Tainted Blood (49 page)

“You have nothing to be sorry for. Morgan has used his diluted fantasies and demon lies to influence the weak. He is the one who will be sorry.”

I said nothing because I had no clue how to respond to that.

“Delaney?” Felix said after a moment’s silence.

“Yeah?” I questioned quietly.

“You and your friends fought valiantly tonight; that will not be forgotten.” I felt proud of myself and my friends, and I knew they had heard him by the proud looks on their faces. We had fought well. We’d survived and protected each other,
and
we had protected Felix when he needed it.

Felix laughed that throaty chuckle of his and continued, “Especially that little Kiera. She’s a force to be reckoned with, especially when it comes to Carter.” He continued to chuckle. I saw Kiera’s cheek turn a light shade of pink. She had nothing to be embarrassed about and my friends were reassuring her of that as Felix said, “Thank you, to all of you.”

I smiled in return. “I will pass along your compliment.”

I ended the call and squeezed myself on the bed with my friends. I didn’t need to pass anything along. They’d heard it all. We sat there in silence, ready to put the night behind us when Carter said, “Fighting with you girls tonight was actually a total hoot!”

I couldn’t help but laugh.

“Yeah, Carter, a
total
hoot,” Zoey said, and every word dripped with sarcasm.

Zoey called Rudy after that. She left the room when she realized how uncomfortable her conversation with him was making us. It wasn’t that they were saying anything inappropriate; it was just that what they were talking about didn’t need to be heard by all. You know, like all that lovey-dovey crap new couples go on about. Yeah, that. It was hard to listen to when it wasn’t your own lovey-dovey crap.

Chapter
26 - Into the Belly of the Beast

We were all asleep in Zoey’s bedroom, the trundle from under her bed pulled up beside her daybed. The four of us were crammed together in the two twin beds when we were startled awake by a pounding on the bedroom door.

“Rise and shine,” Felix’s voice boomed as he swung open the door. He got a good laugh at the sight of the four of us crammed together. He especially enjoyed Carter in the lavender sweats.

Once Felix’s laughter finally died away, he told us that he needed to speak with us and that he had a proposition. We hurried to our feet and followed Felix into the front room where he took a seat at the dining table. Grandma Levesque was nowhere to be seen as we joined him. Kiera sat in Carter’s lap since there were only four chairs, and as we settled into our seats and waited for Felix to speak, a loud burp escaped Carter.

“Excuse me,” he said.

“Charming,” Zoey responded.

Without even a pause, Carter replied, “Would you rather it come out the other end?”

Zoey visibly shuddered, and the rest of us chuckled.

Felix quieted our laughter. “We need the book that Morgan gave to Avery Weslin,” Felix told us. We all waited for what he would say next. His pale, sky blue eyes met each of ours in turn, and then he asked Kiera and me, “How would the two of you like to try your hand at being a Brookehaven Vampire?”

I was speechless, mostly because I was slightly afraid of what being a Brookehaven Vampire entailed. Kiera, on the other hand, had a question. “Are you asking us if we want to be vampires?” She was dead serious.

Felix chuckled, even tossed his head back a bit then explained to her that Brookehaven was the name of his coven and that he wanted to know if we would like to work with them, not become one of them.

“What would we have to do?” she asked next.

“I need the two of you to go to the Weslin house and find the book.” Kiera and I exchanged a look for a moment.

“Why me?” I asked. “Why not Zoey or Carter?” I didn’t want to go anywhere near the Weslin house.

Felix explained his reasoning next, and with my friends’ input, it was clear why it had to be me.
Carter couldn’t go because going to the Weslin house was going to take place when both Ashton
and Avery were in bio, where he needed to be to make sure they both stayed there. But it did mean that Carter would have to endure bio with the traitor, Professor Morgan, and the Weslin siblings.

It couldn’t be Zoey because we couldn’t risk Avery thinking Zoey was no longer her friend. We needed someone on the inside, someone who could get dirt from Avery.

