by Amber Riley
Back inside, Flo and Stu were standing at opposite sides of the room, Reece and Alex were sitting uncomfortably on the couch, and Sullivan was flicking through television channels.
I carried Lyn inside and dared one of them to say something. They could think what they wanted, but I didn’t want to hear it. I knew it was stupid. It didn’t have to be rubbed in my face. They just had to keep their mouths shut and, right or wrong, accept that it was what it was.
“Is she all right?” Alex asked, sitting up.
I nodded. “She fainted.”
It was awkward standing there. Everyone was purposely not looking at us, and judgment hung thick in the air. I carried her up to my bedroom to delay the conversation that was bubbling under the surface.
I pulled the thick comforter back with one hand and set her down on the cotton sheets. She looked peaceful there, but it would only last until she woke up again. I brushed the hair out of her face and pulled the blankets up around her shoulders. I had created a bigger mess. I sat down on the edge of the bed and put my head in my hands. I stayed there, letting the situation sink in. Then, with a deep breath, I stood up and went to face everyone.
Before I could even make it to the bottom of the stairs, Flo started in. I couldn’t say that I hadn’t expected it. I would have been surprised if she hadn’t. She was always the first to make her opinion known.
“Kaden, what in the hell are you thinking?”
I continued by her and grabbed the duffel bag off the lawn where I had left it. “I know it’s not ideal,” I snapped, walking back across the lawn.
She stood on the porch with her arms crossed and her lips pursed. “That would be the understatement of a lifetime.”
“I had no other choice. If I didn’t do this, then she would have been killed.” A mental picture flashed in front of my eyes of her lying in the woods somewhere without a drop of blood left in her body. I saw her lying in the mud like Jessica with a metal rod stuck through her chest. I had to shut my eyes against it.
“So?” Flo tapped her foot against the wooden planks.
“So …” I bit back a million and one nasty comments. “You couldn’t possibly understand, but I have to protect her. I won’t stand by and let her get murdered. I’m not asking you to agree with me; I’m simply asking you to accept it. Live with it for now. She’ll go back home when this is over and it’s safe again.”
“What you’re asking is impossible,” she hissed.
“Flo,” Sullivan called from the doorway. “I’d like to speak with him, please.”
Her eyes narrowed, but she stormed inside without another word. I let the bag fall from my shoulder and clutched the strap. I waited for him to say something, but he didn’t. He just looked at me with understanding and offered me a half smile. “It’s almost dawn,” he pointed out, leaning against the railing.
I looked to the brightening sky and nodded. There wasn’t much time left before we would have to lock ourselves inside for another day.
Sullivan looked at me from under his eyelashes. “You don’t have to explain anything to me. I know.”
“This wasn’t a good idea,” I mumbled. I climbed the stairs slowly and stopped just before the door. “I should have figured something else out. There just wasn’t time.”
He continued to lean on the railing, looking out across the lawn. “Do you love her that much then?”
“I don’t lo—,” I started.
He held up a hand to stop me. “I hope you have better luck than I did.”
I sighed. Just because I didn’t want her dead didn’t mean that I loved her. I didn’t want a lot of people to die. I wished that Jessica was still alive, but I didn’t harbor any feelings for her. I was a vampire. I didn’t love anyone. Those feelings were sucked away from me the same night my life was.
Chapter 12
I rolled onto my back and kicked the sheets to the end of the bed. I opened my eyes slowly. The room seemed different. Something was out of place. I looked around, but nothing seemed to be missing. I sat up carefully and felt the comforter pull. Lyn’s left arm was lying on top of the covers. Her eyes were shut, and her breathing was shallow. All of the events from last night came flooding back. I hung my head and groaned.
“Hey,” I whispered. She didn’t move a muscle. She had to be mentally exhausted from everything that had happened. Fainting wasn’t the worst reaction she could have had.
I swung my feet off the side of the bed without waking her up. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do next, so I used the next few minutes to wake up completely. I twisted my ring around my finger and shook my head.
