Page 13 of Blood of Night (The Thorne Hill)

“Right.” Eliza is fighting her own emotions too. She’s spent pretty much her entire undead life at Lucas’s side. The longest she’d been away from him was when Lucas and I went on our honeymoon. She’s holding it together better than I thought she would, and I’m sure it’s all for my benefit. We both stand there, watching Juliet for a moment. She goes back to sleep and the logical part of me says now is the time to take a shower and get ready for bed.

But then I remember what Eamon said.

“Betty.” Shaking myself, I go to my nightstand and plug my phone in. “I need to go check on her.”

“It seems like that’s exactly what Eamon wants you to do,” Eliza says, messing with her hair. “You’ll be walking into a trap.”

“Not if I’m not actually walking.”

Eliza tips her head. “How else—oh, you can astral project.”

“Exactly. If she’s been held spellbound, I won’t be able to test it in my astral form though. But I’ll figure out what I can.”

“Okay.” Eliza nods. “What can I do?”

“Stay here in case Juliet wakes up. I have what I need in the library.” I mentally call Binx as I go downstairs, pouring a circle of salt on the floor big enough for me to lay in. Binx shadows into the house as I’m done prepping and lays on my chest so he can watch over me.

Astral projection is another thing that has come easily for me, and this time, I’ve hardly even finished chanting before I appear on Betty’s porch. It has to have something to do with my newfound wings, but I’ll think about that later.

Nostalgia twinges my heart when I look at the front door of my old Italianate brick house. It’s small, perfect for a couple, and was my home for years. I have a lot of good memories in this little house, and I’m glad Lucas suggested keeping it and renting it out. I couldn’t stand to see someone buy it and tear it down.

The lights are on inside with the curtains drawn, making it impossible for me to spy inside. I go around to the back of the house, looking in through the little window over the kitchen sink. Betty and Danielle, another one of the employees at Novel Grounds, sit around the table eating pizza. They’re talking and laughing and don’t appear to be in any danger.

I walk around the house once more, needing to make sure I’m not going to find Eamon hiding in the shadows, though if he was actually telling the truth about Betty, he’d be in the house. I shift my concentration to the basement and appear right in front of the washer and dryer. It’s pretty empty down here now that all of my obsessive Christmas decorations are in the basement of my new house.

This would be the place a vampire could easily block out light, and there’s nothing down here leading me to believe Eamon would hide out the sun. I don’t take him as acamp out on the cement floorkind of vampire.

The next option would be the bedrooms upstairs. I only had one window in my room, as does the little guest room. I should check them out just to be safe, though I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little curious to see how my old space has been set up.

I think of my old bedroom, remembering the first time Lucas spent the night. I cast a spell to cloud the window so he’d have a comfortable place to wait out the day and in doing so, realized that the clouds faded but the spell offered protection from the sun. It was the first time in over a thousand years he saw the light of day.

Betty’s room is undeniably her. Funko Pop figurines line her bookshelf, which is arranged in an ombre rainbow of book spines that must have taken her forever to put together. She has a Harry Potter bedspread, and posters of her favorite book covers on the walls. The blinds are down and definitely not light-proof. A vampire would not hide out here during the day.

Forgetting I’m in astral form and not actually here, I walk through the door, across the hall, and into the guest room—right as Danielle comes out of the bathroom.Fuck.

“Hello?” she calls, stopping at the threshold of the doorway.

“Did you say something?” Betty asks, voice coming up the stairs. I step through the wall, hiding in the closet of the spare room.

“Callie didn’t die, did she?” Danielle asks and the stairs creak as Betty comes up.

“Not that I know of. Why do you ask?”

“I thought I saw her, and I know she used to live here so it would make sense her ghost would come back, right?”

“That would make sense. I’m sure she’s fine. We’d know. Someone would call. Unless it just happened. Maybe we should call her, just to be sure.”

I step through the closet door, see that there are the same blinds in here as the bedroom and project back into my body.

“It’s all good there,” I tell Binx and slowly sit up, holding him against me. “But Betty is about to call, and I’d really like a shower before Juliet gets up. I hurry to the stairs.

“My phone is about to ring,” I say, knowing Eliza can hear me. “Can you get it before it wakes Juliet up?”

Eliza meets me in the hall and hands me the phone right as it rings.

“Are you psychic now too? That could come in handy.”

“Unfortunately, no.” I answer the call and bring the phone to my ear, tempted to answer by sayinghey, I’m not deadjust for the shock factor. “Hello?” I say into the phone instead.

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