Gallagher stood back, watching the revelry. There were Arcadians here, Katagaria, Dark-Hunters, demons, humans, and who knew what else. By all rights none of them should get along and yet they were together tonight.

Bound by something other than blood. They were bound together by their hearts.

Colt came up to him. An Arcadian Sentinel, his job was technically to hunt and slay the Katagaria. But years ago the Peltiers had rescued and protected Colt’s mother and then raised him after her death. He was as loyal to the bear clan as any of their natural sons.

Smiling, he pulled a pineapple mitt out of his back pocket. “Man, Gallagher, you must really rate. You got one of the good fish. All I got was a lousy pineapple.”

“What, does everyone she meet get one?”

“Nope. Only family.”

Gallagher looked around at that and saw something he hadn’t noticed earlier.

Everyone there had a mitt.

Until Death We Do Part

Until Death We Do Part

Prologue

Romania, 1476

He was coming for her. She knew it. Esperetta of the house of Dracul could hear him out in the cold darkness. Unseen. Fearsome. Threatening.

And he was getting closer.

Closer.

So close, she could feel his breath on her skin. See his evil eyes as he relentlessly stalked her through the night while she ran from him, hoping to find some way to escape.

He wanted her dead.

“Esperetta…”

There was magic in that deep, sultry voice. It’d always had a way of making her weak. Of lulling her into a stupor. But she couldn’t afford that now. Not after she knew him for the monster he really was.

She stumbled through the darkness as the fog seemed to wrap itself around her, slowing her down, pulling her back toward where he waited to devour her. The cry of wolves echoed on the wind that sliced through her dirt-stained gown and cloak as if she were naked in the woods.

Her breathing labored and painful, she tripped and fell against a wall of solid black steel. No, not steel.

It was him.

Her hand was splayed over the frightening gold emblem on his armor of a coiled serpent that mocked her with its venom. Terrified, she looked up with a gasp into those deep, dark eyes that seemed to penetrate her. But that wasn’t what scared her. It was the fact that she was in her white burial gown. The fact that she’d clawed her way out of her own grave under the weight of the full moon to find herself alone in the church cemetery. She’d stared down at the tombstone that had held her name and death date for almost an hour before she’d found the courage to leave that place.