Clare stopped walking and looked at him. She wasn't exactly a state secret of any description, but she was no longer quite so sure he would just blindly believe her. h.e.l.l, she had no idea if the roles were reversed if she would believe him simply because he was devastatingly gorgeous.

"Hi there," she imagined the conversation back on Earth would have gone, "I'm Simeon Montague, a vampire originating from the Planet Owa.n.u.s and I've traveled through time from 2206 to come and be with you."

Clare snorted. Sure, if anyone had accosted her in the park on her way home from work one night and told her that, she'd have either screamed and run for her life, or run away while calling the local psychiatric clinic on her cell phone.

Simeon merely waited patiently, happy for them to both stand there in the middle of the street while she debated with herself. Clare shrugged to herself. It wasn't as if she needed Simeon's approval or anything, so what the h.e.l.l did she have to lose by being honest?

"I don't really understand how I got here," she began, "but Gav seemed to think a tome I was taking home from the library where I worked thought I should be in this time and place, and it brought me here. I really have no idea of the mechanics behind it, as it makes a really lovely old book seem sentient or something, but that's the truth in a nutsh.e.l.l. I'm from Earth, about two hundred years ago or so."

Clare shuddered slightly as the words rang in the air between them, sounding truly bizarre. She shook herself, her hair swinging in its long ponytail.

"The original Earth," she added almost as an afterthought, "that NewHope Earth was named after. I know this all sounds a little kooky-even for this bizarre place, but it makes as much sense as anything else I've managed to come up with. Because I really am here, and neither Gav nor Alderic had a clue how to get me back home."

She waited while she could visibly see Simeon try to digest this information she had handed him. The simple fact he tried to digest it, not simply call the national or galaxy security company, or the local cops, had her feeling even more warm toward him.

If she had been home, and some kook had dropped in unannounced and declared himself to be from another time, or another planet, no matter how gorgeous he had been, she'd have thought him a nutcase.

"A tome brought you here?" Simeon finally said, not exactly disbelieving, but more as if he wanted to confirm he understood her words.

Clare shrugged, reminded herself of her mental image of herself running away screaming. Give the guy a chance, you idiot, she reminded herself. You're asking him to possibly change his philosophy of life and the universe here, not just introducing him to some weird aunt no one acknowledges outside the family. "Does it sound any more weird to you than holographic screens?" she asked quietly. "Or computers in your watch? Or purple fake water supplies? Or -"

"These things all sound weird to you?" he said, a laugh in his voice, but no longer with much disbelief.

Clare looked over Simeon's shoulder, not wanting to look at him as she said her piece.

"I lived in the twenty-first century," she reiterated. "This is the twenty-third century. Try wrapping your mind around that one, there's literally a ton of stuff I am trying to pick up in a matter of months, not centuries."

Clare couldn't help herself, she looked up into the darkest brown eyes she had ever seen. Simeon watched her, seemed to be wrestling with himself. Finally he simply smiled at her, took her hand in his much larger and warmer one and continued walking.

"That sounds awfully like Gav," he said, sounding almost cheerful, "to find and take in the only woman ever known of time traveling. From the twenty-first century, huh? You must tell me one day about the Beatles. Michael insists...well, that's a different conversation. How rude of me to bombard you like that. Tell me about this tome instead." Clare laughed happily, pleased and slightly stunned at Simeon's easy acceptance of her and her background.

"I presume the book was something musty and ancient if Gavreel was interested in it?" Simeon continued as he gently squeezed her hand and sent tingles up her arm.

Clare enjoyed the sensation of a huge wash of not only relief, but also heat running through her for the first time since she had arrived. Sure, Gavreel and Alderic had believed her, but both men had almost seemed to know about the idiosyncrasies of the tome. She had just seemed to be an extra to them.

Simeon had no reason to believe her, yet he seemed to genuinely trust her and her words. "That tome wasn't musty at all," she replied with a wide grin and her best "haughty librarian" tone. "We keep everything very well dusted back at the library."

Simeon snickered and Clare winked at him, enjoying the easy banter between them.

"It was, I must admit," she added, "very old and from what I read of it very detailed. I can see you must give your father h.e.l.l for his love of books."

Clare felt her stomach turn over at the sound of Simeon's deep laugh.

"Oh, he gives us h.e.l.l back," the handsome vampire a.s.sured her. "We're a close family. It's one of the reasons I got so worried when he hadn't contacted us for a while. But I digress. Tell me about this tome. Anything that can apparently bring beautiful women through time is a good thing, but surely you'd have wanted to go back to your own time?"

