"Okay. I'll do my best."
He nodded. "While you talk to her, I'm going to change clothes."
Amanda watched as he walked out of the kitchen, her heart heavy. She didn't want him to leave her even long enough to change. She felt a peculiar urge to follow after him and help him shed those clothes...
Instead, she dialed Tabitha's cell phone.
"Oh, thank God you're all right," Tabitha said, her voice filled with tears. "The police just told me about the houses and I knew it was past time for you to be home."
Amanda's own eyes teared up, but she forced them back. Crying wouldn't accomplish anything. The houses were gone and all the tears in the world wouldn't bring them back. What she needed to focus on now was for all of them to survive Desiderius's wrath.
"How's Allison?" she asked, trying to distract herself from the fear.
"She's fine. Her mother's already at the hospital. I'm in the car on my way to see her even as we speak. No one knows what happened to Terminator."
"I have him."
Tabitha breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank you, sis. I owe you big time. So, where are you now?"
It was the question Amanda dreaded answering. Tabitha was bound to go ballistic when she found out. "I'd rather not say," she hedged.
Silence.
It stretched for several minutes and all Amanda heard from the other end was the noise of traffic.
Tabitha was trying to read her.
Damn!
Tabitha said the word at the same moment Amanda thought it. "You're with that vampire again, aren't you?"
Amanda cringed. How did someone tell her sister, the vampire hunter, that she had a crush on a vampire and planned on spending the night in his home?
There was no easy way around that one.
Sighing, she tried to think of some way to explain it. "He's not a vampire... Exactly. He's more like you."
"Uh-huh," Tabitha said. "Like me how? He has breasts? He has a boyfriend? Or he just likes to kill things?"
Amanda ground her teeth. "Tabitha Lane Devereaux, don't be such a bitch. I know you don't like to kill things, either, and I don't want to play Twenty Questions with you. The guy who attacked me in your place is really scary, and not like the other scary things you play with. This is different. Hunter wants you to lie low and I agree."
"Hunter? Is that the same bloodsucking ghoul who threatened your life to me earlier?"
"He didn't mean that."
"Oh no? So you're willing to bet your life on it?"
"I'm willing to bet both our lives on it."
"You're friggin' crazy, you know that?"
"Watch your mouth, little girl. Unlike you, I know what I'm doing. I trust Hunter. And this guy Desiderius is seriously evil. Like Hannibal Lecter evil."
Amanda could just imagine Tabitha rolling her eyes as she made a disgusted snort. "I'm not afraid of either one of them."
"Maybe you need to learn a little fear. I for one am terrified."
"Then why don't you come home where we can protect you?"