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.