Chapter One
“Hey there, Halle-cat, where are you sneaking off to?”
“Fuck, Tavin!” Halle must have jumped about four feet straight in the air, much to her brothers’ amusement, “Balls, why do you insist on sneaking up on me like that?”
“Because, you jump like a cartoon cat.” He smirked as he leaned against the wall in the hallway with his arms crossed. “It’s too funny not to do it, really.”
“You’re such a dick—even for an older brother.”
“You’re avoiding the question. Where are you going? You know Dad wants everyone here for this dinner. He said it’s important.”
Halle sighed. Like her brother could really understand what it felt like to be her at these Pard events. To the males she wasn’t related to, she was untouchable—and therefore invisible. Why bother talking to the girl whose father would castrate you if you touched her? On the other hand, those men who weren’t part of her father’s pard only looked at her in two ways: like she was a curious science experiment or a female out to trap them.
After all, what shifter male wanted to take the chance on fooling around with a female who wasn’t his mate if there was a possibility of knocking her up? No one, that’s who. She was cursed by the Briggs family legacy.
“The vamps give me the heebie-jeebies, you know that.” She gave her big brother her biggest Puss in Boots eyes she could manage without popping something. “Can’t you cover for me, just this once?”
“Sorry, kiddo.” Tavin reached out and messed up her hair because he knew it drove her nuts. “The old man says it’s all hands on deck. Come on, we can get drunk on champagne and make fun of everyone.”
“Fine.” She smacked his hands away and tried to smooth out her unruly curls. “But we’re playing the ‘dub-over’ game, and if any of those blood suckers hear us you have to take the rap with dad.”
They’d been playing the “dub-over” game since they were kids every time their parents forced them to attend these boring dinners and parties. It was hilarious to choose their hoity-toity victims and then turn their no-doubt inane conversation into something that would have them laughing until they cried—but with shifter hearing being as good as it was, they’d spent a lot of hours grounded in their rooms because of it.
As they grew up and threw alcohol into the mix, not to mention a filthier vocabulary, the game changed into trying to get your competitor to lose his or her composure in front of a room full of guests. Halle was going to play extra hard this evening if Tavin was going to make her attend. Maybe there was a vamp in the crowd tonight that was looking for a little companionship of the male leopard variety?
Tavin didn’t swing that way, but damn, wouldn’t it be funny seeing him try to diplomatically rebuff a few unwanted advances. I am so doing this.
“Deal.” Her brother’s eyes narrowed in suspicion when she couldn’t contain her deviant grin, but it was too late for him now. Plan “Make the big bad vamps think Tavin likes a little sausage on sausage slap and tickle” had officially commenced.
“Now go get changed into something frilly.” Tavin’s eyes went huge as he ducked the boot that came flying at his head right before Halle slammed her bedroom door in his face.
Twenty minutes later, they were guzzling daddy’s finest champagne while trying to avoid actually interacting with any of the “guests”.
“Nice dress, kiddo, are you hitting a funeral later?”
“Oh, should I have dressed like that, do you think?” She looked pointedly in the direction of the group of vampires who’d just arrived, the females barely covering their assets in tiny dresses that looked to be made out of dinner napkins.
“Hell no, I’d have to gouge my eyes out if I ever saw you dressed like that.” Her brother cringed before taking a longer look at the lady-vamps. “But I’m not saying I’d kick them out of my bed for eating crackers—if you know what I mean?”
“First of all, idiot,” she laughed, “by the looks of those front two, they wouldn’t be eating anything in your bed that left crumbs. Second, just make sure you pay their pimp first. Daddy would be awfully upset if his male heir did happen to get eaten by hookers.”
“True enough, looks like the Coven Master has all the moves.”
They stood and watched from their perch on the second-floor balcony overlooking the foyer, as their parents greeted the smarmy looking vampire at the front of the group, the sickly thin females draped on each of his arms. Halle wasn’t overly fond of vampires to begin with—well, she didn’t know many in truth, but they just seemed so dramatically different than shifters like her.
Halle almost squeaked when her father motioned the vamp’s attention up towards her and Tavin. The noise turned to a snarl as the bastard handed his arm candy off to his henchmen like they were a coat and hat, not living beings, before the two men wandered off in the direction of the bar area, much to Halle’s relief. She’d been terrified that her father would bring him over to introduce them and she’d be forced to act polite, as if she hadn’t just watched the douchebag drop off his hoes-to-go for the evening. Ew. Her “polite face” only went so far.
“So how do you know that was the Coven Master?” she whispered to her brother.
“His name is Conrad Dair. Father has met with him before, and I went along with him last time,” he answered, his face oddly serious for her jester of a sibling. “I can’t say that I liked him very much.”
Halle took a long look at the man who walked beside her father. He was almost as tall as her dad, but nowhere near as wide, his frame was more wiry than buff. His short blond hair was slicked back with way too much product, and his face was clean-shaven. All in all, there was nothing about him that screamed “unattractive”—it was just something in his dark eyes that made her not trust him. He looked like one of those guys that after they snapped their bolt and mass murdered the entire neighborhood, one of their third-grade teachers would be interviewed saying, “Oh but he was such a quiet boy…”
Right before they entered the next room, Conrad Dair looked up and zeroed in right on her. His dark eyes staring intently at her in the most uncomfortable way, it felt like an eternity before he broke his gaze and followed along behind her father.
“Well, that was horrifying.” Tavin frowned. “I think it’s time to hit the tequila and then see if we can’t escape quietly.”
“Yes, please.” She grabbed onto her brother’s arm, desperately needing the reassurance of his touch. Never again did she want to be the undivided focus of that man’s attention if she could help it.