Reign of Night (Thorne Hill 7)

“Don’t make me take your cauldron away from you.”

“You wouldn’t dare!”

We laugh, and Lucas opens the door for me. The bar is busy tonight, with a live band playing. Eliza’s behind the counter, making drinks, and looks up as soon as we walk in. Moving at vampire speed, she finishes serving the customers and comes over.

“I can smell the magic coming off you from across the bar,” she tells me. “You’re like a walking Happy Meal for vampires.”

“Let them try and lay a fang on her,” Lucas says, and I roll my eyes. Vampires are stronger and faster than me, and a vampire Lucas’s age could easily best me, but I think I’ll take my chances with them.

Eliza’s perfectly lined lips move into a smile. “It’s good to see you two. What are you doing here…in a bar…when you’re pregnant?”

“I wanted to see you,” I tell her, knowing both she and Lucas miss not seeing each other as often. They were together for hundreds of years, and part of me honestly expected Eliza to move into the estate with us. I wouldn’t have minded if she and Lucas were a package deal, as long as she gave us space, which I’m sure she would. She likes it in Chicago, though, and having the fancy-pants Lincoln Park house is nice when we want to go to the city for a weekend or even just overnight. I know Lucas won’t sell that house for years, holding out as long as possible to make the biggest profit. “And I wasn’t quite ready to call it a night. We just had dinner.”

“You mean you did,” she says pointedly, overly concerned again that Lucas isn’t drinking enough of my blood, which he can’t do while I’m pregnant.

“I ate,” he says, sounding annoyed. He’s been a vampire long enough to know how to survive and won’t go without, since we need him at full strength. I move my hair to the side and show Eliza the fresh wounds on my neck.

“So it’s been a day?” Her eyebrows go up.

“Just a few hours.” I carefully touch the bites, surprised to feel them scabbed over and the skin around them isn’t tender anymore. “That healed fast.”

“Faster than usual,” Lucas notes, sweeping his fingers along my neck and making me shiver.

“The payroll reports are done and on the desk,” Eliza tells him. “And we got everything back from the accountants from the last year.”

“You want to go look at them, don’t you?” I ask Lucas. “It’s fine. Go look at the reports.”

“I love you,” he tells me, walking with us toward the bar but continuing on to go into the office.

“What do you want to drink?” Eliza asks, waving her hand at a guy sitting on a stool. “Let the pregnant lady have a seat at the bar.”

“Nice,” I tell her but gladly take the seat. “And make me something with cranberry juice.”

“Cranberry and seltzer?”

“Yeah, sounds good.”

I unzip my coat and take my phone from my purse, logging onto Instagram. Most of what is posted on Novel Grounds’ account is related to the store, but Kristy, Betty, and I have realized that people are liking the few and far between personal posts we put up, and I smile as I read through some of the responses to the photo I posted of Lucas and me at dinner.

“Hey,” a couple comes up to the bar, crowding in my personal space. They lean over, looking at Eliza. “You’re a vampire, aren’t you?”

I automatically go on high alert, and I sit up straighter, magic buzzing around my fingers.

“Who’s asking?” she replies, flashing her fangs.

Instead of pulling out a wooden stake, the girl holds up an old school Polaroid camera. “Can we get a picture with you?”

“Are you buying a drink?” She runs her tongue over the tip of her fangs. Both Eliza and the other vampire bartender, Rene, have said they get people coming in here just to get a drink served to them by a vampire.

“Yes, I want that, but can you make it redder?” the girl asks, pointing to my cranberry drink.

“Like blood?” Eliza asks.

“Oh my god, yes!” The girl turns to her boyfriend, who’s just as excited. Giving them her signature eyeball, Eliza mixes up a cranberry and vodka and serves it in Mason jars. I still find it amusing that someone like Lucas owns a place like this, but hey, it’s trendy and the hipster crowd has been very accepting of vampires.

“That’s the third one tonight,” she huffs when the couple walks away. “I should start charging for each little photo session, but Lucas would say that’s exploiting our nature.”

“I can see his point, though he likes money.” I take a sip of my cranberry drink and pick up my phone. “Want to take a photo with me?” I joke, though I really would like a picture. I don’t have many of us together, or of myself in general. The one photo I have of my mother is precious to me, and if something were to happen to me, I want my daughter to have something to look back on. It might piece together the mystery that’ll be left in my wake, and she won’t have to wonder as much what kind of person I was.