“What else do you have to tell us?” Steven asked Junior.
I eased away from Sam, rose up on my toes, and ghosted my lips over his. “Better?”
He leaned close to my ear. “I’m the luckiest vampire alive.”
I flushed as my heart sang with glee. I grabbed his hand and tugged him over to the couch.
Junior eyed Sam. “I’m not sure I should say any more. The building might crumble.” His tone was serious, his expression fearful.
“Just talk,” Sam bit out, keeping me close to him as we sat down.
Junior shrugged. “Okay. My dad also mentioned that Harriet seemed quite excited to meet Abbey.”
Silence dropped like a bomb.
“Meet her?” Horror darkened Sam’s handsome features. “Abbey will never go near that monster.”
I rubbed Sam’s muscled thigh. “Easy. Junior is only the messenger.”
It was Steven’s turn to wear a hole in the floor. “Harriet will regret ever returning to the States.”
Jordyn scooted to the edge of the cushion. “You could’ve told us all this over the phone. Why the visit?”
Junior stood and tucked his hands into his jean pockets. “As I told Sam and Tripp last night, I want to help. Not just to find Carly, but to knock some sense into Noah. My mother is beside herself. And my dad and I want to stop the genetic alteration if we can.”
“Good luck with Noah,” I mumbled. “His head is thicker than Rianne’s.”
Steven gripped the back of the chair he’d been sitting in. “You didn’t know your wife was mixed up in genetic engineering or that she knew about our kind?”
“I didn’t. I never told her about the Aberdeen business. It wasn’t necessary, given my dad had shut down hunting. But… there are events and things that don’t add up now. Maybe she met me on purpose to further her research?” His tone cracked. “I don’t know. I can’t help but think that. I’ve also been racking my brain over how she found out that Layla knew Sam. The only thing I can think of is that she overheard me talking to my dad not long after he’d gotten home from this place with Layla, Rianne, and Jordyn. I was in the kitchen and didn’t hear her come home. She’d asked me what I meant by bloodsuckers, and I brushed it off. But I also knew if I didn’t give her something, she would continue to ask. So I gave her a story about how Layla got mixed up with a guy named Sam Mason, and my father had to help her.”
“Did she interview me to see what I knew about vampires, or was she trying to lure me to her side?” Irritation cut through Jordyn’s words.
Junior hunched his shoulders. “Not sure. But does it really matter?”
He had a point. “I’m just glad you didn’t take the job,” I said to my sister.
“Where is your father?” Steven asked Junior.
“If you want to know, you can call him,” Junior said. “The less anyone knows about where he and the family are hiding, the better. Oh, and he wants his brother’s body. Is Ray here?”
“He’s on ice until our resident doctor can complete an autopsy,” Steven said.
“Does Granny know about Ray?” I asked, holding my breath.
Junior nodded. “My father had to tell her. Otherwise, she would’ve sent out the cavalry. But he told her he died of a heart attack.”
“I doubt she believes that,” I mumbled.
“Of course she doesn’t,” Junior said. “She thinks the vamps here killed him.”
“Not surprised,” Steven added.
My head was about to explode with the mountainous crap piling up as high as the Himalayas. I couldn’t discern what was more frightening—my grandmother’s desire for Jordyn and me to become monsters, as Junior so eloquently put it, or her finding out I was pregnant. If she was anxious to meet Abbey, I could only imagine what she would do if—or rather, when—she found out I was carrying a Mason baby. Because eventually, she would learn I’d gotten knocked up by Sam.
Hunger pangs pricked my stomach along with pesky and thorny nerves. I pressed my hand into Sam’s leg and pushed to a standing position. The second I was upright, a trickle of warmth coated my panties as if it was that time of the month.
My blood gelled. My heart stopped, and hysteria had me running to the bathroom.
