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I'D FALLEN ASLEEP cuddled between two of theacross their naked bodies so I could touch the third All three of them hen I fell asleep, but when my phone woke me hours later, only two of the bodies in the bed were still warm The only vampire in the bed had died when the sun came up a mile over our heads in our nice safe cave of a bedrooreat for vampires, but if you were afraid of the dark or didn't like the idea of tons of stone pressing down on your head, well, you couldn't sleep with us

I scrambled over Nathaniel's aled in on the bedside table, but when the screen came on it was his phone, not mine, because his lock screen was a picture of the three of us and eot one to voice mail

Micah asked in a voice thick with sleep, "Who was it?"

I squinted at the bright screen in the very dark roonize the number, or hell, the area code I think it's international Who the hell would be calling me from out of the country?"

Nathaniel snuggled against the front ofhis face between my breasts, as he tucked hi, but since he was both the heaviest sleeper and the most likely to talk in his sleep, I didn't pay much attention

"What time is it?" Micah asked, his voice less sleep-filled and closer to awake

"Five am," I said I clicked my phone to black and tried to put it back on the bedside table, but Nathaniel had pinned me and I couldn't quit

e reach

"We've only been asleep for three hours," he said in a voice that was starting to sound aggrieved

"I know," I said I was still trying to push e of the table with a now fir me down

Micah wrapped his arm around my waist and Nathaniel's back and pulled us both closer to him "Sleep, must have more sleep," he said with his face buried between my shoulders If I didn't slide down into the covers soon, they'd both be asleep and I'd be pinned with ht was about fifty degrees; I wanted ave one last push to ht back up, which ood with it on the floor Screw it, I was going back to sleep

I had to force both h room to slide down between the to drift back to sleep to the sounds of their even breathing when , George Thorogood's "Bad to the Bone" It was the personalized ringtone for one of my best friends, Edward, assassin to the undead and fellow US Marshal Ted Forrester Interestingly, Edward and Ted were the same person; think Clark Kent and Superman

I flung the covers off all of us and scra for the phone that was glowing in the pile of clothes beside the bed I hit the button and said, "Here, I'm here!"

"Anita, are you all right?" Edward's voice was too cheerful, which was all the clue I needed that he ith other police officers ould be overhearing everything

"Yeah, I'ood You sound awfully chipper for five a cold outside the body heat of the bed I started to fu that was uys' clothes

"It's eleven am here," he said

He wasn't home in New Mexico then, so I asked, "Where are you?"

"Dublin"

"Dublin what?"

"Ireland," he said

I sat naked and shivering on the floor, scooping through the pile of clothes aroundto make a nest, and tried to think I failed, so I asked, "Why are you in Dublin, Ireland?"

"For the sa you, Anita"

"Which is?" I tried not to get irritated at hier to tell anything Edas far more abrupt Yes, they were the sa to get hiood idea

"Vampires"

"There aren't any vampires in Ireland It's the only country in the world that doesn't have them"

"That's e all thought until about six weeks ago"

"What happened six weeks ago?" I asked, trying to burrow myself into the clothes on the floor for warmth

Someone from the bed above me threw my robe on top of me I told whichever of my leopards had done it, "Thanks"

"They had their first vampire victim," Edward said

I slipped into the robe, using ainstnaked, but silk isn't really very war with a little more heat retention, but it was hard to find sexy and warm at the same time "Vampire victim, so dead?"

"No, just a little drained"

"Okay, if it was nonconsensual blood donation here in the States the vaes, but if it was consensual it's not even a crime"

"Vaaze wiped her memory of it," he said

"If the vareed that the vaet the whole vampire experience, then it's treated like you let someone drink too ain it's not even a criment"