Before I could obsess about it too much, Sawyer pulled me out into the crowd, which had parted, and I threw a smile on my face.
‘Holy shit, they’re all here for us,’I told Sawyer using our mental link, scanning the giant crowd.
He chuckled.
‘It’s weird,’I told him.
‘It’s normal. You just don’t like being the center of attention,’he said.
True. ‘I need a t-shirt for that.Don’t look at me, act cool. I’m only here for the food.’
Sawyer chuckled again and I scanned the faces of everyone here. I recognized exactly five people. Two teachers and two students and—
‘Why the fuck is Meredith’s mom here!’I shouted so loud in Sawyer’s head that he winced.
Darth Vader’s mom was aptly wearing a blood-red dress, glaring at me from near the champagne fountain.
Sawyer looked confused as to why I would ask that and then he nodded.‘Oh, Meredith confessed to the whole thing. The necklace with the love spell in it, hiring the guy to drink the potion and look like me. It was all Meredith.’
I stopped walking and turned to stare at him.‘No, I saw Meredith’s face when that guy turned back into his normal self. She looked shocked. Maybe the necklace was from her, but not the guy and not the vampire ambush.’
He frowned.‘You think her mom actually sent the vampires to kidnap you?'He stopped, something coming over his face as if it just dawned on him.‘She knew you were going to run after I chose her daughter, she knew where your dorm was, which is where the vampires took you from. She—’
A shrill scream tore through the space and we both turned to the sound.
Oh no.
Over a hundred blurs of black-clothed figures dropped from the ceiling and into the room. The scent hit my nose then, like a shield had been lifted that once masked it and was now removed.
Copper.
Blood.
Death.
Vampire.
Chaos erupted in the room as the entire security team at the perimeter of the building started to move to the center where the alpha was and surround him. Sawyer ripped his tuxedo jacket off and then his shirt started to split. I blinked and his giant gray wolf was now standing before me, hackles raised. I’d never seen him shift so quickly.
‘My mom!’I looked around the room, trying to find my mom and dad. Everything was happening so fast. They had only just started shifting again, they weren’t fighters. I wasn’t sure they’d be able to protect themselves. I spotted them, and Sawyer and I moved as one. If I moved to the left, he moved with me. When I ran through a throng of screaming and scared partygoers, his fur was pressed into my leg.
I reached my mom in record time, which happened to be behind the wall of security that had formed around Curt Hudson. They stood in front of us like sentinels while the vampires slowly worked their way to the back of the room where we were clustered. They tossed a few wolves out of the way but hadn’t engaged in full-on fighting yet.
“Get behind me,” I told my parents.
“Honey—”
“Get behind me!” I growled again, my eyes going yellow as my wolf pounded my chest like a drum. She wanted to be free, she wanted to wipe the floor with these motherfuckers, but I was trying to keep her calm.
Outing myself as not only a Paladin wolf, but also a split shifter, would put me in danger, right? But what if someone got hurt and I could prevent it?
‘Just stay human for now. Let’s see how this goes,’Sawyer said, reading my emotions, and I sighed in relief to have another opinion.
He was right. They hadn’t attacked yet, they might just be here to send a message. Although a hundred vampires sent to the alpha’s son’s engagement party was quite the message in and of itself.
The lead vampire was one I recognized, a female who worked directly under the queen. I’d seen her that first night when they’d attacked Sawyer, Eugene, and I at his apartment, and then again when I was kidnapped. She was a bad-looking bitch with an upturned lip, and constantly wore a scowl.
“The Queen has a message for you,” she said to Curt, who stood behind a barricade of guards as we stood just beyond them with the wall at our backs.
