"I couldn't tell you," I said.
"They don't like it when humans know about them.
It would have put you in danger." She narrowed her eyes at me.
"Besides, Mom, I've never actually seen any in Portland." And had been very careful not to look when I smelled them.
Vampires like Portland--lots of rainy days.
"Can all of them just pop in wherever they want to?" I shook my head, then reconsidered.
"I only know of two, and Stefan's one of them." Adam was watching Stefan feed; he looked worried.
I hadn't realized he and Stefan were more than casual acquaintances.
"Is he going to be all right?" Mom asked.
Adam was pale but healing just fine.
Other wolves would have taken longer, but Adam was an Alpha, and his pack gave him more power than other wolves had.
But if Stefan gnawed on Peter the way he'd chewed up Adam, it would take Peter a while longer to heal.
She looked at me, and her dimples peeped out.
"I was speaking of the vampire.
You do have it bad, don't you?" I'd been trying not to dwell on Stefan's condition and why it was so bad--and how it was my fault.
"I don't know, Mom," I leaned against her, just a little, before straightening to stand on my own.
"I don't know that much about vampires.
They're hard to kill, but I've never seen one as bad as this who survived." Daniel, Stefan's ...
what? Friend hadn't quite covered it.
Maybe just Stefan's.
Daniel had quit feeding because he believed he had run crazy and killed a whole bunch of people.
He'd looked bad, but not as bad as Stefan.
"You care about him, too." She didn't sound surprised, but she would have been if she knew as much as I did about vampires.
I knew Stefan kept a bunch of people virtual prisoners to feed from-- though none of them had seemed to mind.
I'd had my rose-colored glasses ripped off when he'd killed two helpless people, people I'd rescued, in order to protect me.
It might have been the enigmatic vampire Wulfe who'd twisted their necks, but Stefan had been the director of that macabre little conspiracy.
But it hurt to see him like this.
"Yes," I told Mom.
"You can let him go now," Adam told Darryl.
"He's feeding." Darryl dropped Stefan's arm and stepped back as if fearing contamination.