since it was next to impossible to get a cell signal out here, to check in. The phone rang three times before I got an answer.
“Draven.”
“Frost.” I groaned internally. “I need you to get a message to the queen.”
On the other end, Frost chuckled. “I’m not your errand boy.”
“Then don’t answer her phone,” I replied coolly.
There were some shuffling noises, then a female voice came on. “You better have a really fucking good reason for calling at this moment.”
The breathless tone she used insinuated I’d called during an inappropriate time. Of course, with Rose, most of the time was inappropriate. She did love her men and took every opportunity to show them.
“Just calling to check in and let you know I’ll be in Ireland with the witch this weekend.”
“Ireland?” That got her attention, and I heard a male grunt in the background as she shuffled around more. “Why the hell are you going to Ireland?”
Frost’s voice filtered in, cursing me, and I grinned. “It seems Harper Hawkins is turning eighteen this weekend and her familiars arranged a birthday ball. I’m going for extra security.”
“They’re throwing a ball in Ireland?”
“That’s where the estate she inherited is.”
She went quiet for a second, a silence I recognized as telepathic communication with one, or all, of her mates. “How’s your progress on the other matter?”
Guilty as it made me feel, I hadn’t told my queen about Harper’s journal. I had, however, hinted that I’d come across some information that may or may not be related to the warehouse incident. If Alistair Hawkins was trying to reverse engineer the curse that affected shifters and vampires, then it was possible the person kidnapping shifters and vampires was involved somehow.
“I need more time, but I feel like I’m getting somewhere,” I told her honestly. After Harper’s revelation today, there was no doubt about that anymore. “The Hawkins witch is more involved in this than I think even she realizes.”
“Stay close to her,” she said. “Make sure she has the support she needs to find answers.”
“That won’t be a problem.”
Rose purred into the phone. “I hear fondness in your tone, Draven. If that’s all, get back to me next week so I know you’re not dead. I have a party to get back to.”
30
Harper
Bianca unveiled the dress with a squeal, lifting the lid of the enormous white box and tossing it in the air as though it were a graduation cap. Or as though the dress was for her.
It wasn’t. Since I was stuck following through with the ridiculous tradition of throwing a lavish party to celebrate my birth, Bianca decided I needed to look the part of the rich bitch that I now was.
And holy shit had she outdone herself. She’d taken my measurements on Tuesday night while I rattled off all the lies—er—bait I was meant to feed her. It sucked lying to her, but I hoped she would understand when this was all through how necessary it was. It was to put an end to whatever was happening to her, and to the other girls at the academy.
Bianca didn’t understand why I’d suddenly changed my mind about her needing an escort, and Marcus had been furious. He was with her as often as he could be, and I had to hope it wasn’t enough so that our baited information could pass on to whoever was using her to gather it second-hand. I told her that, since it hadn’t happened since Lacey, maybe whatever it was had simply stopped. She wanted to believe it as much as I did, so she lapped it up and stuck by my side when I told Marcus to stand down and give her a little breathing room.
The whole thing was incredibly frustrating, not to mention stressful as hell. I was afraid every second I wasn’t with her that somebody was messing with her head, that this would be the time they fudged up the spell and left me with a cross-eyed, permanent zombie version of my friend.
I hated every second of it, but tomorrow was the ball and, hopefully, the end of it all.
“So, what do you think?” she squealed, looking a bit worried now. I realized, coming back to myself, I hadn’t said a single word since she’d unveiled the gloriousness I was meant to wear tomorrow.
It was a pearlescent blue covered over in black tulle, making the shade look navy in the shadows and shimmering like the moon in the light. The corset itself was black as spilled