Page 35 of Bound

With the Council unwilling to get involved, we had to find a way to get to Vlad and convince him to help. Or come up with a new plan to find Kieran on our own. Either way, we were running out of time.

A throat cleared behind me.

I narrowed my eyes, assuming the takes no shit look Dally said made me look chillingly like Dad. “What?”

“Vampires are afraid of light.” This time it was Jeremy White, a skinny French horn player in the school Wind Ensemble who’d masterminded the Fangorn Forest incident. Unfortunately, the school didn’t have cameras covering that part of campus and there was no good way to explain to your principal that you’d identified the culprits as four members of your advisory class by scent.

“We always turn the lights off and put away our phones. We should have the lights in the school programmed to emit a blast like a flash-bang grenade and fry those fanged freaks.”

My mom would love this kid. What had the school district armed its teachers with? That would be laminated red and green attendance cards. Hopefully none of the undead would get a paper cut during roll call.

“This drill isn’t for vampires, dummy.” Ariana Hauser flicked her long black hair over one shoulder. She loved the Daisies, followed Hayden on social media, and had a wickedly funny writing voice. “They can’t go out during the day.”

“Guess you’d know.”

Snickers erupted.

“That’s enough,” I growled. “Your ticket out the door is a paragraph about a marginalized person from history or literature and how prejudice in all forms is dangerous.”

“It’s the werewolves you have to worry about,” another boy whispered over a flurry of rustling paper and dropped pens. “They say they can look like any of us.”

The girl next to him snapped her teeth.

I went back to my phone, scrolling through to the images of the three vampires who’d materialized into End of the World after Vlad had ghosted Topher out. They weren’t in any of our databases, which wasn’t a huge shocker. Fighters in the Vampire Nation tended to have short shelf lives. As in, store brand sour cream short. With the lighting in the club being so poor, August had only managed to get a good ID shot on one of them. It was the other faces in the crowd that we were now trying to cross match, seeking any connections.

Scrubbing my eyes, I loaded the next set of files for the South Austin pack. We were running out of time to find the shifters being abducted. And for Kieran, it might already be too late.

Tapping my thumb against the screen, I pulled up London Blake’s contact information.

West: I need a favor.

London: It’ll cost you.

West: How do I get access to the sites where the trafficked shifters were being held last year without your Uncle Maddox getting wind of it?

London: One of these times, a Caldwell is going to text me and it’s not going to be some crazy stupid plan that has me banging my head against the wall.

West: Kind of our calling card.

London: I assume you need to get in as soon as possible.

West: Sour cream crullers?

London: Damn straight. And tell your brother to bring Major the next time he comes. Am I the only one who hasn’t gotten to see the doga?

West: He’s being very secretive. Please take pictures.

London: On it.

Gnawing my bottom lip, I texted Topher.

West: You working tonight?

Topher: Come over. We can not talk some more.

Heat flared through the bond, and I groaned, remembering Topher bent over me, framed by the moonlit window as he bit hot kisses up the column of my throat. Closing my eyes, I quashed that train of thought before it could form. I’d failed Topher in this all along. Now I had to make it right.

West: Change of plans. We’re going hunting.