Howling For You: A Chicagoland Vampires Novella (A Penguin Special from New American Library) Read Online Free PDF Page A

asked.
    “Everyone from Louisiana to Minnesota who wants the damn thing?” Christopher suggested.
    “Only one of those people was here yesterday.”
    We all looked back at Jeff, who stared back at me. Angry. Betrayed. I guess he’d taken it personally after all.
    My stomach curled from the hurt in his eyes.
    I tore my gaze away and looked at Gabriel. “He means Patrick.”
    Is that why Patrick had come here? Not to meet me, but to get closer to the crown? He wouldn’t have been the first potential mate with an agenda.
    “He was here to meet Fallon,” Ben offered, stepping closer to me as if that could protect me from the pain.
    Jeff looked at Gabriel. “He was here because he wants to get closer to the crown. And there are two ways to do that.”
    Get the crown—or get the girl?
    Gabriel turned back to him, arms crossed and angry magic radiating from his body. “Is there something you’d like to get off your mind, whelp?”
    Magic rose between them, furious and hot, spinning around the room like a dervish. Both of them angry, both of them worried. Neither of them about to admit it aloud.
    The last thing we needed was an intra-Pack dispute. We had bigger things to worry about.
    Eli stepped between them, beating me to it. “Let’s all take a breath. The Yorks are good people, quality people. Patrick didn’t even want to look at the crown yesterday. He seemed plenty sincere about that.”
    “So he knows how to act,” Christopher said. He looked at me. “You were with him. What do you think?”
    All eyes turned to me, including two blue ones that didn’t look especially pleased about it.
    “I don’t know.” I pushed my hair behind my ears and caught Jeff’s glance at the T-shirt I’d forgotten I’d been wearing.
    I felt his rush of magic—possessive and pleased. He didn’t comment; but he didn’t need to. I’d slept in his shirt. Didn’t that say enough?
    But this was not the time, so I pushed it back. “He seemed less interested in the crown than my feelings about it,” I said. “But who knows?”
    Jeff pulled a tablet from his pocket, began typing on the screen. He always had a gadget in hand, and this small and sleek rectangle was his new baby. “I’m going to check the camera.”
    “There’s a camera?” Eli asked.
    “It’s part of my standard security package,” Jeff said, eyes on the tablet.
    We stood silently while he played with the camera interface. “Here we go,” Jeff said after a moment, and we circled around him.
    The image on the tablet was distorted by the fish-eye lens, which had been mounted above the door, but there was no mistaking the man on the screen: Patrick York walked to the front door and slipped inside. Twelve minutes later, he walked out again.
    I felt sick. Nauseated at the betrayal, humiliated at the ruse. I wiped a hand across my lips, as if I could wipe away the kiss he’d offered. He’d kissed me, and then snuck back into our house and stolen the Pack’s most precious item.
    But it had all happened so quickly. I grabbed what remained of my pride, held tight. “Surely he couldn’t have gotten to the safe, unlocked it, and gotten out in twelve minutes?”
    “He could have if he’s trained,” Christopher said, shrugging when we looked at him. “What? So I know how to work a lock.”
    Ben slanted his head. “We can’t actually tell if he’s taking anything with him.”
    “What else would he be taking?” I asked. “He had no reason to be back in the house. No reason other than the crown.”
    Without waiting for an answer, I walked to the window and lifted the sash. The breeze was frigid, but a relief as hot tears of embarrassment slipped down my cheeks.
    I wiped them away as sneakily as I could. God forbid any of them should see me cry.
    “I can call Catcher,” Jeff said. “Or Merit. Or the Chicago Police Department. But I’m guessing you want to keep this in-house.” Merit was Chuck Merit’s granddaughter, a vampire of Chicago’s Cadogan