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I squinted at him. “Are you trying to get rid of me?”
“I’m trying to help you. Being alive isn’t the same as living. I never understood that until I met you.”
“So glad I could teach you something.”
Ray sighed. “I didn’t mean it like that. I’d like to see you thriving, that’s all.”
“I appreciate your concern, but I’m a big girl, and I don’t need it.”
“Everybody needs a squad. Look at that Taylor Swift. She has a great support system in place.”
I turned to face the ghost. “Should I give her a call and see if she has room for one more?”
“I was only trying to give you a real-world example. No need to be a smart aleck. If you don’t want to venture out, then you should invite one of your friends over for a game of Scrabble.”
“Nobody will want to be out in this weather.”
“You could visit the little vampire. He doesn’t live too far.”
The little vampire was Otto Visconti, a blind vampire with a Napoleon complex who’d been cursed to prevent him from drinking human blood. One drop and he’d burst into flames, or something like that. The ‘what’ was clear, but the ‘how’ was murky.
“I’m not in the mood,” I said.
Ray gave me a long look. “I guess your gentleman caller isn’t back yet.”
I exhaled in annoyance. “Kane isn’t my gentleman caller. He isn’t my anything.” I retreated into the house and stormed downstairs to heat the kettle and try to forget the name Kane Sullivan.
Six weeks had passed since I’d shown the prince of hell my true colors. Six long weeks of uncertainty. When I first discovered he’d taken off without a word, I stayed close to home, licking my wounds. Eventually, I returned to the Devil’s Playground to see whether Josephine Banks, his right arm and nightclub muscle, would reveal his whereabouts.
It had been a wasted effort. The vampire seemed to delight in telling me she was under strict orders to keep his location restricted to his inner circle.
The message was clear—I wasn’t his inner circle. I wasn’t anything to him.
I knew my revelation would shock the mysterious demon, but I never expected that it would send him packing. We’d developed a bond during my time in Fairhaven, or so I believed.
My mistake.
I should’ve known not to get too close to anyone. It always ended poorly.
My skin tingled as I poured hot water into a mug. It was too early for a visitor, but the ward didn’t lie.
“It’s that handsome werewolf,” Nana Pratt blurted as I opened the front door. The ghost was on the porch, excited by the prospect of company.
The look on Weston Davies’ face told me this wasn’t a social call. The fact that the alpha of the local Arrowhead Pack also actively disliked me might’ve also been a clue.
West removed his knit cap. “Good morning, Lorelei.”
“Your face says otherwise. Come in.”
He wiped his boots on the mat before stepping inside. A wolf in the wood but a gentleman in the ‘hood, apparently.
“Would you like tea? I just made myself a cup.”
“Sure.” He unzipped his coat and hung it on the new coat rack, a gift from Gunther Saxon, the mage assassin, who was aghast to have nowhere to hang his pricey outer layers. “Where are you with the renovations?”
“Somewhere in the murky middle.”
Unsurprisingly, the aforementioned money pit required extensive renovations. I’d bought the pile of bluestone sight unseen, apart from a handful of online photos. The five-thousand-square-foot house had been built as a summer ‘cottage’ during the Gilded Age by a tycoon named Joseph Edgar Blue III. Blue lost interest in the house after his wife’s death. It was finally abandoned when his son and heir squandered the family fortune, and no one could afford the Castle’s upkeep, along with the rising property taxes. The house’s position atop a hill meant I could see the town below and the river that bordered it to the east, as well as the forest to the south. As far as I was concerned, the view was the building’s best feature.
