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Isaac scowled and slammed it shut. “Sun’s up. Wolves are gone.”
“Gone where?”
“Back to being people. Shifted right there in the yard.” He lowered his voice. “Mel’s naked behind is somethin’ I never wanna see again.” Isaac fixed the group with a glare. “Just ’cause they look human now don’t mean they are. Their selves died when they did. They’ll do everything they can to lure us out, keep us there until they can make us like them. It’s what they do.”
“What set Amberleigh off?” Teo stepped into the room. His shirt was caught up on one side, revealing a slice of rippling abs. Gina swallowed the urge to lick him like an ice-cream cone. She settled for tugging down his shirt, then taking his hand.
When she glanced again at Isaac, his gaze was on those hands; then it went to Teo’s chest and finally to her face. Though his dark eyes held no recrimination, she could tell that he knew where she’d been and whom she’d been doing.
Her fingers released Teo’s, but he would not let hers go, and the next instant she was glad. Pretending they weren’t together wouldn’t work. Because they were and they were going to stay that way. Everyone needed to get used to it.
Isaac lowered his eyes. “She said Ashleigh wanted to see her.”
“Ashleigh’s a werewolf,” Gina pointed out. “How would Amberleigh know what she wanted?”
“According to—” Isaac jerked his thumb toward the dining room, where Melda had gotten Amberleigh calmed down enough to emit only great, gulping, nearly silent sobs. Go, Melda! “She heard her name on the wind.”
Gina stilled. Uh-oh.
Teo’s fingers tightened on hers. Had she started? She wouldn’t be surprised. “And then?” she urged.
“She snuck past Fanny, followed the sound downstairs, and found a wolf in the kitchen.”
Now Gina started so violently she nearly yanked her hand from Teo’s without even trying to. “Inside?”
“So she says.”
“She’s been sucking her thumb for two days,” Tim pointed out. “Should we really believe anything she tells us?”
“I saw it!” Amberleigh shrieked, getting to her feet, ignoring Melda’s attempts to stop her. “It was right there.” She pointed a badly trembling finger at the floor next to Isaac. “The eyes,” she moaned. “They were horrible.” Then, strangely: “My ankle hurts.”
“Let’s go upstairs and…” Melda’s voice trailed off. That seemed to happen a lot now that Mel was no longer around to finish her sentences. But Amberleigh allowed Melda to lead her away.
“She is one weird dude,” Derek murmured.
“Not a dude,” his father said. “But definitely weird.”
“If one of them got inside, why would it leave?” Teo asked.
“If one of them got inside, how could it leave?” Gina countered. “Was the door open when you got here, Isaac?” He shook his head. “How would a wolf get out, or in?” She wiggled her free hand. “No thumbs.”
“What if crazy chick let it in?” Derek asked. “What if it’s still in?”
“If a werewolf got inside,” Isaac said, “there would be more blood. If…” he lifted his brows, “crazy chick had opened the door, they’d all be in, not just one.
”
“None of them came in.” Fanny, who had been sitting quietly at the kitchen table, now stood and moved to the window. She lifted a tiny sprig of dried purple flowers from the sill. “Wolfsbane,” she said simply, then returned the plant to its place.
Gina glanced around, but no one, not even Isaac, seemed to know what in hell Fanny was talking about.
“What does that do?” Gina asked.
“Keeps them out.” Fanny sat again at the table. “I placed a piece at every window and door. You don’t think they sat out there all night because of one gun, do you?”
From Isaac’s scowl, he had. “Where’d you learn that?”
“Mother.”
