Page 32 of The Vampire in the Potting Shed

Impressed by her industriousness, I did as she asked and then sat back. “Well?”

A few seconds later, a ping sounded in her pocket, and she checked her phone to confirm receipt.

“Okay, I’ll tell you, but it’s bad. Super gross. He toldeveryonethat he would tear the world apart with his bare hands to find his mate. He says he can feel you in here.” She pounded a small fist against her chest. “And he can tell you’re sad and lonely without us and that’s why I had to change elementary schools and lose the steady revenue stream from selling twenty-five sheets of wide ruled paper for a dollar?—”

Mate.

The word clanged through me like a bell, but I was quick to pinch the clapper.

With him being her older brother, I could see Rían selling her the fairy tale of fated mates to explain his drive to find me. A practical soul like her might not fully invest in the story, but she clearly believed the high points if she accepted me—a total stranger—as her sister at face value.

“Thank you for breakfast, Ana. I must go die of embarrassment now.” Rían caught Goldie around the middle and tossed her over his shoulder. “And I’m taking this with me.”

Careful not to bump his head on the ceiling fan, he ducked out the front door, leaving us alone.

“I want to be Goldie when I grow up.” I flipped the card between my fingers. “She’s got it all figured out.”

“Do you believe what she said about him?”

“Yeah.” I considered his quick exit. “I think I do.”

“Next question.”

“Hmm?”

Hand drifting to her stomach, she patted it. “If you and Rían don’t work out, will you marry me?”

Laughter spluttered out of me, and I rose to clear off the table, but she beat me to it.

“That wasn’t ano,” she pointed out when I didn’t strike down her proposal, “but Rían does seem nice.” Her snicker sent me into a fit of giggles. “For a giraffe.”

twelve

To testthe length of my invisible leash, I loaned Sloane a set of my scrubs then I dressed for work like this was any other day. I expected to be met at the door with an escort, maybe by Rían himself, but no one was there. Not as far as I could tell, anyway.

Aside from the magnolia leaves tumbling down the sidewalk, there was no movement on the street.

Where had the kids gone? To school? Or had Rían sent them on their way to give me privacy?

“This is weird, right?” I might have backed into the house if I hadn’t bumped into Sloane. “It’s so…calm.”

For a town held hostage under shifter occupation, I would expect more sentinels and more…just…more.

Unless, and I was just spitballing here, the only people left in Brentwood were the shifters. Had that many humans taken the bribe to get out of town for a few days until the Walshes settled in? It would certainly explain how chill Rían had been about the line of kids itching to see a wolf shifter.

“Brentwood is always calm,” she countered, “but it’s not usually cut off from the outside world either.”

At the end of my walkway, when no one appeared, I hovered a leg above the sidewalk. “Here we go.”

Slowly, I stepped foot off the property, expecting an alarm to blare or sirens to wail.

“Huh.” I anchored my fists on my hips. “That was anticlimactic.”

“What did you expect to happen?” She crossed the invisible line without blinking. “That you would step on a pile of leaves, a cleverly hidden rope would haul you upside down, and you would dangle from the tree until someone came to cut you free?”

“How should I know?” I spread my hands in a helpless gesture. “This is my first time being kidnapped.”

“Rían isn’t a cartoon villain.” She nudged me ahead of her. “I think you’re safe from ACME props.”

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