So all that was left was
me and Kiera
. Kiera wouldn’t be a suspicion since Mrs. Weslin
loved
Kiera. Me, not so much. She thought Kiera was a great role model for her daughter. But it didn’t matter how many people with good morals Avery was around. That girl was corrupt and there was no changing that fact.

“We need someone to go in, someone who can get to Avery without tipping her off. She doesn’t know Kiera is involved in any of this. She thinks Kiera is just some innocent bystander,” Felix continued to tell us but Kiera didn’t fully agree.

“Avery isn’t speaking to me right now,” Kiera told us. “She’s mad at me because I didn’t ask her to be a bridesmaid.” This was true. Thanks to some encouragement from Carter, Kiera selected only two people to be in the wedding party, as had Carter.

“Well,” Felix said, contemplating this information for a moment. “I suppose once she finds out you were in the house she will no longer see you as a bystander but a guilty party.”

“I’m cool with that,” she said with a chipper smile and a shrug. Kiera was taking to the supernatural world surprisingly well. Carter hugged her with approval. Although I could see that involving Kiera in these matters was causing him a great deal of stress, he was doing his best to hide it from the others.

Felix ran Carter and me to our apartments to change. The sky was gray as I reached the top step, but the rain had stopped. It was chilly out, and the fierce wind only reinforced the cold. I hurried inside to search of warm clothing.

Our shoes were filthy—pretty much trashed—from the previous night, and I knew that would never fly at the Weslin house, so I had to dig through a couple of Kiera’s boxes to find her a fresh pair. Once I found a decent pair for myself and changed out of Zoey’s sweats, I made a mental note to go shoe shopping when all of this crap was over. I was down three pairs of shoes at this point. I slipped on the only pair of sneakers I had left and then ran down the steps to the apartment parking lot where Carter and Felix were waiting.

Felix drove us to the college and Carter headed off to class while I hopped into my car. Before I’d exited Felix’s SUV, he told me that Kiera and I needed to be very careful and that he wouldn’t be far in case we ran into trouble. Then he told me that if Mr. Weslin happened to be home, to be extra careful around him because he wasn’t as ordinary as he appeared. I gave him a questioning look but he wasn’t going to tell me anymore so I dropped it. For now.

Once in my car I headed back to Zoey’s, and after picking up Kiera, we headed to the Weslin’s while Zoey headed for the school in her green box. Kiera and I rode in silent contemplation all the way out to Avery and Ashton’s parents’ house. The house where Avery still resided because her brother refused to let her join a sorority and move into one of their houses.

Once we’d parked across the street from the house, we had a mini powwow on how we were going to handle getting into the house. “I’ll just tell her mom that I need to pick up a school book that Avery borrowed.” Kiera decided. It sounded like a good enough plan to me so we went with it.

What I remembered from the times I had been to Avery and Ashton’s house back in the high school years, Mrs. Weslin didn’t work, but she did like to shop—a lot—and she was typically in and out of the house daily. Mr. Weslin sometimes worked from home, but at that very moment, both of their expensive cars were in the driveway. There was no doubt the Weslins had money and they often liked to make a show of it. Hence the pricey cars in the driveway instead of in their attached, massive garage. But both cars being in the driveway most likely meant they were both home. Not something we had counted on.

We walked side by side up the front path to the immense single story Weslin home with its arched porch and elaborate front door. Mrs. Weslin opened the door just as Kiera reached for the knocker. This was when I was
so
thankful that Felix had “fixed” our wounds before we’d left. A little vampire spit goes a long way.

“Oh!” Mrs. Weslin said in surprise. She smiled at Kiera and I only received a bitter glance. There were many reasons Mrs. Weslin didn’t like me, and I really didn’t care about any of them.

“Kiera, darling. What are you doing here? I believe Avery has classes all day,” she said after a quick search for her daughter’s powder blue Beetle.

Mrs. Weslin was one of those women who had clearly had some work done. That or she had sold her soul to the devil and although that was probably a possibility, I was pretty sure none of the Weslins had souls to sell. Anyway, her skin appeared to be a little too tight on her face and it was actually quite disturbing.

