Della had just grabbed three sodas from the fridge when she heard the little witch’s heart race to the untruth. Gritting her back teeth, Della fought the urge to squeeze one can until it exploded. It totally pissed her off that Miranda wanted to please her mom so badly. She wished Miranda would tell her mom to go climb up a broom’s ass.
Heck, Della wouldn’t even mind doing it for her. It was one thing having parents who were disappointed in you because they didn’t know you were vampire, but another to have a mom who just thought you sucked for real. Della had listened in to the conversations between Miranda and her mom at almost every parent meeting, and sometimes Della wanted nothing more than to go vamp on the witch’s ass and teach her a few lessons.
Couldn’t Miranda’s mom see how much her daughter wanted her approval? And considering Miranda was dyslexic, she was learning to manage her witch powers pretty well. Heck, she hadn’t accidentally turned anyone into a kangaroo or a skunk in almost a month. And for Miranda, that was good.
Della passed Kylie a soda. “How was your weekend?”
“Not terrible.” Kylie popped her can open.
The soft fizzing sound filled the room. Oddly enough, Della had started to equate that sound with their round-table discussions, which always eased any negative crap weighing on her shoulders. The bubbly popping sound meant stress relief. It meant friends who, though they might not know her sleeping or hugging habits, still cared.
“Have you told her you can turn invisible yet?” Della asked Kylie. The chameleon had actually told her mom she was only part human, she just hadn’t told all the neat things she could do yet.
“No, I’m afraid she’d freak out,” Kylie said. “It’s sort of like telling a kid about where babies come from, you have to ease them into it.”
Della laughed. “You know, I’ve actually seen a show on childbirth. It was like an accident where you didn’t want to see it, but you couldn’t look away.” Della handed Miranda her can of soda, then popped the top on her own. Letting the sparkling sound fill her senses, she dropped into a chair as her two best friends did the same. The diet-soda round-table discussions were a normal part of their lives. A part Della needed more than she wished she did. She’d become attached to her roommates, big time. Which was dangerous, because face it, if your parents could turn their backs on you, your friends could do the same.
Kylie turned the can in her hand. “I missed you guys all weekend.”
“She didn’t miss Lucas.” Miranda popped open her Coke and wiggled in her chair. The little witch always squirmed with excitement when she got to tell a piece of gossip. Not that Della didn’t trust Miranda. The three of them had a pact. What happened at the Diet Soda Round Table stayed there.
“Her mom let Lucas come over,” Miranda said, and squealed a little.
Della looked back at Kylie. “She did? Did she force you to read ten how-not-to-get-pregnant pamphlets before he showed up?”
Kylie grinned. “Only one. Did you know that only about fifty percent of teen mothers receive a high school diploma? And the children of teenaged mothers are more likely to have lower school achievement and drop out of high school, have more health problems, and be incarcerated at some time during their adolescence?” She grinned. “At least it wasn’t about condoms this time.”
They all laughed again, something they did a lot at these meetings. “Did she let you go out with him, on a date date?”
“No, we went out to eat with my mom and then Lucas and I just went up to my room to talk.”
“I’ll bet you talked. The language of the tongue,” Della teased, and ran her tongue over her lips. Kylie and Lucas were a real couple, meaning they’d done the deed. Not that Kylie talked about it. Well, other than to say it was wonderful. Della could relate to her not wanting to share. Seriously, sex was … embarrassing.
And sometimes wonderful. For one second, she recalled how things had been with her ex-boyfriend Lee. Then she recalled how close things had come to being wonderful with Steve, the sexy-as-sin Southern shape-shifter. Thank God, she’d wised up before she went down that road.
“Okay, you’ve avoided it long enough, give us the lowdown,” Miranda said to Della.
Della frowned. Spilling guts wasn’t her favorite thing to do. While it always ended up cathartic, it also felt a bit like whining, and a bit like being disloyal. Disloyal to her parents. Loyalty had been inbred in her by her father.
