"Have you heard of a vampire having a cat?"

Jane pushed her chair back from her desk and regarded him with her vividly green eyes. "What's going on?"

"Have you met the new waitress?" he asked, sitting forward in his chair, resting his hands on the polished wood of her desk. "Wilhelmina?"

"No. Is she the reason you're so agitated?"

He wasn't agitated. Then he glanced down, realizing he was gripping the edge of the desk. He released the wood and slid back in his seat. He wasn't agitated. He was-confused. He had no idea what to make of Wilhelmina. He could sense emotions from her that didn't make sense. Anxiety, even a little fear-yet a very strong determination too. He had the feeling there was a lot going on in her head that she wasn't sharing.

"She's different," he said.

Jane nodded, a shrewd smile on her lips.

"Oh no. No, no," Sebastian said, waving a hand, knowing where her thought processes were going. "Different in a weird, and very unappealing way." Even as he said the words, he knew it wasn't true. He noticed appealing things about her, far more appealing than he'd expected. But she was not different in the way Jane was thinking.

Jane's eyes widened. "I've never heard you talk that way about a woman."

Sebastian frowned. Jane was right. He appreciated all women, and his words had sounded more than a little rude.

"What woman?" Sebastian's brother, Rhys, appeared in the office doorway. He leaned on the doorframe, arms crossed over his chest, sporting a look much like the one his wife had worn just moments earlier.

"Damn," Sebastian muttered, "I swear people in love are worse than drug pushers. You are always trying to get others, who are quite happily single, shackled to someone. It's damned annoying."

Rhys grinned at his brother, a gesture that still gave Sebastian pause. After nearly two centuries of scowls and general brooding, the fact that Rhys now readily smiled managed to startle Sebastian almost every time.

Rhys stepped around the desk to Jane and reached for her hand. She slipped out of the chair and into his arms.

"You should really try it. You don't know what you are missing, baby bro."

Jane grinned and added in her best "pusher" voice, "Yes, try it. What? Are you scared?"

Sebastian rolled his eyes as his brother and sister-in-law grinned at each other and then kissed.

"Room. Find one. Now," he muttered.

Rhys pulled away from Jane, but his gaze didn't leave his wife's face. "My thoughts exactly."

Jane smiled impishly, the grin somehow naughtier on her innocent features.

They left the office hand in hand, leaving Sebastian in the office, forgotten.

"I'll be doing the same thing later tonight," he called after them. "And it will be just as good."

He leaned toward the door and added loudly, "Better even."

Jane's laughter was his only reply. A melodious, and altogether disbelieving, giggle.

Sebastian snorted, then rose to move to the other side of the desk. He settled down at the computer,

minimized the payroll program that Jane had been working on, and opened the sales report. He started to

peruse last month's numbers. But quickly the columns of figures blurred as he thought about both Rhys and Jane's happy smiles. He did appreciate the love between his brother and Jane. Still, that didn't mean he wanted the same thing in his life.

Unbidden, a memory of Wilhelmina's small smile appeared in his mind, rather awkward and stiff, yet somehow endearing in its valiant attempt. He wondered what her real smile looked like. Would it be sweet? A little naughty? A bit of both.

He frowned at the computer. Why was he thinking about this? He wasn't interested in the vampiress. She was weird with bad hair and glasses. What vampire wore glasses? And she owned a cat! Everyone knew cats didn't like vampires.

He determinedly refocused on the document on the computer screen. He had enough to think about without thinking about Wilhelmina. She did have the softest skin he'd ever touched. He growled, pushing away from the desk. What was his fixation with this new waitress? Why did he find himself remembering the most unimportant details about her?

"Because you need exactly what your brother's getting," he stated aloud to the empty room. Well, not exactly what his brother was getting. He needed fun, dirty,uncommitted sex. Then he'd have control of his wayward thoughts.

The bass of the dance music in the club thumped in muffled repetition. A call to find his companion for the night. He punched off the monitor and stood just as Nadine appeared in the doorway. A frown pulled at her dark brows and created creases on either side of her wide lips.

