The doorbell interrupted my apology.
“Finally,” Mom breathed. She threw open the door and gestured inside. “Come in. We’ve already started, but perhaps you can talk some sense into her.”
“Of course,” a familiar man’s voice said.
Liam stepped inside, flashing a charming smile at both of my parents.
CHAPTER TEN
I TOOK A shuddering breath.
No, it couldn’t be. How had he found me? What was he doing here? Was he planning on harming my family?
I couldn’t breathe. The walls were closing in on me. I had to protect them.
How? My backpack. The gun in my backpack. It was still in the closet. Too far.
The conversation had continued without me as I flipped out.
I tuned back in as my mom said, “Aileen, I’d like to introduce you to Dr. Locks. He specializes in your sort of problem.”
I couldn’t move, couldn’t blink for fear that any move I made would start a massacre.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, my voice steady despite the shock I felt.
“Do you two know each other?” Mom asked.
Liam turned his smile on her and my dad, his eyes taking on that otherworldly glow I remembered from the bar. “Elise, why don’t you and Patrick head back to dinner? I’ll take everything from here. Aileen is going to be just fine in my care.”
The fear and worry smoothed from their faces, leaving them looking blank but happy.
“Of course, Doctor. You’ll take good care of our daughter.”
Together, they turned and headed back to the rest of the group in the dining room.
“You will stop that right now,” I ordered in a low hiss. If he didn’t, I didn’t care how dead I was going to end up. I’d figure out a way to take him with me.
“Outside,” he ground out, turning and stepping onto the porch without waiting for my agreement.
I grabbed my bag from the closet, following him as he’d known I would. There was really no choice. Not with him putting the whammy on my parents. I didn’t know how far that hypnosis thing went, whether he could force them to hurt themselves or others. And I didn’t want to find out right now.
“You won’t ever do that to them again,” I said once the door was shut behind me.
I held the backpack loosely in my hand. His back was to me. I could go for the gun now, blow his head off and be done with this. Killing him would also have the benefit of answering the question of whether vampires turned to dust when they were dead. I’d been wondering that since watching reruns of Buffy the first month after joining the ranks of the fangally challenged.
“You’re so young,” Liam said, sounding tired. He turned and watched me with shadowed eyes. “Do you think there isn’t a reason for the way that we do things? That you’re special and can break all the rules that have been in place for hundreds of years?”
I kept quiet. He wouldn’t like my response. The truth was, I didn’t care about his rules or the reasons. As long as I wasn’t a clear danger to my family, which if tonight was any indication, I’d proven I wasn’t, I didn’t care about his reasons.
He gave me a razor-sharp smile as if he could hear the thoughts going through my head. I added to the forest illusion I’d thrown up two seconds after he came in the door.
“I see you’re going to insist on doing this the hard way. Very well. Just remember you left us with no choice.”
There was always a choice. It didn’t always have to be a good one.
I squeezed the gun’s hand grip.
“Since you’ve gotten yourself tangled up with the sorcerer, there is no other option but to have you help me find the creature doing all this murdering. Once that’s done, you’ll submit yourself to our will. You will join a clan. You will obey our laws. Refuse, and I will kill every last member of your family.”