She recalled again the picture she’d found in the old photo album. And that’s when she remembered she’d left her backpack with the photo in the fork of the woods.
“Crap!” Della jumped up.
“What?” Kylie asked.
“I left my backpack on the trail.”
“No, you didn’t,” Miranda said. “It was on the front porch. I brought it in. It’s on the sofa.”
“Burnett must have found it and…” Then it occurred to Della. What if it wasn’t Burnett? Could the no-good vamp have done it? He didn’t know which cabin was hers, but he could have followed her scent.
Had he gone through her stuff? The possibility of him looking through her bag annoyed the hell out of her. And it wasn’t just about her padded bras, but because of the picture. If he’d bent it or … Oh, hell, why had she been so careless with the backpack to start with? Oh, yeah, she’d been an emotional wreck.
“What is it?” Kylie asked, obviously reading Della’s mood.
Suddenly extra leery, Della took a flying leap over the table into the living room and snatched up the bag. “There’s a new guy here. He might have been the one who brought this to me.”
“Yeah,” Kylie said. “Lucas told me he showed up on Saturday right after we left. He’s a vampire.”
Della scowled. “He’s a jerk!”
“Why’s he a jerk?” Miranda asked. “If he found your bag and brought it to you, what’s the problem?”
“He might’ve gone through my stuff,” Della said, not believing they didn’t understand. Who wanted a guy rummaging through your underwear or your Smurf pajamas?
She pulled the bag to her nose and sniffed it. “Damn it! His scent is all over it!”
“You met him already?” Kylie asked.
“Yeah, I met him. Burnett neglected to inform me we had a new student on board, and when I found him I thought he was a rogue trespasser.”
“Oh, my!” Miranda giggled. “Did you kick his butt?”
“I was in the process of kicking it when Burnett showed up.”
“Is he cute?” Miranda asked. “Not that I’m looking … Well, I might look, just not touch.” She giggled again.
“I told you, he’s a jerk.” Right then the image of him shirtless walking toward her filled Della’s mind. She opened her bag, looking for the photograph of her grandmother with her father and his brother.
“Is this whole bag thing a ploy just so you don’t have to talk about your weekend?” Miranda asked.
“No,” Della said. “I just want to make sure that…”
She unzipped the bag, looking for the little white envelope she’d carefully placed between her underwear and her PJs. It wasn’t there! She started tossing everything out. She even turned the bag upside down and shook it, praying it would flutter out. Nothing fluttered. No picture.
“Nooo!” she muttered, thinking she might never get it back. It was probably the only picture her dad had of his brother, too. She couldn’t have lost it. Her father would kill her.
No, he wouldn’t, the thought hit. He’d just be disappointed in her even more than he was.
“This can’t be happening,” Della said.
“What can’t be happening?” Kylie asked.
“He took it. Why the hell would he have taken it?”
“Took what?” Kylie asked.
Della didn’t answer. She had to find that piece-of-shit vamp and find her father’s picture. She flashed out of the room.
When she went into full fly mode she realized she wasn’t alone. Kylie had transformed into a
vampire and was chasing the wind beside her.
“What did he take?” she asked, her hair flipping around her face.
“A picture,” Della said, searching the terrain below her for the dirty little thief. “An old picture that belongs to my dad. I swear, if he even dog-eared one corner of that photograph, I’m…”
“Why would he take your picture?”
“I don’t know, but I’m gonna find out. And you might not want to be a part of this. Because if I have to, I’m beating the answer out of him.”
“You can’t…”
“Watch me,” she snapped. Then her blood started firing into full-on vamp mode when she spotted the guy walking through the woods.
Chapter Three
Right before Della’s feet slapped against the earth, the thieving vamp’s gaze shot up. Della landed about five feet in front of him. Kylie, forever the peacemaker, landed between them.
“Where is it?” Della asked, gripping and ungripping her hands, leaning to the right to look over Kylie to see her potential victim.