I couldn’t stop thinking what a moron I was. Had I expected her to automatically accept everything as normal? Bringing her into this house to avoid being killed was like bringing a mouse in front of a house cat to avoid a lion. The house cat was much safer but ultimately just as dangerous.
Her uncle would know what had happened if she went missing. I didn’t know how I had forgotten about Tom. I wasn’t sure that he would keep our secret if his precious niece was gone. If he went public with the information, even if people thought he was insane, I would have one more issue to deal with. The Enforcement Team would arrive before I could snap my fingers.
But Lyn was still alive. I would just have to keep her that way. She might have been nothing more than a troublesome human, but it was my fault that she was. If I hadn’t been so proud at Tom’s that night, or if I had used my head and stayed away from her after that, things might have been different. It was too late to think “if only.” The situation was what it was, and I had to deal with it.
Lyn sat up in the bed, rubbing her eyes. Her hair was tousled all over, but it was becoming. She took a deep breath and wrinkled her forehead. “Oh, God. How much did I drink last night? I don’t remember anything, and I had this crazy dream.”
“We weren’t drinking last night,” I told her, hoping she would handle the news better the second time around. “And it wasn’t a dream.”
She pushed the covers off and laughed. “Where are we?”
“Lyn …” I hesitated. “I brought you to my house last night. You passed out after I told you I was a vampire.”
“Oh.” Her face paled, but she kept quiet. She started to fan herself and took deep breaths. She put her head between her knees and began to shake. She stayed that way for countless minutes, setting me on edge.
But I waited. I didn’t want to push. Maybe she just needed time to process the information. If I just gave her a little while, then she might collect herself enough to have a conversation.
Her breathing steadied itself, and her body stopped shaking, but she didn’t move. I began to worry if she was really all right. I thought she had gone catatonic until she lifted her head. There was still a light in her eyes that said someone was home. Scared, but home. She slowly slid off the side of the bed and inched away from me.
It hurt, but it was understandable. If I had come face-to-face with a vampire when I was still human, then I would have been petrified. I wasn’t like them though. I wasn’t going to do anything to hurt her. If she could just see that.
“You’re a vampire,” she repeated what I had said. “So you eat people?”
I shook my head. “Blood keeps you alive, and it does the same for me, but I haven’t bitten anyone in over a century.” I stood up and walked slowly toward my mini-fridge. I opened the door so she could see the blood piled inside. “The stuff from the blood bank works just as well.”
Her shoulders relaxed just a little. “You won’t—” She trailed off.
“Don’t worry.” I regretted sounding snappish. I hadn’t meant it. “Nothing is going to happen to you. Everyone here is old enough to control themselves.”
There was a long silence while she stared at me. Her eyes traveled across my face, resting longer on my mouth than anywhere else, before traveling down my chest, my arms, my legs, and going back up once she reached my feet. When she finished scrutinizing me, h
er eyes fell to the floor.
I would have given just about anything to know what she was thinking. I hadn’t been that uneasy about someone’s reaction to me before. Before I left Phoenix, it hadn’t mattered at all. They were just food. After I got to New York, I started to see things differently, but if they didn’t want to accept the existence of vampires, then it was no skin off my back. This time it was personal. She knew me. I wanted her to trust me.
“Okay,” she finally said. Her brown eyes came up to meet mine.
“Okay,” I repeated.
There was another awkward silence. “Okay” could have meant so many things. Okay, we weren’t going to hurt her. Okay, she wasn’t freaked out. Okay, it was all irrelevant and she wanted to go home. She was going to make the first move this time. I didn’t want to scare her by misreading anything.
“I … um … your ring. It’s nice,” she stammered.
I instantly started twisting it around my finger again. “It was a gift from when I was still human.”
She took two careful steps toward me. She reached out and took my left hand. She glanced up at me to make sure it was all right to touch me before taking a closer look. With half a smile, she let go. “It’s really beautiful.”
