Seriously?" I shrugged. "He can't suspect much if every time we're alone instead of talking I have my way with him." Cole shook his head. "You don't think it'll work?" I asked. He rolled his eyes. "Vayl might be a vampire, but he's also a guy. Who's about to be deliriously happy. Good God, if you work this right, he won't even be mad if finds out because of the way you decided to hide it from him.

Do you even know what hammerd means?" I asked. "Something to do with drinking your American beer out of a hole in the side of a can?" Dave reached over and slapped him on the shin. "Close enough.

Are you suggesting we pull a little good cop, bad cop scenario on him? And You're even letting me be the bad cop?" He bowed his head. "That, my pretera, is how much I love you." "You have never been sexier than at this very moment." "It is a shame we have so much company," he agreed quietly.

And then it hit me. One of those evil thoughts siblings get because, well, that's what we do. Looking over my shoulder I said, "You know, since you have some free time, maybe you could...never mind." "What?" "Well it's just that, all those calories you've been drink - I mean - not burning off have kind of settled on your gut. I didn't want to mention anything," I said as Dave's hand stole to his midsection. "But the general pointed out that you'd lost a few steps training-wise." I laughed and waved my hand. "I'm sure it's nothing switching to a light beer won't cure.

Fear sucks. Because you never know when it will attack. Sometimes it sneaks up behind you, giggling like your best girlfriend from seventh grade. Then it whacks you on the back of the head, takes you straight to your knees before you realize what hit you. Other times you can see it coming, just a dot on the horizon, but you're like a canary in a cage. All you can do is hang in there and hope you don't get motion sickness and puke all over the newspapers.

So of course that was the moment my motherboard decided to do a short internal scan, throw up its hands, and screech, “Dear Lawd, a VAMPIRE has taken mah blood!” and initiate a general shutdown.

Cool! Now I can steal some rich old coot's Ferrari and go fishing for marlin with the same piece of jewelry.