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“He’s about to go unconscious on me. How long until this wears off?”

“Oh. I might have used a little too much belladonna.”

“How long?”

I can practically hear her shrug over the phone.

“I mean, possibly twenty years. Give or take.”

“Selene…”

“I’m kidding. Throw some water on him and smack him around a little. Just keep him awake for a few minutes and it should wear off. Vampires bounce back.”

I growl and hang up the phone. I run upstairs, grab a glass, and pour some cold water from the faucet. Then I go back down to splash it in the vampire’s face.

He spits and splutters when the water hits him. I smack him a few times. His vision finally seems to clear, and his fangs descend.

“I’ll kill you,” he says.

“When you make your impossible escape from shackles you’re too drugged to break out of?”

A dagger, my dagger, flies past my head and embeds into the wall.

“No, when my new human servants release me.”

I turn to see five burly guys piling into the dungeon. They look like members of a biker gang and probably were before Marcus recruited them and pressed them into his service.

I am so angry right now that I can’t fulfill my original plan, but Rosalie comes first, and if I get myself killed… it would be too cruel to her.

“Fuck you for making me do this quick,” I snarl.

I grab a sword off the wall and lop off the vampire’s head. The head rolls on the floor at my feet, turning gray right in front of me. As his body begins to disintegrate I see the ghost of a smile on his face like even in death he thinks he won a round.

I look back up to the humans who seem spooked—now freed from the vampire’s thrall—and confused about what they’re even doing down here. I don’t bother explaining what they just witnessed. They’d refuse to believe it anyway.

When I get back to the penthouse, I find Rosalie on the rooftop, painting. We’ve set up a makeshift open-air workspace for her until I can design and build a properly ventilated and temperature-controlled studio up here. Right now there’s a steel closet she can store everything in when she’s not working to protect all her stuff from the weather.

We’ve discussed a large structure with huge glass windows so she gets all the angles of the sun without obstruction.

A couple of days ago the gallery she exhibited at called. They’re getting calls and emails requesting more of her work. She’s been invited to do a solo show at the city’s largest art museum which I designed the renovation for. A major fine art review publication wants to feature her show in a story that’s going to combine art with the public interest angle of wildlife conservation.

Rosalie stands out in the clear sunny day, wearing a white smock covered in paint. Her hair is swept into a messy updo. I slip behind her and pull her back against my chest. I smell her citrus and honey scent and run my tongue over the puckered scar of my mating mark.

She shivers and sighs contentedly against me. “Where’d you go?”

“I just had an errand to run. Are you near a stopping point?”

She pulls out of my arms and steps back to take a look at her newest painting. It’s another bear and woman. It’s a large scale piece. One half of the painting is a dark, gritty dirty city and the other side is the beauty, splendor, and magic of the forest. The bear is leading the woman from the city back into nature.

I want to hang it in our penthouse, but I know she needs work to sell, so I keep this feeling to myself. Anyway, I have the first one in this series.

She sighs, “I could probably take a break.”

“Good. Get your cute ass into my bed.” I smack said cute ass, and she lets out a shriek of laughter as she races back inside, and I spend the rest of the day in bed reminding her of all the perks of being mine.