My stomach flipped over, and I fought not to smile. She wasn’t running away. It was all I could ask for right now. Maybe later she would learn to be comfortable with it.
Without thinking, I reached out and tucked her hair behind her ear. She flinched, and I pulled away. “Sorry,” I mumbled. “Come on. I’ll introduce you to everyone.”
I would have waited before throwing her into that snake pit, especially with Flo there, but there wasn’t time. We were in the middle of a crisis. If Lyn was going to be here, then she was going to have to meet them sooner or later. It was better to formally meet instead of accidentally running into each other.
She followed me closely all the way to the living room. Her heart was pounding against her chest so hard I thought it was going to explode. Everyone was sitting in the living room, but no one was talking. Lyn’s fingers wove between mine, and she pressed herself against my arm.
The corner of my mouth curled upward, and I gave her hand what I hoped was a reassuring squeeze. Stu was showing Sullivan something in a magazine, while Flo sat on the floor in front of them painting her toenails. Reece was sitting across from Alex at the dining room table with a cup of coffee. They were both leaning back, faces red, and scowling.
“What happened?” I asked.
Alex turned to face us, and Lyn jumped. “I’ve seen you during the day,” she said in a shaky voice. “You can’t be a—”
He shook his head slowly and walked over to us. He pulled up his top lip to show her he didn’t have fangs and leaned in to hug her. She stiffened but put her free arm around him. When he pulled away, he was grinning at her. “Don’t worry about the bloodsuckers,” he said, laughing. “These guys are harmless.”
“Excuse you,” Flo growled.
Alex rolled his eyes. “I’m a werewolf.”
“A werewolf,” she repeated quietly. “Of course you are.”
“Reece is too,” Alex continued, pointing. “We’re the only two left in the pack at the moment, since someone decided to blow up the bus. Don’t worry,” he added when her eyes widened. “There wasn’t anyone on it. They’re just missing now.”
“Alex, shut up and sit back down,” Reece said flatly.
Alex frowned, but with Sid gone, Reece was the alpha. He couldn’t ignore him. When Alex was back at the table, Lyn clung to me even tighter than before. I should have told her about Alex before. It had to be a shock. I cleared my throat and diverted her attention. “That’s Flo, Stu, and Sullivan.”
Sullivan stood up. His hair was half pulled back with a rubber band, and his shirtsleeves were rolled up to his elbows. His face was strained. I could have sworn he wanted to cry, but we weren’t able to. “It’s a pleasure,” he said to her.
Flo popped up in front of us. She looked at me and raised one eyebrow before turning to Lyn. Her jaw clenched as she made herself smile. It was painful to look at. “Kaden needs to talk to the fur balls for a minute. I’ll give you a manicure.”
Before I could stop her, she was pulling Lyn away from me. The places she had been touching me were still warm. I took a step after them, but Flo shot me a nasty look over her shoulder. Lyn looked petrified, but she wasn’t going to get hurt. It had to be important for me to talk to Reece if she was willing to play nice with a human.
I turned my head to see Reece sipping his coffee. He simply shrugged at me, but Alex was practically bouncing out of his chair. There was something going on that Reece didn’t want me to know.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“There was no one on the bus,” Reece said flatly. “So we have no idea where everyone is.”
Alex continued to bounce around in his chair. There was something else that he wasn’t telling me. “Alex?” I asked. “What else happened?”
“Reece called Oliver,” he blurted faster that it took to blink. “He sent a bunch of wolves up to watch our backs.”
My eyes snapped back to Reece. Oliver had raised him since he was thirteen years old and had helped him through his first transformation. They were as close as any father and son could be. Of course he would send help, but it caused a huge problem for me.
Christopher was the vampire in charge of Philadelphia, and he wasn’t going to like the thought of my commandeering half of his wolf pack. We’d be attacked, and rightfully so, if he ever found out. And he would find out. We were under some sort of surveillance by Francesca, and she would use the opportunity in her master plan.
