Page 1

Chapter 1

Stone Haven, Pennsylvania

“We need to talk.”

When his older brother used that tone, Torr Derrickson knew he should do one of two things. Listen patiently, preferably with a drink in hand, or walk away.

Regrettably, over the course of their long, long lives, he’d usually gravitated toward a third option: fight. He and Lawrence had butted heads about any number of things in any number of places—from where to live when they weren’t hunting Cheld to how they invested their vast wealth—and if he’d learned anything, it was that he couldn’t go up against Lawrence, who had, after all, been his clan chief centuries before, without one of them ending up bloody.

Figuratively speaking, of course.

They were vampires, yes, but they were brothers first and foremost.

“Something tells me I’d like a refill first,” he told Lawrence, who pulled Torr’s empty glass toward him from across the mahogany bar.

Although his brother had not yet finished transforming the old bank he’d bought into the bar he planned to open, his liquor license had been granted, making it legal for him to serve alcohol, a fact their small group had been celebrating for the past few hours. They sat around the circular bar in the middle of the room. Lawrence stood behind it, as usual.

After refilling Torr’s Ardbeg, the only whiskey he’d drink if given the choice, Lawrence leaned against the bar, crossing his arms as if settling in for a long lecture.

Fantastic. At least he’d asked for the drink first.

“You said ‘we’ needed to talk,” he lifted an eyebrow, “so why do I have a feeling you’ll be doing most of the talking?”

“I’m serious, Torr—”

“That’s what worries me.”

Savoring the rich liquid he sipped, waiting.

“You’ve been back for less than three weeks, and people are starting to tal—”

“You mean, they’ve already grown tired of discussing the apple festival? You would think all that fuss over the festival queen would have them—”

“That’s enough.”

Perhaps. Still, he wasn’t wrong, and they both knew it. The people in Stone Haven had a tendency to gossip about the most trivial of matters, including the tie vote for their festival queen and the ensuing brouhaha it had caused. Imagine, four vampires currently resided in the tourist-laden Pennsylvania town where his brother had decided to settle, and the townsfolk worried about offending a poor little rich girl whose daddy had just donated enough money to remodel the visitor’s center.

The Derrickson siblings and Kenton Morley could each buy and sell the small-time businessman fifty times over.

But no one here knew it.

The townspeople realized the Derrickson and Morley families had money, of course. After all, they had purchased the only two mansions in the town, neither of which had been up for sale. But no one could possibly fathom how much wealth an individual could accumulate after hundreds of years of existence.

“All I’m saying is that if you plan to stay awhile—”

“Which you obviously think is a bad idea.”

Lawrence’s frown made him look older than thirty, the age he’d been when they were cursed to live as immortals. The aging process had stopped at twenty-eight for Torr, leaving him perpetually the younger brother.

“I think it would be a fine idea if you weren’t making your string of bedmates so obvious.”

Torr took a sip of his whiskey and tried not to smile. It would only further infuriate his brother, and he really didn’t want to fight with him today, especially not in front of Lawrence’s girlfriend, Toni, whom he quite liked.

“If you’re asking me to be more discreet—”

Lawrence scoffed. “It shouldn’t be difficult given the way you’ve been flaunting your exploits around town.”

“I don’t flaunt.”