Page 55 of The Vampire’s Temptation

“There you are.” Tyler came up from behind them and pulled Toni toward him as if she were his trophy wife. “Is Kenton meeting us inside?”

Before she could reply, Tyler knocked on the door three times. To any casual tourist, the nondescript door in the middle of an otherwise abandoned alley would certainly not be an attraction. But to those in the know, it was one of Stone Haven’s quirkiest attractions.

“Password?” someone grumbled from the other side of the door.

“Keystone.”

Well, this would be interesting.

The door opened to a small, dark room with no more than three tables, all empty, and two regulars sitting alone at the bar. It smelled of peanuts and stale beer. Walking toward the back of the room, Tyler knocked on yet another door and gave a new password. They strolled through the door, passing the bored-looking attendant, and climbed up a set of narrow stairs.

Amendment 18.

Some said it was the oldest bar in Stone Haven, a Prohibition-era throwback. The second floor opened to an opulent space. Glass-topped cocktail tables were arranged before an entire wall of skulls, and a dozen or so patrons sat at the bar or on plush couches. Red lanterns and jazz music completed the atmosphere.

The space had always reminding her of a darker, more secretive Witch’s Brew.

Sans the comforting coffee smell, and with plenty of alcohol.

“The usuals?” Tyler asked them.

And that was when she saw him.

Amendment 18, notorious for rarely hiring new bartenders, since the owner claimed he was the only one who could make the cocktails, had been upgraded for sure. Lawrence Derrickson stood behind the bar in a crisp white shirt, black tie and suspenders.

Toni followed her gaze to the bar and visibly paled.

“I tried to tell you,” Alessandra whispered as Tyler made his way up to the bar and to the guy behind it. They weren’t the only ones staring, but Lawrence was staring back at them. Before Tyler could notice, Alessandra waved him and Toni off, saying, “I’ll get the first round.”

Toni, for her part, managed to gather herself enough to hide her shock and led Tyler away from the bar.

Alessandra shot off a quick text to Kenton, telling him where to meet them, and approached the bar.

“So you got the job?”

He pulled out three glasses. “Dealer’s choice?”

She nodded.

“I would never harm you, Alessandra.”

The remark, so casually tossed out, took her by surprise. She closed her eyes, having learned that the cold tickling her spine came more easily when she concentrated.

Nothing unusual.

“You’re learning to harness your abilities,” he said, flipping bottles and pouring liquor into the glasses with the ease of someone who had done this before. “That’s good.”

As she watched him work, Alessandra thought back to the morning they’d met. In fact, she’d thought quite a bit about every word both he and Kenton had said to her in the last week.

“That day on the path . . . you told me you could keep running as long as I could.”

Lawrence wasn’t the kind of guy who startled easily. But she didn’t miss the way he fumbled the bottle after she blurted out her observation.

“What did you mean by that?”

He’d already known she was Cheld when they’d met, which put a new spin on their first conversation.

“I’ll take whatever you’re making.”