Chapter One
“Quick, say something Scottish!”
Mac paused with his glass halfway to his lips and sighed. Here? Here in the middle of the desert in a town he hadn’t even caught the name of? Was there nowhere he could go to get away from these idiots?
Turning away from the bar, he took in the skinny fan in the faded Shifting Reality T-shirt and the camera phone being held up to his face, its red light flashing.
“Och and Aye,” he muttered obligingly, lifting his glass to his lips while his other hand reached out to crush the phone with a speed that made the man gasp. “Now be a good lad, forget you ever saw me and fook off.”
He sent a forceful mental suggestion, not blinking until the dazed man turned and slowly shuffled away.
That was a stronger command than he’d intended. Poor boy probably wouldn’t remember his name for a day or two. He hated doing it, but it was necessary and he was in a foul mood. Being on camera was the last thing he wanted to think about at the moment.
Someday Mac really was going to kill Thomas. The damn cat had ruined his life. His dark, endless and, until recently, unrecorded life.
Thomas had already been a difficult roommate, coming and going at all hours, shifting in the penthouse and shedding all over the furniture. But it had been manageable and, Mac had to admit, life had been more entertaining with the shifter and the demon’s spawn around.
For a while.
Then Thomas had made him famous against his will, revealed some fairly classified information in order to meet his paramour and, now that he had her, had promptly disappeared to some undisclosed love shack until all the movie chaos died down.
The movie. The worst decision Mac had ever made.
When Thomas created Shifting Reality—an online video blog he’d started out of sheer boredom—his goal was to share what he was with the world. What they all were.
Mac believed it would never amount to anything, that it would disappear amongst the insanity and wild imaginings that filled those blasted machines Saint could control and most of humanity was now addicted to.
Instead, the blog had spread like a virus and was considered to be one of the most popular reality shows online. So popular that the “contest” they’d had—inviting people into Mac’s ancestral home in Scotland and allowing them to see for themselves what they were—set records. Interviews with the contestants who were present had piqued outside interest. Too much interest.
He took another drink and shook his head, unable to believe he’d gotten personally involved in that madness by the end. For what? For Thomas and Margo? For true love?
“Hah,” he muttered to no one in particular.
After it was done and they’d all agreed to sign with a particular production company for Thomas’ mate’s sake, Mac believed it was settled. But then the snooty bitch Margo used to work for decided she could retire by selling the rights and announced it before talking to them. An all-out bidding war had ensued, sparking more media attention than anything that had come before. More trouble. Far too widespread for Mac and Saint to clean up alone.
Thank you, Thomas.
Now the major studios were vying to make the star-studded sleeper about a shifter, a demon half-breed and a vampire revealing themselves to the world and finding love online. The last Hollywood rag he’d read before he left California had mentioned that Gerard Butler was angling to be cast as the curmudgeonly Scottish vampire with the heart of gold.
Mac grimaced. Good scripts must be hard to find.
A majority of people still believed Mac, Thomas and Saint were actors taking advantage of the popular paranormal trend. There was even an angry online petition demanding to know why the original cast was being shafted for bigger names.
Most of the world thought they were fictional characters. Most…but not all. And it was that small percentage that had sent Mac away from his castle—which since the show had become a fucking tourist attraction, with his ghostly but loyal housekeeper, Esther, standing guard. It had also driven him away from his comfortable penthouse apartment in Los Angeles after the manager had slipped several disconcerting notes under his door about his wife’s unusual fantasy—something to do with body glitter and handcuffs.
It was that percentage that had initially set him to wandering like a homeless vagabond, desperate to find a world without Wi-Fi. Without cable. Preferably without people. This bar in the middle of the Nevada desert had two out of three.
Good enough.
Not that he was hiding from anything. Vampires did not hide.
Saint, that snarky demonic bastard, would no doubt argue that hiding was all a vampire did. From the sun, from dangerously bitter exes who were angry for being turned. He’d say that lurking in shadows and huddling in coffins were prerequisites.
“Demons might be exhibitionists,” he’d often smirk. “But vampires are the kinky sharp-toothed voyeurs hiding in the closet.”
Mac snorted, finished his scotch and mentally corrected his absent friend. He was no voyeur, and the goal of his kind had never been to stay in the dark—but to hide in plain sight, saturating the media with fiction and embracing the clichés. That was the one true way to ensure any “witnesses” would be treated with skepticism. It was why he’d been upset, but hadn’t taken drastic action when Thomas had decided to come out. Why he’d believed helping the shifter get his girl wouldn’t cause any lasting harm. Hell, at the time, he’d had several vampires begging him to be on “the show”, so he’d assumed he was making the right call.
Deception and misdirection had always been key to the vampires’ survival, and even as Mac scorned that aspect of what he was, he knew he’d practiced both. That was how he’d continued to re
main in his home, to retain his wealth…to survive. The only creatures vampires were meant to be utterly forthcoming with were their own kind.
If someone had ever asked him to compare the vampire community to a human group? It would be the mob. If you were a “made man”—in the more literal interpretation of the word, of course—you were in. And once you were in, you followed the rules or faced the consequences. Bullshit excuses, even if they were true, were pointless.
The latest rumor he’d heard on the vamp grapevine was that they were no longer amused by Shifting Reality. They wanted explanations. They wanted his head on a platter along with the death of everyone involved in the online revelation that they hadn’t sanctioned. The one they couldn’t blame on large studios with exquisite special effects and Hollywood stars.
“Good fucking luck with that.” He tilted his glass in salute, knowing there was no way they could get their wish without creating a worse public relations nightmare. This genie couldn’t be shoved, beaten or drained back into its bottle. At least, not until the spotlight had turned away from them and onto another shiny toy.
Meanwhile, if anyone tried to touch his friends or the women they had finally found happiness with…there would be consequences. Mac knew as long as he was on the move, their attention would be focused entirely on him, which was the point. He was the more appetizing bait. The real traitor.
Two of their hunters had already failed and wouldn’t be trying again any time soon. Fucking demons for hire—a classless and desperate move in Mac’s opinion. If “they” wanted him, they could get up off their dusty arses and come for him themselves instead of hiring soulless thugs.