"Did you tell Caveman and the other council members to keep quiet about it?"
Now it was Annara's turn to cringe. Olivia sensed somehow Annara had not been entirely forthcoming to the council about her plans to gather intelligence from within the Clan Alpha House and what Olivia's part in the plan entailed.
"Yes, the council members will keep very quiet about it," Annara said in a soft voice, "because they don't know when it's going to take place."
"Once I'm in position, you'll tell them there's a spy looking about the Alphan clan house for the unauthorized Portal device, right? Right?"
Olivia stared hard several moments at her friend but received no answer. She turned away and painted several more strands of hair with bleach before Annara spoke again.
"I'm very worried we have an informant for the Pure Bloods sitting on the ruling council."
Annara's serious tone sent a cold shiver of dread down Olivia's spine.
"Oh no. You can't mean..."
"Olivia, for your safety and for the safety of our world, we two can be the only ones who know you are going undercover."
Olivia gasped. No one on Earth and only one other person on BloodDark would have any idea where she was and what she was up to at the Alphan clan house. If anything went wrong during her mission, Annara could not help her, Olivia would be on her own. Totally on her own.
The fear and excitement made her heart race. I'll be like one of those secret agents in the movies, making life or death decisions with only my wits to guide me. Am I really up to something this risky? What makes me an expert on spying?
Even more to the point, what makes me think I can help save BloodDark yet again?
"If you want to back out now, I won't blame you."
Olivia blinked. "You say something?"
Annara smiled. "You were thinking, 'Why did I let this warrior from another world talk me into something as insane and potentially dangerous as spying inside the Alphan clan house?' And you're right to ask yourself this question. If you didn't, you'd truly be a fool."
"Call me foolish then." Olivia picked up the paint brush and dabbed another strand of hair. "I'm already halfway through this dye job, so I'm not going to back out now. Besides, how dangerous could it be? The United Nations gave permission to fifty people to travel to BloodDark to meet potential Pure Blood mates. If they truly thought ordinary people would be at risk traveling there, they wouldn't have allowed it."
"But you and I both know money and other things have passed hands behind the scenes. Our rich human kidnapper and his connections to the Alphans were not official. Who is to say Earth authorities have their own people's welfare at heart?"
Olivia sighed. "Good point. We don't, do we? So it's all the more imperative I travel there and uncover what's going on and expose the Pure Bloods and their crooked human contacts' duplicity. Stop these vampire mail-order bride exchanges from becoming a monthly thing or even a weekly thing. If not me, then who else will do it?" She picked up the dye brush and attempted to color another strand of hair.
Annara stood and came to her side, taking the brush from Olivia's shaking hand. "If you want to back out, I understand. I realize now it wasn't fair of me to pressure you into such a crazy scheme. You are my friend, and I don't want to lose you."
Olivia took a deep breath. "You won't. I'll be fine. Besides, I'd better expose the Alphan operation or else Jace's mom is going to be extremely cross at me for jeopardizing her relationship with her daughter."
Annara frowned. "I thought you said the daughter changed her mind."
"Yeah, Lauren was sort of on the fence because of her mom's fears and worries, but the one who really made up her mind was her family. They intercepted Lauren's official acceptance letter from the courier before Lauren saw it and gave it to me."
It hadn't been quite so straightforward, but Olivia didn't want to burden Annara with all the uncomfortable details. It was enough it had caused bad feelings between her and her mother...
Mrs. Petrowski hadn't simply handed over the acceptance packet or the copy of Lauren's application, but Jace had. He'd copied the application off Lauren's laptop computer when she was at work and emailed it Olivia, no questions asked.
If it makes my mom happy, you're welcome to it, Jace had texted her when Olivia asked if he could help her out several weeks previous.
Can you get the letter when it arrives and keep until I can see it? she'd replied to his text. You'll have to sign for it.
NBD. No big deal.
When the official courier had arrived from the embassy, Jace had been home alone and had easily appropriated the packet.
Lauren had been beside herself in grief and confusion when she learned of other online acquaintances receiving their acceptance letters the same week according to Jace, but Mrs. Petrowski's grin rivaled the Cheshire cat's. Olivia was certain Jace's mother knew what had happened to the letter from BloodDark, but she wasn't about to snitch on her son and allow her daughter to run off and marry a vampire.
When Olivia asked if she could have the official acceptance letter, Jace let Olivia know the signed parcel would be wrapped up in their Sunday paper when he went out on his Sunday paper route at six o'clock in the morning. Olivia set her phone alarm to wake her early and was ready to receive it as he came up their front steps.
"You can't let Lauren or Mom know I've done this." Jace furtively glanced around, his breath steaming in the cold, dark morning air. He tugged his black hoody farther over his face. He was acting like a secret agent courier in a spy movie. "She'll kill me—Lauren, that is. Mom might just ground
