Page 15 of Protecting His Vampire Mate

But I still heard him call after me, sounding so lost in the dark, “You know I can’t do that.”

CHAPTER FOUR || TOBIAS

“Sorry, there are no rooms available,” the woman behind the counter told me over an hour later, her voice cold. Her heavily made-up face was pinched tight and closed, her eyes filled with barely concealed hostility.

“You said that already. And I understand what you’re saying, but—”

“Do you?” She raised one manicured eyebrow at me, sizing me up. “You strike me as someone who might not take ‘no’ for an answer.”

I tried to pretend I hadn’t heard the unflattering—and entirely inaccurate—subtext there. I pasted on the biggest smile I could manage at that moment and tried again. “When do you think you’ll have another room?”

“Never.”

I blinked, gawking at her stupidly for a long moment, amazed at her rudeness. Had I done something to piss her off? How? I was one hundred percent certain I’d never seen this woman a day in my life.

Well, then.

I glanced at the woman’s name tag. It read ‘Liz.’ She stared at me in silence, her eyes narrowed in obvious dislike. Did this lady treat all of her customers this way? I strongly suspected that there were multiple rooms available at the motel; she just didn’t want to rent any of them to me.

I had about a dozen spells I could hit her with to make her give me a room. Or to at least compel the truth from her, so she’d tell me why she was giving me such a hard time.

But somehow, I already knew.

Bryan.

He was staying at this motel—a big part of the reason why I was so determined to get a room here as well. He must have said something to her about watching out for someone matching my description or maybe he had compelled her somehow.

I doubted the latter. Bryan was still messed up about what Giles had done to him. There’s no way he’d do something so similar to another person without a damn good reason.

Such as keeping me away from him.

I sighed, giving up.

It would be risky to try any spells on Liz without knowing exactly what Bryan had or hadn’t done to her. After all, I didn’t want to hurt her by mistake. Especially not if there was any chance that her behavior toward me was because she was ultimately trying to protect my mate.

“Okay, I got it,” I told her softly. “No rooms are available yet. I’ll check back in later.”

“Don’t bother,” she told me. “You ought to find a different motel. In a different town. Or, better yet, go back to where you came from.”

Scowling at her and shaking my head, I turned on my heel and walked off without replying. Well, I wasn’t willing to go to another motel—not with Bryan in danger. Which meant it looked like I was sleeping in my car tonight.

*

“Have you even slept?” Poppy demanded the following morning. She eyed my ghostly form, no doubt taking in my rumpled and wrinkled clothing and disheveled hair. Sleeping in the car hadn’t done me any favors. She heaved a sigh and added, “I sure as hell haven’t. Because you called me at one in the morning for information about a murder house in the middle of Podunk nowhere.”

“Miss you too,” I shot back, flashing her the sweetest smile I could manage. I paused, then added, “You know, you’re my favorite sister in the whole world.”

“Right.” She rolled her eyes at me. “I figured you weren’t using your powers to ghost-form all the way over here just so you could shoot the shit. What do you want now?”

I winced. “I need another favor.”

“Again? What am I, a saint?”

“I mean, kind of. If you were, you’d probably be the patron saint of virtue, patience, and—”

“Don’t you fucking finish that sentence, Tobias Hawthorne, or so help me, I’ll put my foot so far up your—”

“Vulgarity,” I finished brightly.

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