The Reluctant Vampire Page 0,85

would be the last she'd see of them un l the drugstore opened in

. . . oh, ten or twelve hours was her guess . . . it seemed like a lifetime at that point.

"I don't know what the hell Drina thought she was doing playing with the damned thing."

Those gruff words dri ed through Harper's consciousness, the sound of Drina's name, s rring him from sleep.

"She probably didn't know what it was, Teddy," Leonora Cipriano's calm tones said soothingly. "There aren't any in Europe."

"That is because we no would suffer the smelly cat," Alessandro announced firmly.

"No, you'd most likely transport them somewhere else." Teddy sounded irritated. "That's probably how we got the li le beasts ourselves. You guys put them all on a boat and sent them over here to North America a couple of hundred years ago."

"The English maybe would do such a thing. Is what they did with the criminals, so maybe they would send you the smelly cats. But no the Italians. We would no be so cruel."

"Well, I don't know what the hell it was doing out this me of year anyway," Teddy said. "I thought they hibernated."

"They go into a torpor, not a true hiberna on," Leonora explained quietly. "And it was probably hungry. They will some mes wake up and come out in search of food if it warms a bit, and it did warm up quite a bit last night." There was a pause, and then Leonora said, "I just feel sorry for the poor li le thing having to sit down there in the kitchen all by herself like some sort of outcast. She looked so miserable when I went down to ask Anders if he'd managed to reach Lucian yet."

"Had he?" Teddy asked sharply.

"No, I'm afraid not. He said he's left several messages, though. I'm sure Lucian will call soon."

There was a gusty sigh, and Teddy said, "Well, he'd be er. You're all welcome to stay here, of course. But this is a small house. I only have the two bedrooms. You'll all be sleeping in shi s un l he calls and gives some sort of instruction."

Harper was having trouble following the conversa on. What the hell was a smelly cat and who had been playing with it? For that ma er, what was wrong with playing with a cat? And what was that about Lucian and instructions?

Harper forced his eyes open and turned his head to peer toward the voices and found he was in bed in a room he didn't recognize and that Alessandro, Teddy, and Leonora were having their rather strange li le discussion by the door.

Movement beside him in the bed drew his a en on, and Harper turned his head the other way to find Stephanie lying beside him. Her eyes were open, and she looked much less confused than he felt.

"Drina was sprayed by a skunk," Stephanie explained quietly, apparently reading his confusion.

"Alessandro calls them smelly cats."

"Ah." Harper sighed and supposed he should have recalled as much. He had a vague recollec on of hearing the name "smelly cat" before from the man, but it had been sometime ago.

"You're awake," Teddy said grimly.

Harper turned his head to watch the trio approach the bed.

"How do you feel?" Leonora asked, bending to smooth his hair back from his forehead and check his eyes for he knew not what.

"Be er than I did earlier," he said dryly, recalling the "earlier" in ques on. Roaring flames, bubbling skin, the stench of burnt meat, and knowing it was his flesh. Being engulfed by fire was a most unpleasant and terrifying experience. It wasn't something he'd soon forget.

Leonora moved around the bed to Stephanie now and repeated the same ques on and ac ons; feeling her forehead he realized now, not just brushing hair back, and checking her eyes, perhaps to see if they were clear or how much silver there was in them. It could be a good gage of many things, including passion levels and blood levels.

Harper heard Stephanie murmur that she was fine. He didn't believe her for a minute. He had no doubt the poor kid was trauma zed. Hell, he was trauma zed, and he wasn't a teenager who un l just recently had been mortal. Fire was one of the few things that could kill their kind. If they hadn't go en out of that room and found help to douse the flames, they could have died there.

The thought disturbed him and made