Page 5

“ S he texted. She’s got her baggage in hand, and the Interpol agent will escort her to us.”

“Oh. Good.” I nod to Jakob and stand by the car. My senses are dull. I haven’t had to protect anyone from anything other than a backed-up drain in so long. Something feels off, but I can’t...

“Try to look excited, please. In case others are watching, they should see a man in love.”

“Well, that’s hard if you don’t have a heart to love with,” I hiss.

“You sell yourself short, my friend. I have seen your love for many things.”

But no one has ever loved me back. So how can I know what love is or if I’ve ever truly felt it? I was told I couldn’t...

I groan, distracted, worried that I won’t be able to do my job. In five minutes, I meet Therese LaFontaine. While I was pacing this afternoon, trying to work up my courage to back out or go through with this, I searched Therese LaFontaine Delgado. I immediately wished I hadn’t.

She was a beauty queen who’d married well. Pretty, a not-quite-perfect smile, naturally blonde hair with highlights that changed depending on the pictures I saw—darker brown in the winter, almost white in the summer.

I’m glad this will be my last mission. Guarding a beautiful woman, pretending to be her lover or even her husband— I look heavenward.

Why, God? Why give me one more reminder of what I could never have?

I try to think generous thoughts. She needs help. That’s what I do. What I was made for. I try to remind myself that she did the right thing, that she came to us for help—well, indirectly.

But going from Rome, Paris, and London to little Pine Ridge?

Going from wining and dining to hiding out and helping with plumbing?

Then, in a week or two, she’d be going undercover for the rest of her life?

Therese would probably be miserable for the duration of our time together.

I could already hear her petulant tones in my head, babbling about the unfairness of having to give up her Porsche and diamond-studded life to find a job in middle-of-nowhere Florida or Kansas just because her husband was evil.

You’d whine, too, Reg.

You’re already whining. You’re also being a pessimist. It works wonders for not getting attached to people. Maybe the stuff you’re whining about is your own fault.

I force myself to forget the way her smiling pictures on my laptop screen seemed truly sweet and adoring when she looked up at Matteo.

They had the gall to have pictures on their social media, like normal people.

I don’t blame her, I blame Matteo. She believed nothing was wrong.

It’s Matteo who earns my anger. He must be truly overconfident and truly evil, so sure he’d never get caught, so sure he could pull off these sacrifices right under her nose. ..

I’m suddenly furious on her behalf. Evil bastard.

And I’m mad at her, too, even though I shouldn’t be.

Girl had to be an idiot.

Or trusting. Loving?

Remember when you thought love could be like that for you? Remember when you thought maybe it could happen? That one day you’d meet a person who could give and give, and finally give you a piece of her heart—and you’d finally be able to give it back?

That somewhere out there, someone existed who could just love you for you?

It was after the war ended. Little families were clinging together. Men who were maimed and wounded, men who were whole and healthy, it didn’t matter. They were getting a chance to live again, to have a life that so many others had stolen away.

I was a hero, wasn’t I? I’d done my part. It could happen for me, too.

Right?

Wrong.

Why am I thinking about this?

You’ve played all kinds of roles over the years. You can play house for a couple of weeks.

“There.” Jakob taps my elbow, and I jump.

“Where is she?” I don’t see the blonde beauty.

“Not her. There. Those two men.” He sniffs, and I see a flash of red in his eyes. “Humans. They don’t smell of magic—but they do smell of sulfur dioxide and solvent. Dangerous men.”

I turn and follow his gaze.

The second I see the two men, something in me wakes up. Enemy.

The two men wear baseball caps and thick jackets, even though it’s warm for September. They lean against a small gray Toyota that needs a wash, eyes unwavering from the airport’s entrance.

“You can smell magic?” I ask in a whisper so low only a vampire could hear it.

“I can, but only because I’ve used it for so many years now. I don’t like the way they’re looking at the exit.”

“But they’re humans.”

“Yes, well, Delgado must have humans that work for him. If his organization were entirely supernatural, we would get to hear of it. I wonder what Delgado does with the power he gains... He must leverage it to a human organization, somehow.”

“Maybe they’re just waiting to meet someone else,” I say, but I don’t believe it.

Minegold knows that, too. “You know that’s not true.”

“I’m rusty.”

“Lies.”

I growl—and the growl dies away in my throat.

There she is.

God, she’s beautiful—and she’s looking at me.

