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He’s right—I can’t stand it if we never see each other again! But on the other hand, I can’t just leave James the way Dad left Mom! What am I going to do?
She opened her mouth, not sure what was going to come out, and at that moment her cell phone chimed.
Oh, thank God!
Jodi grabbed for it like a drowning woman reaching for a lifeline.
“Darling, I hardly think now is the time to answer your phone,” James remarked, but Jodi was already staring at the screen.
“It’s Melli,” she said, sudden concern stabbing at her heart. “But she never calls—she always texts. What’s going on?”
Before either man could answer, she accepted the call and brought the phone to her ear.
Melli was sobbing.
“Melli? Melli—oh my God, Melli—what’s wrong?”
Jodi’s heart was pounding. The last time she’d gotten a call like this from her little sister had been right after the awful events of Melli’s Junior Prom. She had called crying and begging Jodi to come get her but not to tell Mom and Dad anything.
“Melli?” she said again. “Please, honey, try and talk to me. Tell me what’s wrong?”
What she got back was a garbled mass of words so jumbled only a sister could have understood. Luckily, Jodi was good at decoding Melli’s hysteria.
“What do you mean Liosh killed someone and the police are taking him away?” she asked blankly.
Vorn was instantly on high alert.
“What? Where? Where are they taking him?”
“Shhhh!” Jodi shushed him furiously, waving a hand in his face as she tried to make out Melli’s next words.
“I s-said he d-didn’t k-ku-kill just anybody. He k-killed Jason Suh-sykes!” Her little sister’s voice shook and wavered on the name of her attacker.
Jodi felt her stomach roll. Suddenly things began to make sense. She had heard of how extremely protective Kindred could be of their females. If Melli had told Liosh that bastard Jason had attacked her, it wasn’t surprising that Liosh had gone after him. Though she couldn’t imagine the seemingly mild-mannered Blood Kindred killing anyone.
She put a hand over the phone and looked at Vorn, who looked ready to pull his hair out as he waited to hear what was going on.
“Apparently Melli and Liosh ran into the guy who, uh, hurt her in high school and Liosh went after him. Somebody called the police and now it’s a big mess.”
He nodded, his golden eyes glowing.
“Not surprising. Liosh probably went into Rage when he saw the bastard who hurt his female.”
Jodi nodded distractedly and went back to her sister.
“Take a deep breath,” she told Melli. “I’m sure he didn’t really kill him. Everyone is probably over-reacting.”
“Amanda Brannigan is here telling the police that he killed Jason on purpose,” Melli sobbed. “I can’t get them to listen to me when I tell them he was trying to…to hurt me again. And Liosh had blood all o-over h-his f-face!”
She was dissolving into incoherence again and Jodi knew she had to get some information fast.
“Where are you?” she demanded. “I’m coming to get you right now.” She looked at the big Kindred, who nodded grimly. “And Vorn will go after Liosh. Everything is going to be all right—you’ll see, Melli. I promise.”
As soon as she hung up, James started talking.
“Darling, what is going on?” he demanded. “What was your little sister blathering on about? And where do you think you’re going?” he added, frowning as Jodi grabbed her purse and keys. “I believe we were in the middle of a very serious discussion!”
“It’ll have to wait, James,” Jodi snapped. She looked at Vorn. “We’d better take separate vehicles. I need to get Melli and it sounds like Liosh got taken to the police station.”
He nodded grimly.
“Where are we going?”
Jodi gave him the address and then ran to her car, leaving James to stand there gaping.
But as she and Vorn raced to their respective vehicles, neither one of them noticed the shadowed figure hiding around the side of the duplex or heard the soft hissing whisper as a forked tongue flickered out to taste the air.
Thirty-Eight
“I can’t believe this. I can’t believe the police wouldn’t let Liosh go! Now he’s going to go to prison forever and it’s all my fault!” Melli slumped on her big sister’s couch and put her head in her hands.
“Honey, no! It’s not your fault at all!” Jodi put an arm around her shoulders and squeezed reassuringly. “And nobody is taking Liosh to prison. You know the Kindred have diplomatic immunity! Also, they passed that law a while back saying they couldn’t be prosecuted for hurting a man who was attacking their mate.”
“But I’m not Liosh’s mate—not yet!” Melli protested. “And they wouldn’t even believe Jason Sykes was attacking me—thanks to Amanda Brannigan.” She curled her hands into fists. “When I think that she was the one who set him on me in the first place! And then she was telling the police lies about how she and Jason were just talking and all of a sudden Liosh came out of nowhere and attacked him! That isn’t what happened at all!”