The vamp focused on Kylie for a second, reading her pattern. Since she morphed into vampire, he didn’t seem to worry. Right then, Della kind of hoped the bastard would lay a hand on her and then Kylie’d go into protective mode. Between the two of them, they’d be tossing his vamp butt around like a dead squirrel.
He cut his eyes back to Della. “Well, whatcha know, Smurf girl returns. At least your underwear doesn’t have Disney characters on them.”
Della’s blood pressure shot up a few points, or maybe a lot of points. “What? You get a kick out of going through a girl’s panties? Pervert,” Della growled, low and deadly. Taking a step forward, trying but unable to get around Kylie, she glared at the boy. “Where is it?” she asked for the last time. He’d better decide to come clean, or she was gonna get dirty.
Kylie looked back at Della and held out her hand as if to say “calm down.” She couldn’t calm down. The guy had stolen her dad’s picture. The fact that Della had stolen it first was beside the point.
“Are you talking about this?” The smartass guy pulled the folded envelope from his back pocket.
She snatched it from his hand. “Why did you take it?” She opened it to make sure he hadn’t ripped or damaged the photo. It looked unharmed. Relief filled her chest.
“I was bringing it to you now. When I found the backpack, I went through it to see whose it was. I left it on your porch. It wasn’t until I was walking back that I saw the envelope on the ground right where I’d opened your bag, and when I looked, I realized it must have fallen out.”
“Liar,” she accused, even though his heart didn’t claim his words as an untruth. She shot around Kylie.
“Slow down,” Kylie said, moving between them again and giving Della a pleading look. “You got the picture back,” Kylie said. “And I checked his heartbeat. He was telling the truth about bringing it to you.”
Duh, Della knew that, but something wasn’t adding up and she smelled a rat. “How did you even know it was my bag if you didn’t see the picture with my last name—? Wait, how would you even know my name?”
The boy smiled at Kylie, then frowned over her shoulder at Della. “Mr. James referred to you by the name Della. And your mommy wrote your name on the tag inside the backpack. Probably when she was packing your Smurf pajamas for you.”
Della ground her teeth. But oh Lordie, she wanted to go psycho on his butt. She couldn’t recall seeing the tag with her name on it, but it did sound like something her mom would do. Or would have done when she cared about her. But he could bet she’d check.
“Okay, let’s go,” Kylie said. “We got what we came for.”
No she hadn’t gotten it. She wanted a pound of flesh. She shot around Kylie again, stood a few inches from the boy, and leaned in to take another long sniff. “Have we met before?”
He tucked his hands into his jeans and leaned back on the heels of his tennis shoes. “Gosh, you’ve forgotten already. I’m the guy you tried to start shit with back in the woods.”
“I know that, you idiot! I mean before.”
He took a big whiff of air, as if checking her scent. “I don’t think so.”
She listened to his heartbeat. It didn’t race to a lie. But she’d heard about some vamps being able to control that, or about pathological liars, whose lies never even registered. He looked like a pathological liar. Tall, cocky, and those pale green eyes that didn’t even look real.
She tucked the white envelope into the back pocket of her jeans. Turning and giving him her back, she spoke to Kylie. “Let’s leave this Popsicle stand.”
“Darn,” he said. “And just when it was getting interesting, too.”
Della swiveled around, and arched a brow at him. “Interesting? I’d rather watch toenails grow than hang out with you.”
He laughed. And it pissed her off that she’d amused him. She let go of another deadly growl.
“Okay, we should go.” Kylie touched Della’s arm. But then, being Kylie and unable to leave on a bad note, she looked back at the new vamp. “Welcome to Shadow Falls. I’m Kylie.”
Della rolled her eyes. Why did Kylie think she had to play nice?
“You’re Kylie Galen?” he asked, looking in awe. “Wow, I’ve heard about you.”
“Don’t believe half of it,” Kylie said, a bit bashful.
