Alana pursed her lips against her laugh because Weston looked really annoyed at Ryder now.
“How about Alana picks the name?” Aaron said. “He’s really for her, right?”
“Okay, I choose Sammy Scrotum, and what do you mean?”
Ryder pumped his fist at the name she chose and then explained, “The old trailer, ten-ten, was magic. It always had a resident mouse running around in it for as long as I could remember.”
“But why are you doing this for me?”
“Because we want to keep you,” Weston said. He locked his bright green gaze on hers and dared her to look away. “I’m superstitious because I know there are some things that are unexplainable. If there is a tiny fraction of a chance that the shutters from the old trailer and a mouse in the house can make you any safer, that’s what’s going to happen.”
Okay then.
Aaron jerked his attention to the front of the property, and a moment later, Ryder and Weston swung their gazes that way, too. Wyatt was already pulling open the gate.
“She’s baaaack,” Ryder drawled softly, sitting up. “Wyatt’s gonna be pissed.”
“Why?” Alana asked.
Aaron came to stand beside Alana, hands on his hips as he sighed a troubled sound. “Because Harper ordered the three of us to stay put and keep Wyatt distracted so she could do something reckless.”
“Reckless how?” Alana asked, but the boys had gone still and silent, watching grimly as the white diesel pickup truck bumped and bounced up the road toward them. Harper parked in the yard by Weston’s truck, then got out slowly.
Her arm was covered in streams of red, but she didn’t seem to favor it as she slammed the door. And when Harper swung her gaze to Alana, both of her eyes were glowing blue with elongated pupils. Alana hunched inward instinctively and clutched Sammy Scrotum’s cage tightly to her stomach. Right now, something about Harper amped up her instinct to flee.
“What the fuck happened to you?” Wyatt asked, horror and fury tainting his voice as he brushed his finger down his mate’s arm. The blood was dry.
“It’s healed, let it be. Crew meeting.”
Alana squeezed Aaron’s hand and moved to excuse herself.
“Alana, you stay. You’re part of this now.” Harper approached slowly, lifted her chin, and then with a slow blink, looked at the bite Alana had made on Aaron’s neck. “Aaron, the vamps won’t come after your mate again.”
Aaron swallowed hard, his face angled away as he exposed his throat to his dragon-blooded alpha. “What did you do?”
“I went to Aric’s house, and then I ripped the boards off his basement windows and let the sunlight in.”
“Is he dead?” Aaron asked in a hard voice.
Harper sighed, but the breath was punctuated by a soft prehistoric rumble that lifted the fine hairs all over Alana’s body. “No, he isn’t dead. Singed yes, but not to ashes. There is still a part of me that wants to avoid a war with the vamps. I have a feeling we would lose lives on both sides, and I can’t stomach the thought that I could’ve avoided that. This is his last warning, though. I recited the names and addresses of every member of the Asheville Coven to him and warned him that I will drag every fucking one of his vamps from their beds and into the sunlight if any one of us is harmed again.”
“I had it handled,” Aaron gritted out.
“It isn’t your responsibility to handle it alone, Aaron. Look at your neck. Look at Wyatt’s.” Harper jammed a finger at the thick scarring on her mate’s neck. “Mine.” She gestured to faint scars on her own throat. “And now Alana’s? Too many people in my crew have been bitten, and Aric’s attack last night proved they aren’t finished with their destruction. I’m fucking done giving those bloodsuckers chances to kill us. Things are changing as of now. We’re shifters, born of some of the most powerful bloodlines in the world, and we’ve been rolling over trying to tiptoe down lines other supernaturals have drawn. This is where we draw our own line.”
“How did you find their addresses?” Wyatt asked in a careful tone.
“I began tracking them the night after you killed the queen.”
“Whoa,” Ryder said, sounding impressed. “Damon Junior.”
Harper’s eyes flashed with anger. “My grandfather isn’t here, and he has nothing to do with what happens to us. I’m not Damon Junior. I’m Harper of the Bloodrunners, and my patience in this matter is done. Any slight done to you by the vampires, you bring it to me. That’s an order.” Her voice shook with barely checked rage. “If a single…hair…is harmed on one of your heads, I will burn the Asheville Coven to nothing and devour their ashes.”
Harper looked at each of them dead in the eye, then pushed past Weston and strode up the road toward the other cabins.
Weston and Wyatt’s slow smiles matched as they watched her leave.
“Ooooh, she’s gonna get ’em,” Ryder said excitedly.
Alana expected to look up and find a troubled expression on Aaron’s face at the reminder of a war with the coven, but there was another story written into his features. His chin held high, pride for his cousin sparked in his clear blue eyes.
Baffled, Alana whispered, “What just happened?”
“Harper’s been tiptoeing around being alpha since she took on the crew,” Weston murmured.
“Not anymore,” Aaron said. “She just owned it.”