Page 47 of Love Bites Hard

“We’ll keep her off the roof,” Zora said, eyeing Avery suspiciously.

“She’s fine. We have cameras there,” Blair countered, replacing Avery as she hugged me last. “I expect more phone calls soon.”

“I didn’t get a phone call,” Clementine protested.

“You’re not mated. You don’t know the secrets,” Blair teased.

Clem feigned offence, lifting her hand to her chest. “I’d better find myself a mate.”

“You’d better not. I willnotsurvive the vampires without you,” Zora warned.

“Let’s get moving,” Avery suggested. “We can have this talk while we clean out Izzy’s lake.”

“Is there a bunch of junk in it?” Clementine asked.

“No. I’ve pulled out a few random things. A shoe here, a pair of underwear there. A few glass bottles, too. But it’s so murky, it’s really hard to say for sure.”

“Would you be able to keep your wolves away from the lake if we tapped into our magic more than usual?” Blair asked, and it took me a minute to realize she was talking to Porter. “It would pull anyone nearby to us, but we could clean the lake much faster.”

I looked sideways at him, waiting for him to stonewall her, but he just nodded. “That wouldn’t be a problem.”

His easy agreement surprised me.

“Awesome,” Blair said.

A glance in their direction showed that her and Hale were holding hands again.

I was happy for her, even if my own mate was more like an acquaintance who had screwed me really, really well on one occasion.

“How many hours do you think it’ll take if you turn your magic up?” Hale asked.

Blair shrugged and looked at me.

Everyone else did too. I could feel their eyes, even though we were still moving.

“All day, probably,” I admitted. “It’s pretty bad.”

“We should’ve brought chlorine, to make it a real party,” Clem said.

Hale and Zora snorted.

Blair and Avery grinned.

I made a face.

“Why would chlorine affect anything?” Porter asked, still looking at me.

When no one else rushed to explain it to him, I shrugged. “It reacts strangely with our magic. When we swim in chlorinated water, we end up coveredeverywherein glitter that can’t be scrubbed off. It takes like two weeks for all of it to fall off. It’s a pain in the ass.”

Suddenly, there was interest in his eyes.

Too much interest.

The look reminded me of Hale saying that Porter used to be wild and rebellious, which made me narrow my eyes at him.

He went back to being neutral a moment later, but I’d noticed the change.

And while I was suddenly a little suspicious, part of me was proud. Because finally, I’d seen another glimpse of the real Porter.

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