Page 20 of Seph

She refused to answer. “It doesn’t matter. You can’t love anyone. Not now. Demons can’t love.”

“Ha! I beg to differ. There are demons in this town that—”

“I’m willing to admit that there are loopholes. Things I don’t know. But I know you.”

“Not as well as you think.” He reached for her and then stopped as she curled her fist to strike. “Th-that’s okay. I told you too soon. I’m sorry.”

“Too soon? There is no time, ever, that will be late enough. I can’t love a vampire.”

Simeon’s eyes narrowed. His face pinched. “Don’t love a vampire. Loveme. I mean, at least like me a bit. Give me a—”

“We’re neighbors—sort of. We have a truce. That’s it.”

That was so far from “it,” but what else could she do or say? She had to stop him from wedging deeper into her life.

He definitely wasn’t allowed in herheart.

“You didn’t kiss me like some diplomat signing a truce, love,” Crow’s voice was tinged with anger now.

“I know. That was a mistake. A dangerous one. I won’t be making it again.”

Even if I want to. Really, really want to...

“I’m just supposed to pretend none of this ever happened?”

If there was pain in his voice, even a sparkle of wetness in his eye, Emily knew it was a trap. Vampires were excellent human mimics. She brushed away the voice that shouted, “What about Minegold? Jesse? What about the nice banshee who runs the thrift store, or the Orc that made you these donuts? They’re all monsters, some more human-looking and some less.”

“Pretend whatever you like, but I’ll stick to the facts. I’m just here in this town to keep an eye on innocents—and the thingsthat might threaten them.” Emily made her spine straight and her voice cold.

“Things? I’m athing, now?” Simeon’s face twisted. Anger. Grief.

She stopped looking.I’m sorry.

The words never passed her lips.

“You know, Huntress, you’re not much of a human yourself, sometimes. All business. No soul. Ah, ah,” he cut her off when she began to argue. “There are all kinds of ways to be soulless. Mine was stolen in a moment of bloodlust, by a thirst for revenge, and years of torment that I finally had power to end. And then... There are empty shells, the souls inside so withered up that no one can restore them. Empty shells—like you.”

Chapter Eight

New York, October, 2024

Simeon bit into a chocolate pumpkin with his fangs out. He sucked the creamy peanut butter filling straight into his bloodstream and enjoyed the high. “Oooh, sugar rush. Wonder why they didn’t mention that on Charlie Brown?” He smacked his telly and prepared to sit in his battered recliner. Even though Halloween wasn’t until Friday, he was already working through the stash of chocolate he had picked up for trick-or-treaters. It wasn’t like many parents would send their little ones down to his lonely basement flat.

He pulled three more treats from the purple bowl on the kitchen counter.Bored.He didn’t have any work to do until a fortnight from now when he’d receive the next narration script.

Lonely.He’d already bothered Emily once this week, and any more than that made her “agitated.”

After their explosive kiss and argument, they’d spent a few weeks dancing around one another.

Pumpkin Fest, Pine Ridge’s mid-October weekend-long festival, had brought them together on patrol. Working together, they’d dispatched a particularly uglyKinderteufel(a demon that feeds on children’s souls).

He’d pulled the beast off of her. She’d yanked its claws from his chest. They’d killed it in a one-two stab-snap, her with the silver blade, him with the bone-crunching neck snap.

And then... There was a moment. A glorious moment of laughing and relief, and they hugged...

And then she was gone, telling him she had to clean the blood off of her clothes.

He wanted to tell her he’d take care of all that, take care of her, lick her clean, and never stop kissing her.

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