"What's up?"

"Health inspectors are here," she said, seeming a little confused.

"Health inspectors? Why?"

"Apparently, they got a call stating we have a rat problem."

"What?" He strode out of the room, heading to see what this was all about.

Wilhelmina made her way through the crowd to where Sebastian stood talking to a man and a woman near the doorway that led to the employee lounge and back storerooms. Both the man and woman wore business suits, and didn't look remotely like regular patrons of the club. The woman reviewed a paper on the clipboard she held in her hand.

The health inspectors. That hadn't taken long. Wilhelmina couldn't contain the smile that tugged at her lips as the woman wrote something on the paper. Probably the notice saying that the club would have to be closed down until the rat problem was resolved. She stepped closer, trying to hear the conversation. "We're sorry to have to take up your time like this," the man was saying in a raspy, almost breathless voice. His suit coat barely buttoned around his paunchy middle. The health inspector was hardly the image of good health himself.

Sebastian smiled at the man. "Well, you have to do your job."

Wilhelmina frowned. He was taking this too well. He had to be furious that his business would be closed indefinitely.

She edged a little closer.

"But it's unfortunate to waste your time, and ours, when there are obviously no health code violations here," the woman muttered and scribbled something else on her clipboard.

No violations! Wilhelmina stepped closer to the group. What was the woman talking about? There were a dozen rats roaming the backrooms. How could they have missed that? "Can I do something for you?" She startled at Sebastian's question. He frowned at her. "Is there something you wanted to ask me?" Hugging her empty drink tray to her chest, she shook her head. "No. Um, no." She hurried off to the bar, her mind still trying to wrap around the fact that the health inspectors had found nothing. Nothing.

That couldn't be. She stopped at the drink pick-up area at the far end of the bar, setting her tray down, still staring at the group. Sebastian spoke to them, another gracious smile on his full lips.

Wilhelmina shook her head, as if she could somehow shake away what she'd heard.

"Do you have an order for me?" Nadine asked, jarring Wilhelmina's attention from the trio.

"I-um. Yes." She rummaged in the pocket of her dress for her order pad. She tore off the top sheet and handed it to Nadine.

The bartender scanned the list, then nodded. She hurried away to fill the order.

Wilhelmina looked back over to see Sebastian walking the health inspectors toward the front entrance.

She fought the urge to chase after them, to demand they check again, more closely. The rats were there.

She knew.

But she couldn't do that. Not without giving herself away. And she wasn't prepared to out herself in front of Sebastian. Not even for the cause.

"Long Island Iced Tea, a Screwdriver, and two merlots." Nadine placed the cocktails on her tray. "Thanks." Wilhelmina's gaze never left Sebastian, who still chatted with the two inspectors. Wilhelmina's eyes narrowed. She wanted to scream. Was Sebastian Young the most charmed vampire in existence?

"Wondering who the two suits are?" Nadine asked.

Wilhelmina nodded, not wanting to give her any reason to suspect why she was watching them so intently.

"Health inspectors," she whispered. "They got a call saying that Carfax Abbey was infested with rats. Crazy, huh?"

Wilhelmina nodded again, even though she didn't think it was crazy at all.

"We'd be the last damned place in New York to have a rat problem," Nadine murmured.

"Why?" Wilhelmina asked, surprised by the bartender's certainty.

Nadine leaned closer, so no one could hear. "Everyone knows that rats are terrified of preternaturals.

And with the amount of preternaturals in this place, we are more effective than any exterminator. No vermin would come within a mile radius of this place. Not even a damned cockroach."

The tall woman straightened and grinned like the whole thing was the funniest joke ever.

And Wilhelmina supposed it would have been pretty funny, if she wasn't the butt of the joke-again.

Chapter 5.

"Hey, this isn't my drink."

Wilhelmina stopped midstep and turned back to the table surrounded by a mixture of humans and what she suspected, if the men's sizes were any indication, alpha werewolves. The huge, heavily muscled man who'd spoken to her gestured to his drink. The cocktail on the table in front of him was pink with cherries and a purple umbrella. Definitely not the kind of drink a burly lycanthrope would order.