“Oh, I know,” Kiera began. “I just spoke to her. She borrowed one of my books, and I need to get it back. I have a test. Avery said that she left it on her nightstand. Would you mind if I got it?” Even though Kiera had rambled a little in the middle of her lie I would’ve believed her had I not known that she was full of it. I was impressed.

“Of course, dear. I was just on my way out. Be sure to make it quick and do be quiet,” she said as she brushed past us, a sweater wrapped around her shoulders. “Mr. Weslin is in his study. He’s working and cannot be disturbed. Bye, dear!” She gave only Kiera a wave as she slid into her fancy car.

Once we were inside the house and had closed the door behind us, we very quietly headed straight to Avery’s bedroom.

Just as it had been when we were friends in high school, Avery’s room was so pink it looked like several flamingos had exploded. Her bedroom was easily twice the size of my childhood room and her bed was huge, draped in several shades of pink and accented with light blue. Different shapes and sizes of pillows adorned the bed, and smack in the center of the pillows was a stuffed bear. It surprisingly was not pink, or blue, but brown and rather ratty. I assumed it was a childhood memento, and it made me consider the possibility that Avery could possibly, maybe, still have actual feelings. I immediately doubted this, and the entire time we were there I was fighting off the urge to wonder if Oliver had visited Avery’s bedroom. My stomach turned, and I forced myself to focus on the task at hand. It was hard to push those thoughts away.

We quietly searched every inch of that bedroom, whispering to each other as we did so. Apparently Kiera had finally seen Avery for what she was, and it was nice to have her totally on my side. We found nothing, but both of us felt we needed to shower and burn the clothes we were wearing. Avery had some surprisingly naughty stuff in her room. Considering how sweet and innocent her pink room portrayed her, she was far from it.

We weren’t quite ready to give up our search as we silently ventured out of Avery’s bedroom, but we didn’t know where to look next. We could hear the muffled voice of Mr. Weslin coming from his study near the entryway.

“What now?” Kiera whispered. I shrugged in response. I was at a loss. Then I noticed Ashton’s bedroom door, opened only a fraction. I gestured for Kiera to follow and I slowly pushed open Ashton’s door.

Ashton’s room was a dark shade of blue, and shelves and cabinets lined his walls full of trophies and pictures from every sport he’d ever played. It was just as I remembered it. That date I went on with Ashton last year hadn’t been our first intimate encounter.

There was a night, during my last year of high school, when I’d stayed the night with Avery. Lilly had let me stay over at Avery’s only because Ashton had moved out and she knew he wouldn’t be there. Ashton was a year ahead of the rest of us and he was in his first year of college when I was in my senior year. He’d come home that night though.

Looking back, I’m pretty sure he knew I was going to be there, at his house, when I stayed over. He showed up that night, claiming to be homesick even though his frat house was only a few blocks away. I’m certain Avery had encouraged him to come home. I think she also encouraged him to invite Tate over that night.

This took place not long after homecoming our senior year. We’d all—our regular crowd—gone to the football game and to the homecoming dance together, just as friends. Ashton and his cousin, Ashlynn—who had also graduated a year ahead of me—joined us.

We’d had a great time and it was especially fun because nobody was dating. But that wasn’t going to last. Avery had a thing for Tate back then and she thought that he had a thing for me. (I found this part out later.) So, in the hopes of hooking me up with her brother and making me unavailable, she invited me to stay at her house and encouraged her brother to come home.

The four of us hung out by the pool in the backyard for a while that night. Mr. and Mrs. Weslin were actually out of town that weekend—something else my aunt was unaware of. I’d actually not known they were gone either, not until I got there that evening.

Eventually Avery enticed Tate to go inside, to watch a movie, so she said, leaving Ashton and me alone by the pool. Ashton wasn’t too happy about his sister trying to woo one of his best friends, but as he told me that night while we sat by the pool, he’d rather she date someone he trusted instead of some random guy who only wanted to sleep with his baby sister and move on. Ashton was surprisingly protective of his sister and at the time I’d found that endearing.