Page 39 of Don't Bite the Boy Next Door
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“So that is that,” Serena says, her eyes flashing fire as she looks at us all, one at a time.
“No, that can’t be the only answer,” I shake my head, looking to my sisters for support. “I don’t want to leave.”
“Tess, be reasonable,” Pru says from where she stands by the window, staring outside. “We can’t protect you here, and we need to hunt our enemies. Dividing is conquering. Solomon’s dead fingers can reach anywhere in the world. You need to come with us.”
I shake my head. “Lars said they couldn’t find me because I didn’t use the Berrington credit card – you have all been using those cards, you’re traceable. We don’t know that he told them where I am.”
“We don’t know he didn’t either,” Charlotte intones.
“Fuck,” Christopher runs his hands through his hair, still angry they had traced his cards. “Fucking bastards.”
The front door opens, and I watch Tristan and Nicholas stride in, laughing.
“The team is set around the perimeter of the property, nothing is coming or going on this estate without becoming dust,” Nicholas says, walking to Charlotte’s side and slipping his arm around her waist.
“And Ryan?” I frown.
“All looked after,” Tristan smiles, patting Pru on the butt and turning to pour himself a drink from the sideboard in the corner, now fully stocked with every expensive alcoholic beverage known to man. It seems they all really travel in style now, even in an emergency.
“He seems like a great guy,” Tristan adds. “We filled him in on a few vampire-related lifestyle facts, and we’ve set him up with his own blood deliveries.”
“Is he, ugh, is he still mad?” I ask quietly.
“He’s pretty pissed he isn’t human anymore,” Nick nods, shrugging, “and grappling with the whole ‘mythical beasts are real’ thing, but he’s also pretty stoked, as we all were, with the new strength that comes with this change. I think you need to just give him some time, he’ll come around.”
“We have security forces watching his farm too,” Serena smiles, “although if he would just come over and join us here that would be preferable.”
“He won’t,” Pru says, still staring outside. “He had plenty of issues even before being made vampire, they didn’t just disappear because he’s become immortal – he’s still the same man he was.”
“A depressed vampire,” Valerie snorts, “I hope he stays in his shithole farmhouse.”
I sigh. In the hours before my sisters arrived, Valerie had kept her promise and hadn’t tried to bite him. But Ryan left my home the moment Serena and Christopher arrived, and I haven’t heard from him since.
Charlotte and Nicholas, Pru and Tristan, all arrived a few hours after Serena, and in the whirlwind of anger, relief and love that had swirled through my house, it seemed everyone had forgotten him – except me.
But of course, I was wrong. Serena organised his protection without me asking, and Pru had gone over to check on him and see if he would join us, as had Tristan and Nicholas. My sisters were still looking after me, as they always had.
I smile gently now as I look at them all.
“This is the first time we’ve all been together,” I say in answer to Christopher’s quizzical eyebrow at my happy expression, “and it took a dead Solomon to make it happen.”
Pru laughs. “Trust you to see the bright side of all this, Tess.”
“There is no bright side,” Christopher sighs, sitting down beside his daughter and taking her reluctant hand, “no bright side at all.”
“That,” Serena says quietly, her voice full of lethal promise, “is where you are wrong.”
All eyes turn to her as she sits on the edge of the couch, close to her ex-husband and step-daughter.
“Serena, when are you going to re-marry Christopher? It seems so strange to see you together and so in love, but still divorced,” I add quietly as she settles next to them.
“We don’t have time to plan a wedding just yet,” Serena mutters, “we have another ceremony to organise.”
“What’s that?”
“Your funeral,” she says grimly.
