"I wouldn't do that," Victor assured her firmly.

"Really? Why not? You controlled him."

"He is mortal."

Elvi stiffened. "Until five years ago I too was mortal," she pointed out coldly, and then glared. "You know what you are? You're a .. a...

mortalist."

"A mortalist?" Victor echoed. "What the hell is that?"

"It's like a racist only-" Elvi's explanation died in her throat as something suddenly pierced the air in front of her face. Blinking, she stared at the feathered shaft trembling between them, and then followed it to the tip that was buried in the sign on the side of the building beside them.

"What-argh!" Elvi ended with surprise as Victor suddenly pushed her to the ground, coming down on top of her.

Covering her with his own body, he raised his head and peered around, eyes narrowed as he tried to spot the source of the arrow that had just missed them.

"Er... Victor?" Elvi pushed at his shoulder ineffectually. Finally, she gasped, "I can't breathe!"

Victor lifted himself slightly and peered down at her with concern. "Are you all right?"

"Of course. A little bruised from being thrown to the ground and jumped on maybe, but otherwise fine," Elvi said dryly. "Can we get up now?"

"No." He glanced around again.

"Why not?" she asked with real bewilderment and he turned his face to stare at her with disbelief.

"Why not? Has it escaped your attention that someone just shot an arrow at you?"

"Me?" Elvi snorted with disbelief and rolled to the side, knocking his arm out from under him and leaving him collapsing to the ground as she stood and brushed herself down. "If they were shooting at anyone, it would be you. You're the one not from around here. I've lived in this area my whole life without a problem," she pointed out, and then added, "but no one's shooting at us. Why should they? We're immortal and can't die."

Giving up on her clothes, she straightened and eyed him where he was just sitting up on the ground. Hands propped on her hips, Elvi asked, "Didn't you see the business sign next door as we drove past? It's the archery club. Obviously, someone isn't a very good aim."

Shaking her head, she turned and started back around the building.

Victor watched her go, then stood and moved to the trees lining this side of the furniture store. Peering cautiously through the branches, he eyed the lot next door. Sure enough it was an archery club, there were huge targets lined up along the back of the property. His gaze slid over the area, but there was no one there now. He presumed whoever had shot the arrow had gone back in the building.

His gaze returned to the targets, and then he turned to peer at the arrow still sticking out of the bottom corner of the large sign on the side of the furniture store. Victor shook his head. Elvi was wrong. This hadn't been an accident. The bull's-eyes were at the back of the archery property, not along the side behind the trees. Someone had shot an arrow at them.

As for Elvi's argument that they were immortal and couldn't die, it reminded him that he still had some things to explain to her, including their laws and the fact that they weren't completely immortal.

His gaze slid over the lot next door once more, just to be sure no one was there and he wouldn't get an arrow in the back as he left, then he turned to follow the path Elvi had taken, his mind taken up with two questions. Who had shot at them? And which of them was being shot at?

Elvi turned her gaze away from the fire the men had built on returning home from buying her bed and scowled at Victor. Not that he seemed to notice. He'd been distracted since leaving the furniture store, and hadn't seemed to take note of even one of the dirty looks she'd sent his way. That just irritated her more. He should notice she was annoyed with him and care about it, dammit!

The sound of a car engine drew her attention to the driveway in time to see Mabel park behind Alessandro's sports car. As she watched, her friend threw the car door open, leapt out, and slammed the door closed with more force than was absolutely necessary.

Elvi pursed her lips. Judging by the way Mabel stomped up the sidewalk to the deck and then into the house without even a glance in their direction, she may not be the only one annoyed with a member of the male sex tonight.

The slamming of a second car door drew her attention back to the car as DJ rushed up the sidewalk. However, when he went to follow Mabel inside, it appeared the door was locked.

He jerked at it twice, cursed, then stomped down to throw himself into one of the two empty seats by the fire with a muttered, "Women!"

