Chapter 20 #3
Maybe it hadn’t been what it looked like. The sunken eyes, hollow cheeks. My mind had been messed up lately, talking to itself. I’d probably projected some kind of post-traumatic stress trauma onto the contents of the basket. I gripped the edge of the lid, lifted it an inch, and peeked inside.
No, that was definitely a head without a body. A shriveled, prune-like, head.
Jeremy’s head, in fact. In all of its weird monsterness. Wherever his body had ended up, Tabitha had found his head. Or she’d been the one to take it from his neck?
I shut the lid and gently paced my hands on top, holding the lid closed.
Well, this was a . . . development.
The Witherbornes were still on the porch steps, chatting with their friendly new neighbor, and I knew, without any doubt, whatever the Briars wanted wasn’t over.
It had only just begun. And now they’d sent the big guns, in that sweet old lady.
Tabitha. Fleur had known. Fleur had seen this coming, somehow.
The Witherbornes were all in danger. Which meant Theo was too. I didn’t care about Bentley, or Geraldine, or even Leander. But Theo?
My gaze snagged on his back, the line of his shoulders, his messy hair I’d had my hands in not so long ago, and I knew what I should do. I knew what new Owen would do. He’d walk away. I’d already taken the fall for one bad guy. Was I really going to do it again?
Of course you are, because you’re a sucker for the lost, lonely, misunderstood types.
I breathed in, buckled up the gift basket, left it on the sideboard, and returned to the porch steps. “Uh, Theo, can I borrow you for a second?”
Geraldine shot me a glare of sharp annoyance, but Theo didn’t hesitate. He grinned and followed me back inside.
“Briar, obviously related, what does she want?” he muttered.
“Well, she’s answered one question.” There was no easy way of doing this, so I unbuckled it and lifted the lid.
Theo lunged and slammed the lid shut. “Fuck, Owen. That’s a head.” He whispered that last part, leaning in close to me, shoulder to shoulder, head bowed.
“Yeah.”
“What do we do?”
“Hand it back.”
“I can’t . . . it’s a gift.”
A gift of a head. “Hand it back nicely?”
He gulped, pursed his lips and breathed in. “Alright. Yes. That is definitely what I should do.” He picked up the basket, then shoved it at my chest. “You do it.”
“What?” I backed up. “I’m not touching that.” It didn’t matter that I’d already carried it in here.
“Owen, I can’t give it back, it’ll be some kind of diplomatic fuckup. But if you do, I can blame you and mother won’t care.” He shoved it at my chest again, and held it there.
There was a whole head in a box under my nose.
“She could break my fingers?” I hissed.
“She won’t touch you, she knows how much you mean to me.”
She . . . did? I did? “Aw . . . but also no.”
Theo’s face got all soft and his eyes went big and pleading, and there was no way I could say no to that face, even when it had been sucking on a man’s jugular less than ten minutes ago.
“Uhm fine.” I took the basket off him. “But you owe me.”
“I will repay you with a whole lot of kinky vampire sex.”
One severed head in return for kinky vampire sex? Yeah, okay. I could live with that.
We headed back out onto the steps. I nudged past Bentley and held the gift basket out to Tabitha. “You’re too kind, really. But it’s too much, truly. I think this belongs to you.”
Geraldine and Bentley stared wide-eyed at me, probably wondering why the pool boy had just insulted the kind new arrival next door. I doubt anyone else knew what was in the basket. Just me, Theo, and Tabitha.
“Are you sure?” Tabitha’s lipstick-heavy smile cracked.
“Theo,” Geraldine whispered loud enough for us all to hear. “Rein in your pool boy.”
“No,” I told Geraldine. Her eyebrows shot up. “I mean, I think it’s in your best interest, ma’am, to decline such a thoughtful gift.”
Tabitha huffed, snatched the basket from my hands, turned on her flat heels, and plodded down the steps.
“Oh, and uh . . . don’t swim in your pool,” I called after her. “It has a gatekeeper now and doesn’t like you. Just saying.”
“Fuck you, pool boy!” the sweet old lady snarled, then slammed her car door shut with herself inside.
A few minutes later, the car crawled away from the house at a snail’s pace.
“Rude,” Bentley said.
“What was that, young man?” Geraldine asked me, sounding mildly irritated rather than furious. She’d had her suspicions too. I’d seen that on her face.
“I think you know what it was, ma’am. And you guys are going to need me as your pool boy for as long as you’re staying in this house.”
The three vampires stared at me with the mildly bewildered look that murder machines give the small human prey when it’s trying to stand up for itself.
“And I’d like a raise,” I added. It was now or never. Geraldine was either going to fire me on the spot, or keep me on to deal with any more severed heads and pool creatures.
The fact was, vampires had put themselves out there in my world, exposed themselves in a non-weird way, and Jeremy had been right, it made them weak. They weren’t ready for what was coming.
And, as it turned out, neither was I.
To be continued in Book 2, ‘Just the Pool Boy and the Demon Overlord.’
Coming soon!
(Read on for a little snippet of the fun to come)