“Are you going to handle the mess this will cause in the human community?” she retorted, bitterly.

As if he was flicking through the television channels, Mitchell’s demeanor abruptly changed from a warm and cozy fire to a winter ice storm. The cold icicle-like stare he gave her sent a rolling chill over her shoulders. “Like I said, you don’t understand. Leave Tyler out of this and go wait for me at the house.” He groped in his pocket and fished out his cell phone.

Stunned, Amelia put her hands on her hips, opened her mouth, closed it, gathered her thoughts, and then said, “You can’t just cover this up, Mitch. And don’t order me around. I’m not one of your little followers.”

“Amelia,” he snapped. And then he went on, keeping his words between them. Go! I cannot deal with your drama right now. He glared at her, long and hard, and then fixed his cool stare on Eric. “Take Fiona to my office and wait for me.”

CHAPTER 3

Before Amelia left Mitchell and went back to the house, she had spat a few more choice words at him that she hadn’t even known were in her vocabulary. She did know she definitely would not be repeating them anytime soon.

Eric and Fiona had taken off at vampire speed once Mitchell had barked out his orders, leaving her to make her way back alone. As she trudged through the trees, the sky opened up and the rain poured down in sheets, but she hardly noticed. She was too busy stewing in a steaming hot pot of homemade gullible stew with a splash of roasting guilt.

She had just made it up the stone clad steps of the terrace that led to her bedroom, when Angelle suddenly appeared; looking glorious and deadly in a red, skin tight mini dress which perfectly matched her blazing eyes. Amelia shrieked in surprise and almost fell backwards down the steps.

After a few terrifying and, believe it or not, oddly charming snarls, Angelle’s big eyes faded back to brown, and her fangs slid away. She paled, and then her skin took on a greenish tone. “Oh my God! What happened? Where are you hurt?”

Amelia blanked—completely blanked. Hurt? She didn't usually see Angelle react like this to anything. Well, at least not in a long time. There was that one incident at that party, but that was something Amelia really didn’t want to remember. “What are you talking about?” she asked, taking a cautious step back.

“You must be in shock. Ty!” she bellowed. She scooped Amelia up into her arms like a child and carried her into her bedroom, all the while hollering, “Ty, get in here!”

Amelia’s dumb moment passed, and she clued in to her friend's concern. “Put me down, Angelle,” she said, wiggling in Angelle’s arms. “I’m fine.” One thing that sucked about living in a house full of vampires was their heightened senses. There were never any secrets, they could hear everything and smell even more.

“What’s up, babe?” Tyler asked, stepping into Amelia’s bedroom, and stopped abruptly when he caught sight of them. “What the hell happened?”

“I’m fine,” Amelia shouted again, still uselessly trying to wiggle her away out of Angelle’s arms.

“I think she’s in shock,” Angelle said to Tyler. “Find Mitch and get him in here.”

Tyler looked like he was about to bolt into action. Amelia needed to get their attention and yelling at them obviously wasn’t working, so she focused on all her energy and gathered it together, sending out a quick blast. “Stop it!” she said firmly, and then pulled the magic back quickly, making sure it wasn’t enough to hurt them, but just a small enough jolt to get their attention. She really hadn’t gotten the hang of her newfound gift yet, and sometimes she over did it—just a little. “It’s not my blood, and Mitch already knows. Put me down.”

Angelle hesitated, not sure if she should believe her or not. Amelia stilled in her arms, allowing Angelle to take a fast inventory of Amelia’s limbs, making sure everything was still attached. Finally, Angelle set Amelia down on her feet.

“What’s the blood from?” Tyler asked, scanning Amelia’s bloodstained shorts, with a tremor in his voice and looking a bit queasy. Even though he had stepped up two months ago, taking on the not so fun job of Human Spokesperson, dealing with unexplained deaths and more blood than most of the vampires in town ever saw, he wasn’t okay with the whole biting and sucking for food thing. Come to think of it, Amelia was sure he had never allowed even Angelle to feed from him, and they had been together for eight months now.

“You want to know, go ask Mitch,” Amelia snapped. “I need to get cleaned up.” She turned on her heels and made a beeline for her bathroom, slamming the door behind her.

As soon as the door shut, her knees started to tremble, and dizziness came over her in waves of hot and cold. She staggered to the sink, turned on the tap and splashed some cool water on her face. When she glanced in the mirror, the first thing she noticed was her pale—almost completely gray—eyes. They usually had a touch of blue, but now they were washed out, hollow and wide. And then she saw her bloodstained bikini top and her blood-soaked shorts; the metallic smell from the blood became overwhelming. Her mouth started to water and her stomach turned.

