Ernie shrugged. “Like I said, Hercules has always been trying to show her he was good enough. I’d be surprised if that ever changed. She probably told him that if he could do this one last deed, she’d finally believe he was a hero.”

Tad stuck a finger into the filling and paused with it halfway to his mouth, a grin spreading over his lips. “I’m not going to end up puking my guts out, am I?”

I rolled my eyes, knowing he was trying to lighten the mood. The problem was, I couldn’t afford to be light about anything. Not when I had people out for my head yet again.

“Ernie”—I glanced at him, then took the mixing bowl from Tad—“Hercules is going to be working with the Hydra; that’s what Merlin told me. The Hydra is the added insurance when it comes to taking me out.”

The three of us stood there, silent.

“So . . . nothing I can add to that.” Tad drew the last word out. “But are you going to Mom and Dad’s anniversary dinner?”

I blinked several times at the sudden subject change. “Yeah, I’m making the cake, apparently.”

“Awesome. No more venom, right?”

“Only if you keep asking if there’s no venom in it.” I slammed a hand on the counter, and a crack opened up in the marble. Dang it, now I had that to add to my list of problems. “I’m sorry, but I can’t just ignore what’s going on around me. I can’t pretend it isn’t happening, Tad.”

“I know,” he said softly. “I’m just trying to protect you.”

I stared hard at him, thinking over his words, about his forced happy face. “Dahlia did break it off with you, didn’t she?”

He closed his eyes and slowly nodded. “Yeah. I didn’t want to tell you. I didn’t want you to worry about me, because that’s how you are . . .”

It was my turn to wrap him in a hug. He pressed his eyes against my shoulder, and his tears wet my skin. “I’m sorry,” I whispered, wishing I could take the hurt away from him.

“We both fell for the wrong person,” he mumbled. “I knew redheads were trouble.”

I laughed, but it was anything but mean spirited. “Maybe we should have listened to everyone and stayed away from the vampires.”

Ernie snorted. “Well, that goes without saying.”

Except what do you do when the vampires won’t stay away from you? Especially the bad ones?

I was about to find out.

A crash from the front of the shop startled all three of us. We turned and stared at the door between the front and back. “Maybe something fell off a shelf?” Tad offered. I seriously doubted it was anything as simple as that.

I ran toward the crash and slid to a stop as a torch was thrown through what had been my beautifully painted plate-glass window at the front of the shop.

“Go back over the Wall, freak!” someone shouted from outside.

“Die!”

“Burn in hell!”

Apparently the Firstamentalists had gotten bored with waiting on me to leave. I grabbed the torch before it could catch on anything and threw it back out at them. “Tad, call the police.”

“Why don’t you just eat them?” he grumped. “No bodies and no weapon, so it’s not murder, you know.”

I glared over my shoulder at him. “That only proves they are right about the whole monster business.” I should have expected this escalation of things with the Firstamentalists. There was no way they were going to just leave me alone. I knew that. I just didn’t think it would happen so fast.

I also did not expect the vampires that slid between the Firstamentalists and into my shop. Santos stood out above the rest both in height and attitude. I’d know him ten miles off to be fair, though. His bone structure and build were so much like Remo’s, it amazed me that I hadn’t figured out the family connection between them on my own. He smiled, flashing a glimmer of fangs, then wiggled his fingers in hello.

“I’m not with Remo,” I said. “He dumped me, so you can just take your fight to him and leave me out of it.”

Santos laughed and murmured something I couldn’t quite hear, but the effect was immediately obvious. The crowd surged forward, egged on by his words, their hatred ready for any fuel to burn brighter. He grinned. “How are you going to get away this time, Alena? Humans you don’t want to hurt, while facing vampires that have no problem killing anything that moves?”

The Firstamentalists pushed their way into my bakery, kicking and punching the display cases, ransacking as they went. I stood there, and they flowed around me, ignoring me while they went wild with whatever suggestion Santos had given them.

He stood on the other side of the broken plate glass. “You killed my people, you trespassed on my territory, you tried to charm me. You realize I cannot let you live now. No matter your beauty.”

I smirked at him, anger making me stronger than I would have been normally. “I didn’t try to charm you, dingle nuts. You were out like a light being flicked off. You were easy to take.”

His face darkened, but I didn’t care. He wanted to fight? I’d darn well give him a fight. I crossed my arms and stared at him while Tad yelled at the Firstamentalists to back off, to get out. I knew that the bakery could be fixed. But I had to deal with Santos before I did anything else. If he teamed up with Hercules and the Hydra, I wasn’t sure I could pull that fight out of the bag and come out the winner.