“What?” I snarled into the phone.
“Finally,” Caroline snapped. “I’ve been calling you for the last hour.”
“It’s daytime. I was asleep.”
Just like all good little vampires under their first century.
I was about as graceless and noisy as a herd of buffalo as I thumped down the stairs, too tired to soften my footsteps.
“That handicap of yours is incredibly inconvenient at times,” Caroline growled, sounding vexed and out of sorts.
“I’ll be sure to pass that on to whoever created my kind should I ever have the pleasure of making their acquaintance.”
I reached the bottom of the stairs and drew up short at the sight of Connor standing guard in the entranceway, still and silent, making no move to answer the front door despite someone battering away at the other side.
“Is there a reason you aren’t answering the door?” I asked.
I glanced up at Connor’s face, a little concerned over his stillness. It was a trick some of the older vampires were capable of. Essentially giving off all the life signs of a statue. If not for the modern clothes and the faintest fall and rise of his chest, I would have thought he was one in truth.
At my question, the tiniest bit of animation returned to his features. The shift so minute that it was difficult to capture in words. It was like watching someone push play after they’d been on pause. Life returning to his eyes, blood flushing the vessels below the surface of his skin. His jaw relaxing as his attention shifted to me.
“Given the identity of our visitors, I felt it best to let you handle this. You are the boss, after all.”
I gave him a grumpy look. “You remind me of that a lot.”
If he was anybody else, I’d assume he was doing it out of a sense of frustration and envy.
“I worry that you’ll forget if I don’t.”
He was probably right about that. I’d never cared about being the one in charge. My mindset had always been more along the lines of “just let me do my job and leave me alone while I do it.” I liked the doing. Not so much being the one who had to worry about every little detail and if everyone else was doing what they were supposed to. Leadership required certain skills. Liam had them. Thomas too. Me—not so much.
Hearing Caroline’s irritated mutterings from the phone I was still holding, I lifted it back to my ear as I unlocked the door. “I assume I have you to blame for this early afternoon wakeup call.”
Several someone’s shoved through the door. They would have knocked me on my ass if Connor hadn’t snagged the back of my shirt and jerked me out of the way.
“Where are they?” a male werewolf snarled, already moving deeper into my house. Another werewolf on his tail.
A third werewolf entered. Slower and quieter than the other two. Her gaze sweeping the entranceway and taking in Connor’s and my presence before moving on.
“Aileen, don’t do anything. Stay calm. I’m almost there,” Caroline urged through the phone.
I hung up, too furious at the intrusion to listen. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
I didn’t bother with the male werewolves, focusing instead on the woman I knew to be in charge.
Sondra and I had a history. Until right now, I hadn’t thought it was the sort of history that involved her and her wolves breaking into my house.
She had to know what a bad idea this was. The wolves and the vampires had a peace treaty last time I’d checked.
There was a crash from my living room and the sound of cushions being tossed.
“Anything?” Sondra called, not answering my question.
The smaller and stockier of the two werewolves tearing apart my house appeared at the end of the hallway with a shake of his head. “Their scent is here but they’re not. We couldn’t have missed them by much.”
Sondra’s gaze swung back toward mine, the brown in her eyes containing the amber glint of her wolfier side. “Where are they?”
With her hair curling wildly around her head and shoulders, it wasn’t difficult to picture Sondra as someone who turned into something with fur and sharp teeth. If anything, the addition of her wolf only made her seem more wild and untamed than she already was.
