wrong. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it. It wasn’t the shifter—she trusted that Analie knew what she was about when she said the boy was harmless, and it was clear the tiger was more afraid of her than she had been of it.
Still, something wasn’t sitting right. There was an electricity in the air she couldn’t pin on the teens.
Every time Sebastian edged closer to the door, she stopped him cold with nothing more than a look. He heartily wished she would either sit still or let him leave. He wanted to hide in his room.
* * *
“Stay the hell away from me,” Ashi snarled, pointing warningly at John.
His hand was shaking.
“I am deadly serious. Stay away.”
He kept backing up until his back hit the doorframe of the entrance to the kitchen. He looked over his shoulder, casting about for something to use against the vampire. Maybe he could find a broom with a wooden handle. Useful as a makeshift bo staff, though how much damage that would do was up in air.
Or he could snap it in two and use the pieces as monkey boxing sticks.
Or snap it in two and have a stake.
He looked back at John, his heart beating even faster.
* * *
Analie stepped out of her room and closed the door. She cleared her throat and walked over to Mouse, though she kept quite a bit of distance between them. She knew she had some explaining to do, and wasn’t looking forward to it.
“Freddy’s a shifter. I mean, duh, but yeah. Remember how I told you Ashi broke his arm? He’s super scared of him. Sometimes when shifters are really stressed out, they shift. So that’s what happened with Freddy. He never intended to shift here. He wanted to keep the whole ‘I’m a shifter’ thing on the down-low. Like he gets stuck sometimes or has stripes when he’s not shifted. I’m really sorry he freaked you out. I promise he won’t cause any more trouble.”
She paused, biting her lip. “Am I going to get in trouble for this? Deep trouble?”
Mouse stared at Analie for a long moment, then gradually let the tension ease out of her frame and shook her head. She was still frowning severely, but she wasn’t going to punish Analie—or Freddy, for that matter—for something beyond their control. She was beginning to wonder what kind of conditions these kids lived with back in California that they were always so afraid of being punished.
Analie sagged in relief. “Thanks, Mouse.”
She hurried back to her room to see how Freddy was doing. He’d crammed himself further into her den-bed and only his tail remained visible. Analie squeezed in beside him and scratched along his cheek.
“We are like the luckiest damn people in the world right now,” she told him.
Freddy nodded.
Outside, Sebastian gave Mouse a pleading look, and she finally made a shooing motion at him. Grateful, he rushed out and headed upstairs. His mouth felt dry—not from hunger, but fear. He thought about making a stop to see Angus or maybe one of the donors so he wouldn’t have to think about the terror still wracking him after being confronted by a goddamn shapeshifted tiger.
He’d never thought he’d see anything weirder than other vampires.
* * *
John tilted his head, turning his attention back to Ashi. His tongue crept out to run along his upper lip and that fiendish smile widened, taking a single step closer to see if he could make him bolt.
“Don’t worry, little man. I’m not here for you. Not this time.”
John laughed softly, heading to the room where Christoph had holed up. Ashi stood frozen in the doorway of the kitchen. His mind hadn’t caught up with this turn of events yet. His heart was still tapping out a stuttering triple-beat. His limbs felt like they were carved out of wood. Desperate relief was only starting to register.
The vampire knocked lightly on the bedroom door, as he imagined Mouse or Analie might. Not the frantic rapping Ashi had done a few minutes ago.
Christoph was reading an outdoors magazine. Ashi had quieted down. Probably running from Jessica or Ken, he thought. Christoph shook his head and got off the bed, padding over to the door.
“What the hell is Ashi’s prob—”
Christoph stared at John, mouth hanging open slightly in mid-sentence. He focused on the extended fangs, the devilish expression, and tried to shut the door as fast as possible.
“Hello, Christoph. Mind if I come in?”
John put out a hand, catching the door