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When someone tousled his hair from behind, Torr placed his drink on the bar so quickly the motion would have given most humans pause. Luckily, Toni, the only non-vampire present, already knew their secret.

Reaching back without looking, he snagged his sister’s hand.

“Watch the hair,” he said.

“It’s almost too easy to get to you,” she said, sitting next to him. He’d tried for a menacing tone, but she seemed completely unrepentant.

She glanced from him to Lawrence. “What’s wrong?”

Torr shrugged. “Nothing at all.” From his perspective, it was true.

“Other than the fact that we’re preparing to open a business in a town too small to tolerate Torr’s antics,” Lawrence said.

Refusing to make eye contact with his sister, Torr concentrated on the liquid gold in his glass. But he could feel her piercing green eyes, the same shade as his own, on him anyway. Laria had always been able to get to him in a way Lawrence could not. She was his elder too, although only by a year, and he felt a combination of admiration and protectiveness for her. He’d do anything to insulate her from wicked men.

Himself included.

“Now what have you done?”

Hating the censure in her voice, he ignored the question.

“Torr . . .”

“I’ve done nothing an uninhibited, virile—”

“What has he done?” she asked Lawrence instead, her tone dangerous.

“The mayor stopped me earlier today in The Witch’s Brew—”

“A rather droll name for a coffee shop if you ask me,” Torr offered, darting a glance at his siblings, both of whom ignored him. They were conversing with each other now, about him, no less.

“Apparently, there was some commotion at the inn the other night—”

Ah, so that’s what had Lawrence all worked up.

“About that,” he interrupted. “I don’t make a habit of attending bachelorette parties, but—”

He stopped when Lawrence shifted his gaze to the other end of the bar, where Toni sat with her best friend and . . . him. The bastard was grinning at his brother as if the two of them shared a private joke.

Kenton fucking Morley.

For centuries the man had been their enemy, and now he and Lawrence were acting like best buds.

Lawrence may have forgiven, if not forgotten, Morley’s former crusade against the Cheld, which he’d forsaken for Alessandra, but Torr certainly hadn’t. As far as he was concerned, the other vampire was still their enemy.

He wasn’t about to pretend otherwise.

“It won’t happen again,” he ground out, ending the conversation. “If you want me to leave—”

“He doesn’t want you to leave,” his sister, the peacemaker, cut in. “Just try to remember this is Lawrence’s town, and he means to stay here.”

“For now,” he muttered under his breath, earning himself a couple of dark looks from Lawrence and Laria. “Fine. I hear you. Best behavior.”

He grinned, wishing—not for the first time—his charm had more of an effect on his siblings. They knew him too well to fall for it.

“I appreciate it,” Lawrence said. “Now give me your glass.”

“And stop glaring at Kenton,” Laria added.

Taking yet another refill from Lawrence, he lifted his glass in the air. “That may be asking a wee bit too much, lassie,” he said, knowing his sister had a soft spot for the accent of their homeland, which they’d dropped over the years. “To Lawrence.”

Joining him in a toast, his siblings raised their own drinks, their differences momentarily forgotten as they celebrated Lawrence and Toni’s forthcoming business venture.

His brother deserved to be happy, so he would try to behave.

For tonight, at least.