“You did what?” I growled. “How hard did you hit your head last night?”
Reece set his coffee mug down on the mahogany table. “Don’t worry.”
“Don’t worry?” I shouted. “It’s me that they want alive. They don’t give two shits if the rest of you get killed.”
“I’d rather be dealing with Christopher than Francesca,” he said.
“I’d rather not deal with either.” Alex groaned and put his head down on the table. “I told him not to do it.”
I stood at the bottom of the stairs and held my breath. Calm down, I told myself, just calm down. Ten, nine, eight … Forget it. “We’re going to be dealing with both of them at the same time,” I screamed.
“Kaden,” Stu called from behind me.
I spun around, ready to snap at him, when I saw Lyn’s face. An instant wave of guilt flooded over me. If she hadn’t been completely terrified before, she was now. I ran my fingers through my hair and looked at the pattern in the tile floor. Way to go, I thought. But what had I expected? Things were going to get rough around here.
Before I could form any type of apology, a growl vibrated through the house. Reece and Alex were both on their feet instantly; chairs clattered to the floor.
“They’re here already?” I hissed.
“They got here a few hours ago,” Sullivan said, suddenly standing next to me. “They’ve been in the woods.”
I was screwed. Francesca was attacking from the front, and now Christopher was going to be attacking from the back. Add having a wolf pack totaling two and a defenseless human to the equation, and I was definitely a sinking ship.
Reece and Alex flew out the French doors into the backyard. They were bounding toward the tree line, shouting. Their arms were waving frantically in the air. A second later I saw why.
Sid was pushing his way through a dozen werewolves. He was in human form, half-naked and filthy. There were others with him. Some were limping; others were leaning on another pack member for support. The Philadelphia werewolves were dancing around them, eager to sink their giant teeth into them.
Alex fell to his knees halfway across the yard. Bones began to jut through his skin and mutate. The sickening sound of popping joints mixed in with the angry growls. He twitched from the pain for just a brief second before he was co
vered in fur and leaping toward his alpha.
Reece was yelling in a language I couldn’t understand when Alex crouched beside him, ready to attack. Sid walked stiffly up to Alex, standing only up to his shoulder. He reached out and patted his leg.
Ever so slowly, the wolves began to take human shape again. Reece walked up to one of them and shook his hand. Great, I thought. If they had just waited a few more hours, then I wouldn’t have had to worry about problems with that little upstart vampire in Pennsylvania.
Christopher was still new in charge. He had to make a name for himself. If he did nothing, then he would look weak. Any kind of peace talks or any deals were out of the question, and Oliver was a dead man walking.
I walked outside to meet Sid. His jeans were caked with dirt, and his curls were matted to his face. He pointed to the garage, so I lifted the sectional door for him. It was a mostly empty four-stall with a few boxes of who-knew-what lining the back wall. Everything was covered in a thick layer of dust from lack of use, but it was big enough to fit everyone inside.
“Where have you been?” I asked.
“I knew what they were up to,” he wheezed. He leaned up against the siding and motioned his pack in before him. They were just as filthy and exhausted. “We sent the bus back without us. We were attacked by Francesca’s wolves after they realized it, and then we walked back here. This is all that’s left of us now.”
He stood outside on the gravel with me while sixteen wolves filed into the garage. Just sixteen. That was less than one third the original size of the pack. I looked at Sid and saw the raw look on his face. A pack was like a family, and he had lost so many.
“We’ll leave in the morning,” he said. “I didn’t think you’d mind having us stay here.”
I shook my head. “I’ll send out some blankets and whatever food we’ve got. I don’t think there’s much.”
“Sid.” Reece came running over.
That was my cue to leave. They needed to talk things over. I had the CliffsNotes version. Besides, I had something else to deal with when I got back inside. Hopefully, things with Lyn were salvageable, but it would have to wait. Stu was ushering her into the downstairs bedroom, and he patted her lightly on the head before he shut her inside.