EVER SINCE I GOT AWAY from Matteo, I have been sure I was being watched.

Since traveling with Kim, I’ve let her know when I suspect someone—and each time she subtly shakes her head and makes me watch to see what’s really going on.

That man, reaching into his pocket—just a guy who needs a pen.

That guy, bending down at the corner—lost an earbud. Stuff like that.

But I lived with a murderer for months, happily ignorant and never suspecting a thing until I saw it with my own eyes.

We’ve discovered I’m not the best at identifying threats.

But I’m very good at identifying helpers. There’s no mistaking the golem that waits for me, even though he looks nothing like what I pictured.

When I exit the automatic glass doors and leave the stale-smelling airport and cross into the fresh September air, I know Reginald Gray as soon as I see him.

He’s broad-chested and stocky, bald and square-jawed.

And gray. I dart a glance to Kim. My family believes in magic, but so do most people who live between the Bayou and New Orleans.

My father and grandmother have always told me that most other people can’t see it unless they’re forced to.

But Kim is so perceptive. So highly trained. She’s going to ask why he’s gray. A light gray, a soft gray that could almost pass for beige, like a turtle dove’s belly.

But Kim is looking elsewhere. Her eyes are welded on a dusty old Toyota and two guys chatting next to it.

“My darling girl!” A tall, lean man with graying hair and a wide-brimmed fedora rushes to meet me. “My dear child! I haven’t seen you since you were in diapers, and now here you are, so beautifully grown up!”

“Uncle Jakob!” I gush. (I wasn’t the lead in the middle school production of Annie for nothing. I can act—a little.) “It’s so good to see you!”

“And this is your friend—”

“Kim!”

Kim hugs the vampire, too. I wince and hope she doesn’t realize he has no pulse and bone-white hands. She has a gun, after all, and I’m pretty sure Interpol agents would consider vampires a threat. I don’t think he’d die if she shot him, but I don’t want to find out, either.

I turn my attention to the man I’m really supposed to embrace—the golem. The bodyguard. Generations of promises have tied him to my family.

I pictured the faceless, barely humanoid blobs depicted in old books. He’s nothing like that.

Even an unobservant idiot like me can’t help but notice how the wide shoulders and densely packed muscles stretch the fabric of the white dress shirt he’s wearing.

I can’t help but stare at his face—perfectly human—ruggedly human, with a square jaw that’s slowly easing his lips into a smile as his eyes go wide.

I never thought I would itch to run my hands over a bald head, but I can’t deny the prickling in my palms. The whole “tall, dark, and handsome shtick” that was hammered into me by book covers and daytime television just “poofed.”

Like magic.

I’m not supposed to like the way he looks. I’m not supposed to like anyone, ever again. It’s not like they’d be safe. It’s not like I can ever have a normal dating life.

This man might be the last man I’m allowed to trust, and my job is to act like he’s the real deal, the true love kind of man that’s worth leaving champagne and caviar for.

Pretending I want to run to him and snuggle safely into those broad shoulders is the first thing that’s been easy in months.

“My love!” He opens his arms.

“Reggie!” I squeal and run to him, arms wide despite the bags banging against my hip.

He’s amazing. Doesn’t miss a beat. “Therese, sweetheart!” His eyes turn wide and warm, and he holds me to his chest.

SOMETHING IS WRONG .

The second Therese’s eyes meet mine, I’m lost in a fog of happy memories that don’t even exist. Walking with her in autumn leaves. Dining by candlelight. Laughing with the radio blaring, singing along with the songs at the top of our lungs.

She smiles at me like she’s known me forever, eyes shining bright with leftover tears.

I know it’s just an act, but when she makes contact with me, she clings, trembling, with her head on my shoulder.

I bury my lips in her hair, whispering, “You’re safe. It’s all okay.”

And the last, tiny spark of hope and life that’s carried in the pocket where my soul ought to be fans into a flame. Something in my chest is full.

Therese murmurs, “Thank you,” into my shoulder before she pulls back to beam at me, the anxiety in her dark blue eyes fading slightly. She nods a little, still giving me that adoring, trusting look.

My gut tightens. Her smile is genuine and warm. Honestly, truly genuine. All my senses that usually stay on high alert when I’m tasked with protecting someone relax.

Snap out of it!

The woman is an incredible actress. She gave that same kind of adoring look to Matteo.

Yeah... but she thought he was her ticket to a great future. I’m her ticket to staying alive. Maybe it is genuine.