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Alessandra snagged a set of plastic teeth from the top of the dresser and positioned them in her mouth. Laria took one look at her and burst into laughter.

“You look ridiculous. I mean, stunning, but ridiculous. For the record, I’ve never met a vampire in red fishnet stockings and a cape.”

“Well,” Alessandra said, waving her long fake fingernails through the air. “You have now.”

Charlotte laughed so hard that she forgot, for a minute, to be nervous. She didn’t know what terrified her more—that Torr might have changed his mind or that she was actually going out in public like this.

But with Dorothy and a bloodsucking Alessandra by her side, what could possibly go wrong?

* * *

Torr satat the bar and watched as his sister walked in with Kenton and Alessandra. A few other guests had just begun to arrive, and his brother and Toni stood together behind the bar—he, a cop and she, a jailbird—greeting friends who had snagged a special invitation to tonight’s soft opening.

The bar was decorated tastefully in black linens and drapery and plenty of cobwebs, the orange and yellow glow of well-placed lanterns and uplighting transforming the space into the perfect backdrop for a costume party.

But Torr only had eyes for one of the guests.

And when Charlotte handed her coat to Kenton, Torr sucked in a breath. She didn’t see him yet. Which was a good thing since centuries of composure had abandoned him in an instant.

Dressed like one of the women from Noir Nights, she wore very little. Black hot pants, a black top that left little to the imagination. Thigh-high black leather boots with a black leather whip completed the outfit.

Her straight blonde hair had been curled in loose waves, and the red lipstick—

He swallowed. Hard.

Which was when she saw him.

He took a few deep breaths before standing. Damn inconvenient that he’d chosen to wear a kilt tonight, of all nights. At first he thought Charlotte was coming toward him, but she turned instead, disappearing into the small crowd that had gathered at the entrance.

He took an involuntary step toward her.

“Oh God, brother, you didn’t.”

Laria looked down at him, promptly burst into laughter, and then stopped short when she spotted the sgian-dubh tucked into the top of his kilt hose.

“Is that?”

“It is.”

“I had no idea you kept it.”

The small knife had been their mother’s.

“You look quite dapper.” Laria smiled, clearly waiting for a compliment in return. Instead of giving it, he looked her up and down. And waited.

He was rewarded with a swat on the shoulder. “You are such an arse,” she said before moving away.

“And you’re one fine-looking Dorothy,” he called after her, Laria shaking her head as if to say “too late.”

He’d lost Charlotte by now, but it wasn’t crowded enough that it would be difficult to find her. Not in that outfit.

But a quick glance around the room yielded no blonde bombshells wearing black leather, so he honed in on the conversations instead. Toni and Lawrence at the bar. Kenton and Alessandra not far from them, ordering drinks from a new staff member. But he didn’t hear Charlotte’s voice, nor did he see her anywhere.

Closing his eyes, Torr breathed in deeply and concentrated. Then he opened his eyes and started walking.

Dressing like that, then deliberately eluding him . . . was she sending some kind of message? After seven hundred years, one would think he’d have had plenty of practice at deciphering the intentions of the fairer sex, but Charlotte was different. She was complicated and lovely and he was so unsure of himself around her.

His tracking skills, at least, had not abandoned him.