Page 41 of The Vampire in the Potting Shed

“Anything but come for me himself?” I coughed up a bitter laugh. “He knew what the Walshes would tell me, and he didn’t want to face me. He didn’t want to be where you are now, forced to answer questions I wouldn’t have known to ask if not for the Walshes. You’re his right hand, but this is bigger than you. You can’t fix this with a lollipop.”

As my attention drifted away from him, Rían closed his fingers over his flame, extinguishing it.

“The choice is yours.” Rían swung his gaze to mine. “I won’t stop you if you want to go.”

When I inherited this house, and Dad gave me his blessing to move to Brentwood, I thought he had finally released me from my cage. But he had simply replaced the bars with plexiglass. No. This was more like I had been living behind a two-way mirror, so he could always watch me from the other side while I remained blissfully unaware.

“I…” Tears salting my lips, I held his bright gaze. “I don’t know what I want anymore.”

Beside me, Sloane shored up my courage to face the decision ahead of me.

Another boom vibrated through the floor, and Mercer grimaced as he checked his watch.

“I didn’t want to do it this way.” He hauled himself out of the tunnel in one fluid motion. “But you’re not giving me a choice.”He hurled himself toward me, but Sloane intercepted him, and they went down in a snarling tangle of limbs. “Stand down, girl.”

“Don’t call me girl.” She snapped her teeth at his throat. “And don’t put hands on Ana.”

Balancing on the balls of his feet, Rían was clearly itching to get in on the action. But he remained glued to the same spot, his jaw grinding with the drive to act. His breathing grew choppy, his animal clawing to get out, but he reined himself in. For me.

“Stop.”

Mercer did no such thing, and Sloane couldn’t unless she wanted her throat ripped out.

Nothing human existed in Rían’s voice when he rumbled, “Do you want me tomakethem stop?”

“I’ll handle it.”

I might have gotten the snot kicked out of me often when I was younger, but I hadn’t always lost those fights. And taking that many hits had taught me a few things.

Like if you’re born without claws, you can always make your own.

Turning back to the window, I unhooked the chime and slid the chains over my hands, fastening the claw tips often mistaken for charms at the ends of my fingers. I tested them, ensuring the clasps fastened tight over my knuckles.

“Stop,” I said again, watching Mercer for any flicker of hesitation.

When he kept coming for Sloane, when he made it clear his inner wolf wouldn’t stop pushing the man in him until they tasted her blood, I got his attention the only way I knew how.

I caught Sloane’s eye, and she relented, allowing him to pin her to the floor.

And then I walked up behind him, where he straddled her ribs in anticipation of a killing blow, and threw every ounce of my strength behind raking my claws down his spine. The tips cutdeep, bumping over his vertebrae. He bellowed and rolled aside to escape me, landing in a crouch near Sloane’s head.

His jaw went slack when he saw it was me—not Rían—who had attacked him.

“Anie?” He swayed as crimson pooled underneath him. “Why…?”

Shoulder braced against the wall, Sloane levered herself back on her feet and inched away from him, her smile for me tinged red with blood from a lucky punch. And a little awe.

Holding up my hand, flexing so my claws glinted, I informed him, “These are silver.”

Understanding pinched his features as he grappled with the fact he wasn’t healing.

“Those wounds aren’t going to clot without help,” I continued, a lump in my throat. “Tell my dad I’m not choosing a side—yet—but I’m not leaving Brentwood until he agrees to meet with me. Either he tells me the truth, thewholetruth, or I have no reason not to believe what the Walshes are telling me.”

And what they had to say…changed everything.

If it was true.

But that was a bigif.

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