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There was a psychological factor, too.

It put humans more at ease, even his friends.

Right now, Nick didn’t want to make those assholes outside Wynter’s door wait even for one more minute. He knew they’d been out there too long already.

His groggy mind fought to come up with some kind of excuse for that.

Something that would be remotely plausible for a vampire.

He never really found one. Not a good one, at least.

He hit the second catch on the side of his left boot to tighten the molded material around his ankle and calf. As he did, he finally resolved himself to picking up one of those urgent pulses, thinking maybe it was a good idea to talk to these bozos before he opened the door.

He grew increasingly aware of how much time had passed since he first woke up on the couch and found Tai standing next to him. These guys were threatening to break down Wynter’s front door.

He was majorly pushing his luck.

But he didn’t want to deal with them until he could think straight.

He didn’t even feel clear-headed enough to deal with them now.

He considered responding first to the light blinking the brightest behind his eyes, the one at the top of the queue markedHIGHLY URGENT AND CONFIDENTIAL – RESPOND IMMEDIATELY. THIS IS AN OFFICIAL SUMMONS.

At the last second he chickened out.

He hit the “RETURN” indicator on the slightly cooler light blinking below that one.

That one at least correlated with a name he knew.

The line got picked up at once.

The notification didn’t even complete a full tone before someone on the other end answered. Nick heard them breathing on the other end of the line.

He knew he had the right person from the breath alone.

He didn’t wait for the human to speak.

“Morley? Is that you outside?” Nick asked. “Scaring the shit out of the kid?”

There was a pregnant-feeling pause.

“No,” Detective James Morley said then. His deep voice came out harder than usual. “It’s not me, Nick. What the fuck are you doing? Why aren’t you answering the door? They’re about two seconds away from getting a court order to break it down. They’re on with the judge right now––”

“Stop them.” Alarm reached Nick’s voice as he rose to his feet. “Tell them I’m on my way to the door right now––”

“What the fuck were you doing? What took you so long?”

“I was asleep. The kid woke me up.”

“Woke you up?”

“Yeah. I was on the couch.”

“You wereasleep?”

The silence felt significantly louder.

Nick didn’t have to ask why.