I woke slowly, chasing the tail end of a dream that involved Mom and me and no pack to rule over. My lids felt lazy, and a smile tugged at the edges of my lips. I rolled, expecting more mattress—and cried out when I met empty air and then the hard floor a second later.
“Ow.” I sat up and rubbed my elbow.
My eyes went wide as I took in the familiar surroundings of my bedroom—and the strange man who stood near the window. “What the…?” I straightened, all my senses on alert.
“Good morning.” The man sat perched on the windowsill, and even before he raised his gaze to mine, I knew. My hackles rose; my wolf pushed to the surface, straining to break free. My canines elongated before I could stop them and I tasted my own blood as they cut into my lip.
“How did you get in here?” I hissed around my sharpened teeth.
He threw his hands up, palms open, in surrender. “I’m not here to hurt you,” he said and his crimson eyes seemed to back up his statement. He stayed where he was, but every single muscle inside me coiled up, ready to shift and spring if he so much as leaned forward.
The air crackled between us.
“What do you want?” I asked in a low voice. But what I really wanted to know was how in the hell a vamp had gotten inside my house—let alone our borders—undetected.
“I came to warn you,” he said.
“Warn me about what?” My brows wrinkled in confusion at why he would ever want to help me. I didn’t know him, personally, but he was a vampire. And they didn’t give two sh—
“You’re in danger, Regan, from your own kind, and you need to know before it’s too late. I wasn’t supposed to approach you or say anything unless…” His expression crumbled and for a second, there was such stark pain that it made me hesitate. I stared at him, genuinely moved by whatever lay behind the hurt he wore. But then he blinked and it cleared and he wore that mask I recognized on them all. No feeling. Nothing. “I knew your mother,” he said.
The words were like a slap.
“What?” I managed, shooting to my feet in the process. Alarm speared through me and my fingers curled around the blanket to keep from shifting to paws.
“Myra and I were … we were friends. She made me promise to keep it a secret unless something happened to her, and clearly—”
“The only vampire my mother knew was the one who killed her,” I said through closed teeth. The closest to a growl I could do as a human rose up in my throat.
The vampire looked, if anything, frustrated. Defeated. “I know you don’t trust me. Fine. But I came to tell you to stop trusting your own people, too. They aren’t helping you by forcing you into this contest. In fact, they are trying to use it to harm you.”
“To harm me,” I repeated, disbelief coating my words. “Do you hear yourself? You guys realize you’re never going to get on our good side so now you’re trying to cause a rift among our own ranks, is that it?”
“None of my people know I’m here. I’d appreciate you keeping it that way.” A muscle shifted in his jaw. “Your friends are not who you think.”
He took a step backward, toward my open window where dawn was just beginning to lighten the sky. “What does that mean?” I asked before he could disappear—and then sat back in surprise once the words were out. Did this mean I believed him? Of course not, this was outrageous.
He paused and seemed to debate whether or not to answer me. I leaned forward, and somewhere in the back of my mind I knew I was taking a huge risk putting myself anywhere closer to the monster who had just invaded my bedroom.
“I can’t tell you that,” he said. He glanced toward the window and then at my bedroom door. My ears perked at whatever his superior hearing had picked up. “You should know that your pack is corrupt. There are those that want to control your decisions,” he continued, backing up another step. “They want war and they’ll do anything to get it.” He swung a leg over the sill and then looked back at me. “Your mother was killed because of a vampire.” The statement sounded more like a question—or a challenge.
I rolled my eyes, beyond frustrated at this cryptic conversation. “Tell me something I don’t know,” I snapped.
“I never said it was by our hand,” he said.
I opened my mouth to tell him how confusing that just sounded. Somewhere outside my door, another door banged shut. The vampire’s expression tightened. He swung his other leg around and then, without looking back, said, “Someone from your pack set it up to look like one of us. My people didn’t kill her.”
“What?” All sense of safety forgotten, I shoved out of the bed. “How do you know?” I demanded, and then fell silent, terrified the sound of my voice would draw whoever was already moving around the house.
The vampire hesitated only another second. When he spoke, the words were barely above a whisper. “I was there.” And then he shoved off the window and was gone.