Our weekly Melrose family dinners at Clarence's had become painfully awkward since the recent additions of Neil and my little sister to the ever-expanding family tree. Conversation was usually stilted between everyone but Adrian and Jill, who used these meetings as a chance to reconnect face-to-face, and seemed to take our loaded silences as a personal challenge. Today's dinner was Thai, and Adrian and Jill were currently trying to involve everyone in an enthusiastic conversation about our group's chances of survival during a zombie apocalypse.

"Best course of action would be to get to high ground," Adrian insisted. "That's what they do in all the zombie movies and video games. A high-rise building, or a treehouse. Angeline, you'd probably outlive all of us if we were forced to live in a tree."

"No way," Angeline declared, rising to the bait. "I'd get to a cave. My cousin Deborah tried to build a treehouse once. It wasn't nearly as comfy as a nice bedrock."

Eddie pursed his lips, thoughtfully. "If these zombies are essentially dumb Strigoi, would silver stakes work on them?"

"No, no, no," Adrian said with an exaggerated eye roll, "you have to destroy the brain. Come on, Castile, you're going to be our protector during these harrowing times. I need to be able to count on you to bash in a zombie's head while I manfully run in the opposite direction."

I grimaced and put down my spoon. I usually loved Thai red curry, but all this ridiculous talk of reanimated corpses was making me lose my appetite.

Adrian noticed my expression and leaned towards me. "Do you have something to contribute to this conversation, Sage Senior?"

"Just that everything you're saying is complete nonsense."

Adrian grinned. "Please, enlighten us then."

My sister looked up. She hadn't so much as glanced at any of us since we'd sat down, but now I caught a hint of a smile. She liked a good debate as much as I did.

"Well, for starters, your plan to find higher ground is fundamentally flawed," I argued. "If a human corpse somehow did regain the basic motor functions required for it to walk and groan and chew, surely it could climb too."

Adrian pursed his lips thoughtfully. "Okay," he said. His voice was deeper now, thrumming with new determination. It was kind of sexy, the way he'd risen to this intellectual challenge. "What if we set up camp on an island? Pretty much all zombie stories unanimously agree that zombies can't swim."

I scoffed. "So? None of those scriptwriters have ever actually seen the undead – they're basing their speculations of zombie capabilities on modern misinterpretations of ancient mythology and the decay of organic matter. They haven't considered real supernatural forces, and in this case it's completely illogical to apply human biology. We know better – we've seen undead creatures that don't decay. I'm betting that zombies would be just as strong and deadly as a Strigoi."

Adrian and I were staring at each other now, and I was suddenly very aware of how close we were. He'd sat opposite me and deliberately scooted his chair closer to mine when we first sat down. He leaned forward and I could feel his knees resting lightly against mine.

"Touché," he said after a long moment. "So how would you fend off a zombie attack?"

I smirked. "With fire. It's the one method that would effectively destroy both the heart and the brain, killing both a Strigoi and your version of the zombie."

Eddie made a noise of agreement and launched into a new conversation with Neil and Angeline about the most effective ways to use fire against a Strigoi. I barely heard them. Adrian's eyes were gleaming with approval and I knew he was remembering the days we'd spent in the desert with Ms. Terwilliger, practising throwing fireballs. An ancient warrior goddess, he'd called me then. It seemed like a lifetime ago, back when I'd been afraid to touch him, afraid to get too close. Now, it was impossible to go more than a day without his touch. Since we'd returned from the Getty Villa, every moment we spent apart seemed endless and unbearable.

And our too-brief moments together were wasted on keeping up appearances and forcing ourselves to make maddening small talk like this stupid conversation.

Adrian must have sensed my frustration, because his leg bumped mine under the table. "Permission to join Team Sage when the zombie apocalypse begins?" he asked, grinning.

I rolled my eyes, aware of Zoe watching us. "You'd only slow me down," I said dismissively.

Adrian's hand found my knee under the table, his fingers tracing slow, deliberate circles. "I don't know about that," he said, his voice casual but undeniably suggestive. "I think I could be pretty useful."

Beside me, Zoe let out a snort of derision. And just like that, everybody at the table, which had begun to hum with pleasant mundane chatter, fell silent.

Clarence, oblivious as always to the tension in our group, stood up, and began collecting everybody's empty dishes. "Who's for dessert?" he asked, beaming around at us all. I rose quickly, and stacked the remaining plates on my side of the table. Adrian rose too.

"Time for a drink, I think," he said, a little too brightly. He crossed the room and disappeared into the kitchen. I took the rest of the dishes from Clarence, and followed.

The kitchen was empty when I arrived – obviously when Adrian said drink, he'd meant of the blood variety. Clarence's feeder Dorothy was resting in the sitting room after Jill's visit earlier that afternoon. I started washing up while I waited for him to re-appear, trying not to think about him feeding on a human. Strangely, though, it didn't bother me as much as it would have only a month ago.

Two hands on my hips made me jump, sudsy water splashing all down my front. "Ahh!" I cried.

Adrian immediately stepped back. "Sorry," he stage-whispered, looking half alarmed and half amused by my reaction. "I thought you'd be expecting me." He rummaged in one of Clarence's cabinets and offered me a kitchen towel. "I guess I'm lucky you didn't fry me with a fireball."

I couldn't help but smile at that, as I patted myself dry as best I could. Luckily I wasn't wearing white, and in this weather it would dry quickly. Then, as his words about my fireball spell sank in, a new thought occurred to me.

"Hold this," I said, passing Adrian the towel. I muttered the fireball charm, deliberately dampening down the spell's effects when I felt the rush of power course through me. The spell flickered, and then died down to almost nothing. My palm glowed orange with heat, but no flames erupted.

Adrian raised his eyebrows. "Impressive," he said. I smiled, pressing my heated palm against my shirt, which almost immediately began to steam as the water evaporated.

"I've been experimenting with the basics of a few spells," I explained, pulling my hand back and gesturing to my now-dry shirt. "How to increase and decrease intensity. I've found the fireball spell particularly versatile."

Adrian drew closer, and reached for my still-warm hand. When my skin met his, his eyes widened slightly and I knew what he was feeling – that strange, pleasant tingling sensation I always felt in my hand when I performed this spell. He smirked. "This makes me wonder what other ways we could put your spells to good use."

I reached for him, slipping my hand under his shirt as his lips met mine. He let out a quiet noise of surprise when I came into contact with his abdomen, and I grinned into his mouth. "Honing my skill with this particular spell might be vital when the dead rise from their graves," I teased, brushing my fingers lower, over his waistband. "Want to help me practise?"