“I don’t think so.”
“No, she’s right,” Abbi said. “You’re a lot slower than her. You can’t see as good. You can’t smell as good. Oh! You can’t fight as good either.”
Lu pressed her hand over her smile and looked at me over the top of her fingers.
“Thank you so much, Abbi,” I said. “That’s just what I wanted to hear.”
“You’re welcome. C’mon! Let’s go talk to the witches. They like me.” She climbed over my legs, trying to get to the door handle. “I think they’re gonna have cookiesandice cream!”
“Take it easy,” I said, pushing her hair out of my face. “No, don’t jerk on the door, let me…just let me…Abbi, don’t put your knees…”
“Got it!” she crowed. She pushed, the door swung. I grunted, trying to protect my wrist and groin as she bolted out of the truck.
“Come on.” She jogged toward the building, pausing several feet away from the truck. “Cookies, Brogan!”
“This dessert obsession is going to get you kidnapped and murdered,” I muttered.
“I heard that.”
“How many?” I asked Lula as I patted the seat next to me, inviting Lorde up onto it so she could stretch out.
“Cookies? I have no idea.”
“Vampires.”
Abbi was waiting, but she wasn’t holding still. She tipped her head back and spun in a circle, watching the stars.
Lu paused, as if trying to hear something beyond the thick chirring of the night. “One. I think.”
“In the bar?”
She nodded.
I thought about the gun we’d put in the glove box, but I knew better than to take a weapon that could be turned against me in a fight.
Vampires were fast and strong, and while my dominant hand was fine, my other arm was in a brace. Leaving the gun behind didn’t mean I had to go into this empty handed. I got out of the truck.
“Abbi,” I asked, coming up next to her. “Can I have one of the gifts?”
She stopped spinning. “The coupons?”
“The feather or the rock.”
“Oh, those,” she said, relieved. She shrugged out of her backpack and dug around in it. She held the demon rock out to me. “Are you going to call on the demon? With the stone?”
“Not if I can help it.” I had no idea what kind of magic the demon stone carried, but there was power in it. Hopefully, it would be something I could tap if we needed it.
Lu brushed her hand across my arm as she walked forward.
Abbi sprang into action and bounded past her. I stayed back with Lorde beside me, watching them, searching the shadows and the fall of light around the vehicles for danger.
Lula moved like a song, fluid and flowing, each part of her shifting in rhythm, the moonlight white of her skin, the fire of her hair, the long, lean lines of her slicing through the night.
It was impossible to look away from her. Impossible not to be caught by her beauty and strength.
And those jeans. There was something about seeing that woman in denim that made my mouth go dry.
She knew it, too, and gave her ass a little extra swing just before she reached the door.
