pup in her den sounded like the best choice.
'Right, hide. Very brave of you. Very responsible. Call yourself a Goliath?'
She was not about to follow Royce. What could she possibly do now that she was in this much trouble? The worst of it was she didn’t know how much trouble “this much trouble” was. She assumed it was Big Trouble. Then again, Big Trouble with a high-rank and Big Trouble with a vampire were likely very different things.
Analie leaned against the wall, running her fingers through her hair. It was a nice haircut, better than anything she’d ever gotten at SuperCuts or had done at home. She gritted her teeth. She had it good. Crap, she should have noticed earlier. Should have said something.
“What do we do now?” Freddy asked, his voice thin. He was pale and his eyes were wide.
“I don’t know,” Analie answered. “I honestly don’t. Hell, I don’t even know where to take you.”
“You have a room, right?”
Analie nodded. “I don’t want to freak out Mouse, though. We have to walk through part of her space to get to my room.”
“Who’s Mouse?” Freddy asked.
“Vampire. She’s nice.” Analie remembered the bear. She could go for some serious teddy bear snugglies right now. “My room is technically in her apartment.”
Freddy looked toward the stairwell. “Where’s that go to?”
“Royce’s room.”
Freddy made a face. “You wanna go up and apologize?”
“How?” Analie demanded.
Freddy shrugged. “I dunno. Do a Goliath apology.”
Analie gave him a dead stare. “You want me to go up there and flop over on my back, exposing all my vital points, and say a Goliath apology? Freddy, he’s not a Were. He’s a vampire. He doesn’t know the response!”
Freddy nodded slowly. “Oh, right. You’re right, that’s a terrible idea.”
Analie sat down, her back to the wall. Freddy sat next to her.
“What do we do now?” he asked quietly.
“I don’t know,” Analie repeated.
Royce wasn’t intending to stop on his way up to his room, but a couple of people talking in the hallway on the second floor spotted him. Jessica abruptly cut short the joke she was telling John to turn with concern to the angry vampire stalking up the stairs.
“Alec, are you okay?”
He paused, foot on the next step, before replying. “No. Not really.”
John frowned. “What’s wrong?”
“Analie.”
Royce didn’t say anything else. Jessica and John exchanged worried glances.
“Do you need me to do anything about her?” John asked tentatively.
Royce growled softly, then started continuing up the stairs. “No. Not yet.”
Jessica and John exchanged worried looks again as Royce moved out of sight. John rubbed the back of his neck. “I suppose I should check if she’s still in one piece.”
“You want me to come with you?”
“Sure,” he said, grateful. He hated dealing with kids, so it was nice to have Mouse there most of the time to help him out when Royce wasn’t dealing with Analie directly. Mouse was across town at Le Petite Boisson with one of her prospective donors, and considering how much John disliked the Weres, he was very happy to have Jessica tag along.
The pair headed down the stairs together, Jessica sliding her hand into John’s to give a reassuring squeeze.
Analie and Freddy, as their pack was wont to do, had gravitated together and were now squished next to each other, sitting with their backs to the wall, knees drawn up. Freddy was telling her about running around at night in Pennsylvania when John and Jessica came down the stairs.
Freddy jerked his head in indication. Analie turned and felt a horrible, crawling sensation slither up her spine. There was a shadow and a human; the woman who had checked on Ashi.
Analie remembered walking to a pack gathering with Gavin and passing a shadow with a pretty lady on his arm. Once they had passed them and gone down a few blocks, Gavin had growled, “How foul a monster is that which makes its prey fall in love with it?”
Analie tried to keep her expression blank. She hadn’t seen Jessica so cozy with one of the vampires until now. Analie didn’t rise—she didn’t trust herself with moving. When she saw a human hanging off a leech like an adoring lapdog, she felt like shifting right then and there and tearing—
'Whoa. Where the hell did that come from?'
John hesitated at the end of the hall. Why was there another kid now? A Were, from the scent. Worrisome. No wonder Royce was pissed.
Jessica, oblivious, gave the vampire’s hand another encouraging squeeze before breaking away and approaching the kids, sliding her