But wasn’t she correct? She’d vowed she didn’t want to love anyone again, but did she? She had to do something. She put down her glass and sped to Katie’s room’s door and felt even worse. With her enhanced hearing she could identify the snuffles of tears.

Those tears were her fault. “Katie?”

She heard Katie blow her nose in an attempt to cover the fact she had been crying, Alexis suspected.

“What is it?” Katie said with anger in her voice.

“Er, tomorrow…would you like to go a walk with me?” Alexis smacked herself in the head. That’s what you come up with? Seriously.

“If you want,” Katie replied.

At the very least, hopefully a new day would bring Alexis more courage.

Chapter Thirteen

Byron was worried about Amelia. She’d hardly said a word since they left their forest cabin, and she doubted she’d slept much last night. Her mind had been left reeling from this new information from Sybil, so goodness knew how Amelia felt. One thing that continued to surprise Byron was how much Amelia had been wrapped up in Byron’s world all this time, and she never realized it.

The weather matched the sombre mood in the car as the rain bucketed down outside, and in the silence, the pounding of the rain was all the more pronounced.

They pulled up beside a farmhouse outside the village they had just passed through, and Amelia grasped at her hand.

“Is this it?”

“Yes, I can’t believe I’ve come back here. I vowed I never would.”

Byron cupped Amelia’s cheek. “This time you have me with you. No one can do you any harm while I’m around. I promise you that.”

“Words can wound as deeply as any physical blow,” Amelia said. “I’ve become everything Mum and Dad warned I would when I ran to the big city and bright lights. I’m in league with the devil, or so they’ll think when they see you.”

“Well, perhaps, but you know differently. Just get the information, and let them think what they like. They’ll never know I’m a vampire anyway.”

Amelia snorted. “They bloody will. I’m telling you—I grew up with this. For some reason they believed in your world, the paranormal one. I thought they were mad and their fundamentalist Christian ideas were as cuckoo as them, but here we are—they were right.”

“Maybe that has to do with your past? Maybe they were let into our secret because of you?”

“Maybe,” Amelia replied.

“Shall we get it over with then?” Byron asked.

Amelia wrung her hands. “Let me gather my thoughts. Just another few minutes?”

Byron kissed Amelia’s hand. “Anything you like, mia cara.”

* * *