Clare felt sad for a split moment, and then shrugged it away.

"I don't even know how the tome got me here in the first place. Gav, Alderic and I all tried really hard those first few days, tried everything we could think of to get me back home. Nothing worked." Clare shrugged, the sadness and frustration, the faint tinges of panic she had felt those first few days almost nonexistent in her anymore.

"Both Gav and Alderic read the tome cover to cover," she added. "It's just an ancient text of the history and civilization of vampires as well as much of their-I mean, your-folklore."

Clare waited to feel the struggle with her feelings of homesickness. Every time those first few weeks when Gav and Alderic had insisted she talk over and over, explaining what her world was like, what her life had been like, she had wanted to scream and cry, wanted to tear into something.

She blinked, amazed she no longer felt the rending, shattering pain her strange journey here had previously caused. Sure, she still felt an ache inside her chest, knowing she would never meet up with her few friends, never see her small apartment or her brightly colored potted plants again. But the feeling of utter desolation and despair no longer haunted her.

Clare felt a huge grin cross her face, pleased beyond everything she finally was coming to grips with her dislocation.

Before she could laugh or start to sing her joy and pleasure she noticed Simeon was leading her to a small garden, built on the side of an old-looking structure. Faux red brick, slightly crumbled and looking almost like a building back home, instantly made her feel soothed, far more at peace than she had felt in her previous three months.

"I've taken us the long way back to my lodgings," he confided with a grin. "This is considered the 'old' division of the city. It only holds a few crumbly structures with an 'old-world' feel, but I thought you might enjoy it."

Clare looked around. While she still evidently was not back at home on Earth, she could well believe this small block of houses and gardens was the closest facsimile on the planet, if not in the galaxy.

Just as she was about to give him her thanks, Simeon interrupted her.

"I figured even if this didn't make you feel better, the garden and water feature always soothes me when I'm upset."

Clare felt her heart melt a little. She grinned as Simeon led them both to a bench near the small fountain. She sat down next to Simeon and regretted for a second the loss of the warmth his hand.

Clare clasped her hands together to remind herself not to reach for this vampire. She felt a deep desire to retake his hand in hers, but she didn't want to appear too bold, or worse, desperate.

Instead, she watched entranced, as he ran a hand through his hair, mussing it beautifully. He continued speaking, and Clare had trouble keeping her burgeoning feelings under control.

"I hope you don't mind about the delay here, but I just got the feeling you might want a bit of time to chat before we get back to my lodgings."

Clare blushed slightly, hoped the mind block between them extended enough to keep her growing s.e.xual attraction secret from the vampire. She watched the fountain for a moment, the sun shimmering on the pale violet-blue water subst.i.tute.

She remembered her confusion at Simeon telling Alderic how he couldn't read her mind. She tried to form her question, and then decided just to talk through it, hoping she wouldn't commit a social faux pas.

"Look, I'm just going to apologize up front here. I'm not meaning to be rude or overly inquisitive, but neither am I sure if I'm following whatever rules of etiquette you have."

Clare took a deep breath, refusing to blush or stammer when Simeon merely raised his eyebrow again, obviously trying not to laugh at her stilted wording and phrasing. Likely he was now far more intrigued by what she wanted to say than she had meant to make him.

"I'm just curious," she started again, clenching her hands tightly together, "I know that vampires can read minds. I also know that both Gav and Alderic have tried really hard to show me some privacy, but yet particularly those first few days when I was just so out of my depth they said it was like my emotions and thoughts were just shouting at them. They had to make a concentrated effort to not read my mind. Yet, you told Alderic that you couldn't read my mind at all."

Clare took a deep breath then looked back from the soothing water feature to the vampire. The very slight breeze toyed with a few strands of his hair, all perfectly straight, if only slightly mussed. Clare squeezed her fingers more tightly together, resisting the urge to run her hands through those strands to prove to herself just how silky they were.

Instead of helping her, however, Simeon merely raised an eyebrow and smiled. She knew he wasn't reading her mind, the few times either Gav or Alderic had touched her mind she had been able to feel them.

She recalled it felt uncomfortable, but not exactly painful. Like soft fingers pressing against her skull, her brain, trying to gain entry. It wasn't the act of mental penetration she worried about, it was the thought of Simeon being able to read her every thought that had her queasy with nerves.

She felt nothing, plus she was firmly holding the image of a wall in her mind, a tall, impossibly tight wall. Even though she knew it would take months, if not years, of practice to really create an impenetrable fortress in her mind, she knew she would be able to tell if this vampire were touching her mind, reading her thoughts and worries.

