“I've talked to Mike and Ella Rivera. I know your father. He's always had your best interests at heart. The hunters say they will not kill him, but they need his entire story. They're just as scared of this rogue Nightside as we are.”
“Thanks.” Mom's in my corner.
Dad hinted that someone else was in control.
But why hasn't he come back to warn us about who it is?
“Take it easy, Olivia. We should go out to eat this weekend,” Mom says. “Just you and me.”
“Looking forward to it.”
“That didn't sound so bad,” Riley tells me.
I breathe out and let my shoulders drop. I tuck my phone in my leather jacket as Riley slows and the gate to the mansion comes into view. He pulls in and cuts the engine. “So much for sneaking in,” he whispers. “The Nightsides hear everything.”
“Not if they aren't paying attention,” I hiss. “Look, after that training earlier, we need to hunt. The cafeteria lunch wasn't good enough.”
“I agree.” Riley nods and slowly opens the door, quietly, and he closes it without a sound. Then he whispers, “and then we come back and sneak in. Quietly.”
CHAPTER SIX
Riley and I only need an hour to hunt, as deer have moved back into the area. And I have no problem bringing one of them to us, a large male who has lost a single antler.
My abilities to control the body of another are easier than the ones to control a mind, so using them, I lure the deer closer, and Riley dispatches it with a simple twist of the neck. It's a fast death, an easy death, and far better than what the High Council will give us if we're inadequate. Or worse, considered dangerous.
The deer's blood fulfills us both, and by the time we finish, we're ready to go back to the mansion.
“We sneak through the back door,” I tell Riley, glad I’ve sated the hunger for a couple more days. “I've done this before, and we can sneak in quietly. Dominic was listening all the time, and I could sneak up on him.”
“That's skill,” Riley says with a grin. He wipes a bit of deer blood off his lip with his finger.
We walk back through the woods, crunching dead pine needles, but at least the freshly fallen ones muffle our footsteps. I'm doing something right. I open the mansion’s back door and we creep through, careful with every step, and I allow my senses to rise again. It's a bit harder now that we've just hunted, since my hunger helps with that, but doable.
I slowly let the back door close behind us without a sound as we stand in the rear maintenance hallway. The mansion is mostly empty. I can hear one of the grandfather clocks ticking in the guest room, and the sound bouncing off the walls in there and curving around the leather couches.
Riley looks at me as we linger in the back hallway, close to the basement double doors at bottom of the steps. No alarms go off this time, as we've disabled them.
I listen again, letting my senses sweep over the entire house. My hearing pops, and I detect every little groan of the mansion's woodwork in the gentle breeze. I can hear a faint rumble of the house settling as it gives off heat. It's eerie, and the sounds threaten to overwhelm me, but then I remind myself to focus just on the people in the mansion.
Mom's gone, of course. She hasn't been here since Dad left. Not that I blame her. Her absence is louder than the rest of the house, even louder than the video games playing upstairs. Someone's gotten into a shooting battle with another online team, and they're winning. I can even hear the cursing of the player's teammates over a headset, tinny and getting way into the game. That must be Daeshawn.
Walton's on the phone with the city hall somewhere downstairs, and judging from his voice, he's sitting in the executive office that Dominic must have used before. His words bend as they round a corner and then stretch out as they float through the walls. He's working with the city hall to arrange the new property taxes for the lumber company. Fun. So he's not doing anything suspicious.
Lola, Daeshawn's lady friend, is out front, having a smoke. She puffs on her cigarette with so much intensity that I know she's worried about the upcoming Convening, too. Word has spread and we haven't even pulled an official meeting yet. The Nightsides are terrified, as those who were there for the High Council must have told the others. And I bet Lola’s not happy with me and Riley for not calling an emergency meeting yet. We must look like pros.
And then I hear Trish, up in a bedroom on the third floor, close to where me and Riley sleep.
“...not now, Stanley. I'm tired. We have a lot to worry about.”
“But how long have we known each other now?” he asks, also from within the same room. There's a rustling sound like he's going to pull off his shirt or has already started. “We've survived the whole attack on the Beaumonts and they could come back, and then we'll never have taken this to the next level. You don't understand how hot I am for you...”
I slap my hand to my mouth, and Riley grins. So he's picking up on the conversation, too. Stanley and Trish are playing out like a bad college romance movie.
How hot I am for you?
Stanley is not the most romantic talker in the world.
“Look, we have to worry about surviving this Convening, especially since our new dear leaders haven't even pulled the coven together yet. As if we all want to follow a Trueblood,” Trish says. “We haven't even
