ribbing than teasing.
Elizabeth watched them, a pang of envy flitting through her. What was it like to have a relationship like that? But the notion was almost instantly ripped from her mind, replaced by an overwhelming swell of pure need. Sharp and breath-stealing. Just like the one she’d experienced in her barn earlier. What on earth was happening to her?
She pulled in a breath slowly through her nose, focusing on the bottles lining the wall behind the bar. Clear bottles, green bottles, brown bottles, a few blue, too. She tried to focus on anything but the attraction between her brother and his mate. And this raging need whirling through her.
“So is your research going well?” Christian asked, not seeming to notice her agitation. That had to be good, right? She wasn’t totally out of control.
Christian frowned, however, when she didn’t answer. “Elizabeth? Your research?”
She pulled in one more calming breath. “Umm, yeah, it’s going fine.” Everything was fine. Keep saying that and maybe it would be so.
“Are you any closer, do you think?”
Elizabeth nodded again, then took a long swallow of her beer to hide her frustration with this uncontrollable agitation inside her. The golden liquid tasted bitter, but didn’t have the bite she was craving.
Her family, her research, even her drink—nothing seemed to be satisfying as it should. Nothing reduced the feelings inside her. The strange restlessness that kept battering at her, wearing her down.
“Oh,” Jolee said, glancing back to the booth where all her sound equipment was arranged. “This song is nearly done. Please excuse me.”
She rushed back down the bar toward the karaoke system and the small stage where a woman stood at a microphone. The woman’s eyes were moving from left to right as she followed words on a large teleprompter—half-reading, half-singing them—off-key and a little behind the music.
Elizabeth twisted on her seat, surprised that she hadn’t even registered the singer. Now that the singing had penetrated her stressed brain, it was pretty darned hard to miss.
“And that was ‘Love Is Like a Butterfly,’” Jolee announced in an impressed voice, as if she’d found the off-key rendition very enjoyable. Further proof that her sister-in-law really was a kind, kind vampire.
“Now, here is,” Jolee glanced at the square of paper she held, “Jill Lewis—”
A cry of embarrassment came from a table near the stage. Elizabeth spotted the indignant woman seated with a man, who she glared at, and another couple. She continued to frown at the man as she waved her hands adamantly in the universal sign of “no.” But the signal didn’t work—the others at the table cajoled her to take the stage.
“Here we go again,” Christian said, drawing Elizabeth’s attention to him for just a moment. But before she could ask what he meant, she found herself turning back to watch the escapade.
For a second, she felt sympathy for the poor woman, who still adamantly declined to take the stage. She obviously didn’t want to sing. But then the woman stood. Maybe she would get up there after all.
Reaching for her beer, Elizabeth took a sip, and, for the first time tonight, felt a little normal. The atmosphere seemed to envelop her, as if she was meant to be there. A much-needed sense of contentment filled her. The talking, the laughter, the smell of drinks and salty, roasted peanuts. It made her feel oddly better. This was a good idea—a good distraction. Tomorrow she’d return to her research more relaxed and focused.
Elizabeth smiled as Jill Lewis finally took the stage. The reluctant woman shook her head, glaring good-naturedly at her friends.
“All right!” Jolee cheered from over her microphone, and much of the audience exploded into applause. Elizabeth clapped along with them.
Jolee started the music and the woman’s voice filled the room almost from the first note. Elizabeth recognized the tune as a song from the radio with a happy, contagious beat. And the woman sang it well—better than well. It was little wonder that her pals were urging her to get up there. She was great.
Elizabeth looked back to the woman’s table of friends to see their reaction to the woman’s fantastic singing. Two of them, a man and a woman, beamed and clapped, while the other at the table, a male, just watched. He was somehow distant from the other two. The clapping male leaned over to say something to him, and the one who only watched turned toward his friend, giving Elizabeth her first full view of his face.
Elizabeth’s smile disappeared. Desire, so strong that it almost made her cry out, ripped through her, shredding any trace of calm she’d found. Every muscle in her body tensed, every sense sharpening until her whole being was centered on the man before her.
Without saying a word to Christian, she rose. Carefully, purposefully, she zigzagged through the tables, her eyes never leaving the man. Just tables away, she stopped herself, fragments of her reasonable mind taking control. She glanced back to the bar. Christian watched her, but when he saw her looking, he busied himself by taking an order from one of the patrons.
Her brother could sense her desire now. Of course he could. Vampires could sense emotions—and she knew hers ran very strong. Shame filled her, but still her gaze returned to the male at the table.