“I smell you, Layla.” Roman twirled like a ballerina on stage. Okay, he could too.
Movement caught my eye near the SUV before a guy decked out in all black, including a ski cap, strutted up and said something to Roman.
Olivia made a satisfied noise.
I plastered my back against the spiky bark of the tree. “What is it?”
“They came up empty on finding Abbey,” she whispered.
“Oh, Layla,” Roman singsonged. “I want Abbey. You’re going to tell me where she is. If you don’t, then I have no choice but to blow your sister to smithereens. That would make two sisters dead. I’m sure you don’t want that.”
Olivia and I exchanged a smug look. Roman had no clue Rianne was alive. I would do whatever it took to ensure Jordyn was breathing when the shitstorm was all over with.
“You see,” Roman continued, “I have someone here you might want to say goodbye to before he suffers a brutal and agonizing death.” Roman laughed, evil and ominous. “Oh, I’m going to have so much fun.”
I balled my hands into fists and dug my nails into my palms. The vampire was maddening. “You don’t think he has Sam?” Roman had to have someone he thought I cared about. Then again, he wouldn’t know that applied to Sam. Maybe that I was attracted to him, but caring? No way. I swallowed the thought that I’d just admitted to myself that I cared for Sam Mason. I puffed out my cheeks, deciding I would deal with that feeling later.
Olivia shook her head once. “No. The only way anyone could capture Sam would be to knock him out or cage him in a shit ton of cobalt.”
Or burn him. Uncle Jack’s weapon could spit fire from a good distance. But we weren’t dealing with my uncle. We were dealing with an extremely cunning vampire.
Once again, I stole a look at Roman.
He waved his sword at the man in black, who in turn opened the back door of the SUV. A tall figure with reddish-brown hair that curled at his nape stepped out of the SUV.
I swallowed a gasp.
Olivia took a quick peek. “Who is he?”
“My uncle Ray.” Well, the situation just got interesting and worse, if I had to guess. If Uncle Ray was here, that meant Uncle Jack was too, and maybe even the rest of the clan—cousins, lots of cousins. Between my uncles, they had ten kids in total, mostly boys.
Uncle Ray didn’t have a frightened bone in his body, not until a very large white-haired wolf with bright red eyes trotted up from around the SUV. I checked on Jordyn, who was as stiff as a board with Vera still standing guard. So that wolf wasn’t Vera. Then again, in wolf form, Vera would have a dark coat of fur like her hair.
Olivia muttered, “Things are about to get messy. Where there is one wolf, there’s an entire pack.”
I wouldn’t agree with her. When I met Vera, she’d been the lone wolf to my knowledge, unless her pack had been surrounding the house.
“The question is what are shifters doing with Roman?” she wondered.
“The Gray Pack, right?” I said, remembering that Webb had said they had been extinct for three centuries, and that Vera could be a bigger problem.
“Yeah. We’re learning they take no prisoners,” she said.
We needed to end this crap and save Jordyn.
I peered around the tree trunk.
Uncle Ray tracked the wolf until the beast sat on his haunches about a car length from the SUV and observed his surroundings. Roman’s man in black said something to the vampire then took off down the road that led to the main gate.
Roman ran the blade over Uncle Ray’s head. “Are you scared, human?”
“Fuck you,” my uncle spat at Roman. “You have no idea who you’re dealing with.”
If I had never met Roman or Sam or any of the vampire Navy SEALs, I would’ve supported that statement. But Uncle Ray was in for a rude awakening. As long as my family had been hunting vampires, we’d never come face-to-face with a shifter or powerful vampires like Sam and his family.
Roman jumped down off the hood of the SUV, landing on his feet with ease. His fangs gleamed in the spray of light from the spotlight off the building, as he got nose to nose with Uncle Ray. “Humans don’t scare me, not even ones who hunt vampires.”
If my uncle pissed off Roman, he could give the order to blow up Jordyn. “I’m going out there.”
