Page 24 of Midnight Kiss

Whoever had made this ward was an amateur. Usually, Hunters warded thoroughly against both vampire magic and vampires in their physical form, but this one had rushed the job.

My magic felt toward the kitchen counter and hit a wall.

The object, the source of the ward, had to be there. In the kitchen. So, it wasn’t that the ward couldn’t stop magic. It was just that it was too weak to stop it entirely unless it was in close proximity.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t pull the book out of the apartment without the door being open.

But perhaps …

I sent the magic through the living room, seeing everything as if I was the magic itself, and down the hallway, seeking. Emily’s bedroom door was shut, and I slipped through the keyhole again, pouring myself into her space.

The skin on the back of my neck prickled at my proximity to her. A low tug dragged my magic up the bed and onto it.

She slept in a silk negligee, one arm thrown over her head, delicately, and her auburn hair strewn across her white pillow.

I itched to touch her, even now, to slide magic up her thigh toward the edge of her negligee, beneath it, to the warmth between her legs. To pleasure her so that her dreams were sweet and full of me, of cries of my name.

But if I was to have Emily, I would have her when she was awake, and she could claw at my back and hold onto me like I was all that mattered.

You won’t have her.

My magic slid up the desk in front of the window and found the book. I opened the cover with difficulty, the distance from my body weakening my sway over the magic.

Emily moaned softly on the bed.

In the hall, my frame stiffened. My body tensed.

“Alexander,” she murmured. “Alexander, please.”

I wasn’t touching her. My concentration waned, and a cool sweat broke out on my forehead. I forced myself to turn a page of the book, and her groan was louder this time.

“Please!” Emily cried out and sat bolt upright in bed, clutching her chest and gasping.

Her gaze moved toward the book, and I opened my eyes, stepping back and retracting my magic instantly. She hadn’t seen. She couldn’t have.

I’d been here too long, regardless. I would return tomorrow, and I would have the book, whatever the cost.

9

EMILY

“Just a weird dream,” I muttered, as I fixed myself a cup of coffee, blinking back my exhaustion. It was nine in the morning, but I’d been moving around my apartment like a zombie since I’d woken up.

All night long, I’d been plagued by dreams that didn’t make sense. Dreams about the book on my desk—blood leaking from the pages, flashes of memories that weren’t mine, and then, I’d woken up in the middle of the night, and I could’ve sworn the book had been surrounded in red light.

The light had disappeared almost instantly, but it had been there. Hadn’t it?

I pressed a hand to my forehead and came away with a damp palm. Why was I so sweaty? Was I coming down with something?

I drank the coffee, sitting at the kitchen counter, and stared at my notepad. I’d brought it and the book with me from the bedroom. I grabbed a pen from the holder and considered the book. I needed to get it back to the library as soon as possible, but even the thought of taking it back made me uncomfortable.

As if taking it back would be dangerous or something. But that was absolutely ridiculous.

Still, I couldn’t help connecting the strangeness that had recently taken place with this book. The minute it had landed on my desk in the library, things had started happening. The guy who had dropped out of nowhere in the library, and the attack at my apartment building, and then meeting Alex, and feeling sick, and Michael’s behavior.

“Get over yourself. You’re actually crazy for thinking that,” I muttered, and finished the last of my coffee. I made quick work of showering and getting ready for work, noting how pale I was in the bathroom mirror, and then grabbed the book off the table and started toward the door.

Nausea gripped my stomach, and I stumbled, groaning.