Wymanwasright. Damn. I definitely would thank him the first chance I had.
The next slide showed Roman coming out of the basement door from the back of the house with Vera on his tail.
“That’s the shifter,” I said. “Vera.” I shivered at the mere sight of Sasquatch.
Webb nodded at me. “We did some digging, and we still don’t have all the info on her, but if our research is correct, then she’s part of the Gray Pack that has been all but extinct in New England for the past three centuries. She could pose a bigger problem than Roman Brown, but I’ll table that for the moment. Roman hasn’t returned to the house since midnight, so our team was able to get in, and I’m sorry to say we’ve found two dead bodies. One of them is your neighbor, and another is a human female.”
I refused to believe it was Jordyn.
Rianne started to get up, but I swung out my arm. “Sit,” I said in a voice that sounded much like our mom when she was mad at one of us.
She reluctantly obeyed, fisting her hands in her lap. She could be a ticking time bomb and react without thought sometimes, much like she had at the club when she’d threatened Sam. She’d backed us into a corner when hunting a few times too. And she was the crux of some of the problems we’d had with our uncles.
“I take it you have a picture to show us,” I said.
Webb nodded and clicked the device. “Sam tells me Jordyn looks more like Rianne, but he can’t be certain that the woman in this picture is your sister.”
The image was grainy, and I couldn’t tell either, at least not from where I sat. I went over to the screen and examined the young woman who had to be about the same age as Jordyn. I traced a circle around the girl’s lower neck almost where it met the collarbone. “Jordyn has a birthmark here. I don’t see any except the vampire bite.”
Rianne sighed loudly. “Who is she? And where is our sister, then?”
“We don’t know who the woman in this photo is,” Webb said, “and we still don’t have eyes on your sister. We tracked Roman through the woods that butt up against the property, but with the snow falling, we lost sight of him. We still have a team combing the area.”
I was tired of sitting around. I needed to be out there looking too. Then a thought sideswiped me. “I might know how to find Roman.” It was an insane idea, but since I’d met Sam, arrived on base, and drank Sam’s blood, insane was becoming my new normal.
All heads jerked my way.
“You do?” Sam asked with his mouth partly open.
Rianne’s face was twisted. “What are you, psychic?”
My sister might blow a gasket when I explained my plan. And even if it didn’t work, then at least I’d done something to save Jordyn.
I opened and closed my fingers as the four of them watched me intently. “I need to drink Sam’s blood.” The violent storm in my stomach became an F5 tornado as nerves and nausea spun out of control. Yet no sooner than I dropped that bomb, I realized it probably wouldn’t work. I’d had more of Sam’s blood during my mind-blowing orgasm, but I hadn’t had a vision at all.
The silence in the room was maddening.
Rianne was frozen except for her eyes, which bugged out.
Webb and Tripp didn’t seem shocked, but I could tell they were thinking hard. Sam, on the other hand, just grinned. I would bet my life he was thinking about us naked.
Webb pinched his chin with between his thumb and forefinger. “Are you saying Sam’s blood causes you to have visions?” He sounded like he’d experienced something similar.
I nodded. “Don’t ask me to explain it. All I know is that I saw Dr. Vieira jabbing a needle in Rianne before it happened, and other minor things.”
Rianne winced. “Wait one second. You’re saying you, Layla, a human, bit a vampire like a vampire would bite you? And since you did, you’re seeing into the future? Nonsense.”
When she articulated it that way, it sounded ludicrous. “I know it’s hard to believe. I’m having all kinds of issues with it too, but I swear on our parents’ souls I’m not lying.”
Sam gnawed on the inside of his cheek. “Since we’ve swapped blood, we’re connected. I feel what she feels so strongly that it knocks me off my feet sometimes.”
“You’re an empath,” Tripp said. “Of course you would feel what she feels.”
“Man, I thought that too,” Sam said. “But I can feel her when she’s not close by.”
“You can?” I asked.
“Our father would be flipping out if he were alive,” Rianne said in a low tone. “Our uncles too.”