“I’m Chase Tallman,” he said, totally trying to impress Kylie. He even puffed out his chest a little, like a damn bird doing some kind of mating dance. Yeah, keep that up and I know a werewolf that’ll be chomping on your ass! Hell, she’d help Lucas get his revenge on … Chase Tallman. Della stored his name into her memory bank for future reference—and not in the good vault of references—then turned and took off.
She didn’t like this guy.
Didn’t trust this guy. And she wouldn’t until she figured out where she knew him from and why and how he was lying.
“I hate it when you two skip out on me!” Miranda whined when Della, followed by Kylie, walked back into the cabin. “I want to come, too.”
Della huffed out an exasperated breath. Was it her fault that witches couldn’t fly? “What did you want us to do? Give you a piggyback ride?”
“You could have,” the little witch whined. “I miss out on all the fun.”
“That was not fun. The guy’s a smartass, green-eyed panty pervert.” Della went straight to the sofa and checked her backpack for her name on the inside tag. And sure as hell, it was there. Dad blast it, she’d wanted to catch that sorry vamp in a lie. She shot back to the kitchen, dropped the envelope on the table, and plopped back in her chair.
“Wow, don’t hold back,” Miranda said.
Della saw Miranda glance at Kylie with questions. Kylie shrugged as if to say, “beats the hell out of me.”
“That’s odd,” Miranda continued. “Word around camp is that he’s a complete hottie. Not that he could be hotter than Perry.” She smiled. The witch looked at Kylie. “Is the guy hot?”
Kylie shot Della an apologetic look. “Yeah, he kind of is. But he could still be a panty pervert.”
“Aren’t all guys panty perverts?” Miranda asked.
“No, this guy’s creepy,” Della snapped. “And egotistical. And his scent … It’s familiar, and not in good way.”
“Maybe he just smells like someone else?” Kylie said.
Della shook her head. “Obviously you haven’t developed your vampire nose yet. We don’t forget scents. And if something intense was happening when you smelled that scent, then there’s an emotional trace.”
“Wow. Lucas told me that werewolves do that, too,” Kylie said.
“Not nearly as good as vampires,” Della huffed. “I mean, I know they’re wolves, but for a vampire, who doesn’t go around putting their nose everywhere, an emotional trace is stronger.”
“Wouldn’t you know,” Miranda said sarcastically. “Nothing is as good as vampires.”
Della shot the witch a go-to-hell lo
ok that implied she should not just go to Hades, but go in a hurry.
Miranda snickered.
Obviously, Della’s go-to-hell look wasn’t in working order.
“So what emotion does he remind you of?” Kylie asked, and both she and Miranda eased up to the table and sat down.
“Danger,” Della said, and pulled the photo closer to stare at the image. Her uncle really looked just like her father.
“Maybe it’s the good kind of danger,” Miranda offered. “You know, you’re hot for him and worried about what you are feeling for Steve.”
“I don’t feel anything for Steve,” Della snapped, and frowned when she heard her own heart pick up its pace. So what if she felt something, she wasn’t going to let it lead anywhere. Swallowing, she focused on the photo again.
“We pretty much figured that out,” Miranda said. “Or you’d be hooking up with him.”
“That sounds so stupid. What does hooking up really mean? We’re not dogs, you know!”
Kylie held up both hands as if requesting peace. “What’s going on, Della?”
“Nothing’s going on,” Della insisted.
“Yes, it is,” Kylie said. “You’re grumpy.”
“I’m always grumpy!” Della insisted.
“Then you’re extra arrogant,” Miranda snapped.
“There’s a difference between arrogance and confidence,” Della insisted.
Her friends weren’t buying it. “What happened this weekend?” Kylie asked.
Della felt a wave of emotion swell inside her, but she pushed it back and locked it away so she wouldn’t start blubbering like a little girl. Then, in a monotone voice, she told them about the weekend, about her nightmare, the hole in the wall, and her sister, Marla, saying her dad never talked about her. She told them what she learned about possibly having a vampire uncle. Oh, and she saved the best for last, getting caught in her father’s study and practically being accused of being a thieving alcoholic.