Amelia spun around, dropped to her knees and retched violently, almost missing the toilet. When she had finished emptying the contents of her stomach, she sat back, leaning against the wall, and rested her forehead on her knees. The heavy rain had washed away most of the blood from her skin, but it missed one or two spots on her arms where it was now drying and crusting up. She glanced at it, scarcely believing what had just happened. She wanted to pretend it was merely a nightmare, but she knew it wasn’t. There was no waking up from this. No waking up from her life. Who would have thought that she, the abandoned little orphan with no family or friends, would end up as the soulmate and second in command to an incredible, powerful vampire? No one. That’s who. Half the time, she didn’t even believe it herself.

After a few minutes, Amelia pulled herself up from the floor, stripped down and stepped into the shower. She had just stuck her head under the water when she heard a soft knock at the door. “Millie,” Tyler called. “Um, I need to grab your clothes. The smell is making them antsy. I need to get rid of them.”

Amelia huffed. “Fine, whatever.” She knew what “get rid of them” meant. Tyler was going to burn her clothes. She heard the door squeak open, and then Tyler shuffled in, picking up the bloody clothes, and after that, he pulled the door shut behind him.

She slid down, sitting on the warm tiles, letting the water cascade over her. The steam curled up into the air. As the water ran over her body, she watched numbly as it flowed down the drain, and she wondered why she felt so calm. Was she just getting used to the craziness that had become her life? Was she becoming insensitive to the horrors that came along with vampires? Perhaps Angelle was right. Maybe she was in shock.

So, now here she was, in the shower, recovering from yet another messy situation, and for a second she couldn’t stop herself from thinking about leaving. She had such an urge to run away from the craziness that had become her life. But then the thought of Mitchell rushed into her mind, filling her heart and warming her soul. Mitchell. She couldn’t leave him. She wouldn’t. No matter how awful things could be, he was, in a sense, her other half. He made her whole, and he was her world. And she knew, no matter what, she loved him, truly and fully loved him with every fiber, every bone, every blood vessel in her body.

Amelia didn’t know how long she sat there, but the water was getting cooler. She stood up and absently scrubbed at her body, hardly noticing the sweet fruit scents of her shampoo and body wash, and then turned off the water.

She toweled off quickly, not bothering to look in the mirror—she was sure she wouldn’t like what she saw—and tossed on a bright yellow fleece bathrobe. She sent out a probe, looking for Mitchell and found him sitting in their room. Figuring it was better to get the conversation over with, she took a deep breath and ventured out of the connecting bathroom and stepped into their bedroom.

“How are you holding up?” Mitchell asked, glancing up from his newspaper. He was sitting on one of the marshmallowy chestnut leather chairs in front of the limestone surround fireplace. He had showered and changed, Amelia noticed, glancing at his disheveled and dampened light brown hair. He had thrown on a pair of blue jeans and a navy button-up shirt left unbuttoned—of course. She let her eyes linger on his rippled abs, muscled chest and then slowly made her way up to his strong, chiseled face. Damn he was hot. It always amazed Amelia how everything just worked on him. His eyes, his hair, his smile, even his frown was perfect. They locked eyes, and for just a second, Amelia held her breath, letting the dreamy, sky blue pull her in. As she lost herself in his gaze, she could feel the warm flush in her skin; her heart fluttered, and she thought that she might actually be drooling.

A small twitch of his lips upward pulled her out of it. “Don’t look at me like that,” Amelia replied, straightening her shoulders and walking past him, up the raised landing, past her bed, and into the closet.

He chuckled softly. “Like what?”

“Like you actually care,” she called back to him and started rummaging through the racks of clothes.

He sighed, a long and gusty sound. “You were really great out there tonight. It didn’t hurt much this time. I think we’re getting the hang of this magic stuff.”

Amelia knew he was trying to be supportive, but to her it felt like he was flinging the words at her, reminding her of how little control she had over her abilities. She wanted to blame it on him. If he would just keep his anger in check, her magic would never get out of hand. But no matter how much she wanted it to be Mitchell’s fault, she knew it wasn’t. It was her impulsive actions that let it get out of control and each time, he was the one who paid. Each time she let it get out of hand, Mitchell got hurt.

“Yeah, I guess we are,” she responded curtly. What she really wanted to do was yell, scream, and throw a tantrum. Except she knew that wouldn’t help; it would only make him look at her like a child. He would blow her off. She would get mad. And then… No, she needed to stay calm. They both needed to keep their cool, because the last thing either of them needed was a replay of earlier. And when they got mad, letting their emotions swirl together and feed each other through the link, it always got ugly.