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Blood was surrounding him on the porch. Even as he dropped to his knees, he knew on some level that he was bleeding to death. When his arms simply gave out, he laid on the porch and looked at his sister. She was screaming and crying that he couldn’t die.

“I think I’m dying.” She fell to the floor and reached her hand to him. “Rosie. All I wanted was some money to be better than you. Now look at me. Someone just went and killed me.”

“You’ve been bitten. Do you know who?” He couldn’t answer Dork, but he held onto his sister’s hands. “Phillip? Can you answer me?”

He couldn’t and hoped that the man didn’t kill him. His being a vampire killer and all made him a terrible person. Phillip closed his eyes as the police and his sister stood around him. He didn’t have the strength to do anything but lie there. As soon as he heard his heart beating, he thought about how his sister had jibbed him out of money. It would be just like her too to leave him on the porch for the raccoons to get to. As he was dying, he knew that he was now; he thought about how much he loathed his sister. Smiling, he got to use a new word before he died.

~*~

“His name is Darcy Bender. I’d had to kill his father two nights ago.” Rosie just sat there not saying a word. He didn’t blame her. It was something no human or shifter should go through to see their own family die before them. “He came here to get to me. He thought that once you were out of the house because of Phillip, then he’d be able to kill you and then me. He was right; I would have given anything to have you safe.”

“He ripped his throat out. Is that what you do to kill rogues?” He nodded, then told her that he did. “I thought as much. I would guess they die faster than Phillip did. He bled to death right in front of me.”

“I’m so sorry that you had to witness that.” She nodded, then laid her head on the table she was sitting next to. “If I could do it over, I would have killed him when I first noticed him. Then Phillip might be still alive.”

“It’s done now.” She looked up at him. “You saved my life, didn’t you? When Phillip was killed, you saved my life by keeping me in the house. He, this Darcy person, couldn’t hurt me so long as I was in here.” York told her that it had been his plan. “Now he’s going to die too, right?”

“He’s already dead.” She sat up and looked at him. “I didn’t do it. There are hundreds of my kind all over the world, and someone else was responsible for taking him out. His family would have felt his death and been made aware of what he did to deserve it.”

“Because he killed a human.” He told her that it was because he tried to kill the two of them. “You’re so important?”

“I am. I’m head of the council. I am the council. I decide what rogue has to be taken out and who is to do it. It’s the paperwork that I do every day to make sure that all the rogues are taken care of.” She told him that she’d not known that. “I know. I should have explained it to you. Not even my family knows that part of my life.”

“I’m sorry. It must be hard on you to do that every day.” He said that he was used to it by now and it didn’t bother him. But he was sorry for not telling her sooner. “You were protecting me. Right?”

“Forever.” She stood up, and he braced himself for what she’d say next. When all she did was put her head on his chest, putting her arms around his waist. “I love you, Rose. With all that I am.”

“And I love you too, with all my heart.” She continued to lean on him while standing there, and it felt good. Like he was a rock and she was leaning against him while a storm raged on. Looking up at him, she decided that she was going to learn to lean on him more as the years went by. It would keep her safe and sound from all sorts of creatures that were out to get her because she was marked by York. “He called you Dork. I have a feeling that he thought you were nothing more than a man that loved me and not nearly as smart as he is…was.”

“Your father has been notified that Phillip is dead. He wants to talk to you.” She said that she wasn’t in the mood to talk to him. “I don’t blame you. He’s going to blame you for Phillip’s death, and that will bring more hurt to you.”

“He’ll want compensation of some sort, and that will mean money to him. Either that or he’ll come to me with his fists up.” He told her that he’d never touch her. “No, he won’t. But that doesn’t mean he won’t try.”

“Are you going to set him right?” She just looked at him. He had to laugh. She was getting stronger every day, and he loved that. His worry for her wasn’t as bad as it had been when he first met her. Not only was she getting stronger with him, but in some things she could outdo him. He loved her with all that he was. “I’ll be there in the event that you think you might need me. Not that I think you will, but things have gone south before when I’m working with an unknown.”

“Thank you for that. I love you.” She sat down in the chair that she seemed to favor. He thought it to be ugly, paisley pinks and greens, but she seemed to love the old chair, and he couldn’t fault her for the softness of it. It had to have been a blind man’s chair when it was being made, he thought. “I’ll talk to him when I’m ready and not before. I won’t be pushed into something simply because my brother has been killed.”

“I don’t blame you. Not at all. Your emotions will be higher for it, and you might not be as tolerant of him if he gets to you now.” He watched her as she sat there with her eyes closed. Sitting in the chair across from her, he continued to watch her to see what she would do next. His heart hurt for her. He didn’t know what he’d do if one of his brothers had been killed as hers had been. “Would you like for me to set up the funeral for Phillip? I can do that no problem. I’ve already made plans to go to the funeral home soon for other people that have been on my list.”

“What sort of list would you have that would involve a funeral home?” His face heated up, caught in a little lie. “I don’t care if you want to do it. I still think that the man who did it knew that I’d want to come out of the house to save my brother no matter how mean he’d been to me.”

“That’s right. It was his plan all along.” She nodded and looked out the large window in the room they were in. “The weather has turned well today. It’s not supposed to be very hot. I hope it stays this way. More people will be out and about if they think they might be able to get a cool breeze.”

“You’re making small talk, and it doesn’t suit you.” He said he was just trying to get her to talk to him. “I’ll talk to you about the weather if you wish. But I just want to think about how that man was going to kill you. He would have, wouldn’t he?”

“No. He couldn’t kill either of us. He might well have hurt us, but there is no way that he could have killed either of us.” She asked him why. “Because the two of us now have the same magic. You’re not just a vampire as I am, but you’re like me in ways that I can’t explain. Nothing can harm nor kill us so long as we wish to live.”

“You mean that, don’t you?” He nodded and moved closer to the chair she was in. “I don’t understand. I thought that since you can kill vampires that all vampires could be killed. I know you told me once that you have special magic, but that man was out to kill you. By any means possible.”

“All he would have been able to do was harm me, and I would have healed immediately. Same with you. It’s so that I can do my job in keeping rogue vampires at bay. Can you imagine a world where vampires were free to kill anyone they came across? And not in a way that would make it so that you could recognize them either. They’d just kill because they could, and by any means they have at hand.”

“You mean destroy them.” He told her that was it exactly. “And this would be only vampires that they’d kill?”

“No. Humans. Especially humans, as a matter of fact.” She asked him why especially humans. “Because they’re easy prey. And they beg. Vampires would just turn to ash when killed. Humans can be played with and made to suffer. That’s what they’re looking for when they kill them, the satisfaction of them begging and being wounded. They want them to suffer as much as they’re suffering and take it out on them.”

“That’s horrible.” He took her hand into his and held it to his cheek. “You’re telling me this because you want me to understand how quickly Phillip died, aren’t you? You’re saying that he could have made him suffer a great deal when he had him, but he only ripped his throat out. Is that what you’re saying?”

“Yes. I want you to understand that, for all his hatred of me, he didn’t make Phillip suffer as he might well have. I’m glad for that. However, he would have made you suffer so that I’d come out and save you. I would do anything to save you from men like him. Not to say that there aren’t rogue women, but not nearly as many as there are men.”