“You’re fortunate,” my cousin said, not for the first time. “Even if you do have terrible luck.” She scooped the strong-smelling salve she’d made up on her hand and reached forward to lather it onto the stab wound.
Immediately I hissed, showing fang, and drew backward only for my cousin to scowl. “Oh sit still! It’s this or you go to the emergency room and get it treated.”
I didn’t want-or need-that.
When she’d finished, she taped a wide gauze bandage over the wound and let me lean back in the chair with a groan. “That’s going to take a few days or so to heal,” she observed. “And I’m taking off work tomorrow. We’ve got to do something about this. Especially since the vampire king who so helpfully put you in danger didn’t bother to warn you. Surely he knows about this by now!”
I shrugged my good arm, but it still hurt and I moaned. “Fuck if I know. They have my number so I would’ve thought they could call.”
Unless, like I suspected, they just didn’t care.
“I’m going to scry for them in the morning,” Aveline pressed. “Even if they don’t want to keep in contact, they’re going to sweep up this little problem. Isn’t that what Clades do? They make sure rogue vampires aren’t running around to kill people?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
Aveline deflated, looking exhausted for the first time. “Go shower or something, then you really need to sleep. I’ll stay up until dawn.”
I wanted to argue. I wanted to tell her that I’d gotten us into this mess, so I would be the one responsible for keeping watch until a more reasonable hour when only centuries-old vampires could roam around.
But all I wanted to do was sleep for a few hundred hours or more.
So I didn’t argue. I offered her a half grin and stood shakily. “Thanks Av,” I told her softly.
“You can use my shower,” she offered in reply. “There’s a bench so you won’t drown if you need to pass out.”
Chapter 12
At precisely ten-oh-two in the morning, the doorbell rang.
My eyes snapped open and I sat up from the sofa, ready to attack, and only belatedly considered that killers probably didn’t ring doorbells.
Aveline was nowhere in sight and the light filtering through the drapes was muted. When I peered between them I saw the sky was heavy with clouds and threatened rain. Wonderful.
The doorbell sounded again and I stood, mind fixed on finding some kind of clothing. I’d slept on the sofa while Aveline kept watch from the recliner, neither of us wanting to be alone.
Putting on a shirt, let alone wearing it against the still-raw wound in my shoulder, hadn’t sounded like an enjoyable idea, so I hadn’t put one on. Now, not only was Aveline incognito somewhere else, I was half naked with a very noticeable gash over my collarbone and someone at the door. Good morning to me.
“Just a second!” I called, ducking into my room to grab an oversized t-shirt and pushing the long sleeves up to my elbows.
On my way back I ducked into her room, finding my cousin snoring lightly on her bed, phone still in her hand.
It was most likely one of Aveline’s friends at the door, and I had so thoroughly convinced myself of that while in my half-asleep state that I yanked the door open without looking through the peephole.
Indra knelt on my doorstep, hand on the dried blood from the night before.
When I leaned my head out he looked up, eyes bright red. “There’s blood here,” he announced, as if I didn’t know.
“There’s…blood there,” I repeated slowly, squinting my eyes behind my glasses.
Behind him, Akiva slouched up the front stairs. Cian had just finished crossing the street and made his way up to the doorstep.
All at once I was awake and very, very irritated.“I don’t want you here!” I snapped, my ears and tail springing up in defense. Even my teeth had gone sharp and long canines garbled my words slightly.
Indra looked at me, tipping his head in utter confusion. “George-“
“No! No George this or that! There’s blood there and it is absolutely your fault!” Wildly I gestured at Akiva, who looked taken aback.
“Oh?” he drawled, standing behind Indra on the porch. “It’s my fault you’re in, quite frankly, a piss-ass mood this morning, ya haram?”
I lunged forward, wolf instincts taking over, only to be stopped short by Cian who was very suddenly only inches from me.
He stood between me and the others, hands gripping my wrists and his smile wide in the face of my snarling.
“You have neighbors you know,” he told me sweetly. “And I think one of them is about to get concerned. Can we come in so you can accuse us in the safety of your own home?”
“No!” I snapped.
“Wonderful.” He all but lifted me back into the doorway, pushing me back on the hardwood and out of the way so the others could enter.
Akiva came in last and closed the door behind him gently.
It occurred to me very late that there was blood everywhere.
Cian noticed immediately, his pupils swelling to nearly encompass the red of his eyes. “That’s your blood.” It wasn’t a question and his eyes tracked the dried bloody paw prints across the floor to where I’d collapsed last night, and into the kitchen. “You’re hurt.”
“I’ll be fine,” I hissed, trying to stamp down on my irrational anger by willing my fangs to go away.
“That’s why you’re so upset, but you should’ve healed by now.” Cian’s eyes scrutinized my body, finally alighting on my shoulder. “Show me.”
“Bite me.” While I knew my attitude wasn’t right, it was damn satisfying to talk to him like that.
He didn’t push it-he really did have more sense than I did-but I still growled at him softly in my throat.
“What happened?” Indra wandered past me, nostrils flared as he knelt down beside the largest bloodstains on the floor.
“What happened?” I repeated,
