Page 76 of A Vampire Bewitched
Lucian glared at him. “Yer fookin’ with my head, bloodsucker?”
Cedric restrained him with an arm across his chest as he looked between Aiden and Nik. “Is this true, then?”
Aiden pushed at the dirt with the toe of his boot. “It was Nik’s idea.”
“We didn’t want to cause a panic,” Nik told them. “We never thought he’d be gone this long. But one year led into another, and another, and another, and…you get the idea.”
“Ye’r sure he's alive?” Cedric asked. “How has she managed tae hold him all this time?”
Nik glanced at Emma, but he didn’t see any way to avoid disclosing her sister’s involvement. “We think she has a witch helping her.”
The werewolves stepped back as one, superstitiously making the sign of the cross. Witches creeped them out, and as a rule, they stayed far, far away from them.
Nik waited for them to wrap their minds around that before laying the rest of it on them. “We think the witch is Emma’s sister, who went missing around the same time as Luukas.”
Three heads whipped around to look at Emma with new eyes. They knew how witches worked. If one female in the family was a witch, they all were.
Cedric cocked his head to the side and stared at her like he’d never seen her before.
Duncan was brave enough to actually speak to her. “Ye’re a witch, lass?”
Lucian snarled at her, and spoke low out of the side of his mouth to Cedric. “I told ye we coudna’ trust them. They've taken up wi' a witch.”
Nik speared Lucian with an exasperated look. “Youcantrust us. And that includes Emma. She hasn’t hurt you yet, has she?” He squeezed Emma’s arm lightly, hoping she’d take the hint and play along.
She gave them a sweet smile.
The Scots eyeballed her warily, restlessly shifting their weight from side to side, obviously not sure which way to go with this information.
Aiden looked between Emma and the wolves, thoroughly amused. “Really? The big, bad wolves are afraid ofyou, poppet?” He laughed out loud. “She couldn’t even reach you to box your ears!”
Rolling his eyes, Nik supposed Aiden staying quiet for any amount of time was too much to ask.
Cedric puffed out his massive chest. “I’m no’ scared o’ a wee lassie.” The other two followed his lead, if a little less enthusiastically.
With a deep breath and a last wary glance at Emma, the werewolf leader got his head back in the game. Nodding at the disintegrating bodies on the ground, he declared, “Well, th’…uh…guardsare taken care o'. What do ye say we just waltz on in there 'n' find our kin?”
Nik shared a grin with Aiden. They’d been looking forward to this fight for a long time.
Emma turned to look up at Nik. “You’re not serious. We’re not just going to walk right in there, are we?”
“There is no ‘we’ when it comes to you,” Nik informed her. “You, will be staying far, far out of the way.”
Emma raised her eyebrows, but he gave her a warning look. Now was not the time to challenge him.
Lucian motioned Cedric and Duncan to the side and turned his back to the vampires.
It did no good, as Nik could hear him well enough anyway.
Lucian gritted out between clenched teeth, “How da we ken we can trust these two? They’re fookin’ vamps. 'N' they've taken up wi' a witch! They don’t care aboot our brother. How da ye ken they won’t use us tae get in, 'n' then leave us tae fight that bitch, while they escape?”
“Nikulas 'n' Aiden are myfriends, Lucian. I trust them wi' my life.”
“Yer choosing them over yer own kind.”
“Haud yer wheesht!” Cedric told him. “No’ another word aboot it.”
Lucian clenched his jaw, his lips pressed into a thin line. In a deliberate move, he turned his back on his pack leader.