"What did you do to her?" Harper asked with amusement.

"I was nice," DJ said with disgust.

Elvi bit her lip at this explanation, for some reason believing it. After a moment, she cleared her throat, and asked, "She locked the door?"

DJ didn't even glance her way as he nodded.

"I'll go unlock it," she murmured. Getting to her feet, Elvi headed for the deck. It seemed to her that the men could use a few moments alone to jolly DJ out of his morose mood.

They continued to speak in quiet tones as she crossed to the stairs leading to the sunroom. Elvi entered the house there, passing through her bedroom and out into the hall just in time to see Mabel headed for her own room.

"Mabel?" she asked, moving up the hall toward her. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," the gray-haired woman said with forced cheer. "Why would you ask?"

Elvi raised her eyebrows, and then said carefully, "It's just that you seemed a bit upset when you got home."

"Oh. No." Mabel gave a forced laugh as she moved into her room, leaving the door open for Elvi to follow if she wished. "What would give you that idea?"

"Oh, I don't know," she said dryly, trailing her into the room. "Maybe the way you stomped into the house without even a hello to the rest of us by the fire, then locked the door behind you so DJ couldn't enter." When Mabel's only answer was to mutter something unintelligible under her breath, Elvi said, "I thought maybe DJ had done something to upset you?"

Mabel turned with a huff. "Don't even mention the name to me. That man is the most annoying, irritating, exasperating... man." She said the word as if it were synonymous with poop, and then went on, "He shouldn't even be here! He wasn't invited."

"No," Elvi agreed carefully. "But-"

"Do you know he followed me around all day? I couldn't move for tripping over him."

"I think he likes you," Elvi blurted.

"Oh, please! Elvi, look at me." Mabel held her hands out to the side. "I'm an old woman. He's a strapping young man. He is not interested me."

"He isn't as young as you think," Elvi assured her, but Mabel wasn't listening, she was moving into the connecting bathroom.

Elvi followed, watching her bend to close the stopper on the tub, then pour bubble bath in and turn on the water.

Straightening then, Mabel wheeled and continued her rant, "That boy's forever reaching up to grab this for me or hurrying to lift that for me like I'm some useless old woman," she said with disgust, then cried unhappily, "And why does he wear such tight jeans?"

Elvi blinked at the question, wondering if the problem wasn't DJ being attracted to her, but that Mabel was attracted back and distressed by it.

"I told you, I think he likes you," Elvi repeated.

"Stop saying that!" Mabel snapped, spinning on her angrily. "I'm-"

"A beautiful woman," Elvi interrupted before she could insult herself again.

"You're a vampire, Elvi," she said grimly. "You have better eyesight than the rest of us. Now look at me. Look at this wrinkled old face."

"Oh, Mabel, for heaven sakes," she said impatiently. "Yes, you have laugh lines-"

"I have wrinkles," Mabel repeated harshly, then added, "everywhere."

Elvi waved that away as unimportant. "So? None of us look the same as we did twenty years ago."

"You do," Mabel pointed out. "Hell, you look better than you did twenty years ago; you look like you did forty years ago."

"Oh, right." Elvi bit her lip. While she hadn't had a mirror since returning from Mexico, she'd caught a quick glimpse of herself there. She knew she looked young.

"Forget I said that," Mabel said wearily when Elvi just stared at her with helpless guilt, then asked, "How was your night?"

Relieved at the change of topic, Elvi quickly told her about buying a bed and her annoyance with Victor for influencing the manager into delivering it the next day.

"I did call the store when I got home," she announced. "But of course it was closed. I left a message, telling them not to deliver it tomorrow."

"I don't know why you bothered," Mabel said with a shake of the head. "It's not that big a deal. Besides, do you think it will work? I mean, their control must reach beyond simple influence. They must be able to cause some sort of a compulsion in the person. Otherwise, the moment Victor left, the manager would have snapped out of it and cancelled the delivery himself. Don't you think?""I hadn't thought of that," Elvi admitted. "I need to find out more about this stuff, I guess."