He mightn't be trying to read her mind, yet he wasn't going to make this conversation any easier on her either.

Clare frowned, gnawed on her lower lip again.

"You could try and help me out here," she teased lightly. "I know I'm trying really hard to block you, to not let my uneasiness bug you, but I just don't understand-"

She blinked and stopped what she had been going to say when Simeon merely snorted at her.

"I can't penetrate your mind. At all. You can be as uneasy or project to me as much as you like. With you, my dear, I'm driving blind."

Clare felt her stomach drop again as the ramifications of his words. .h.i.t home with the sudden recollection of her first reading the vampiric tome.

"You can't read my mind?" she repeated with panic. "Not at all? Wait! I'll get rid of my mind block..."

She felt her hands shake slightly as he laughed, with no sound of humor. She remembered vividly how, in the tome she had read seemingly forever ago, it had stated the main sign of a partner to a vampire was that their mind was impenetrable.

She blinked again, completely thrown by what this could mean. Her mind simply could not wrap itself around the thought. Instead of panicking, she clasped her hands together again, more tightly now, determined not to show any signs of weakness to him.

"Your mind block is there, darling," Simeon replied gently, "but it's nowhere even close to being enough to stop me if I wanted to. It's your innate ability that is stopping me."

Clare stood up in a rush. The tranquil water feature, the gorgeous sigh of almost familiar green trees and shrubs, the soothing atmosphere all suddenly seemed an utter waste of time. Upset, she spoke louder than she meant to, causing a couple sharing shots of some green-looking liquid on the other side of the street in an outside cafe to look at her oddly.

"I have no innate ability!" she screeched, wincing at the almost desperate, cracking cadence of her voice.

Lowering her voice, forcing herself to get a grip, Clare took one deep breath and made herself calm down somewhat. Hysterics would not help her any.

"This is so not happening," she softly chanted to herself. "Gavreel could read my mind, Alderic could read my mind," she continued at a more normal tone.

"I think there's something wrong with you," Clare scrambled blindly for any other explanation, "or maybe you're just not trying hard enough. This is not going to happen. I'm just...me. That's all! Not some bizarre half souled-circle woman."

Clare took a deep breath, pivoted on one foot and stalked out of the garden. Even though she had no real idea of where she was, at this moment anywhere was preferable than considering she might be able to complete this vampire's Soul's Circle.

She had no problems with Simeon whatsoever. She would even seriously enjoy having a fling or an affair with him.

But right at the back of her head, buried deep under her stubbornness and pride, under her fear, she had plans of going home, returning back to her own time and place. She had no clue about how she would get there, and no real way of knowing even if she could. But deep in her soul, she knew the second she became attached to this vampire, if she completed his soul, merged her own with his, there was no way in h.e.l.l she could even have the chance of getting back to her normal life.

She felt her shoulders slump in defeat as she could feel Simeon come up beside her, take her hand gently once again in his own. His hand felt so big, his palm and the arm he slung casually around her shoulder felt solid, warm, real.

For a slim moment Clare could genuinely believe the rest of this crazy world was but a dream, and Simeon and she were the only real things inside it.

Clare walked in silence, grateful beyond measure Simeon didn't talk, and just let her thoughts wander. She took a number of deep, clear breaths and was perfectly frank and honest with herself for the first time since she had looked up to see an alien landscape in front of her eyes.

She had nothing to go back "home" to.

Her apartment was rented, and likely out to someone else now. Her job-much as she loved it-was not exactly earth-shatteringly important. No one would really mourn her loss.

To be brutally honest, while she missed the monthly girls' night out drinking, or the odd emails and phone calls from her few scattered friends, she wasn't exactly sobbing her heart out over not being able to see her friends anymore. She missed having female companionship, and she hated feeling like she was from another time and place, but she had adjusted far better and easier than she could possibly have believed or guessed.

Clare hadn't realized until just that moment just how deeply she had harbored the hope of returning home. Until just then returning home had been a wistful hope, not a bone-deep, driving need.

Merely the knowledge she might not be able to have the choice of returning had sent her in a blind panic, but Clare wondered if it were more the lack of choice that had panicked her, and not the loss of her homeland.

Not that she had ever been a particularly contrary creature, but the absence of a choice often made one desperate for anything that wasn't being forced, she rationalized.

Almost all of her small number of friends either had such important and obsessive careers they only really gathered together for the monthly girls' night out, or they had their own partner and children to worry about and rarely even made it to the night out.

Clare smiled wryly. Likely most of her "friends" hadn't even noticed her absence in the last few months.

And so why the need to escape? she questioned herself silently. Surely here was as good as anywhere else?

