Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
Landon
The last place I wanted to be on Christmas Eve was begging a werewolf for a damn favor.
The memory of Miles Brown flirting with Harlowe galvanized me, though.
No way in hell was I leaving this to after the holiday.
Who even knew if I’d get a chance to speak with her once we all left this cabin in another week?
Her internship began in only a few short weeks, and there was an immense amount of planning still needed to coordinate her move to Europe.
No, this needed to be done today, regardless of who it meant I had to bribe and cajole.
Joshua slid the car to a stop along the curb of the large cabin an hour the other side of the small mountain town.
It was large and domineering, an old-style log design with an enormous deck that wrapped around the entire main floor.
Three cars were parked in the long driveway, all of them buried in the snow that had fallen.
Footprints littered the snow immediately around the cabin, but none led to the cars.
I supposed there wasn’t much reason for them to travel into town if they had what they needed for Christmas.
A curtain fluttered, and a hand flashed in the window, but no one opened the door.
Joshua didn’t move to get out of the car. He stared straight ahead, his eyes unfocused, that worry line between his eyes. His hands flexed on the steering wheel, his claws sharpening and receding at even intervals, almost like they were their own heartbeat in his body.
“Joshua?” I asked, keeping my voice level, neutral.
He sucked on his teeth before sighing. “Just trying to get it in my head that my daughter’s about to be offered a mating collar, that’s all. She’s getting a mating collar and you’re leaving for France. You’d planned on being out here for a few decades with us.”
I leaned back against the headrest. “I know. I know. I just…”
The corner of his mouth flicks up. “Yeah, I get it. You remember how much of a whirlwind it was with Meridith. And we aren’t even Fated.”
Christ, theirs had been wildly dramatic.
Their entire courtship had lasted only three months.
They’d met at a mutual friend’s graduation party.
Joshua and I had shown up late, buzzed from feeding from a host right before.
She’d been crying in the bathroom. It had just…
clicked for them. The type of wild love you only ever heard about in romance novels.
He’d offered her the mating collar three days before she announced that she was pregnant. That had been over 25 years ago now.
He shook his head and then turned off the car. I eased out onto the unshoveled driveway.
“You’re going to end up punching him,” Joshua said with resigned understanding.
I scoffed. “No, I won’t. I need a favor from him.”
Joshua looked at me with a heavy side-eye.
“Oh, I know. And when he fulfills it, he’ll say something that will piss you off, and you’ll end up punching the dumbass.
He can’t resist goading vampires. You can’t resist beating the shit out of werewolves.
Just try not to ruin the very expensive mating collar you’re about to get, all right? You don’t have time for a replacement.”
I didn’t promise a damn thing as we stepped onto the porch and Joshua knocked on the door three times in rapid succession.
Harlowe
Fuck whoever invented popcorn garland. Helping string it was tedious when I was in a decent mood, though I tried not to show my mom just how much it irritated me.
It was her favorite holiday tradition, all of us sitting around, chatting about our years while we put together enough garland for the entire twelve foot monstrosity of a tree they put up in the great room every year.
Even now, she sat with her legs thrown over Dad’s lap, happily chatting with Ferne about the next big coven event happening in the spring.
Today, though, when all I wanted to do was curl up in a ball and never get out of my bed?
When my neck still sported both bites from Landon while he’d gone with the vampires looking for blood hosts?
I was ready to throw my thread and needle right over the side of the deck, Mom’s traditions be damned.
Or maybe stab it through Miles Brown’s eyeball.
He hadn’t opted to go looking for a host with most of the rest of the unattached vampires.
No, he’d seen it as the perfect opportunity to bother me.
He took a bowl of the freshly made popcorn and wedged himself right between me and Rhiannon, completely ignoring her irritated snarls and the wide open spot on either side of us.
Every brush of our elbows had me wanting to vomit.
He seriously gave me the creeps, like a living embodiment of Gaston.
How was he still part of the group of guys my brother considered friends?
It wasn’t like I could ask my brother, though.
He’d made the wise decision to go for a blood host before all the humans hunkered down for Christmas tomorrow.
I was only halfway done with my six foot piece when I finally decided I couldn’t handle it anymore. Not the popcorn breaking, not the idle chatter, not the way Miles practically breathed down my throat. I dropped the garland into the bowl and eased to my feet. Miles mirrored me, grabbing my elbow.
“Hey, H, what’s wrong?” he asked way too loudly.
I was saved from having to come up with a halfway decent response by both the front and deck doors blowing open. The vampires were back. Tessa locked eyes with me, and then she was pushing Miles away from me.
“Back the fuck off, Brown. Now.” Her snarl was dangerously low, her body still thrumming from the high of feeding.
Miles pulled back his lips in his own snarl, dropping into a crouch.
I eased back from the couch, not wanting to end up in the middle of a vampire fight.
They were vicious and brutal at the best of times.
I cast around for a place to set my bowl when the last of the group came through the door.
Landon stood just inside, his shoulder pressed against the glass.
His clothes were rumpled, the simple button-down he’d worn now wrinkled with spots of blood on the collar and sleeves.
He’d… actually found a host.
My heart twisted so fast in my throat, it was a miracle it kept working. Rhiannon came up to me, her gaze jumping between Landon, Miles, and me.
“Let’s go for a walk,” Rhiannon said, squeezing my hand.
“Here, darling,” Dad crooned, suddenly on my other side. I blinked back the sudden rush of tears. Dad didn’t know. Dad didn’t need to know. “I’ll finish that piece for you, all right?”
Despite her offer to go for a walk, Rhiannon guided me out of the room and upstairs, shutting the door to the small alcove library and then dropping into one of the overstuffed armchairs. I dropped into the other one, leaned my head back, and cried.