was just looking at Derik, patiently waiting for his bottle. What a sweetie. Orphaned, and hungry. And not crying! “Isn't he the cutest?”
“Keep him away from me,” Derik ordered, actually backing out of the room. Guess he wasn't fond of babies. “It feels like thirteen o'clock in here.”
“Derik, what the hell's gotten into you?” I followed him out into the hall, genuinely puzzled. If Michael had sent his Good Guy WereCop after me to try to look for more info, this was a weird way to go about it. “You're acting all—”
“Don't do that!” Both Derik's hands shot out palm up. He was warding me off? No way. I had it wrong. I was misreading werewolf body language, or whatever. “I might have to bite you. And not in a nice way, get it? So just—aaaaiiieeeeee!”
He said aaaaiiieeeeee because at that moment he fell down the stairs. All the way down. And with my hands full of Babyjon, I had no chance to catch him. So I just stared, cringing at some of the thuds and wincing at some of Derik's more colorful language as he plummeted to the bottom.
I sighed. Then I put Babyjon back in his crib, ignoring his surprised squawk, shut the nursery door, and started down the stairs.
There was no way they were going to believe Derik fell down the stairs—all the stairs—without assistance. I assumed there was going to be another fight. Best to get it over with.
Too bad, really. Just when I thought we'd established a little trust.
Chapter 19
“Well, thanks for stopping by,' I said again, and it was even more lame than the first time I said it.
Derik, upon his quick recovery, had done some fast talking to save me from another werewolf beat-?down, and now they were all leaving. And not being very subtle about wanting to get the hell out of my house, either. If I hadn't felt so anxious, I would have been amused.
Derik limped past me, which was a big improvement, because he'd broken both legs when he'd hit bottom. These guys regenerated as fast as Sinclair and me. . . maybe faster. Must be their iron-?rich, high-?in-?protein diet. Mmm. . . their yummy, yum diet. I was drooling just watching them file past. Why had I never noticed how delicious Antonia was?
Easy. When Antonia was around, Sinclair had also been around, and his blood was just fine. More than fine. We'd actually incorporated blood-?sharing into our lovemaking and now, like a Pavlovian dog (or George on the Seinfeld episode when he equated salted cured meats with sex), all I had to do was get a whiff of someone's delicious blood and also find myself horny as hell. Which wasn't exactly—
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Derik asked, massaging his knee.
“Uh. No reason. Thanks again for visiting. And good luck picking up Antonia's scent.”
I'd offered to show them her and Garrett's room, let them get a whiff of the sheets or whatever, and they'd all looked at me as if I'd lost my mind.
I guess I was picturing a scene right out of a cop movie: baying bloodhounds sniffing sheets or a dirty sweater and then howling off into the night, hot on the trail. Apparently real life was different. And werewolves weren't bloodhounds.
Which was a shame, because bloodhounds were really cute.
“Crazy fucking vampire,” Jeannie muttered, so softly she probably assumed I hadn't heard her.
“Don't forget your parting gifts!” I cried, sending Lara after them with a helpful shove.
“Thanks for your hospitality,” Michael said without the teensiest bit of irony. We shook hands as the others filed past. He squeezed. I squeezed. He squeezed harder. So did I. I figured anybody else's hands would have been crushed to bloody powder by now. “We'll be doing some checking around town and will keep you posted,” he added, slightly out of breath from our mano a bimbo.
“And I'll call you”—I held up the card with his cell phone number on it—“if I hear anything from either of them.”
“Thanks. Have a good night.”
“You, too. Bye, Derik. Cain. Brendon. Lara. Jeannie. Michael.”
“Betsy,” Jeannie said, “I want to make clear that I only shot you because—”
I shut the door. And since it was a big heavy door about two hundred years old, it cut her off with solid BOOM!
Did I think they had anything to do with everything that was going on? No. I really didn't. Werewolves weren't exactly famous for lying or subversiveness. I seriously doubted they'd—what? Snatched Antonia back, staked Garrett, then shown up at my house and staged a pretend fight, all the while playing like they had no idea where Antonia and Garrett were?
Vampires would pull that sneaky shit in a cold minute. The Wyndham bunch? Naw.
Probably naw. Their appearance today was still an awful coincidence.
It was either a really really good thing that the werewolves were in town right now, or a really really bad thing. Too bad I had no idea which it was.
I took the stairs two at a time, plucked a fuming Babyjon out of his crib, fixed a fresh bottle (he liked 'em cold, and we kept a supply in the small fridge in his room), and let the poor starving tyke have at it. While I was walking with him back to the kitchen, I wondered about Derik's extreme reaction to my half brother. Hadn't he said that his wife was pregnant? Maybe babies freaked him out.
I cuddled Babyjon closer into my side and kissed the top of his fuzzy dark head. “Guess he'd better get over that in a hurry,” I told him. “Unless he likes sleeping on the sorceress's couch.”
The phone rang as I got near the swinging door, and I grimaced. What fresh hell was this?
Chapter 20
“Majesty?'
“Tina? Hey, finally! Great to hear from you!” From anybody without fur, frankly. “What's going on?”
“Nothing good, Majesty, I assure you.” She made a sound that from anyone but Tina would have come off sounding like a snort. “Are you well?”
“Oh, sure. A bunch of werewolves stopped by to pick a fight, but—”
“You mean they broke in?” Tina interrupted. Since she never interrupted, I assumed she had to be fairly shocked. Then I remembered her strict instructions, most (or all? I couldn't remember all of them, to be honest) of which I'd broken since we last spoke.
Lucky for me she was half a continent, plus an ocean, away. She could only scold; she couldn't strangle.
“Well, no. They didn't break, exactly. They, um, knocked.”
“And you let them in?”
“Like I said. Knocked. Then, the fight. Which I won, so don't worry.” I decided not to mention Jeannie “Quick Draw” Wyndham. Tina hated it when I got shot. “Turns out they thought we were being sneaky, because Antonia hasn't checked in with them.”
“Um.”
“But I convinced them that we hadn't done away with her or anything, using my Kissinger-?like powers of diplomacy.”
“Um-?hum.”
“Now we're buddies!” I tried to put as much enthusiasm as I could into that lie. I mean line. “Isn't that great? Even as we speak, they're scouring the town, looking for the hair of Antonia's chinny-?chin-?chin. Wait, that was the pigs, right? That line made no sense, then. Let me think of—”
“Majesty! I must beg you to—”
