“It’s okay now,” Mae said, even though she didn’t believe that at all.

None of this was okay. Had she just shot a gun? And what the hell had that shadow thing been? And why—

“Are you hurt, too?” Tallah demanded. “Does he require a healer?”

“No, I’m all right.” Mae put her arms out and looked herself over. “Nothing stings or hurts.”

“And I’m perfectly fine,” Shawn cut in.

With a groan, he got to his feet. And then, addressing Tallah, he said in the Old Language, “It is my honor to make the acquaintance of a female of worth. I am Sahvage, and forgive me for my intrusion into your home.”

As he spoke, he put his hand up to his sternum and bowed low. Like he was in a tux, and they were in a ballroom instead of the cottage’s cramped front sitting area.

And what do you know. Tallah suddenly looked like a Disney Princess being presented with keys to a castle.

“Sahvage, your presence is most welcome and appreciated in this manse,” she replied with a brief curtsy in her housecoat.

What the hell, Mae thought. Why didn’t I get the fancy treatment?

Then again, Tallah’s inflection, whether it was in English or the Old Language, was totally aristocratic—there was only one set of vampires who sounded like she did. And clearly Shawn—Sahvage—had experience with them. Or was one of them.

Sahvage? she thought.

Then again . . . what else could his name be.

“So what happened outside?” Tallah asked as she clutched her hands to her housecoat’s bodice.

“Nothing,” Mae answered quickly as she stood up.

Tallah narrowed her eyes. “Well, that certainly explains the gunshots, doesn’t it.”

Shawn—no, Sahvage—looked toward the closed front door. “We need a barricade. Do you mind if I move that?”

Tallah and Mae both turned to the Jacobean cabinet that took up the entire side wall. The thing was made of old oak that was thick as the outside stone walls of the cottage—and maybe heavier.

“I guess I could help you?” Mae said.

“Nah, I got it.”

He walked over to the eight-foot-tall, six-foot-wide piece of carved furniture—and stretched his arms from end to end. Then he sank down into his heavy thighs, took a deep breath, and—

Mae really expected the cabinet not to move.

Wrong. With a creak of protest and plenty of wood groaning, the hutch allowed itself to be carefully lifted off the ground. Then Sahvage eased it into a shallow tilt that meant all of its weight was on his chest . . . and walked the thing over to the front door of the cottage. His breathing deepened, inhales and exhales pumping in and out of his torso, but other than that? He was totally in control of the impossible load he was carrying.

And when he had it in place, he set the thing down like it was a feather, the feet reconnecting with the floorboards not on a slam but with a whisper, the old wood groaning again.

Sahvage straightened, clapped his hands as if his palms were a little numb, and pivoted around. After two breaths, he was back to normal. Like he hadn’t just bench-pressed a car.

“Shutters for the windows,” he said as he looked at Mae. “I need your help getting them all down. We have to secure the glass, and how many more doors to the outside are there?”

She was still so astonished by his feat of strength that she couldn’t immediately respond. Her brain had gone to places that were sublimely unhelpful . . . like what else he might be able to do with that body of his.

And no, she wasn’t talking about vacuuming or a little light housework.

“What exactly is going on here,” Tallah said.

Mae shook her head to clear her thoughts. “We’ll take care of everything. Don’t worry.” She glanced at Sahvage. “And yes, ah . . . there’s a back entrance out in the kitchen. And there’s also a storm door down in the basement, but that’s steel and totally reinforced in the locked position.”

He nodded sharply. “I’ll take care of securing the kitchen. You start on the windows.” He turned to Tallah and bowed. “Forgive me for the disorder of your house, madam. But it is necessary to secure your safety and security.”

Tallah blushed like she was sixteen and being asked to slow dance. “But of course. Do as you wish.”

“My many thanks unto you.”

Mae went across and hitched a hold on to the female’s arm. “Sit down over here. I don’t want you to pass out again.”

As she settled Tallah into an armchair, Sahvage started pulling shutters into place on his way to the kitchen, locking the rolling panels into hooks mounted on the sills. The fact that dust flew from the drapes as he pushed them aside made Mae realize that the safety precautions for the sun hadn’t been getting pulled and raised on a regular basis for a while.

So Tallah had been spending her days in the basement, alone, without being protected if she had to come upstairs. If there was a fire. If there was a problem.

“Stay here,” Mae said as her heart broke.

Rushing into the kitchen, she tugged the sets of shutters down and clipped them securely—over the sink, by the table, even the little ones in the pantry and the loo off to the side.

When she came out of the bathroom, she stopped dead.

Sahvage was pulling another of his snatch-and-grabs, this time with the refrigerator. And he might as well have been moving a toaster oven across a counter for all the effort he seemed to be putting in.

“Wait! The plug!”

Just as the cord stretched tight, Mae lunged for the outlet and yanked things free so that the prongs weren’t bent or worse, snapped off.

“Thanks,” he said casually.

To avoid staring at the size of his back and shoulders, she focused on the footprint of dust and grime that had accumulated under the Frigidaire.

“My kingdom for an industrial-strength Roomba,” she muttered.

“How about upstairs?”

Pivoting, she found him clapping his palms again, and as she measured that torso, and those legs and those arms, she resented how handy it could be to have a hunk of muscle like that in the house. Especially when, you know, something that was out of this world came at you on the front damn lawn.

Mae glanced to the table where the remnants of teatime were still on display—along with the ingredients of the summoning spell as well as the empty silver dish.

What had they called to the cottage? she wondered with fear.

“I’ll do her resting room on this floor,” she said. “And get us an extension cord for the fridge.”

“Any problems with me going upstairs?”

“No.”

She meant to get moving as Sahvage headed to the front for the staircase. Instead, she looked back at the table. The vinegar bottle, the salt basin, and the crushed lemon, along with that paring knife and the silver dish, were an all-wrong she wished she could undo.

In Tallah’s ground floor quarters, Mae closed the shutters—and as she heard Sahvage moving around upstairs, the fact that sawdust filtered down from the floorboards overhead made her think she should move the elderly female in with her and Rhoger. For one, there was an obvious concern if Tallah didn’t remember, or didn’t have the energy, to maintain her safety shutters for the daylight hours. But for another, unless there was some serious investment in the cottage, she was worried about its structural integrity—