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We’re still going to Fiji, doc. If I have to kill that goddamned vampire and every goddamned one of his shitty vampire followers… we’re going on our damned honeymoon.

I’ll bring the blowtorch,I murmured.

“I’ll help too.” Nick frowned, looking between us. “But no blowtorches… no fire.”

Both of us blinked at him in surprise.

Then both of us looked at Dalejem.

The green-eyed seer stared back at us, his expression defiant, bordering on defensive.

“I let him feed on me,” he snapped. “Okay? I let himfeedon me! He can read me, and I can hear you. And the cakes have us all tied together more than usual… we’re all one big…”

Dalejem struggled with words, motioning around his own head.

I found myself watching Jem’s muscular hands in fascination. They moved jerkily around the high ponytail holding up part of his dark-streaked hair. The top of that ponytail still sparkled with a diamond clip from the wedding ceremony.

“…One big, you know…messup there. Okay? Right? You have a problem with that? Do you? Because I can’t help it. I can’t. And heneededto feed on me. He was getting weird. We were both getting weird. I couldn’t feel him, and that was unacceptable. Understand?”

Black blinked, taken aback by his tone.

“No,” Black said, sounding equally defensive. “I don’t understand. But it’s totally fine, Jem. I just didn’t get it.”

“Well… that’s why.That’s why!”

I wanted to tell Jem to chill out, to stop yelling at Black.

I bit my lip, forcing myself to remain silent.

I decided if Ididsay that, out loud at least, I would likely only make everything worse. It would be a whole other thing, and I couldn’t take any more “things” right then. Everyone was so damned touchy. Me. Black. Jax. Kiko. Dex. Nick. Jem. Everyone. All of us.

Every damned one of us.

I looked at Black, and my pain worsened.

I really wanted to be alone with him.

I knew that wasn’t going to happen right now.

I really wanted to be alone with him anyway.

I felt another ripple of heat go through his light as he returned my stare.

Try talking to them again,Black urged me.That was brilliant, by the way… thinking to engage with the recordings. You thought of that. Before any of us. You thought of that before Nick. And Brick is his sire.

I looked back at the apparitions.

“Who were you trying to get away from?” I asked them, following up on Black’s question. “Who was coming after you?”

The apparition switched tracks a second time.

“We had to come.” The auburn-haired woman looked at her husband. “They were chasing us. Or they would have been soon. Denis got us out in a wagon. He paid a traveling trader to get us out of the town with most of our money. Then we took the river a ways up…”

She trailed, making a kind of rippling movement with her hand.

“Who was chasing you?” Dalejem asked, stepping forward.

She looked over at him. Like she had with Black, she looked him up and down, and smirked, giving him a sultry wink.