Page 82 of Tempting Fate

I fight the sudden urge to yawn. Is it that early?

“Yeah, I’ll find something,” Nick says. He pats me on the shoulder before he gets up and heads into the kitchen. Sam sits in the other armchair, a shrewdness in his gaze as it darts between me and Jamie.

I guess now we wait.

Lucien leaves around an hour later, and half an hour after that, two new people arrive. I don’t move a muscle in all that time. I daren’t. Nick tries to urge me to go and rest, or change, and Jamie does wander off for a little bit, but I can’t bring myself to move.

Kieran doesn’t move, either. Sam flits about, and Nick seems to be less hostile to him than to Kieran, but Kieran stays looking at me, as though he’s trying to get to the bottom of something.

Cate has already sent me another dozen texts, of course. I’m hoping they’ll leave me alone long enough at some point that I can call her, but I’ll understand if they don’t trust me with my phone.

I’ll call her from one of theirs. That’s fine.

The woman walks in first. She’s holding a takeaway coffee cup, but she still looks half-asleep. Sam immediately stands to let her take his seat, which she curls up into, resting her chin on her hand. “It’s fucking early.”

“We know,” Sam says.

The man who accompanies her is heavier set, hair a riot of loose green curls. He looks marginally more awake, though he at least has a smile ready, which he even turns on me.

“You’re Em, then?”

“I—” My voice comes out hoarse. Jamie presses his thigh against mine. I feel like I should move away, but I don’t want to. “Yeah. I am.”

“I’m Dante.” He points at the woman. “Ophelia. You think she’d have learnt manners at some point, but…”

Ophelia sticks her middle finger up at him. “Should’ve waited until midday. He’s not going to be awake, you know.”

“We need to make this work sooner rather than later,” Kieran says. “It’s important.”

“I know, I know.” She yawns, then drains the rest of her coffee in one go. Sam plucks the cup from her hand once she’s done and replaces it with a full mug. “We were going to ring him before we got here, but you all might have information we need, so…”

“We’ll be on our best behaviour,” Jamie says, and Dante snorts.

“It’s not you all we’re worried about,” he says.

He and Ophelia exchange a glance before Dante crosses the room to sit on the floor next to her chair. She pulls her phone out of her back pocket and messes with it for a moment, then holds it out so the front camera will capture both of them.

The voice that comes over the speaker is accented just like mine, which is to say, kind of posh, but sounds rough from sleep. “Fee? Darling, what’s going on? Gods know you don’t like to be up and about so early.”

“You’re telling me,” Ophelia says. “We’ve run into a situation.”

“Hi, by the way,” Dante says. His eyes are amused.

The man on the other end of the call snorts. “Better be a fucking catastrophe, waking me up at this hour. I was helping Dor with a séance half the night. The spiritualists were onto something, you know, with the cheesecloth.”

“Felix. Seriously. You didn’t check any social media before you went to bed?”

“I crashed.” Felix’s voice has a sharper edge now, a little more alert. “What the—Oh, fuck. Somebody did something naughty, didn’t they?”

Dante throws me a helpless look. I just shrug in response. That’s a mild response compared to most tonight.

“Oh, are they there? Wait, who is there? Show me!”

Ophelia sighs but obediently turns the camera. On screen is a desperately pretty man, even having just woken up the way he said. He blinks long, dark lashes as he takes us all in.

He looks strangely familiar. Very, very familiar, only I’m sure I’ve never met him before.

“Well, you really did get yourself a fine new pack. Which one’s the alpha?”