The guard frowned, looking at Chloe.

"Come on, you can leave her with me for two minutes,” Diana pleaded. “I'm too comfy to move."

His jaw tightened. For a moment, Diana thought he might refuse, which said tons about how little he trusted her. But then he nodded and walked away. Diana let him reach the wolves, before she shot to her feet, grabbed Chloe's hand, and dragged her inside the house, out of earshot. It was no one's business but the girl's.

Chloe opened her mouth to ask what was up, but Diana cut her off, words rushing out of her mouth. They only had seconds before Mikar and the others hurried back. "You're not sick. You're pregnant."

Chloe's jaw fell open. She said nothing, staring at her in horror. "I can't. I can't be…I'm…"

"An Eirikrson. Born vampires from those turned directly by Ariadne can bear children."

But that wasn't what Chloe had been about to say. "Twenty-five. I won't be twenty-six until Halloween. I can't have a child now. I'm not…ready."

"If you don't want to share with the class, you have about five seconds to get your face back to normal, or they will nag until you spill."

Diana was surprised to see that Chloe managed to school her features into something fairly neutral, though her eyes remained too wide. Poor kid. And at the same time…Diana didn't feel sorry for her at all. While it was no doubt a shock, she was certain that Chloe was going to rock this.

With everyone on the hill, that baby was going to be so spoiled. It'd learn to kick ass before getting permanent teeth. And it was going to be seriously strong, thanks to the genes of the Eirikrsons mixed with the De Villiers.

Diana found herself suddenly sad, because she wouldn't see it. She wasn't going to stick around for the six months a vampire pregnancy took to reach full term. Right?

"What's going on?"

Chloe looked at Diana for help. She shrugged. "We're going to my room. Chloe wants to try my bathtub."

She leaped at the improvised idea like it was a lifeline. "Yes! A bath. That's exactly what I need. I think the blood I drank was stale or something."

Alexius nodded. "Yeah, that'd make you feel groggy for a while. Make sure you lie down and rest."

Diana led Chloe to her room, and ran her a bath with her favorite bubbles and lotions, before heading back downstairs. Mikar was waiting for her on the landing.

"What, you watch her while she bathes, too?"

He ignored the jab. "Just so you don't think you can fool me, I know you lied. You said something to Chloe. What was it?"

"That would be none of your business," she shot back, shrugging. "Where's my brother?"

"Cooking." He stared at her, intense, threatening, and damn if it wasn't a beautiful sight. "And everything relating to Chloe's safety is my business."

Diana rolled her eyes. "Awesome. Go ask her, then."

She walked toward the kitchen, but the heathen snatched her hand, pulling her back. He didn't let go once she was facing him. In fact, he took a step forward, entering her personal space like he belonged there. "I'm asking you."

She couldn't explain the amount of fury burning inside her right then. It wasn't proportional to his action. Sure, he was a true barbarian, but she hadn't ever been so angry. Not when she'd been cheated, lied to, not when her mother or father had died, not when she'd seen friends murdered. Mikar's concern for Chloe, combined with his mistreatment of Diana herself, was worse than all of that wrapped together, to her.

"And I don't care," she seethed, taking one step of her own, till she was almost touching him. "I don't care what you want. What you say. You just stay out of my way."

She didn't need a mirror to know she was completely out of control; her fangs were out, and her eyes were flashing red, no doubt. Not the best look on her. It didn’t matter.

His eyes softened, and for a beat, it felt like he heard her. He got that she didn't want anything to do with him. He let go of her hand. Her heart stopped thundering in her chest, finally slowing down.

Just as she moved to get away from him, his mouth lowered to hers, and he pressed his lips against hers, softly, in a featherlight kiss that felt like silk. She froze, astounded. Her brain refused to function, registering too much conflicting information all at once. She didn't understand it. She didn't understand anything at all except the fact that she hated, hated, hated this kiss. Diana didn't want silk. She wanted—no, needed—fire. And she took it, leaning into him, strengthening their connection. Her hands lifted to his dark locks and twined behind his neck, keeping him right there, with her. Mikar groaned low in his throat and deepened their kiss, wrapping his strong arms around her in a hold so tight it could have hurt. Instinctively, she jumped to his hips, her legs folded behind his back. She felt every inch of his hard torso, and she wanted more. More, more, more. This was worse than the pain of hunger for blood for a newborn. If she didn't get more of him, she was going to burst out of her own skin.

