"I'm going down to the gift shop to see if there's a magazine or a paperback that looks interesting," I told Roff, who was now setting Gavin's dirty clothes in a neatly folded stack. He smiled and nodded so off I went. One of Bill's guards was at the end of the hall near the stairs; our rooms were the last ones on the ninth floor. The guard nodded to me as I passed him on my way to the stairs.
Winkler was in the coffee shop, typing away on his laptop; I caught his scent on my way to the gift shop. Taking a detour from my intended target, I walked inside the coffee shop instead and sat down at Winkler's table.
"Want another cinnamon roll?" Winkler looked up and grinned at me. Honestly, that grin alone could make just about any female heart flop like a landed fish.
"I may have one," I smiled back at him and went to the counter to order it. I set my latte and cinnamon roll on the small table while Winkler finished sending e-mails. "What's the status on little Winkler and Winklerette?" I asked, using my plastic knife and fork to cut into my cinnamon roll.
"Everything seems to be fine," Winkler looked over the lid of his laptop. "I think Kellee snapped at Trajan, so he refused to let her go shopping for a day."
"A fate worse than death," I nodded, stuffing a generous bite of frosting-coated cinnamon roll in my mouth. "What about Whitney and Sam?" I asked about Winkler's sister and her husband—they'd been married a year and a half now.
"Whitney wanted to drop out of school and get pregnant," Winkler grumped. "I told her she had plenty of time for that later. Sam doesn't know how to say no to her, so I had to be the bad guy."
"I'm surprised you said no to her," I pointed my plastic fork at him. "I thought she was spending your money faster than you could earn it when I first met her."
"She does have a tendency to wear out credit cards," Winkler chuckled.
"Whitney can wear out a credit card in a single mall," I teased Winkler. "I should know—I've seen her do it."
"Then it's a good thing I have money, isn't it?" He closed his laptop and slipped it into the case he'd brought with him.
"I'm thinkin' it is," I said, eating another bite of cinnamon roll.
"Roff told me you have no money," Winkler wasn't looking at me as he took a sip from his coffee cup.
"Baby vamps aren't allowed to earn money," I grumped. "I'm a dependent until my five years are up, which pisses me off no end. I'm supposed to have a trust fund somewhere, but I haven't seen the financials. Merrill is handling that for me. I inherited my real sire's holdings when Gavin offed him after he was sentenced by the Council."
"Gavin killed him?" Winkler's eyebrows lifted in alarm. I snorted.
"I thought he was going to kill me, too," I said. "Those two twits who turned me had done that sort of thing before. They thought it was a game. I was the only one who lived over it," I set my plastic fork down with a sigh. I'd only gotten halfway through this cinnamon roll, too.
"I didn't mean to bring up bad memories," Winkler said, covering one of my hands with warm fingers.
"Both times I've stood before the Council haven't been good memories," I agreed. "And those holding cells they have suck."
"I guess you can't let vampires out on bond, huh?" Winkler was trying to steer me away from the subject.
"They won't ever put this vampire back in one of those cracker boxes," I said. "And I think they know that, now. If they ever have a problem with me, they're gonna have to kill me quickly while I'm unsuspecting."
"Lissa, if I didn't see pure worship in Gavin's eyes every time he looks at you while you're not watching, I'd take you out of here today and they'd never find you again. You'd be raising my kids, baby, if you wanted to. Kellee is already saying she's leaving as soon as she can get up and walk after the twins are born."
"Life is just way too complicated, isn't it?" I squeezed Winkler's fingers and took my hand away. The thought of having kids that I could bring up? That was an old wound. Howard Graham made sure I'd never have any of my own and that wasn't anything that vampires got, either. "Your twins will just have to settle for having Auntie Lissa, who sends them birthday and Christmas presents."
"Don't forget you'll have a house next door—they can come over and play. Surely Gavin can't control you every minute after the five years are up, and you only have three more to go."
"Yeah. I hope I make it through the next three years."
"It won't be forever," Winkler said. "You can come to Whitney's graduation. She should be finishing her master's at the same time."
"That'll be nice. I'll look forward to that," I sighed. Winkler and I both got up and headed toward the elevator; it was already two in the afternoon. Halfway up to the ninth floor, my skin began to itch and then it was on fire. Winkler grunted when I grabbed his arm and hauled him out of the elevator as mist, and we were zooming upward through the remaining floors. The guard was already down and dead when we reached our floor and Larry Frazier was kicking in René and Tony's door as we sped toward him.
The door splintered before we got there and I wanted to scream at the sharpened stake that Larry held in his hand as he walked into the room. Winkler was almost thrown to the floor as I let him go; I intended to mist in front of Larry, take the stake away and maybe toss him into a wall a time or two before I let Bill have him. The first part of my plan worked flawlessly; I materialized right in front of Larry and snatched the stake out of his hand before he had time to blink. The rest of my plan should have gone well, too, but it didn't.
I hadn't been thinking, other than to protect Tony and René and corner Larry. I could only imagine that Larry had the wrong room and intended to stake Gavin and perhaps haul me off. Who knew if I was right or not? I should have realized that a mere wooden stake couldn't have been used to kill the guard. It wasn't enough, as it turns out. The gun was, though, and after I snatched the stake, Larry let me have it with the .38 he was carrying. Twice.
Still intending to take him down, I reached out—but he was now farther away and I was falling. Pain bloomed in my chest and the room went spinning about me. The last thing I saw—before the room went dark, that is—was Winkler in wolf form, viciously snapping Larry's head from his shoulders with powerful jaws. The room itself was suddenly boiling with people of all kinds. Voices were calling my name, asking me questions, and hands were on me; I couldn't really say whose at the moment. All I know was that at least one pair of those hands was huge and blue.