Chapter Three
Right before Della’s feet slapped against the earth, the thieving vamp’s gaze shot up. Della landed about five feet in front of him. Kylie, forever the peacemaker, landed between them.
“Where is it?” Della asked, gripping and ungripping her hands, leaning to the right to look over Kylie to see her potential victim.
The vamp focused on Kylie for a second, reading her pattern. Since she morphed into vampire, he didn’t seem to worry. Right then, Della kind of hoped the bastard would lay a hand on her and then Kylie’d go into protective mode. Between the two of them, they’d be tossing his vamp butt around like a dead squirrel.
He cut his eyes back to Della. “Well, whatcha know, Smurf girl returns. At least your underwear doesn’t have Disney characters on them.”
Della’s blood pressure shot up a few points, or maybe a lot of points. “What? You get a kick out of going through a girl’s panties? Pervert,” Della growled, low and deadly. Taking a step forward, trying but unable to get around Kylie, she glared at the boy. “Where is it?” she asked for the last time. He’d better decide to come clean, or she was gonna get dirty.
Kylie looked back at Della and held out her hand as if to say “calm down.” She couldn’t calm down. The guy had stolen her dad’s picture. The fact that Della had stolen it first was beside the point.
“Are you talking about this?” The smartass guy pulled the folded envelope from his back pocket.
She snatched it from his hand. “Why did you take it?” She opened it to make sure he hadn’t ripped or damaged the photo. It looked unharmed. Relief filled her chest.
“I was bringing it to you now. When I found the backpack, I went through it to see whose it was. I left it on your porch. It wasn’t until I was walking back that I saw the envelope on the ground right where I’d opened your bag, and when I looked, I realized it must have fallen out.”
“Liar,” she accused, even though his heart didn’t claim his words as an untruth. She shot around Kylie.
“Slow down,” Kylie said, moving between them again and giving Della a pleading look. “You got the picture back,” Kylie said. “And I checked his heartbeat. He was telling the truth about bringing it to you.”
Duh, Della knew that, but something wasn’t adding up and she smelled a rat. “How did you even know it was my bag if you didn’t see the picture with my last name—? Wait, how would you even know my name?”
The boy smiled at Kylie, then frowned over her shoulder at Della. “Mr. James referred to you by the name Della. And your mommy wrote your name on the tag inside the backpack. Probably when she was packing your Smurf pajamas for you.”
Della ground her teeth. But oh Lordie, she wanted to go psycho on his butt. She couldn’t recall seeing the tag with her name on it, but it did sound like something her mom would do. Or would have done when she cared about her. But he could bet she’d check.
“Okay, let’s go,” Kylie said. “We got what we came for.”
No she hadn’t gotten it. She wanted a pound of flesh. She shot around Kylie again, stood a few inches from the boy, and leaned in to take another long sniff. “Have we met before?”
He tucked his hands into his jeans and leaned back on the heels of his tennis shoes. “Gosh, you’ve forgotten already. I’m the guy you tried to start shit with back in the woods.”
“I know that, you idiot! I mean before.”
He took a big whiff of air, as if checking her scent. “I don’t think so.”
She listened to his heartbeat. It didn’t race to a lie. But she’d heard about some vamps being able to control that, or about pathological liars, whose lies never even registered. He looked like a pathological liar. Tall, cocky, and those pale green eyes that didn’t even look real.
She tucked the white envelope into the back pocket of her jeans. Turning and giving him her back, she spoke to Kylie. “Let’s leave this Popsicle stand.”
“Darn,” he said. “And just when it was getting interesting, too.”
Della swiveled around, and arched a brow at him. “Interesting? I’d rather watch toenails grow than hang out with you.”
He laughed. And it pissed her off that she’d amused him. She let go of another deadly growl.
“Okay, we should go.” Kylie touched Della’s arm. But then, being Kylie and unable to leave on a bad note, she looked back at the new vamp. “Welcome to Shadow Falls. I’m Kylie.”
Della rolled her eyes. Why did Kylie think she had to play nice?
“You’re Kylie Galen?” he asked, looking in awe. “Wow, I’ve heard about you.”
“Don’t believe half of it,” Kylie said, a bit bashful.
“I’m Chase Tallman,” he said, totally trying to impress Kylie. He even puffed out his chest a little, like a damn bird doing some kind of mating dance. Yeah, keep that up and I know a werewolf that’ll be chomping on your ass! Hell, she’d help Lucas get his revenge on … Chase Tallman. Della stored his name into her memory bank for future reference—and not in the good vault of references—then turned and took off.
She didn’t like this guy.
Didn’t trust this guy. And she wouldn’t until she figured out where she knew him from and why and how he was lying.
“I hate it when you two skip out on me!” Miranda whined when Della, followed by Kylie, walked back into the cabin. “I want to come, too.”
Della huffed out an exasperated breath. Was it her fault that witches couldn’t fly? “What did you want us to do? Give you a piggyback ride?”
“You could have,” the little witch whined. “I miss out on all the fun.”
“That was not fun. The guy’s a smartass, green-eyed panty pervert.” Della went straight to the sofa and checked her backpack for her name on the inside tag. And sure as hell, it was there. Dad blast it, she’d wanted to catch that sorry vamp in a lie. She shot back to the kitchen, dropped the envelope on the table, and plopped back in her chair.
“Wow, don’t hold back,” Miranda said.
Della saw Miranda glance at Kylie with questions. Kylie shrugged as if to say, “beats the hell out of me.”
“That’s odd,” Miranda continued. “Word around camp is that he’s a complete hottie. Not that he could be hotter than Perry.” She smiled. The witch looked at Kylie. “Is the guy hot?”