By the time they reached Palm Oaks Veronica agreed for Murphy to spend the night at her apartment.

  He questioned her the entire way back. His fear disappeared, replaced by a natural curiosity to know what was going on. He sat on her couch, fidgeting his fingers. She locked the front door, checked it, and then checked it again. It didn’t matter how comfortable and safe she felt.

  Unlike vampires, Deamhan didn’t need to be invited to come into her apartment. She walked over to the window and peeked through the blinds.

  “What the hell was that?” He jumped to his feet. “She exploded! Well, not like exploded but she turned to ash, right in front of us! Have you seen anything like that before?”

  “You should spend the night.” She walked to the kitchen. “I’ll make you some coffee.” Still groggy from the drink Chelsea gave her, she filled the coffee pot with water, poured it in the coffee maker, and turned on the power.

  She leaned against the kitchen counter, mentally unequipped to handle another barrage of questions.

  “Are we in trouble?” His eyes widened and his eyebrows lifted. “Should we call the police?”

  “No!” she answered, loudly and hastily. She leaned her forehead against the cool stainless-steel fridge, just slightly out of his view. It wouldn’t hurt to tell him about the Deamhan, she reasoned. He had every right to know, especially since he lived in a city filled with them. Telling him would better prepare himself for what was out there. Would it?

  “Why not?”

  “They can’t do anything, Murphy, believe me.” She walked over to the living room and she sat across from him. “They wouldn’t believe us anyway.” Nonchalantly, she pushed the envelope Alexis gave her at Dark Sepulcher off to the side of the coffee table.

  He sat back, looking defeated. “That girl was so strong. I nailed her and she took the hit like a man.” He winced as he rubbed his red bruise. “Better than a man.”

  “That’s because she’s not human. They’re strong, even the newly sired ones.”

  “All I saw was a shadow, and then the girl holding you started to bleed everywhere. And then the other girl took off,” he snapped his fingers, “just like that!”

  “Murphy”—Veronica leaned toward him—”I’m going to tell you something that you might not believe or want to hear. Just promise me you won’t freak out.”

  He nodded.

  She took a deep breath and she began to explain the Deamhan.

  She talked for over an hour, telling him what she knew; the types of Deamhan, how the city was their haven, how they died, and how they were turned. Yet anything about The Brotherhood she purposely skipped. She told him the real reason why she came back to Minneapolis and how important it was to her to find out what happened to her mother. When she’d finished her spiel, she shrugged, realizing she had nothing left to say. It was now up to him to handle what she just revealed.

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  She returned to the kitchen for two cups of coffee, giving Murphy a moment alone to process what she’d told him. She filled the sugar bowl from the canister and she watched him stare down at the floor in thought.

  When she looked back again, his expression morphed from confusion to concern.

  Finally, he turned toward the kitchen. “So those two chicks, were these Deamhan creatures?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And they’re immortal. They live forever?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Stakes can kill them?”

  “Wood hurts them. They can also die from exposure to sunlight and be beheaded.”

  “Like vampires who also live in the city?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What about garlic?” A look of hope appeared on his face.

  “No.” She peeked out from behind the wall separating the two. “Garlic doesn’t work for vampires either.”

  “Why not call them vampires?”

  “Because they aren’t vampires. They’re Deamhan,” she answered. “They’re different. I mean, I look at them as like distant relatives or cousins of vampires. But they’re different. Even siring a Deamhan is a totally different process than siring a vampire. There used to be tons of them. So many different types. One time, they actually outnumbered vampires.”

  “What happened?”

  Veronica shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “But there used to be more?” His eyes widened.

  She took a deep breath and muttered, “Yes. I heard that there were eight clans in total but now, only four.”

  “These creatures hang out at Dark Sepulcher?”

  “Not all of them. Majority of vampires hang out there.”

  “And the main reason you came back to Minneapolis is to look for your mother, right?”

  “Yeah.” Veronica walked from the kitchen carrying a coffee, sugar, and cream on a tray.

  “Oh.” He soaked up the information like a wet towel. “That explains a lot.”

  She stood in front of him. “What do you mean?”

  “The people I saw at the club doing weird shit to one another.” A look of confusion returned to his face. “I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry for what?” She said as she handed the cup to him. “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t believe there was a chance.”

  “I don’t know.” He sipped the coffee and cradled the cup in his hand. “I guess I’m sorry for what you have to go through.”

  Veronica opened her mouth to speak, but he quickly interrupted.

  “I always thought this city was a little weird.” He chuckled. “Boring, but weird.”

  “Well, every city has its secrets.” She drew a long sip from her mug; the hot, sugary coffee warmed her chest on the way down.

  “If you need my help with anything, Veronica, I’m here. Unless you want me to kill one of them and—well, I’d have to sit that one out.”

  She watched as doubt clouded his face. “Oh no.” She laughed, and he smiled sheepishly, his eyes crinkling in a way that warmed her as much as the coffee. “I wouldn’t do that. I’m not here to kill them.”

  “What if one of them turned your mom?”

  Veronica swallowed hard. The thought never crossed her mind. She didn’t have a plan if she found her mother sired. The thought of it made her cringe. It wasn’t possible.

  She stared into her mug, watching the cream swirl into the murky darkness. The attack at Dark Sepulcher wasn’t a setback. She still had to move forward, starting with checking out the burned house again to see if it could have been a Deamhan sanctuary, but she couldn’t leave Murphy in her apartment by himself. She looked at him again as he sipped from his cup then stared down into it. How his beautiful eyes lit up when she described the Deamhan to him and the way his tongue had a sexy way of peeking through his teeth when he pronounced the “th” sound.

  “You listening to me?”

  Veronica flinched. “Y-yes. I’m sorry.”

  “You drifted off there. Where did you go? Are you okay?”

  She cleared her throat and felt heat rise into her face. “You can sleep on the couch.” She stood up, took a few steps down the hallway, and then stopped. “I was just thinking. I—I have to go somewhere tomorrow. Want to come with?”

  “Deamhan search?” he asked.

  She nodded slowly. “Something like that.” She chewed her lip then straightened her shoulders. “So you want to come?”