“Look, I assume with all the sniffing you guys have been doing that you can smell if I had Wade’s blood on me. Given the way Declan happened upon me, I wouldn’t have had time to hide the blood from your senses.”
“Could be magic,” someone else said.
“Or she could have a partner.”
“What reason would I have to kill your pack mate?” I asked.
“That is a good question,” the alpha said. “What did the man you said you saw look like?”
That was easy.
I struggled to remember.
“Uh. He had blue eyes.”
His face was blurry in my memory.
“Brown hair?” I couldn’t help the question in my voice.
Why couldn’t I remember? Maybe the blow to the head had rattled my brain more than I thought.
“She’s making this up,” the woman said. “She can’t even come up with a convincing description.”
“Oh. Fangs.”
I think. No. I was eighty percent sure.
The alpha’s mouth tightened.
“A vampire would explain why she can’t remember very clearly,” Declan said. “He would have been able to cloud her mind.”
I didn’t know they could do that. You would think Jerry or even the Captain would have clued me in. I could have been practicing all along. It would have made paying my rent so much easier.
“A vampire didn’t kill Franklin,” the alpha said.
That cleared me—if I was willing to reveal what I was. I’d like to avoid that if at all possible—especially with a vampire now in the mix.
Fifty years in service to a sorcerer or a hundred years shut up in a vampire clan. I’d pick neither.
“Look, you can check with Hermes. They can verify my story.”
“Oh, we will,” the alpha said. “That still won’t clear you, and in the meantime, you’ll be our guest of honor.”
He stood and walked away.
Panic threatened to overwhelm me. I climbed to my knees but was grabbed roughly by my arms before I could make it any further.
“Wait, you don’t understand. I need someone to sign for that package. I’ll be in a lot of trouble if I don’t deliver it.”
The two men who had hold of me began dragging me out of the room, ignoring my struggles.
No, it couldn’t end like this. No way was I going to let myself end up as a sorcerer’s stooge.
“Please. I just need my phone and a thumbprint.”
The alpha ignored me as his men pulled me away. My eyes landed on the clock. 12:03.
I went limp. It was too late. They picked me up, holding me suspended between them by my arms.
