Page 66 of Love Bleeds

"Where's Puck?" I asked before they could even wish me a good morning.

They exchanged looks. Finally, Elena spoke. "He's not here today."

I suppressed an impatient groan. How was it that he was always around except for when I needed to talk to him? I needed to know more about magic.

But never mind that now, I could start from another angle. "How about Aldrich?" I asked. "Or Talon?"

"Sleeping, I guess," Remy said. "You know they're nocturnal, right?"

I huffed.

"Is something wrong?" Jared asked.

"I'm trying to come up with a plan of attack here and all the people I need to talk to are unavailable," I complained.

"A plan of attack?" Elena asked.

"We can't just sit here and do nothing forever," I pointed out. "We don't have that kind of time." At the very least, Crimson and I didn't. He was going to need blood soon. Something that I didn't like to think about, but also something that I couldn't deny.

"We're not doing nothing," Remy said. "But we can't just charge headfirst into enemy territory either. It's too dangerous."

"That's why I'm trying to come up with a plan!"

Remy stood from the table and approached me with his hands slightly raised as if he was about to calm a wild animal. "Look, I know you're worried about your friend, but we've got to keep a cool head right now."

I was tempted to roll my eyes at him, which would have been childish, but this was so frustrating. "I do have a cool head. I'm trying to plan ahead. We don't have to kill all vampires right now, we only have to kill one. That can't be that hard, can it? We just need the right tools for the job." Because that was what it came down to, wasn't it? In everyDungeons & Dragonscampaign I'd ever been involved in, making it through to the end of the adventure usually required a little bit of luck and the right set of skills used in the right moment--and lacking the right skills, you needed the right gadgets or trinkets.

Gadgets or trinkets like that dart dipped in dead man's blood that Nicolai had been hit with before.

“I’m thinking we need to get together with that vampire who hit Nicolai with dead man’s blood before. Figure out where he gets his supplies, or even if he’d be willing to help us out again.”

My siblings turned suspiciously quiet.

“What?” I asked.

“We’ve talked about this,” Remy said, glancing at both Jared and Elena as he spoke, as if they had some sort of consensus in place that I wasn’t privy to. “It’s too dangerous to work with him. He won’t say what he really wants.”

“What are you talking about?”

“He contacted Puck,” Elena chimed in, finally shedding some clarity over this situation. “Last night.”

“And you didn’t think it was important to tell me that?” God, this was so typical. No matter what, I was always the last to know whenever anything serious happened in this family. “What did he say?” I demanded.

“Not much,” Remy replied. “Apparently he claims that we have common interests, but there’s no reason for us to trust him.”

Elena and Jared nodded in agreement. I looked at them all in turn. “You guys are unbelievable.”

“Look,” Remy said. “WAFFER will be back here with their decision tomorrow night. At least wait until then. We’ll figure this out, promise.”

“Yeah, sure. Whatever.” I turned on my heel and left the dining room.

Crimson was still asleep when I entered the bedroom, but he roused as I approached the bed.

"What was the name of the vampire who was with you that night we met?" I asked.

He blinked at me blearily. "What?"

"The vampire you were partnered with."