She quickly picked the glass up and placed it back on her full tray. She frowned at the drinks, guessing his was the pint of porter.

She carefully placed the dark beer before him and waited, hoping she'd guessed right. She had. He nodded and lifted the drink to his mouth, swallowing half the beer in one gulp.

She smiled stiffly and headed off to deliver more drinks, guessing at all of them, because her thoughts were not on her job but on the fact that she had again bungled her sabotage attempt. Why was she so clueless? Of course, if she understood herself and her kind better, she would have known about this.

If you do it right.Suddenly Lizzie's comment made sense. Lizzie had known how the rats would react. Wilhelmina obviously hadn't. But she should have guessed that the released rats would just run, leaving the nightclub altogether.

Equally as pathetic as her own ignorance was the fact that rodents had more sense than the humans she was trying to help. But the rats hadn't been told from birth that things that went bump in the night weren't real. They functioned solely on instinct. Not a bad thing.

She paused at her next table, trying to recall what the patrons here had ordered. Was it the wines or the beers?

Finally, after much debate, she just asked them. They told her the beers, which she placed before them and then moved along toward the next table.

"Can you believe that someone called the health department on the club?"

Wilhelmina stopped and turned to see Greta, one of her coworkers, standing beside her. Greta was all that a vampiress was supposed to be: beautiful, graceful, and seductive. Her Swedish splendor only enhanced by her undeath. But tonight, her ever-present, beguiling smile was missing.

"No," Wilhelmina finally said, trying to mimic Greta's amazed expression.

"Thank God they didn't find anything," the tall blonde said, hints of her Swedish origins lilting her words. "I can't afford to be without this job."

She leaned closer to Wilhelmina. "I need the money, and this is the only place I know of in the city where my secret is absolutely safe. It's not easy to be what we are and find a good job."

Greta sighed, then glided away to take a drink order from a table of mortals, the males and females alike watching her approach with appreciative fascination.

Wilhelmina stared at her for a second. Then her gaze moved to Crystal, another stunning vampiress who also waited tables. Then to Charlie, a lean handsome vampire who carried a huge tray high over his head. Constantine, a large Greek werewolf, held a post at the top of the upper level of the club, arms crossed over his broad chest, watching to be sure no violence erupted in the club below. David, or Dr. No as he called himself, a short thin human danced behind the large stereo system, a padded earphone pressed to one ear as he lined up the next song, which would begin as soon as the current dance song faded away.

There were at least twenty-five or more employees working tonight. All of them, with the exception of Dr. No, a preternatural of one kind or another. And Dr. No was so different, he didn't even seem quite human.

For the first time, she considered that these individuals, despite their preternatural fate, needed their jobs. They counted on them.

Disgust filled her that she'd never considered that fact when she was planning her attacks on the club. She should have. After all, she was no longer the sheltered, naive heiress, who didn't understand the ways of the real world.That was long gone. But she'd been so intent on stopping Sebastian that she'd lumped her coworkers together with him and his purpose for this club, when they were really just here for a job. Here to survive.

How had she overlooked that fact? Was she so focused on seeing this place closed and mortals saved that she was willing to hurt those of her own kind?

Not only that, she liked her coworkers. Even though she so obviously didn't fit into this place, they had accepted her. Perhaps it was because she was a vampire, but maybe it was something more. She didn't know. But she had intended to interrupt, and ultimately destroy, their source of livelihood.

"Hey," a man at the table a few feet away from her called. "Are those our drinks?"

She blinked down at the forgotten tray balanced in her hands, then nodded.

"Sorry," she said as she placed their drinks before them. This table was all vampires. Hungry vampires. Their need heavily scented the air, made it almost pulse.

She quickly stepped away from the table, their hunger making her skin crawl. The hairs at the nape of her neck stood up, and she shivered. Suddenly she remembered that kind of intense, frightening hunger focused on her. And the pain that followed.

She hurried on, not looking at them again.