“Is this Aaron Reed?” A female voice, clipped but pleasant.
“It is. How can I help you?”
A long sigh came over the line. “Hi, Aaron. My name is Claire Vanderlaan, and I got your number from an acquaintance who got it from Lucy Freeman.”
“Sounds complicated.”
“Oh, you have no idea.”
She let her cryptic comment hang there, giving Aaron time to parse the scenario. Lucy, Jeremy Freeman’s mate. Hmm. Maybe the caller needed something off-grid and wasn’t sure how to ask over the phone. Well, Aaron didn’t use certain words either when communicating via technology. There was easy code-talk though.
“Ms. Vanderlaan, may I assume you’re a pack member?”
“No, Mr. Reed, I’m a vampire.”
He must have choked. Good green earth. Vampires. The way they announced themselves with aplomb. The way they had nothing to lose doing so. His teeth were grinding. And no doubt she could hear them.
“You’re going to have a visitor tomorrow,” she said. “Her name is Ember Grant. My understanding is you’re the one watching out for a new arrival, Quinn Springer? Ember is his aunt.”
Another vampire? No. Quinn would know if his family included another apex. Wouldn’t be able to miss that essence in a room. But…wait, if Ember Grant was the aunt Quinn had just mentioned, if Claire Vanderlaan was her friend who called humans vanilla to their faces…weird coincidence.
“She’s human?” he said.
“She is.”
“Who told her where—? Lucy?” Surely not.
“Lucy told my acquaintance, and he told me, and I told Ember.”
His right hand was cramping around his phone. He switched it to his left and forced his jaw to relax. “That wasn’t your right.”
“No, it wasn’t, and I apologize. But if I hadn’t, Ember would have filed a missing person report with the police and accused your general community of kidnapping Quinn. And she would have done it as loudly as possible.”
Oh. Well.
He had paced all the way up the hill to the house. He stepped up onto the covered porch and leaned on one of the posts. This was bad. Extremely. Bad.
“Am I your first call?” he said.
“My only call. I don’t have any other contacts.”
Odd that Lucy had given his number rather than Malachi’s. “All right. I appreciate the warning.”
Claire Vanderlaan cleared her throat, a very human sound. But unlike the wolves, her kind were never not in predator mode. Apex, indeed. He waited as she seemed to gather her words.
“She’s a good person, Aaron. She’s just terrified for Quinn. He means the world to her, and she was told she’d never see him again.”
Never see him again? He huffed. “Who told her that?”
“Quinn’s mother.”
“And now she thinks he’s a prisoner here.”
“That’s about it.”
Too bad someone hadn’t given her Aaron’s phone number instead of his home address. He could have cleared the whole thing up. Assuming she’d have trusted the word of a wolf.
Yeah, not likely.
