“Ha, ha.” I tried to change the subject. “What do we have to do to set up this meeting? Do we need coffee and doughnuts?”
He smiled, a little wickedly, in my opinion. “How’s your arm?”
I lifted it uncertainly. It was sore, but practically healed. “It’s okay. Why?”
“We need chairs.” He opened the storage room door and slid out a cart of folding chairs. “Get unfolding.”
“Yes, sir,” I said with a mock salute. “So, are they going to go ballistic when they realize I’m not a part of the club?”
“Maybe.” He dropped a chair into place. “If anyone gives you a hard time, send them to me.”
“Ooh, big man.”
“You have no idea.” The devilish grin that formed on his face eased some of the anxiety I felt. The comment, however, renewed the spark of another kind of tension I’d almost forgotten existed between us. I nearly dropped the chair I held.
The bells above the door jingled. They’d melted in the fire, so rather than merrily announcing the entrance of a customer, they sounded like the arrival of a satanic ice-cream truck.
Two men entered. Though they were dressed in casual clothes, they projected an aura of menace.
Nathan was unperturbed as he hurried to greet them. “Alex, Gary! Get rested up?”
They didn’t respond. They were too busy staring at me. I wondered if maybe I had said something under my breath.
Alex spoke first. He was tall and dark-skinned, with a shaved head. “What’s she doing here?”
Unfazed by the man’s gruff demeanor, Nathan motioned me forward. “This is Dr. Carrie Ames.”
“Hi.” I extended my hand, hoping it didn’t shake.
Alex didn’t take it. But Gary shook my hand readily.
“Pleased to meet you.” He had dark hair, olive skin and a Texan drawl. And he didn’t appear to hate me outright, which scored big points in my book.
“Is she one of us?” Alex asked as he eyed me suspiciously.
Nathan smiled, a clearly antagonistic gesture. “Yeah, she’s one of us. Not Movement, though.”
Gary raised his hands as if surrendering as he stepped away from his friend.
Alex inclined his head toward me. “Any reason for that?”
Before I could answer, Nathan stepped in front of me, and in doing so, was almost nose to nose with the other vampire. “She’s not sure about it yet.”
“Not sure if she wants to be good or evil? That doesn’t sound like a tough choice to me,” Alex said, his voice liquid hate.
Nathan tried to remain calm. “She hasn’t broken a single rule since she turned.”
“Yeah, but you know the rules, man.” Gary sounded nervous, as if they might all be struck down for consorting with a renegade vampire any second.
“And we all know how well you follow the rules.” Alex stared right at him. The tone of his voice implied an intense dislike for Nathan.
Gosh, if this guy thought Nathan was soft on the rules, I’d hate to think how he lived his life.
I saw the muscles of Nathan’s back bunch beneath his shirt. More vampires would be arriving soon. I sent up a silent prayer Nathan wouldn’t flip out and start throwing punches.
I cleared my throat and tried to sound authoritative. “This isn’t about Nathan. It’s about me. I’m all for law and order and keeping the peace, but I don’t know where you Movement guys get off with your ‘join us or die’ rhetoric. I don’t do anything unless I’m asked nicely.”
I stole a glance at Nathan and saw quiet pride on his face.
“I think you better ask her nicely,” Gary said with a laugh.
Alex sneered at me. “Pretty please, with a cherry on top, would you join the fucking Movement?”
“I’ll think about it.”
With a muttered curse, Alex walked to the cluster of chairs and dropped down heavily. I secretly hoped there would be a weakness somewhere in the chair’s frame so that it would topple from under him.
Alas, it didn’t. Gary regarded me with wide eyes and went to join his friend.
Nathan leaned close as he walked past me and whispered, “Think you can do that about fifteen more times?”
He wasn’t kidding. Exactly fifteen more vampires showed up, offering fifteen lukewarm receptions. But most of them just ignored me as they socialized with one another. The situation harkened back to my high school days, when my friends would rope me into going to college parties and promptly disappear with their new frat-boy love interests. I’d just be standing there, holding a red plastic cup of two dollar beer, trying not to catch anyone’s attention.
The variety of vampires surprised me. I like to think of myself as a forward-thinking woman with feminist leanings, but I was truly surprised when almost half the team turned out to be female. Some of the women looked like stereotypical vampire seductresses, with dark clothes and heavy makeup, but most of them were very normal looking. One of them even wore a pink cashmere twinset with pearls. She looked more suited to be an attendee at a meeting of the Young Republicans than a gathering of ruthless assassins.
The males in the group were just as diverse, some so young they appeared to be teenagers and one was old enough to have been my father. The older man shook hands enthusiastically with me, explaining he’d been a doctor as well. “Well, a doctor of psychology,” he’d said, in the early 1920s. “We’ll have a lot to talk about,” he’d promised, and when he’d patted my hand, I couldn’t help but think he might be coming on to me.
When the meeting came to order, only one person voiced concern at my attending, and that was Alex. He was overruled by the tall, slender female who seemed to be in charge.
The tall, slender female Nathan couldn’t keep his eyes off of. “I asked her to let you stay, as a personal favor,” Nathan whispered, never tearing his rapt gaze from her willowy body.
“Try to keep your tongue in your mouth,” I snapped quietly.
Ms. Gorgeous paced back and forth in front of us, and I tried hard not to hate her. She had legs that seemed to go to her neck, and a fashion sense I could never hope to cultivate. With a sad smile, she began to speak. “Thanks for coming tonight, guys. I know a lot of you have planes and buses to catch, so I’ll keep this as brief as possible. As you know, we lost two members in our fight with the Soul Eater.”
I looked around at all the grave faces.
The speaker continued. “And Nathan Grant lost someone very special.”
She smiled tenderly at him, and I realized I was glaring at her. Behind me I heard quiet chuckling, and I turned to see a blond man with a friendly—not to mention adorable—face wink at me. I doubted it was Nathan’s tragedy the man found amusing.
Nathan had heard the laughing as well. “Max, do you have something to share?”
Max sobered instantly. “No, man. We’re cool. Sorry about the kid.”
With a grumpy nod, Nathan turned in his seat.
“If we can all get back to the meeting,” the alpha female said, frowning so sternly at Max I almost reminded her that Nathan had been talking, too. God, petty jealousy was turning me into a deranged tattletale. I wondered if it was a trait I’d inherited from Cyrus, or one that I’d had all along but never had a chance to use.
“While