Page 54 of Call of the Blood

“Let me make something very clear. If I ask for your help on this, it’s because I either think you are in danger and keeping you close will keep you safe, or things have turned desperate for me, and I trust you to be my backup.” Alexius looked at me in the dark car. “Do you understand? I think you need to enjoy time with your brother. Take it from someone who didn’t spend enough time with the only person he cared about and lost.”

“Okay.” I leaned in and put my cheek to his hand as he continued to rub my palm with a thumb. “I’ll stop bothering you about it. Please be safe.”

“Easy. Not many things out there that can kill me.”

“But they have gotten close before,” I reminded him.

“I have survived many years of this, Everly. I will be okay. That is my promise to you, the same I have for Rupert. The same one I had for Jacob. I keep that promise. I am not ready to die.”

I nodded, accepting that promise now.

We arrived at a beach house, expensive and packed with people, nearly all of them werewolves. A contracted valet person took our car and went to park it somewhere.

“I wish I knew where our vehicle was going,” he muttered.

“Maybe you could ask?”

“No. It’s not that important.” He wrapped an arm around me, his hand on my hip as we walked in. It wasn’t a casual touch. When someone told Callahan we walked in, he turned and noticed. He tilted his head slightly, curiously, as Alexius and I walked up.

“Greetings. Let’s go upstairs.” He led us away from the werewolves staring. He pointed somewhere and made a gesture for others to move or come closer. I saw Declan and Lexi come out of the crowd, then Lucas. He had a beautiful woman with him who I could only assume was Yiva, his wife and Lexi’s mother.

We all went upstairs together, where Callahan closed us into an office that looked out on the ocean.

“What is going on? Why was Declan warned, and why did he give the most obscure warning to my werewolves he could have possibly given?”

“Oh…” I should have mentioned more.

“Everly didn’t want to tell her brother that a vampire I’ve been looking for killed someone in his parking garage,” Alexius said, sitting down without an invitation. Everyone else kept standing as Callahan watched Alexius, then looked at me.

“What?” Declan said, exhaling in a surprised and fearful laugh.

“Well, now he knows,” Callahan commented dryly.

“Thanks,” I said, turning to Alexius, not appreciating him outing it like that.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Lexi demanded.

“Because it wasn’t your business,” I snapped at her. “I didn’t want to scare Declan, and you can clearly keep nothing to yourself except the one thing you should have told him.”

Lucas clapped a hand over his daughter’s mouth before she could retort. I smiled, knowing Alexius wouldn’t do that to me right now. In fact, he reached out and took my hand, but nothing more.

“You are very important to these two women, which is making me hate you,” Callahan said, directed at my brother. There was no heat in the statement. I wasn’t even sure he was serious.

“I’m sorry, sir. It’s making me hate them,” Declan said softly.

“Apology accepted, but don’t hate them. They clearly love you. It’s just adding to my already full plate to have to negotiate the nonsense between vampires and my werewolves over you. If anything, it’s their fault, but…” Callahan shrugged. “It’s easier to blame you. I don’t piss off one of the oldest supernaturals in the world if I blame you.”

“And that’s…” Declan looked at me, but then beyond me, frowning as he realized Alexius was just chilling in a chair, holding my hand. He was so deceptively casual, disregarding the emotions of the room and the power of the other supernaturals in it.

“Alexius the Hunter,” Callahan confirmed. “Who is very attached to your sister by the looks of it. And it’s not fair to only blame my werewolves. They’d be rightfully angry with me. So…”

“So, me.”

“Yeah. Don’t worry. I will only hold this against you until Everly and Alexius have gone home and things are settled again.”

“Thank you, sir,” Declan said, glaring at me.

“Callahan, the boy doesn’t know you’re joking,” Alexius finally said, looking up at the Alpha werewolf.