The sun had been a white, dead eye peering through a thin blanket of gray clouds for hours. Now it dropped onto the rooftop of the Victorian house, spread a gold and rose hue, and sank out of sight.

Was the sudden flash of beauty a good omen? If it was, then it was a farewell, the last sunset Elizabeth would ever see.

She stepped into the shadow of the porch, and the front door opened at the same moment. Not the meager crack begrudged strangers, but all the way back, so that the man who opened it stood fully framed in the threshold.

Vanessa had told her not to look into his eyes, but habits of a lifetime couldn’t be broken based on a plan less than a week old, a plan based on something Elizabeth hadn’t even believed in before that.

Deep velvet blue above the pupil lightened into a paler blue below it, like a sky at sunset, the layer nearest the ground holding onto the light even as the upper strata released it and embraced the night. The deeper color held her, drew her in, the light of the sun forgotten. An overwhelming sense of heartbreak and loss swept over her, an unshakable certainty that whatever was about to happen was something meant to be, something larger than the very large thing that had brought her to his doorstep. Her hand missed the rail, but Elizabeth wasn’t afraid. He was here, he would catch her.

He didn’t. Her knees hit the boards like door knockers and her hands flew out to catch herself. A splinter speared her palm and the pain lanced into her brain, chasing the moment of illusion away.

“Are you all right?” he asked, not moving. A voice with a hundred different resonances, all from deep within the earth, capable of everything from sensual warmth to the distant, freezing politeness Elizabeth heard now.

She could get past that. Her reaction to his gaze was the first indication that he might be what she thought he was. Elizabeth scrambled to her feet. “Yes, I’m fine. I’m just a bit dizzy, that’s all.”

“Dizziness is to be expected when you’ve sat in the freezing rain all day long, spying on someone’s home.” His eyes swept her. “Don’t you know vampires wake at dusk? You could have shown up at sunset and saved yourself the wait. I’d have answered the door with a dramatic, ‘I’ve been expecting you’.” He braced his hand on the doorframe, shifting to one hip. “I’d have worn my red satin-lined cloak, if I could ferret out where I put it.”

Elizabeth took a few steps back as he came out onto the porch. Michael M. Royal looked disconcertingly non-vampirish in faded jeans and bare feet, but rumpled hair, denim and sleepy eyes aside, the man emanated power. And it didn’t come just from the broad shoulders and muscled biceps, accentuated by the stretched soft jersey fabric of his gray t-shirt and his crossed arms. Dark hair fell to his shoulders, feathered layers around an archangel’s face; each plane sculpted, masculine perfection.

“Moira called me,” he added.

“She,…what?” Elizabeth took another step, back onto the walkway. He sat down on the top step and stretched, yawning hugely, revealing a razor sharp set of fangs. He cracked his back, flexed his fingers, then settled his chin on his hand, contemplating her with interest, as if he hadn’t remembered ordering dinner delivered.

“Moira informed me that I should expect Elizabeth McKenzie on my doorstep at nightfall and I should listen to what she had to say, and not for a moment think of sucking her blood, unless,” he leaned over, flipped open the brass mailbox mounted on the porch railing and retrieved the contents, “Unless, of course, you decide that it’s necessary in order to accomplish what it is you’re here to accomplish.”

“Mr. Royal, I—“

“Oh,” he flipped idly through the circulars in his lap, “she also added that if I should prove to be a nasty, diabolical chap, she and the rest of her coven would seal me in my coffin with a binding spell and I wouldn’t see a full moon ever again.”