Silence fell in the room, and then Elvi glanced at the robe and book Mabel had collected and now held loosely in her hands. She turned toward the door. "I guess I should leave you to your bath... maybe I'll take one myself."

"Good night," Mabel murmured.

"'Night." Elvi slid back out into the hall, pulling the bedroom door closed behind her, then wandered toward her own room. She'd had a shower that morning, but a nice relaxing bubble bath really did sound lovely.

Nodding to herself, Elvi picked up her pace. She had a lovely new bath set she wanted to try. A vanilla bubble bath with a creme brulee body lotion to put on after. She gave a little shiver at the very thought. Elvi loved bubble baths. In the past, the tub was often the only place she'd got a moment of peace and privacy. As a mother and wife, there was always some great tragedy like having nothing to wear to the party the next weekend, or being unable to find the cheddar cheese that brought her daughter or husband to knock on the door.

Elvi smiled sadly at the memories of just such interruptions as she ran her bath. If she'd realized then how little time she would have with them, she would have savored those moments at the time.

Shrugging these thoughts away, Elvi closed the bathroom door, retrieved a bath towel and washcloth, then stripped out of her clothes. By then, the water was only a couple of inches from the top of the tub. Elvi bent to turn off the taps, then stepped carefully into the tub and eased herself into the hot bubbly water with a little sigh.

Oh yes, this was nice.

"I thought Elvi said she was going to unlock the door?"

Victor glanced toward Alessandro as the man returned to the group around the fire. He'd been pretending to listen to Harper regale DJ with their latest adventure in shopping with Elvi, but had really been preoccupied with the best way to make Elvi explain this business of being an "accidental vampire." It was obvious from her reaction last night that she didn't really wish to discuss the subject further than to say that, but it was the reason he was here. He didn't wish to upset her or make her recall what were obviously unpleasant memories, but he had to sort this matter out.

Victor knew he should have sat her down and addressed the issue today rather than allow this latest shopping expedition, but found himself too easily distracted by the woman. She was constantly taking him by surprise, flitting this way or that like a hummingbird in a garden. He found himself running to keep up with her, and eagerly doing what he could to aid her in getting what she needed rather than pinning her wings down to attend to his job as enforcer. This wasn't like him at all. It had been a very long time since a woman had fascinated him so, and he had never once been distracted from his duty as enforcer, not since the day he'd taken on the position more than three hundred years ago.

"Hasn't she?" DJ asked, drawing Victor's attention back to the conversation taking place around him.

When Alessandro shook his head, Victor frowned and glanced toward the upper windows of the house. The lights at Elvi's end of the house had come on a good hour ago. From the brief few moments he and the others had been in her room earlier that night, he thought it was the window in her bathroom. It was still on, he saw now.

He opened his mouth to suggest the man try knocking on Elvi's sunroom door, then closed it again and stood. If anyone was going to bother her in her bedroom, it was going to be him, besides, now was as good a time as any for him to get to the bottom of her turning.

"I'll see to it," he murmured, moving away from the fire.

Elvi had left the sunroom door open when she'd entered earlier, only the screen door was closed and it wasn't locked. Victor peered through the screen to the open door between it and the bedroom, frowning when he saw that the room was in darkness.

Raising a hand, he tapped lightly at the door, waited, then tapped a little louder. When there was no answer after a third knock, Victor hesitated, then slid into the sunroom. She obviously wasn't in her room. He'd just slip through her room, go down and unlock the kitchen door, then find her and have the talk he knew he needed to have with her.

Victor was halfway through her room, heading for the door to the hall when a door on his right suddenly opened. His feet froze guiltily and his head whipped toward the sound.Elvi was coming out of the bathroom, wet hair slicked back from her face and wearing only a towel. A very small towel.

