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“So fucking dramatic.” Emmerich stood, leaving his pile of bones scattered across the thick slab of granite. “While you two are up all night braiding each other’s hair, I’ll be sleeping soundly in my bed, thinking of how I made that brunette scream.”

As soon as Emmerich left the great hall, Atticus muttered, “He’s an animal.”

“We all are.”

CHAPTER 12

The bedroom Juniper selected was on the third floor and removed from the rest of the house. The narrow staircase, hidden behind a small door in the second-floor hall, wound upward to another door. Something about the space’s oddness filled her with a sense of protection. The air wasn’t cold like a cellar, nor did it carry the faint musk of damp earth. She liked the additional security of a latched second door but also the smallness of the attic room, dwarfed by rafters, lit by dormer windows and jutting peaks where she could oversee the distant outside world for miles.

She would be safe here.

A soft laugh hummed through her throat as she found deep satisfaction with the view. Letting the sun-bleached curtain close, she scanned the room once more. Everythingthat wasn’t painted putrid mint green was wallpapered in olive and jade floral hues. But she liked it.

She liked the sunlight that spilled through the windows and the sense that she wouldn’t get lost in the space. Most of all, she liked the secret servant’s passage she found in the paneled wall that led to a hidden stairwell and opened into the kitchen pantry.

A half inch of dust covered the bedding and furniture, but everything she needed was there. The dresser was full of handmade sweaters and scarves. Ruth was quite the crocheter.

A foot chest nestled against the dormer wall, brimming with clothing that smelled decades old. When she lifted a pair of stiff denim bellbottoms from the chest, a small metal disk clattered to the wood floor—a campaign button. The sharp point of the pin had rusted, and when she flipped it over, she grinned. The front read KENNEDY FOR PRESIDENT.

As she rummaged through the trunk, she found countless handmade items. The stitching was neatly done but not professionally made. Ruth kept everything. She had fringe vests, macramé halters, jeans, jumpers, bags, and even atrophied shoes.

Juniper stole a pair of bellbottom blue jeans and a pink cherry blossom top that tied at the neck. There was no salvaging the stiff, dry-rotted shoes.

Her hand hesitated as she reached for anemerald green acrylic hairbrush. Was it wrong for her to use such personal things?

Her mind drifted to Adriel, confused by the humiliating way she’d held Juniper in the bathroom only minutes ago. Why had she done that? They barely knew each other, and up until then, she wasn’t sure if the vampire even liked her.

Immortal, Juniper mentally corrected.

Despite looking close in age, she needed no reminder that the woman was centuries older. Seniority seeped from Adriel’s aura in a way that told of innate confidence, the unobtrusive kind women often hid but rarely boasted about. Yet, there was also a strange innocence about her.

When Adriel gathered Juniper in her arms a momentary sense of safety cocooned her, like when Aunt Mabel used to read bedtime stories and tuck her in at night after a bad dream. But then, there was something else. Something not at all familial.

Juniper couldn’t think of Aunt Mabel now. Her emotions were already in tatters, and she was holding on by a thread. Instead, her mind went back to Adriel.

Would she stay in that hideous Amish garb? Probably not. Yet she seemed in no rush to strip away the proof of patriarchal chauvinism misogyny that clothed her. Or did she not see their superiority as a slight to her own identity? Could she possibly feel a sense of safety from those who filled Juniper with such a deep sense of peril and fear?

Juniper had heard whispers of revered females in The Order, but everything she witnessed of the species warned the opposite. Was there a certain criteria for such reverence? Clearly, a calling came with no grantees if Adriel was terrified of her own mate.

She had questions that needed answers. She wanted to know why there seemed to be so many exceptions to the rules. Were all vampires so devoted to the same idea of destiny? Were they all Amish? Did they have to worry about more than Adriel’s ex coming after them? How many were out there? Were they an endangered species or just hiding really well? Did Adriel know others? Would she have ways of helping Juniper find her mother? What kind of powers did she have?

Honestly, her questions were endless, which only further proved there was something wrong with her. After years at the mercy of the so-called “good ones,” only an idiot would voluntarily hang out with an immortal. Yet here she was.

Maybe she should leave. What if teaming up with Adriel was a terrible mistake?

Uncertainty played like a tennis match in her head, each little consideration amplifying her trust issues. Three problems kept her here—fear, poverty, and utter exhaustion. Also, she didn’t want to abandon Adriel because part of her was starting to really like her, aside from the whole vampire thing. But who was she to throw stones at glass coffins?

Once she rested, she’d think more clearly.Then, she could figure out a plan to make some money. She was never going to feel safe until she found her own independence and her own place to stay, a place free of bloodsuckers and far removed from the drama that now consumed her life.

Was such an existence even possible anymore? She needed to learn as much as she could about vampires while she had access to one—damn it! Immortals! Why couldn’t she get that straight?

Setting the brush on the dresser, she gasped and spun, certain she saw something move, but nothing was there. Her eyes played tricks on her as trees cast shadows on the windows reflected in the mirror. It was enough to chase her out of the attic for a while.

She found Adriel and Ruth on the first floor in the front room with the wide bow window. Ruth’s chair sat alone on a braided rug facing an old television. The wood floors had three deep grooves where a grand piano might have once stood.

Juniper stepped into the den but lingered by the door, measuring the room's energy. It felt safe and oddly warm, as if they were actually welcomed here. That glamour trick had some horsepower.

Adriel turned from the window and silently studied her for a moment. “Are you feeling better?”