Free Only Human by Candace Blevins Page A

area. Not just Chattanooga, but most of the southeastern United States. He’s quite powerful.”
    “And what does he want from me?”
    “He is intrigued by you, and this has not happened for a very long time.”
    “And if I turn him down, is he going to vamp out on me?”
    “Vamp out?”
    “Stop avoiding the question. What happens if I don’t call him back? Will he come after me?”
    “I do not know what will happen. I do not believe you are in danger of harm from him, but I also do not believe he will allow you to walk away with no further contact. He will talk to you at the theater, and he will likely continue to try to court you.”
    Court me? Please . Aaron occasionally came up with what I considered out-of-date words and phrases, too. Apparently, this was a common thing amongst ancient supernaturals. “And you don’t believe he was trying to trick me into breaking my word?”
    “No, my lady. I believe he felt you could tell he was vampire and thus would have no problems talking to him about it. It’s a bit of a conundrum that you can stop us from entering your mind, and yet you can’t tell what we are.”
    “Speaking of which, can Abbott read minds? Or does he just read auras?”
    “Miss O’Shea,” he said, his voice a warning, “you ask dangerous questions.”
    “Yeah, it’s like a gift. Are you going to answer my dangerous question?”
    “I think it best if you ask this of Abbott.”
    “Is the danger to me for asking, or to you for answering?”
    “The latter.”
    “Okay, one more question and I’ll let you go. You said he’s the Master Vampire of the Southeast. Does he have some sort of title? Is there a formal way he should be addressed?”
    “Again, you ask dangerous questions. I will not tell you the formal wording. I will tell you his name is his title, though. He is The Abbott .”
    His speech was so formal, I felt the need to be flippant to balance things out, so I said, “Oh, well. Alrighty then.”
    I’d wondered if Abbott was perhaps only a few hundred years old, because his name hadn’t been in use before then. It didn’t make sense he’d be younger than Kieran and Gwen, and this explained it — assuming his name changed when he took the title. Or, perhaps when he moved to an English speaking country? He spoke as if English were his first language, but I had the sense it wasn’t.
    I set the phone aside and stared at the wall as I thought. I wanted to be able to talk to Aaron about this, but with the wording that I couldn’t tell anyone about vampires, I wasn’t sure how to bring it up. The odds are he knew they exist, but I still couldn’t tell him, or even ask. Perhaps I could get him to meet me at the theater when I knew Abbott would be there? Or, perhaps he’d recognize Abbott’s name and I wouldn’t have to tell him anything. I grabbed my cell phone and called him.
    He answered with, “Hello, gorgeous.”
    I laughed and replied, “Hi, sexy. How are things going?”
    “Other than these murders, you mean? At least there haven’t been any other supernatural emergencies. I’ve handed off the entire half-demon problem to someone I trust, and there’ve been no full-demon problems, which you know because if something’d come up you’d have gotten a call to come help. How are things with you?”
    “Oh, you know, the usual — working and being a mom and spending way too much time sitting in the back of a theater during practice, and, oh, being romanced by a sexy, rich man.”
    “Whoa. You’re being romanced? Someone in that obscene lifestyle of yours, or are you going to break someone else’s heart when you discover they aren’t demented?”
    Ouch. Aaron and I had dated once, but it turns out he’s only insanely dominant outside of the bedroom, so our sex life pretty much didn’t work out. He usually just teases me about being demented, but this sounded like maybe things were a bit more raw than I’d thought. Or, maybe he was just having a bad day. I’d