It made me think I hadn’t been imagining things when I saw Pelt at the club.
"What do you want?" I asked, a sinking feeling in my stomach.
Was she stalking me? Why?
No, no, I told myself, trying to rein in my fully justified paranoia. Just because there was a whole other group of spooks looking to kidnap me for some reason didn’t mean the entire universe was out to get me—only a good chunk of it.
Any uncertainty my brusqueness had caused disappeared.
"I had a few questions about what I saw when you went into the warehouse the other night."
I stared at her for a beat. "You're kidding."
Someone really should have made sure she couldn't remember enough to have questions. I sent an accusing glare at the offspring of the someone in question. Connor raised his hands, unconcerned.
I shook my head, looking back at Pelt and noting the stiffness around her eyes and mouth.
She didn't like my response. Good.
There were limits to decent behavior. Boundaries.
What made her think this was remotely okay?
It wasn’t, and the vaguely tense look in her eyes told me she knew that.
I allowed myself to relax, leaning against the door frame as I studied her while considering my options. I could slam the door in her face—and probably should—but that wouldn’t give me any new, useful information. It certainly wouldn’t tell me why she was running around with memories that should have already been wiped.
Pelt took out a notepad, flipping through it until she reached a page with a list of questions.
“No,” I said, abruptly coming to a decision. Even if I’d wanted to figure out the mystery that was Pelt, this wasn’t the time or place. I needed to get her away from here. I could always track her down later to learn what I wanted.
"What do you mean ‘no’?” She arched an imperious eyebrow at me.
My smile was mocking. She’d have to work a lot harder than that to coerce my cooperation. I'd faced down much more intimidating people than her both as a vampire and human. Compared to them, her posturing was cute.
Pointless, but cute.
"How hard is a two-letter word to understand? It means I’m not answering your questions.”
“You have to,” she blustered.
My head tilted. “I don’t have to do anything I don’t want to.”
She snapped her notepad close, her eyes cold and steely. "I’m not giving you a choice. You’re going to answer my questions."
Ah, look at her trying to play hard ball with me.
"I’m actually not," I told her. "You see, knocking on my door in the early hours of the morning, that’s called harassment."
Truthfully, I had no idea if it actually was, but it sounded good. Intimidating even.
Hopefully, it would work. If not, I was going to be forced to ask Connor to put the whammy on her. I didn't want to do that yet. She was annoying, overly aggressive, but she was still human.
If possible, I’d like to win her cooperation through logic, not compulsion.
"It's actually not," Pelt corrected.
"Oh? You think so? How about stalking then?”
