Page 13 of Seph

But then she said things like that, and he knew her feelings hadn’t changed.

Emily Van Helsing hated him—and he was falling in love with her.

She was everything he’d looked for across oceans and decades. Cunning, stalwart, beautiful, brave... Kind. She had her prejudices, but she was learning to release them, little by little.

“Mr. Minegold brought me a babka last night,” Emily groaned as a dip tested her weakened right ankle, the one that had sustained a slight fracture in the accident. Her walking cast, a clumsy thing of gray plastic and black straps, made her move awkwardly, even without the crutches. “I should have packed a big slice to go with that coffee.”

“Yeah? He loves to bake, that guy. I have some of his rugelach back at my place. If you want, we can—”

“Nope. My brain is the only body part that’s fully recovered, Crow. I’m not setting foot in your place.”

“Suit yourself.”

Don’t torture yourself, Simeon. You don’t fancy her. You fancy thechase. To covet that which you can never have. You need a new form of lust now that you’ve nothing to hunt.

“When you get stronger, I’ll chase you all through this place and the woods up at White Pines. I know the owners—well, slightly.” Simeon tried to keep his voice cheery and nonchalant.

“Chase me? Why?” Emily stilled, rocking to keep her balance.

“Because someday, you’ll believe I’m not a threat and move onto a vamp who is—and you’ll still need to know how to be the huntress, Van Helsing.”

Her green eyes glittered in the late winter moonlight, her gaze catching his. A smile? Ever so slight, but it was there. “Huntress. I like it.”

“You wear it well.”

Her smile stayed as she triumphantly grabbed the coffee and drained it in long, shivering gulps.

“Come on, love. Let’s get you home.”

“Don’t call me love.”

New York, April, 2024

“I’ve got two tickets to the play-off games, Pine Ridge Lumberjacks versus the Philly Firebirds.”

Emily opened the door to find Simeon standing with an outstretched bouquet of tulips and a ticket.

“You have to stop bringing me things. Every single time you come over, you bring something.”

It was wrong to like it. He was a demon. Vampire. A bad, bad, horrible murdering creature.

Except that... Well, since she was largely out of commission and had to sit on her butt, she had started digging through the family’s digitized archives on her new but cheap laptop.

Simeon Crow had killed 437 men and 21 women by her family’s estimation. Most of them had names recorded, and many she could trace.

Crow had told her the truth, at least partially. Many of his victims had criminal records or lurid pasts. Sometimes she dared to toss out a name and see if he remembered the victim—and he always did. He spoke with deep satisfaction about taking scum off the streets of London.

The same way my grandfather spoke about taking out vampires. I don’t agree with his methods, but I was actually rooting for Simeon when he told me about that wigmaker who used to take much more than a girl’s hair.

“Come on, you never leave this place. You need a night out,” Simeon wheedled, brandishing the ticket.

“I do go out! I go to the Night Market. I get coffee. I took a walk this morning. What did you do—read about someone getting railed by some muscle-bound mobster?”

“As a matter of fact, I did.” He gave her a charming smile that suddenly hit her stomach in an unfamiliar way.

Breathless.

No, no. Just taking a long time for your ribs to go completely back to normal.

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