shrugged one shoulder. “What can I say?”
Eyes narrowed, she stared at him. Was she like those other women? There was no denying that even knowing what he was, she’d been attracted to Quill almost from the beginning.
Before she could ask any more questions, the waitress returned. She placed a large basket of breadsticks on the table, then took their orders. Callie decided on her usual, spaghetti and meatballs. Quill opted for lasagna and asked for a bottle of red wine.
With a wink and a smile, the waitress left to turn in their order.
“You look upset,” Quill remarked. “Is something wrong?”
“Are you using whatever it is that’s attracting the attention of all these other women on me?”
“What?”
“You know what I mean,” she hissed. “You’re a . . . you know. Are you using some kind of supernatural aphrodisiac to make me care for you?”
Quill scrubbed a hand over his jaw, amazed that she’d even thought such a thing. Not that he didn’t have the power to control human thoughts. When he fed, he always erased the memory from his prey’s mind. He had wiped the incident from Callie’s memory, too, for all the good it had done. He still didn’t understand why it hadn’t worked. But he’d never tried to use his preternatural power to make a woman care for him.
“Is that what’s bothering you? You think I’ve used some kind of love spell on you?” He shook his head. “Believe me, Callie, if you have any feelings for me, they’re all your own.”
She reached for a breadstick, her brow furrowed thoughtfully. Maybe he wasn’t doing anything. He was, after all, a remarkably handsome man. If she thought so, it seemed only natural that other women would think so, too. Glancing at some of the men the other women were with, Callie couldn’t blame them for staring at Quill. He was easily the best-looking guy in the place.
“Callie?”
She looked up at him, feeling foolish.
“Do you believe me?”
“I guess so.”
They made small talk over dinner. It wasn’t until they were in the car again that Quill brought up the subject that had been nagging at him. “Tell me about your family.”
Startled, Callie stared at him. “My family? Why?”
“I’m just curious about you,” he said with a negligent shrug. “About your past.”
“Oh. Well . . . my parents died when I was six and I went to live with my Grandma Ava. She’s really the only family I had.”
“What about your other grandparents? Didn’t you ever see them?”
“No.” She shifted uncomfortably, remembering how hurt she’d been when they cut her out of their life. “My Grandpa Henry thought I was a changeling because I’m left-handed. He was always looking at me strangely, as if he was waiting for me to put a curse on him or turn into some kind of . . . I don’t know what. It got to be an obsession with him. After my parents died, he refused to have anything to do with me and wouldn’t let Grandma Martha visit me, either. She sent me money in birthday cards and Christmas cards for a few years, and then they stopped.” Callie blinked rapidly to stay her tears. “I guess she passed away.”
“But you were close to your other grandparents.”
Callie smiled. “Grandma Ava’s husband passed away before I was born. But I loved living with her. She was so good to me, although I have to say she was a little eccentric. When I was a little girl, I was sure she was a witch.”
Ava. Quill frowned. Was it a coincidence that her grandmother’s name was the same as that of the witch he had known so long ago? He shot her a quick glance. “What made you think that?”
“Oh, she and her friends used to dance in the backyard on nights when the moon was full. Sometimes I watched them from my window and I could hear them chanting, though I couldn’t understand the words. She used to sing and make weird signs over me at night when I went to bed. She said it would protect me, but she didn’t say from what. I asked her a couple of times, but all she said was that someday I’d understand.” Stifling a grin, Callie glanced at Quill. “Maybe she was protecting me from vampires.”
“Maybe she was.” There was no humor in his tone. Or his expression.
Callie stared at him. She had spoken the words in jest, but suddenly they didn’t seem so funny.
There was an abrupt shift in the atmosphere when Quill said, “I think she was a witch.”
An icy shiver skated down Callie’s spine. “Why would you say that?”
“You said she cast a spell of protection on you.”
“Yes.”
“It worked.”
“What do you mean?”
“That first night when I bit you, I wiped the memory from your mind. And still you remembered. There’s no one living, except for my own kind and the Knights of the Dark Wood, who know of my existence. I had intended to silence you. Permanently.”
Callie’s eyes widened in disbelief. “You were going to . . . to kill me.”
He didn’t deny it. “But I couldn’t. Now I know why. Whatever protective spell your grandmother cast on you all those years ago very likely saved your life.”
She shook her head. “It isn’t possible. None of this is possible.”
“Whether you believe it or not, I know witches exist. I’ve met a few.” And he was more certain now than ever that Callie’s grandmother was the witch he had known decades ago. They looked the same. They tasted the same.
“Why didn’t she tell me? Maybe not when I was little for fear I might tell someone else. But why she didn’t she tell me later, when I was old enough to understand?”
Quill shook his head as he pulled up in front of her house. “I have no idea.”
Callie stared at him. If vampires were real, then why not witches? It was all too much to take in. Vampires. Witches. Knights of the Dark Wood. What next? Werewolves? Zombies? Little green men from Mars?
“I’ve got to go,” Callie said, anxious to be alone with her thoughts.
“We aren’t finished, you and I,” he said as she opened the car door.
Heart pounding, she grabbed her handbag, stepped out of the Jaguar, and ran up the porch steps. Key in hand, she tried to unlock the door, but she was shaking so badly, she couldn’t fit the key into the lock.
And then Quill was standing behind her, taking the key from her hand.
She felt his breath against her cheek as he leaned past her to open the door, the brush of his fingers against hers as he handed her the key. When she stepped over the threshold, he closed the door behind her.
She