"Oh my God!"

They both froze, then turned to Avani, standing in a doorway, clearly shocked. She held her hands up in surrender. "Never mind me, I was never here."

But the interruption had broken whatever hex she was under. Regaining her senses, Diana lowered her feet to the floor and cleared her throat. "Right. Well, nice seeing you."

On that note, she fled up the stairs, intending to hide under the covers until the end of time. Or at least until the embarrassment of jumping a guy she didn't even like faded. Whichever came first.

Probably the end of time.

At a Distance

Diana hadn’t doubted that Avani would seek her out the moment she was alone. Eager to ignore the event she was not mentioning, she purposely sought the company of just about anyone else—the witches, Alexius, Cat, and hell, even Chloe. She wasn’t avoiding Avani per se, but she was doing her best to circumvent the line of questioning she could see coming a mile away.

It worked for about forty hours. Two days later, Greer mentored them through a yoga session, showing them stretches that Diana was going to file in her memory for later use. Then all of a sudden at the end of the impromptu living room class, Chloe said, “I need to go, I have a paper due.”

Greer groaned. “Alexius wants me to monitor a bacteria farm. I should get down to the lab, too.”

Blair and Gwen also had stuff to do, which left Diana alone in the house with Avani. She couldn’t very well escape without making it painfully obvious that she was attempting to evade Avani. What if the woman took it personally? Diana didn’t want issues with her sister-in-law. And she wasn't a coward, dammit. Well, not much of one.

She steeled her spine, eyeing Avani warily.

To her surprise, the she-wolf laughed. "You know, I used to think you didn't look much like Alexius, but that face? The cornered puppy look? He used to do the exact same thing when he was alone with me."

Diana cleared her throat. "I'm not..."

"Chill. I'm not going to ask anything, honestly. There are such things as boundaries. If you don't want to talk about shoving your tongue down Mikar's throat, it's none of my business." Avani shrugged, hopping onto a nearby couch.

Diana gawked at her sister-in-law, at a loss. "Really?"

"I mean, not that I'm not curious. But you know. Your life. I'm not Chloe."

That, she definitely wasn't. Chloe Eirikrson would have probed, pushed and tugged until she spilled her guts.

"Oh. Well, there's nothing to say, anyway."

Avani rolled her eyes. "I said I wasn't going to push, not that I was an idiot."

Diana joined her on the sofa. It was an old, ugly thing, with too many flourishes for her taste, with carved fleur-de-lys encrusted with what looked like real diamonds. The entire house had been decorated oddly—except for her room, and she supposed, Alexius's, although she hadn't seen it. She didn't see her brother's hand anywhere. Some chambers seemed to adopt a Roman style, others were Gothic, and some, Victorian. Generations of Helsings had no doubt claimed rooms and adorned them as they pleased. The ensemble was quite grotesque. "There's honestly nothing to say. We were arguing, and he kissed me in the heat of the moment, that's all." She shrugged. "He hasn't even talked to me since."

They'd seen each other daily, and Mikar nodded a greeting toward her when he entered a room where she was. She returned it, perfectly civil. That was it. Diana was glad there was no more awkwardness and stupidity.

The kiss had been stupid. The fact that she found her mind drifting off, imagining the pressure of his skin on hers, the heat of his touch, the burn of his scent, was even more so. He was a resident of Oldcrest, one of her brother's friends. Diana didn't do complications. And he was too…confident. Too sure of himself, his place, his power. Diana knew who and what she was, she didn't make apologies for it, but his level of self-worth bordered on arrogance. It wasn't sexy. She refused to think of his cocky grin as hot. Diana wasn't the kind of women who fell for jerks with huge egos, dammit.

"Yeah?" Avani was trying not to smile, and mostly failing. "You sound bothered about that."

"Well, I'm not." Her tone was final.

Again, her sister-in-law shrugged, as if to say, suit yourself.

Diana didn't leave. Not that day, not the next. Things were getting too comfortable here, dark, tall, and handsome men notwithstanding.

For one, they had good tea on the hill.

"Anna Russell truly was a treasure to this empire," she mused, popping a jam and clotted cream scone between her lips. “Someone should have turned her.”

Always a pastry enthusiast, Diana knew her cakes. She was a connoisseur of scones in particular. She'd eaten them in her childhood and every time she could get her hands on some since. These were good scones. Fluffy, not overly sweet, lighter than most, yet deliciously buttery. She licked her fingers clean.