Chapter Seventy-Eight
They insisted I shift.
Then they did too.
We curled up on that sunbed, the three of us, our wolves blissfully content, and basking beneath a three-quarter moon. The stars moved across the sky.
I slept for a while.
When I woke, Cam wrapped me in a towel and kissed my forehead. “Go back to sleep, honey,” he tells me.
So I do.
The sun has risen when I wake.
Eric and Cameron are seated at a table having breakfast.
I’m in a plush robe, which is a bit less scandalous than the towel, so I’m grateful one of them realized I’d be a little shy. Not around them.
The crew.
After last night… there isn’t an inch of my body they haven’t touched or tasted.
“Jacob’s tracked down the source of vamps.”
I stand and join them at the table. Cameron pours me orange juice.
“They’re pulling those wraiths off the streets. Looks to be San Francisco. Homeless, addicts, humans they thought they might turn, but then decided not to. It looks like they source the wraiths from the Bay Area.”
“That’s why it was so easy for them to air-drop onto my lands.”
“Yes,” Cameron agrees. “But I have a plan…My pack’s going to focus on the vampires. Instead of killing them, we’re going to restrain them. Feed them. They’re tied to their masters, so inevitably, the master will need them to die or convert them fully, lest it draw too much of a master vampire’s vitality.”
Eric nods. “It could work.”
“We’ll be ready.”
I think of the vampires in New Orleans. “Why are some of those bloodsuckers so civil and these others so mindless and savage?”
Eric shrugs. “Aside from the difference between wraiths and truebloods, vampires are a lot like wolves. They have their own factions. Their own rules. Their own cultures.”
“What about you?” Cam asks Eric. “What’s your play?”
“I need to take out Philipe. He’s not going to stop until one of us is dead.”
I frown.
He bumps my shoulder. “It’s not going to be me.”
“I need to learn more about my lineage,” I tell them.
“We know,” Cam says.
I hear a helicopter in the distance. “No! Already?”
He rises then leans down to kiss me gently. “We have a family, Mia. Until this threat is eradicated, they won’t be safe.” He hands a jumpdrive to Eric.
“What’s this?”
“Jacob compiled files on everything he could find on Philipe and Ashley. No one has seen her. But Jacob has some surveillance footage that puts her in Seattle. She could be anywhere now. The drive has his tracking software.”
“Thank you.”
“If you catch one, my money’s on the other one coming calling.”
“Agreed,” Eric says. Then he holds out his hand to Cameron and they shake. “Thank you, my friend. For everything.”
Cam nods. He drops one more kiss on my mouth. “I’ll see you home soon, honey. Call if you need me.”
“I will,” I tell him.
He waves and jogs up to the upper deck. He squats down as the chopper lands, and then he ducks and runs beneath the blades.
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