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Maggie had mentioned that. How hard Tess had been grieving the loss of an on-again-off-again significant other. Burning things, not eating, crying her eyes red.

At the time, I couldn’t have fathomed anything evoking that kind of emotion.

But I was looking at it differently now.

“And you want her to have that? Even after what you’ve gone through from it?”

“I do. Because nothing has ever felt as good as loving and being loved in turn. She just needs someone to choose her. Now. And for forever. So if that’s not you, don’t you dare string her along.”

With that, she hit the accelerator, cranked up the music, and refused to listen to anything I had to say.

Not that I was going to.

Instead, I sat with her words.

Because she wasn’t wrong.

I wouldn’t pretend to know Maggie nearly as well as Tess. But I knew enough. What I did know amounted to there being something special about Maggie. I’d noticed some of it almost immediately at the station: her quiet competence, her fairness, her ability not to spiral even when everything was going wrong. But the more I got to know her, the more there was to see and appreciate. She was soft without being fragile, strong without being impenetrable, intelligent without being detached from her emotions. And I really appreciated how strongly she stood in her convictions, even if it meant arguing with me.

She wasn’t like anyone I’d met before.

It was only natural for me to want to be around her.

But did that mean I had the right to be? If I couldn’t give her what she wanted, what she needed?

Maggie craved things I’d never believed existed: love, soulmates, forever.

And if I was monopolizing the precious little time she had, it could be preventing her from finding someone who could at least attempt to give her what she was searching for.

Though even the thought of another man enjoying Maggie’s time, let alone her body, had my fists curling and my fangs extending. And somewhere in the back of my mind, that primal, animalistic part of me growled, I’ll drain him if he tries.

“Why are you growling?”

Snapped back to the present, I found us in a massive parking lot only half-filled with cars. People milled in and out, hauling boxes, pulling carts. I immediately scanned for Maggie.

“I wasn’t growling.”

“I’m a demon, remember? I know growling.”

“I don’t growl.”

“You, posh, cultured, self-restrained radio show host might not growl. But that creature inside of you does. And he just was.”

I ignored that. Because what could I tell her? That she was right? That I had nothing to offer Maggie? That I would never be the man she needed? But that I resented that? That I couldn’t stand the thought of someone else giving it to her?

I could hear the speech she would give me about being selfish and possessive and that it was childish to only want someone happy if they were happy with me.

They were all things I would say myself to one of my callers.

They were things I believed.

There was no reason for it to be different because it was me. Because it was Maggie.

“Oh, you have your own entrance.” Tess nodded toward the side of the building where a sign stood, declaring Night Creature Entrance. “Guess I’ll see you inside,” she said as she pulled up and waited for me to exit.

I wanted to find Maggie, to help her bring in the merchandise. But that was yet another thing I hadn’t taken into account.

Vampires were night creatures.