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I pulled on his arm and he stopped before turning to face me. Jasper snuffled in the grass beside the sidewalk while my pulse galloped like a runaway train, my squeaky voice giving away my excitement. “So the leech wouldn’t contemplate the idea of us going back to his nest to destroy him?”

Alexander’s eyes widened even as he compressed his lips. “Bad idea. I watched one woman in the nest commit suicide. There’s not a chance in hell I’ll let you die too.”

I squeezed his hand. “We’re in this together. You won’t let anything happen to me, just the same as I won’t let anything happen to you.”

He blew out a harsh breath. “You don’t understand what we’re up against. Fighting the vampire is like trying to injure smoke. It’s just not possible.”

It was my turn to shrug. “So then we suck the smoke into a vacuum and never let it out again.”

Alexander’s eyes crinkled at the corners despite his stern look. “We talk to this doctor again first. Only then do we even consider the idea of returning to the nest.”

I nodded, my belly churning with what we had yet to face. “Deal.”



















Chapter Fifteen

Alexander

Iapproached the frontdoor of the doctor’s house with far more caution this time around. Who knew what the brothers and their mates had threatened the man with when they came here looking for us?

Because of them, Charley and I might get the muzzle of a gun in our faces.

I rapped on the door and yelled out, “Doctor Newry. Sorry to disturb you again, but we really need to talk.”

No sound came from inside, but Jasper whined, as though sensing something amiss. I tried the doorknob, shocked then wary when it turned and the door swung open.

Charley seemed just as surprised. “The doctor wouldn’t leave his door unlocked.”

She didn’t need words to voice the rest of her thoughts. The doctor was profoundly paranoid and suspicious of just about everyone. He’d have his house locked up tighter than Fort Knox.

I stepped inside, the dog slinking to one side of me and Charley gripping my hand on the other. The floorboards were dull and echoed woodenly underfoot, the walls a faded dirty cream. The house was musty and smelled of damp and cat. My voice echoed as I called out,

“Newry, are you home?”

A wind chime tinkled lazily in the screened kitchen window, the sound eerily loud in the thick silence. Charley tightened her grip as she whispered, “I don’t like this.”

“Neither do I.”