Page 33 of Newly Undead in Dark River

I raised an eyebrow. I didn’t think anyone could make the sexy, self-assured Sheriff feel jittery. I wasn’t sure I wanted to meet such a creature. But I didn’t want to accidentally cause a mass murder either. I’d talk to Brody when he woke up, and if Brody trusted her, then that was good enough for me.

I followed in Walker’s shadow to the door. I wanted nothing more than to climb up on his body like a baby koala and bask in the safety of his arms all day. I didn’t even care if that made me a sissy. We stood in the open doorway, and he turned, so he was gazing down at me. He was so tall, and broad it was hard to imagine anything could hurt him.

“Raine…” he said, then sighed. There was a lot of subcontext to that sigh. It could have meant everything, or nothing at all. Then he leaned down and kissed my cheek way too close to my mouth. Or not close enough, depending on if you were a horny vamp who had the hots for men in felt sheriff hats. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

Yeah, and then he went and ruined it. I rolled my eyes, gave him a jaunty salute. “Love you too, Sheriff.”

Then I shut the door in his face. I walked back through the bedroom, gathering clothes from the dirty pile on my floor. I needed to wash sometime this century. I paused in the middle of my room and sucked back a laugh. Somehow, Brody had ended up spooned around Judge, the blankets bunched around their feet. My sexy shapeshifter had his arm flung over Judge’s stomach and a leg over one of his calf muscles. Judge had his arm over Brody’s, his fingers curled around his muscular forearm. If they weren’t completely naked, I’d take a photo on my phone to show Angeline. Underneath how freakin’ cute it was, and quite frankly how damn hot it was seeing their muscular bodies wrapped up like a Twizzler, the sight kind of made me feel a warmth that was a lot more in the area of my chest than my nether regions. Would they want to go back to how it was, or could this be a thing? Could I go to bed with them every night, and wake up beside them every morning without the threat of imminent death and the worst case of food poisoning ever?

Shaking my head, I headed for the shower. I was going to have to ice my hoo-hoo before I went to work, or I’d be walking like a penguin that had just had an enema for the rest of the day.

I shouldn’t have worried muchabout heading to work, because when I got downstairs, there was complete silence. I’d left two bags of blood and a barely seared steak by the bed upstairs, just in case the guys got hungry before I went up for my lunch break, but I probably shouldn’t have worried. The shop was empty. I saw a note on the counter.

“Raine,

Closed the shop for the day to help Alice pick up a new blood shipment, to be on the safe side. There are two casseroles and a dozen steaks in the fridge. Take them and feed your white knights. Speaking of white knights, Walker said he’d be around to check on you later, so I put one in for him too. While your white knights are out of action, maybe you should try riding him like a noble steed?”

I snorted.That woman didn’t even blink an eyelid at the fact that I’d had some kind of hedonistic orgy for most of the night. But she was all about keeping things fair.

“The shop will stay shutfor another night at least, so don’t worry about coming in tomorrow either. Alice gave all the tested blood to Bertie and Beatrice, so if you need extra, head over there. See you bright and early Thursday. Angeline x”

I stoodthere in the empty bakery and felt a little lost. The store had given me a purpose, and without it, I wasn’t sure what to do. I didn’t want to go back upstairs, because despite what I said to Walker, the temptation of Brody’s blood was still riding me. It felt like an artificial need, like the time I got the munchies after getting completely high with my roommate at college last year. But it was there, and it was hard to resist, and Brody needed the rest of his blood. I walked through the back of the shop, out through the kitchen and into the back parking lot. I’d head over to the diner. Maybe I could get a type-o float and this need riding me might dissipate a little.

But as I set down the footpath towards the diner, the streets that had once seemed quaint seemed awfully ominous all of a sudden. It was like I was waiting for the boogeyman, or the Witch Miranda, to pop out of the shadows. It was bad enough when I thought my maker just wanted me to keep my mouth shut. It had escalated, and now he wanted me dead, even if he was reluctant to swing the ax himself. My skin crawled like I was being watched. Paranoia – that’s all it was.

Still, I used super-speed to get to the diner quicker. I burst through the front door like a woman possessed, and everyone turned to look at me again. Wow, that was some serious deja vu.

I lift my hand in an awkward wave at the people of the town who were no longer strangers and strode over to the long counter-top. Bertie was there, shining a glass like he was every time I saw him. I was beginning to think he had a serious compulsion.

“Hey Bertie,” I said, and the man in question grunted, but he gave me a broad smile. He was a man of few words. I could appreciate that quality in a man. I opened my mouth to order, but before I could form a sentence, there was a Type-O float in front of me. Bertie moved incredibly fast, even for a Vamp. It was deceiving considering he looked about 65 and must have had a significant middle-age spread when he’d been turned.

I gave him a huge grin that showed all my teeth. “Thanks, Bertie, you’re the best.”

Beatrice came out and slid cheese fries in front of me, not even bothering to take my order. Apparently, even as Raine, I was a little predictable. But, you know, guilt-free cheese fries. I wasn’t even mad.

“Heard you had a bit of a problem over at your place last night, Lass. The boys, okay?”

The entire diner was eerily silent, waiting for my answer. I wanted to say you could have heard a pin drop, but it was worse than that. It was the kind of silence that echoed in a room that was filled with people who had preternatural stillness. I should have just stayed home, pressed between the naked bodies of Judge and Brody. Quite frankly, that was even better than guilt-free cheese fries, and that’s saying something.

“Yeah, they are fine. Recuperating, but I could use a couple of extra pints if you have them. And maybe another steak for Brody.”

Beatrice nodded and then glared around the diner. “I’ll make them to-go, shall I? Being stared at like a sideshow is bad for the digestion,” she said huffily and gave the entire room a disapproving look.

Apparently, everyone was suitably shamed because they went back to eating and talking quietly, but I’d lost my appetite. My name was a whispered curse that bounced off the memorabilia-laden walls, and I wondered if one day, I could just live a normal life.

Or just live.

Chapter Thirteen

“That is a fucking awful idea,” Judge said, scowling at Walker. Brodie seemed content enough, holding me in his lap, and snuggling my hair like I was the unholy union between venison and chocolate.

“If you have a better suggestion, I’d like to hear it, Drifter,” Walker growled, and Judge tensed at the moniker. “Unless you want to move in permanently and keep watch, then she needs some other kind of safeguard.” He gave him a smile that wasn’t friendly in the least. “But we both know that you are too selfish to put anyone else before your wandering. Raine is just a warm body to you, right?”

Judge stood, and Brody stiffened beneath me but made no move to stand too. “I ingested poison for Raine. You don’t get to lecture me about the commitment to my girlfriend while you’ve done jack-fuckin’-shit to find her killer. I am making progress. You’re just sitting here in this town, spinning on the nightstick shoved up your ass, waitin’ for the killer to what? Hand themselves in?”

I wanted to defend one of them, at this point I wasn’t sure which, but my brain had stuttered to a halt when Judge called me his girlfriend.

Girlfriend. Maybe he meant girl friend. You know, with a pause in the middle. After the big discussion, we’d had the other day about Judge having an allergy to commitment like I had an allergy to the midday sun, it had to be with a space. I was his friend, who happened to be a girl. That’s what he meant, I was sure of it. I could feel more than hear Brody’s silent chuckling.

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