Clare sighed again, a deep sound coming straight from her soul.

"Share your thoughts?" the soft masculine voice tempted her. Clare glanced at the handsome man whose arm was wrapped around her. She hadn't even noticed, but she seemed to be leaning in to him very slightly.

In less than an hour, he had shown a lot more caring and compa.s.sion toward her than almost anyone she had ever known. Only Gavreel and Alderic had showered her with similar attention. And this was Gavreel's son, she reminded herself.

And so she started talking, slowly at first, but once she had begun, the words simply seemed to pour from her. She talked about her life back on Earth. She explained how depressing it was to realize there wasn't really very much to return home to-no real friends, and no real family, not even a pet to miss her strange pa.s.sing.

When she saw a flicker of pity in Simeon's eyes, she laughed.

"Oh no," she rea.s.sured him, "I'm not some pathetic loser who wept into her comforter every evening, waxing poetic about love lost and love to come."

Clare laughed at the thought of her weeping every night in the solace of her bed. She had felt dissatisfied with her work and to a lesser extent of the rut she had been in, yes. But been upset or depressed? Certainly not!

"I quite enjoyed the bar scene every now and then," she confided with a cheeky grin, "and I managed to find a surprising number of men eager to have no-strings-attached flings. But when I found myself here and the road to get back home wasn't easily found, and to all appearances would never really be found, Gav warned me it might not be easy..." Clare simply trailed off and shrugged.

She tried to order her thoughts coherently so she could get her meaning across to Simeon.

"Why go to so much effort and angst to get back home," she started again slowly, "when likely I can find an equal amount of happiness here than I could back there? Okay, so libraries as I know them are a thing of the past, but there is plenty of work with Gav and Alderic, who seem to genuinely enjoy my efforts. Besides, everyone I have come into contact with through the Book Nook has been wonderfully patient and understanding while I've learned the ropes, and continue to do so."

Clare shrugged again not really sure what else to say. She didn't want to try the tricky and highly contradictory explanation of how while Earth had been all she had ever known and her very comfortable and much-loved home-after ending up here and getting over the shock that followed, she had always instinctively known she could be just as happy here as on her lost home world.

"I'll get used to it all," she concluded with certainty, "and honestly, in large part I think I have settled in quite well already. I'm thinking about maybe traveling inter-planet next year sometime."

Clare grinned at Simeon as he looked slightly startled, but simultaneously proud and interested. She was about to talk more about some of the destinations she had been cautiously researching recently, but Simeon turned them both down a side street and led her up to a blue building.

She watched, deeply intrigued as he pressed his palm on the side panel, which caused the large, heavy and ornate-looking door to open. Simeon stood back gallantly, allowing her to enter ahead of him.

As Clare stepped over the threshold of the huge dwelling, she could feel an uncanny sense of peace, and an incredibly strong atmosphere of "coming home" settled around her as she entered the warm hallway.

"I certainly can't swear my brothers will be patient," Simeon said hesitantly, "or give you any time to adjust to their zillion-and-one questions, but with luck we won't b.u.mp into them just now. Let's go through to my quarters and I'll cook you up something hot and filling."

Clare brought her mind back to the task at hand and found herself looking wistfully at him. For just a split second, the sense of peace and homecoming had been so strong, so overpowering she could have sworn she had momentarily woken up from a dream to find herself back at her little apartment.

"I bet you don't have steak and potatoes, do you?" she asked with a sigh, already knowing the answer would be no. Steak, she had discovered, had become obsolete nearly a hundred years ago, and potatoes were now manufactured, not grown in soil.

She felt her breath catch at the twinkle in his eye. In that instant, he turned from a patient, kindly bloke into an impish rogue. Once again Clare felt her heartbeat accelerate and her breath hitch.

"I feel confident I can rustle up something to tempt you, my dear."

Smiling wickedly, letting an answering glint enter her eyes, Clare let the vision of her stripping the green shirt from Simeon's chest enter her head. Enjoying the heated rush of her blood singing through her veins as well as the first truly entertaining fantasy her imagination had come up with on this new planet, she continued the fantasy.

Clare felt her blood sing and pump hotly through her body as she built up the fantasy, the image of herself spreading Simeon's dark green shirt over and down each of his shoulders, revealing a wide, lightly muscled chest with small, hard, dark brown nipples.

She imagined the sense of accomplishment and hunger she would feel as she unveiled his chest to her ravenous gaze. She idly wondered if he would have any hair over his chest or not, or whether his skin would be dark, or the same lightly tanned shade of his face and forearms.