Page 73

"Aye, hemorrhagic fevers are their specialty."

"Thank you for that. Wow, takes the 'don't take the toast they give you at midnight' to a whole new level, doesn't it?"

"What are you on about?" Lachlan says as we step into the crisp night air, the delicious aromas of the Italian restaurant gone the instant we step onto the street. "What do you know about a toast?"

"I told you I was researching that first night in the library, right?" I ask, brow furrowed.

He's wrapped his arm around me, pulling me close—an embrace much more intimate than me holding his arm like we did on the way into the restaurant.

"The book I found, the histories of the Eternal Society, well, you know, I had to cut my thumb open, and that's what it told me. 'Don't accept the toast. Whatever you do, don't drink the toast.' Something like that." I shake my head.

"Something like that," he repeats. "You don't remember what it said word for word, do you?"

"All I know is that if they give me something to drink, I'm not drinking it."

"Sound advice," he says with a shrug. "Alright, well, we're just about to this city's entrance."

"What?" I repeat. "House Sanguine—House Sanguine is here, in Philly?"

He gives me a long look. "Of course not."

"Right. That makes—everything you're saying make perfect sense. You know what? At this point, I shouldn't even ask anymore."

"Well, lass, don't be like that," he says, then runs a hand through his long waves, making the scent of his cologne and hair waft over me.

Smells pretty damn good. Sandalwood and the smell of the earth right after it rains. It evokes a vision of running barefoot through the forest, of dappled moonlight through the tree leaves, and I lean more heavily on him, inhaling deeply, comforted by that scent.

"Aha, here we are. All right." He gestures to a wrought-iron gate on a property that looks like it's been abandoned for at least a few decades. The gate itself hangs off the hinges, and somewhere nearby, the unmistakable sound of a large dog barking echoes through the night air.

The house the gate is attached to is dilapidated, shutters hanging loose on broken and boarded-up windows, the mortar between the bricks crumbling, and what looks to be a third-floor widow's walk covered in mold and broken furniture.

"This is where we're going?"

"Don't let the looks deceive. This isn't where we're going at all, but you do need to go through the gate to get there."

"Okay," I say.

And I hike up my skirts, and I step through the gate.

A blast of warm air hits my skin. Humid, saturated with moisture, and altogether different than the night I just left. I blink rapidly. The overgrown garden strewn with forgotten furniture is replaced by an elegantly manicured veranda. Large, marble-looking squares crisscross the verdant green lawn like a checkerboard, and huge oak trees hanging with Spanish moss line the path.

"See? Not so bad. Although it is New Orleans, so I expect we'll be sweating quite a bit."

"New Orleans?" I repeat, slightly alarmed.

"Aye, can't you feel it?" He tugs at his collar. "Be glad that you're wearing that little slip of a dress, I can tell you that. The Scots aren't made for this sort of humidity."

"I don't think anyone should be. The vampires live in New Orleans?" I repeat.

"Of course they do. Everybody knows that. Even the non-magical people. Come on now, lass. Dawdling won't make it any better."

"I'm not dawdling," I tell him, glaring up at him.

He just pulls me closer, chuckling, and I stiffen slightly as I feel the warmth of his breath huff across my head and he plants a kiss on top of my scalp. A shiver goes down my spine that's at complete odds with the suffocating heat and humidity all around us.

When his lips brush against my ear, I'm hot from the inside out.

"Have to play the part, love. Don't look so surprised."