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expect the slayers I fight with to be capable of defending themselves.”
    She sighed. “I suppose you do. I will meet you there after the queen has gone to bed. Good night, Sir Rhys.”
    “Good night, my lady.”
    He watched her leave with a certain grim set to his mouth. He’d meant what he’d said. If she couldn’t fight, he wasn’t going to expose her to the Vampires. He absently touched his lips where her sweet scent still lingered. He would keep her safe—whatever it cost him.

Chapter 4
     
    “B efore we start, Sir Rhys, there are a few things I wish to ask you.”
    Verity saw the reluctance on Rhys’s face, but she continued anyway. She had no wish to fight him, and in her mind the longer it took for them to come to blows, the better. She looked around the dank underground cavern beneath the queen’s chapel to which he’d led her. Despite the heat of the summer evening above, it was as cold as death.
    Rhys straightened, giving her a fine view of his open shirt and the pale skin of his chest beneath it. “What exactly do you want to know?”
    He’d shed his doublet and heavy waistcoat and wore only his soft leather breeches and the billowing white shirt. His sword belt completed his attire. He was currently lighting candles around a large open space.
    “About Elias Warner. Why do you consider him a friend and why does he seem to know my cousin Rosalind as well?”
    Rhys sat down on the trunk of weapons he’d shown her earlier. “Elias helped us defeat a rogue Spanish Vampire and Anne Boleyn and her brother.”
    “But why?” Verity noticed that Rhys’s gaze was fixed on her legs and she decided to sit as well. She had donned her brother Jasper’s clothes, which still felt strange, but there was no way she could fight Vampires in her cumbersome skirts. “Why would he help us?”
    “Because he’s adept at surviving the treacherous world of the Vampire Council and he’s not averse to using anyone or anything to achieve his goals.”
    “And yet you said you trusted him.”
    “As far as any Druid can trust any Vampire.” He met her gaze without flinching. “A Vampire like Elias who has survived for almost four hundred years and is prepared to fight on your side is well worth following. Even when he doesn’t really wish to save you, he will, if it preserves his own life.”
    “He scares me a little.”
    “He should. Elias is a very dangerous man.”
    “Yet he also knows about my cousin Rosalind’s marriage.”
    “Aye, he always had a strange fondness for Rosalind.” Rhys rubbed at something on the hilt of his sword. “And of course, Christopher is . . .” His fingers stilled. “Well, let us just say that the ties between Elias and Christopher run deeper than you might imagine.”
    “Would Elias harm them?”
    He looked up. “I shouldn’t think so. He was the one who suggested that the manor house at Avebury was a safe place for them to live.”
    “Avebury . . .” Verity mused. “Is that where they live?” She pictured the large stone circle, some of the stones shaped like diamonds, other as uneven and rugged as the side of a mountain. To her it had always felt far more powerful than the rigid perfection of Stonehenge.
    Rhys’s expression hardened. “You do not need to share that information with every Druid you meet, Verity. I would prefer it if Rosalind and Christopher could live in peace from both the Vampires and the Druids.”
    “I would not betray them. Despite everything, Rosalind is my cousin.” He looked skeptical and she hurried on. “Sometimes I have no love for our Druid customs myself.”
    “And why is that?”
    She held his gaze and offered him half the truth. “Because even before she married that Druid killer, Rosalind was always treated unfairly simply because she was a woman and a slayer.”
    “That is true.” Rhys nodded and shifted in his seat. “Now, if you have finished asking questions, perhaps we might proceed?”
    Verity held out her hand. “I have