must be spinning.
Unbidden, an image of her lying in bed, asleep and vulnerable, rose into his mind’s eye.
He squelched it immediately, but not before he had to readjust his position in his seat irritably. After having no desire for a woman in more years than he could remember, his manhood was suddenly determined to make its presence known.
“All right,” Emily’s voice agreed reluctantly, and he focused on the conversation at hand. “What do you want to know?”
“What were you doing at the farmhouse? You’re obviously not a werewolf,” Paoli said. “Or a vampire,” he added with a teasing note.
She gave a slight chuckle.
“No, just a plain ole human, I’m afraid,” she said.
She gave William a look full of meaning.
“And I intend to stay that way,” she added firmly.
Then she turned back to Paoli.
“I tracked Amber to that location and went to find her,” she said.
“She was missing?” Paoli’s voice had gone from simply conversational to interested.
“For almost a year now,” Emily confirmed. “She ran away with some guy she met. I’ve been searching for her since then.”
“What was his name?” Paoli asked.
“Brian was his first name, but I never found out his last. He was the one you—” She broke off, looking uncomfortably at William.
“Killed,” William finished for her. “Do you know anything else about him?”
As much as William hated to start questioning her too, they needed to know as much as possible. This night was bound to have a nasty fallout.
Paoli was right.
The Coven was going to be angry, and they needed all the information they could get to mount a defense.
“Not much,” she said with a small shake of her head. “It took a long time to find out where he worked. I followed him back to the pack from there. Amber has a long history with men and—” She broke off suddenly and fell silent. “Poor choices,” she said finally.
“What kind of poor choices?” Paoli wanted to know, seemingly oblivious to the prying nature of his question.
Emily looked uncomfortable again. She was chewing the edge of her lip nervously.
“We’re sorry to ask such probing questions,” William said. “But we need to know everything. We broke some rules tonight, and we’ll have to answer for it soon. The more information we have, the better.”
Emily nodded in understanding and gave a deep, resolved sigh.
“Amber’s long line of bad decisions plagued our mother until her passing and has controlled most of my adult life. She got into drugs, prostitution,” she shrugged. “You name it. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to bail her out of jail.”
She scoffed and gave a small shake of her head.
“When she said this man could change everything, I didn’t pay much attention. It seemed like every other day there was a new man who could change her life. After a while, I just learned to tune her out.”
There was a long pause.
“We weren’t exactly on speaking terms when she disappeared,” she admitted, her voice sounding somehow small.
“Do you know what they did to her?” Paoli asked.
“All I know is they bit her and something went wrong,” Emily said.
She spared a glance at her sister’s sorry state.
“Is there any way to help her now?” Her voice broke just the slightest bit.
William’s eyes met Paoli’s in the rearview mirror, but neither spoke. They were dancing into dangerous territory, and the question of what would happen to the condemned woman was one they would have to discuss at length.
Privately.
Paoli patted Emily gently on the shoulder; a move that was rewarded with a dark stare from William.
“We’ll try,” Paoli said.
It was the only promise they could offer.
Chapter 6
William leaned against the door with his head near the partially open window for the last part of the drive. His body hadn’t fully cooled from having Emily in his arms, and the wind helped to dilute her scent somewhat.
He breathed a sigh of relief when he finally pulled into the garage and got out of the car. Emily got out, looked around, and gave him a look of surprise from across the car roof.
For the briefest of seconds, her surprise puzzled him. Then it dawned on him, and he gave her a knowing smile as he closed his door.
“Were you expecting something else?” He quirked one teasing brow.
Emily froze. She didn’t want to offend them.
Again.
But she hadn’t covered her surprise well enough, and it was too late to deny it.
“Yes, actually,” she admitted. “Like castles and moats—”
“And a guy in a cape who ‘vants to zuck yer blood’?” Paoli asked in his best Lon Chaney voice as he carried Amber past them and into the house.
Her face flushed warm again. Maybe not the last part, but she certainly didn’t expect them to be living in a completely normal split level just outside of a small town.
She really had a lot to learn about the world she’d tumbled into.
Her embarrassment kept her silent as she followed William to the room Paoli laid Amber in. After Paoli got Amber situated, he considerately pulled the plush blue chair right up to the bedside for Emily. She sat down with a fleeting smile of thanks, but Paoli’s demeanor kept her wary.
He seemed uncomfortable, and he was looming.
“We need to be honest with you,” Paoli said once she was seated. “We have to discuss some things you may not want to hear. But there are things going on here you must understand. You need to know the truth we’re all facing so you can make your own choices. Informed choices,” Paoli said.
Emily didn’t like the sound of that. She swallowed a lump in her throat and tried to sound normal.
“Like what?” she asked.
To her surprise, she managed to pull off merely curious. But she fingered the silver necklace under her shirt nervously.
“Like what’s going to happen with your sister.” Paoli’s voice was gentle and patient.
“What do you mean?” Emily asked, her voice growing stiff.
“The Coven said she’s to be executed,” William supplied from the doorway he was leaning against.
Emily sucked in an audible breath, but her voice was level when she spoke.
“What is ‘the Coven’?” she asked.
She’d only heard the term for a group of witches, but she suspected that wasn’t what they were referring to.
“The government of our world,” Paoli explained.
She nodded after a moment of thought. It made sense for them to have a separate government, she supposed. It wasn’t like a vampire could appear in a normal human court. But she got the distinct feeling there was more.
“OK,” she said slowly, trying to process the new information. “So, we need to keep her away from your government people until we figure out what to do.”
It