Page 18 of Hitched to the Vampire King

“You have to invite him in,” I said, hurriedly.

“Gabriel, please come in.”

She’d barely uttered the words before he stumbled inside, his strength fading fast. I guided him as far into the house as I could, but he’d hardly made it four steps before his body gave out and he dropped—hard—his head bouncing off the wooden floor.

I winced sympathetically, but his noggin would survive. A blow like that would do very little to him, especially considering he was now unconscious. When night came, he would be completely healed.

“That was close,” Avery said.

I nodded, my entire body trembling. More emotions than I could name fired through me. But the loudest was fear. I’d almost lost him. Another minute and he would have succumbed to the sun outside. Avery and I were strong, being that we were werewolves, but I’d truly feared we’d have to carry a two-hundred-pound vampire while racing the sun.

“Okay, we’re okay,” I whispered, stroking Gabriel’s hair back from his face. He seemed peaceful now, at least. Completely oblivious to the world around him.

Upside, Adrian and Elias would be equally oblivious. Or at least, confined somewhere dark. That gave us time.

Pushing to my feet, I focused on breathing, then set to work. Time to triage.

“We need to get him somewhere safer than the hallway,” I said. “Do you have a room he can use? One that’s vampire safe?”

“A room, yes,” Avery said. “But vampire safe? No. We don’t house vampires often.”

Frustration rose hot and fast, but I nodded. “Okay, then blankets. Curtains. Whatever you’ve got. We need to black out one of the rooms so that the sun can’t touch him.”

“On it,” she said, before racing toward the stairs. She stumbled on the second one and crashed onto her knees. Cursing, she shoved herself back up and kept moving.

Yeah, we were both exhausted, but I had to imagine she was even more so. I had no idea how long Adrian had been keeping her in the cage. Or what he’d been doing to her in the meantime. But the scent of blood had filled that concrete room. Her blood. She’d definitely been injured.

“Triage,” I told myself again. Avery was moving. Gabriel wasn’t. And Avery wasn’t allergic to the sun.

I set into motion, scouting the main level. It all seemed perfectly normal. A kitchen with an attached dining area and a living room. Nothing more. Nothing less. Two dusty couches with complimentary pillows sat in the living room. And a fridge full of recently replenished food stood in the kitchen. My stomach instantly rumbled at the sight of it, but food was so low on my priorities list right now that I didn’t even pause to nibble on something.

The kitchen and living room both had windows. If we kept Gabriel upstairs, they wouldn’t be a problem, other than allowing someone to peek in on us. Thankfully, they had blinds, so I snapped them shut. Then I returned to the kitchen and searched. If this was a safehouse, meaning a place for people to hide, logically, one would think they’d keep a phone here for emergencies.

But where would they keep it?

I rifled through drawers but came up empty-handed.

Hurrying back to the stairs, I called up, “Avery?”

“Yeah?”

“Is there a phone here somewhere?”

“On the wall next to the fridge.”

I frowned. “Huh?”

“It’s a landline phone.”

I blinked, then chuckled and returned to the kitchen. Sure enough, right next to the fridge was a phone hanging on the wall. It’d been a long time since I’d seen one, let alone use one. So long, in fact, that I hadn’t even thought to look for an old school landline.

I picked up the receiver and nearly sobbed with relief when a dial tone buzzed in my ear. I lifted my hand, about to type in a number, then froze the moment I realized something heartbreaking.

I didn’tknowanyone’s numbers!

Cursing, I hung up the phone. There went any plans to call for help. I made a mental note to commiteveryone’snumber to memory once we returned home, then hurried back into the hallway to check on Gabriel. Thankfully, I had nothing to worry about. At least, not until the light started filtering through the windows—which likely wouldn’t be too long from now.

I dragged my ass upstairs to find Avery tacking a dark blanket up over a window. I grabbed the other edge and assisted her. Afterward, we stood back and appraised our work.

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