Free Heir to the Coven by Melissa Leister

gave him a swat on the arm and caught sight of my watch. “How about I call you about the date? I have a meeting I need to get to.”
    “Fine with me, but I owe you a romantic outing since the one I originally planned didn’t work out so well.”
“Because of Anton. Which reminds me, it’s probably better if you plan stuff for us outside the vampire quarter because I have to tell him when I’m entering his territory and that will just lead to a repeat of last night.”
    “I don’t know what is or isn’t in the vampire quarter.”
    “I’ll give you a map.”
    “Not very romantic. I think I can plan a vampire free date without it.”
    “I’ll leave you to it then.” I grabbed the doorknob, but paused to ask, “Oh, before I go, can I talk to the guy that ran the baby story? He needs to make sure he watches his back.”
    “He’s on vacation right now, but I could let you know when he gets back.”
    “Please do. Thanks.”
    “One more thing,” Chris said. He walked over to me and smoothed the collar of my jacket. “This outfit is…ah…”
    “What?”
    “I’m afraid I’ll get my ass kicked if I say it.”
    “Did it get kicked for that desk comment?”
    “No and thanks for that by the way.”
    “You’re welcome, but what about my outfit? I’ll be good I promise.”
    “Being good is not what that outfit is saying.”
    “And what is it saying?”
    He grabbed the lapels of my jacket and pulled me towards him for a kiss. It was a soft kiss, the kind you end a first date that has gone successfully with. Chris’ lips were warm and gentle against mine. No one had ever kissed me this way, like I was a fragile creature that might break or run away if he applied too much physical or sexual pressure. It was sweet and completely at odds with his blatant words earlier. I didn’t know if I could do sweet. Gentleness was not something that I had ever been led to believe was useful or particularly fun, but part of me wanted to try. I kissed him back just as softly and let my hands slide up his arms, across his shoulders and down his back to rest at his waist.
    One of Chris’ hands was at my waist, the other slid up my back to twine in the hair at the base of my skull. Then both hands came up to cup my face in his hands. He pulled back to smile at me. “I think this is going to work.”
    It was a nice kiss, but I was not sure about anything in my life right now. I told him I would see him later and left.

 
     
     
     
     
    Chapter 9
     
    Freud would have had a field day with the house Anton built for himself. The estate I had spent my childhood in would have fit in half of this monstrosity and still left room for the mansion Vincent had lived in plus the coven house. I had inexplicably thought Anton would have taken over Vincent’s old abode along with the city. Maybe it was because I knew I would inherit Rainor’s house along with his portion of the city. Maybe I had too much damn time to think because Anton hadn’t bothered to show up on time for the meeting he asked for. How hard was it to get to a meeting held in your own house? Especially since it was daytime and that pretty much made him a prisoner in said house.
    So here I sat pondering the square footage of the house that an inferiority complex built while gazing at the over furnished room I had been left to wait in. When I got bored with staring at the furniture, I studied my nails. Yep, they needed to be filed back down to look like nails instead of claws. But they made such a nice clicky sound when I tapped them on the wooden arm of my chair when they were pointy. And it annoyed the vampires standing vigil by the door awaiting their Master’s arrival.
    Shortly after I had been shown to what I termed my holding pen, but what was most likely the living room, two male vampires had glided in and shut the door behind them. The one I nicknamed Leather, because he was in a motorcycle jacket, had told me “the Master” would be with me shortly and I