deal of interest. The language was of some flavor he wasn’t familiar with. Germanic in origin, perhaps, but the guttural words held no meaning to him. Whatever was said obviously agitated the alpha a great deal, and had caused him to backpedal into subdued agreement. If Royce didn’t know any better, he’d say the man looked cowed. Ill. Beaten.
Delightful, in its way. However, that meant something else was going on. Something Royce should be intimately concerned with, considering the wolf’s tactics.
Obviously he’d deliberately kept to an obscure foreign language or code as he didn’t want Royce to know what was happening. That meant whatever it was had something to do with the vampire, even if indirectly. Every effort would have to be made to discover what was going on as soon as the alpha was out of earshot.
Perhaps he should try contacting Clyde Seabreeze, master vampire of the city of Los Angeles. Despite Clyde’s station, he often claimed that he had no aspirations to power, only to fame and fortune. The idea of having to talk to the pompous prick didn’t sit well with Royce, but he might know what was going on.
“No need to apologize,” Royce finally stated, hiding his unease behind a sly smile. “Again, you have my word that Analie will not be ill-treated. Here—” he snapped his fingers, holding his hand out to John. The younger vampire jumped slightly at the sound, but rapidly recovered and patted down his pockets to produce a pen and small pad of paper, quickly placed into his master’s waiting hand. Royce scrawled on a blank sheet and tore it off, holding it out to the alpha. “Here is my cell number in case you wish to take anything up with me directly in the future. It might save you an unnecessary trip.”
The alpha accepted the slip of paper, taking it with the tips of his claws. He didn’t want to handle something this vampire had touched, so he carefully folded the paper and put it in his pocket.
“Thank you.”
The whole pack was going to be in fits. The irony of the situation hadn’t escaped him—he had no graceful way of explaining why they would need to send their cubs into the care of strangers for some indeterminate amount of time, or why they were now being called to war.
‘Hi, I’m out of seclusion! Now, we’ve been keeping this a secret for over a hundred years, but we’re designed to kill and eat vampires. Well, we’re going to start doing it again! Oh, and we’re having a cub-hide. Parents, give up your children to strangers outside the pack for an unknown amount of time,’ didn’t quite cut it.
Yes, that was going to go over great.
* * *
Analie spent the day huddled under her sheet canopy and texting Freddy, having the strangest conversation. It had started with, “OMG >:-B everywhere”, graduated to “I think chicken might be really hard to cook, but I don’t know” and, finally, “I’m going to go insane if I don’t get to run tonight”.
Freddy: Are you allowed to run around the streets fuzzy?
Analie: No, they’d call the SWAT team. No joke.
Freddy: Lame. Maybe you can run pink.
Analie: I’m fine with running stark naked with a bowl of fruit on my head, I NEED TO RUN.
Freddy: Please don’t. Maybe you can go to Central Park?
Analie: And get eaten.
Freddy: Oh. Amelia’s calling. Hang in there. TTYL.
Analie: K, bye.
Analie slid the phone under the mattress and sat back. She supposed it could be worse. She could be locked away. She could be dead. She could be lunch.
Her stomach rolled at that last thought. ‘Anyone tries that, I will gut them.’ She picked up the stuffed bear and hugged it.
Meanwhile, Royce considered his options as he gunned the engine of his car, weaving through traffic with the absentminded expertise of one who has had nearly a hundred years of practice behind a wheel. It didn’t take him long to get home at the breakneck pace he set.
Once he arrived, he made a beeline to Mouse’s apartment, pausing in the threshold. The door was ajar and Mouse was going through forms with one of her donors. Mouse held up a hand for Brian to halt, then relaxed as he saluted with his rapier and withdrew. She let her own sword drop to her side as she returned Royce’s greeting, her brows furrowing as he hurried by the two, headed straight for Analie’s room. Realizing it wasn’t her place to question, and seeing