Victor swallowed heavily, all thoughts of talk slipping from his mind as his gaze traveled over every inch of exposed flesh. He started at the top, his eyes dancing over her shoulders, arms, and chest above the towel, before dropping down to slide lovingly over the legs visible beneath. It was short enough to reveal calves, knees, and a good three-quarters of her thighs.

His devoted exploration was interrupted when Elvi apparently spotted him, stopped short, dropped a small bundle she was carrying and let loose a little, startled shriek.

"It's okay," Victor said quickly. "I was just passing through. You forgot to unlock the door downstairs. I knocked, but there was no answer, so I thought I'd just slip through your room to do it."

"Oh," Elvi breathed her shoulders relaxing. "I-You startled me. I didn't expect..." Her voice trailed away and she glanced down at the bundle she'd dropped. Clutching at her towel with one hand, she bent to retrieve the bundle with the other, but something slipped free and wafted back to the floor as she straightened. Victor moved forward at once.

"Here, let me get that." He knelt to pick up the bit of silk, his brain slow to realize they were red silk panties. Recognizing that, he started to raise his face to glance at her apologetically, but his eyes got caught on her naked legs. They were lovely. Pale, but perfect. And there was a drop of water she'd missed while drying. It was at the top inside of her knee and he had the sudden, crazy urge to lean forward and catch it with his tongue.

A small sound from Elvi dragged him back to his senses, and Victor forced himself upright. He held the bit of cloth between them. "Your...

er..."

Flushing, Elvi took the panties from him, murmuring, "Thank you. I'm sorry I forgot to unlock the door."

"Yes," Victor mumbled, his eyes locked on her lips. There was another drop of water just there in the center of her lower lip. It seemed to be taunting him, daring him to capture her lower lip between both of his and suck off the drop.

Her expression was confused and uncertain, but he could also hear her heartbeat and knew it was racing in response to his nearness. As was his own, he realized.

"Victor?" His name was barely a breath of sound, but it was enough to send the water droplet tumbling forward. Before it could roll off, Victor swooped forward, closing his mouth over her lower lip and drawing on it gently, capturing the drop and taking it into his mouth.

Elvi drew in a small gasp of surprise and Victor took full advantage. Shifting, he covered both her lips, allowing his tongue to fill the space between. She tasted sweet and smelled of vanilla, the aroma of home-baked cookies. Victor had an urge to eat her up. It was a reaction he hadn't had since his wife had died and was impossible for him to ignore. Giving into it, he used his tongue to urge her mouth further open, slid one hand up to her head to tilt it, then deepened the kiss even as his other hand slid around her waist to flatten against her lower spine and urge her body forward.

Elvi moaned into his mouth, her own hands creeping to his arms and clutching as he let the hand at her back drift down to the edge of the towel and slip beneath to close over one firm cheek of her behind.

It was the stomp of feet on the stairs leading to the deck that made him stop. Breaking the kiss, Victor glanced toward the open door to the sunroom, cursing himself for not closing it. He released Elvi with an apology and stepped away, pausing abruptly and bending to catch at her towel as it began to drift to the floor. When his hand closed over it, he found his face directly in front of one round breast, it's nipple a puckered rose.

Victor closed his eyes briefly against the temptation, then forced himself upward and wrapped the towel around her. He then placed her hand over it, turned her toward the bathroom and gave her a gentle push back into the room as someone knocked at the sunroom door.

"I'll get that," he murmured, pulling the bathroom door closed behind her. Then Victor took a moment to run his fingers through his hair, gave his head a shake to get it working again, and moved into the sunroom.

Chapter Eleven.

"Sorry," DJ said when Victor opened the door. "We were starting to get worried. First Elvi went to unlock the door and didn't return, and then you went with the same result. We thought maybe something was wrong."

Alessandro nodded from his position on the step below DJ.

"No. Nothing wrong," Victor assured them. "Elvi just forgot and went to take a bath."