that she was being watched brought Briony back to her senses long enough to look over at her great aunt.
Aunt Sophie gave her a knowing smile. “I’l just leave the two of you to get reacquainted, shal I? Remember what I said, Fal on. Keep her out of the fight.”
With that, she slipped off between the trees, moving with more grace than a woman her age had a right to, leaving the two of them alone.
For a long moment, they just stared at one another.
Briony got out the first words. “Fal on, I was so worried. I haven’t seen you since…”
“Since our double date at the fairground,” Fal on supplied for her. “And I should be the worried one. I panicked when I couldn’t find you, Briony. Even Aunt Sophie was gone. I thought something terrible had happened to you.”
“We were with the werewolves. It’s a long story.”
Fal on nodded. “I know. Your great aunt has fil ed me in on most of it. Though I wish you could have cal ed.”
Briony kept her arms around him. She liked being this close to the vampire. “There wasn’t a chance, and anyway, we weren’t sure who might be listening. How did you find me?”
“Your great aunt. She took a lot of tracking down too, but at least she was able to guess where you might be.”
Fal on went very quiet for a second. “With al the attacks around town, I was so scared that something might have happened to you, Briony.”
“Attacks?” Briony pul ed back from his arms. “I knew things would get worse without the werewolves there to stop things, but they have become that bad?”
“They’ve become worse than bad,” Fal on said. He hesitated once more.
“What is it?” Briony wasn’t sure she wanted to hear it. “Who did they hurt? It’s not Maisy or Steve, is it?” More names came to mind. People from school. People she had only seen days ago, but who seemed like they were from another life, after everything that had happened. The uncharitable part of her found herself hoping that if it had to be anyone, it would be Pepper, the school’s head cheerleader. Briony squashed that impulse. Even Pepper didn’t deserve that. Besides, something told her that life would never reserve anything quite that cruel for her occasional tormentor.
Fal on shook his head. “It’s not Maisy, or Steve.
Anyone like that. It’s George. They turned him into one of them, Briony. He’s under Pietre’s control.”
“No.” Briony could hardly think of a worse fate for the diner owner, given how much he had hated the monsters al around the town. George would rather die than have something like that happen to him. “Is he… did you…”
“Stake him?” Fal on shook his head. “Not fatal y, anyway. Your great aunt wants to give him a chance. See if there is a way to get him out from under Pietre’s influence.”
Briony found herself smiling at that, even though it meant that George was stil one of the undead. “Aunt Sophie giving vampires chances. Who would have thought it?”
“I’m glad she gave me one,” Fal on replied, just before the sounds of battle cut through the trees. The growling of angry wolves came complete with screams and battle cries. It sounded like, far from hitting and running, the werewolves had managed to get themselves caught up in a ful blown battle back there. Did they have the strength and numbers to win it? Even with the number of vampires around the house probably lower than it had been at the ambush, Briony didn’t know for certain. And the longer things went on, the more chance there was of reinforcements showing up.
“It seems like it is time for us to go,” Briony said, turning back towards the fight and hefting her sword. “They sound like they wil need our help.”
She took a step, but almost instantly, Fal on’s arms wrapped around her waist, halting her forward motion. The movement pressed them almost intimately close to one another, and Briony might have appreciated it a lot more, had Fal on not just stopped her like that. As it was, it just made her brows narrow.
“What are you doing, Fal on?”
“Briony,” he said, not letting her go, “wait. Didn’t you hear Aunt Sophie? She doesn’t want you going back there.”
“But I have to,” Briony insisted. “We both have to.
There are too many people there. There’s Jake, and Aunt Sophie, and Kevin-”
“I only know what Aunt Sophie said,” Fal on countered, not