If Sam was now working for the Andersons, I wanted nothing to do with her. We had no proof. They could simply have set her up instead. It wouldn't have been hard to do.
"We're fine," Allan said. "You?"
She shrugged. "It's snowing. Ski season brings the tourists. The shop is doing well. Otherwise, nothing remarkable."
Despite the crowds, service was quick, and our food arrived while Sam was talking. She shifted out of the way while the servers put our pizzas on the table. With six of us, two being werewolves with a very high metabolism, we had ordered several. Ed and Allan more than made up for Doc not eating anything, and Nikolai had declared pizza his new favorite food and could nearly put away an entire pizza on his own. Victoria and I weren't shy about stuffing our faces and her boyfriend claimed to be starving, so we had five large pizzas between the six of us.
"Why don't you grab a chair," Doc suggested, voice neutral once the servers left.
"Oh, I don't want to interrupt your dinner."
"Not at all," Nikolai protested. "Sit."
"Okay." Sam got another chair and joined us, sitting between Doc and Victoria.
Doc hadn't touched his water and slid it over to Sam.
Everyone grabbed plates, including Doc and slices of pizza. Since other people were around, I knew Doc and Nikolai would quietly switch plates after a while to make it look like he had eaten something. If it was just us, he didn't bother pretending.
Being a half vampire meant Doc could actually drink pretty much anything he wanted, though he couldn't handle solid food, and if he wasn't getting a steady supply of blood he could get by on protein drinks. I wasn't even sure if he was bothering right now, though. He had plenty of options for blood and with Nikolai's healing spells, it wasn't even taxing for the rest of us to keep him supplied. We enjoyed it, and it kept his powers up in case the Andersons did attack us.
With Sam there, it effectively ended any other conversations we were going to have with Victoria and David, at least meaningful ones, so we kept to safe topics like school and things going on in the town.
All of my guys seemed to like David, and we did make plans to get together next time he was able to come back to Sunnyglade.
Sam said goodbye after we were done eating. She did leave some cash on the table despite Doc's protests that she didn't need to. David pitched in a little cash and Doc paid, then we met outside and made sure David and Victoria got to their car before we all climbed into Doc's truck and headed back for the yurt. Predictably there were no leftovers.
Chapter 4
Sofia
"Ed, we should run before the storm hits tonight," Allan suggested as Doc drove down the narrow path on his property.
We could all feel the weather building, though the storm front hadn't hit yet. It would, soon. We had enough time to get the yurt completed though, according to Nikolai. I didn't know how much was left to do, but I think he wanted to have me help him.
Without the lights from the cabin, the clearing where the cabin had stood was very dark. They'd shut off the power at the breaker so we didn't have anything up here right now. Nikolai was completely unconcerned, but it would be very interesting for the rest of us. We were used to having electricity, indoor plumbing, and food storage.
"I'm okay. You go run," Ed replied.
"Ed, you haven't gone running in months. You need to change. Even I can tell you're on edge because you haven't," Allan insisted.
Ed shook his head. "No, that was just because of the demon. I'm fine now."
"Ed," I interrupted. "You need to go run." He was sitting next to me. Allan on the other side and we both twisted around so that we looked at him.
He shook his head.
"Is this about what they did to you? Have you changed since then?"
Ed's shoulders sagged and he sighed.
"Damn them. Ed, it'll be okay. I'll be here for you. I want you to go run with Allan."
"When are you going to come running with us?" Ed whispered.
"Not tonight," I said. "I need to be a little more secure in my own skin before I let you all change me into a wolf, but I will. I promise."
"You will?" Ed's gaze lifted from his knees to meet mine.
"Yes. But you need to change now and run with Allan. Someone's got to watch his back while you're out there and he'll watch yours."
Ed frowned, as if the implications of his brother running alone for months finally hit him. I doubted Allan had complained, but it was safer if they went together.
"I..."
I grabbed his hand. "It'll be okay."
He sighed. "Okay."
"We'll go change," Allan said, "and then Ed can pretend to be a lapdog for a few minutes and then we'll go run."
"If I remember correctly," I turned a sly grin on Allan, "you're just as bad of a lapdog as he is."
Allan grinned and winked.
Some other memories surfaced of my time with the demon. Ash, constantly by my side. Had he slept next to me? I wrinkled my brow as I tried to remember. Now that I remembered his constant presence,
