I'm So Lucky

I'm So Lucky

The Alpha nods once, sharp and decisive. "In the future, Jingles, I suggest you invest in a good pair of binoculars before you report vampire sightings to the pack. False alarms waste everyone's time."

"Yes, Alpha," Mr. Jingles mumbles, looking like he wants to sink through the floor and disappear forever.

"And perhaps spend less time watching vampire movies."

"Yes, Alpha."

"You may go."

Mr. Jingles shuffles toward the door like a man walking to his own execution, which, in pack social terms, he basically is. Nobody likes the guy who cries vampire when there's no actual vampire to be found.

After he leaves, the Alpha turns back to my father. "Beta Claw, I apologize for the intrusion. It appears we were misinformed."

"No apology necessary, Alpha," Dad says, though I can hear the relief in his voice. "Better to investigate and find nothing than to ignore a potential threat."

"Indeed." The Alpha takes one last look around our living room, his enhanced senses apparently still finding nothing suspicious. "Though I must say, your housekeeping is impressive. Not even a trace of foreign scent."

"Julia's very thorough with the cleaning," Mom says, shooting me a look that suggests I'm going to be getting some very interesting questions later about my sudden dedication to household hygiene.

"Admirable," the Alpha says. "A clean house is a sign of pack discipline."

I try to look like someone who takes pride in her cleaning skills instead of someone who's currently wondering how six vampires managed to vanish without a trace and eliminate all evidence of their presence in the span of about five minutes.

"Well," the Alpha says, "if there's nothing else, we'll leave you to your morning."

"Thank you, Alpha," Dad says.

The pack members file out of our house in the same organized formation they entered, leaving our living room feeling strangely empty after being filled with twenty werewolves and one very confused Alpha.

The front door closes, and for a moment, nobody moves.

Then Amy breaks the silence.

"Holy shit," she breathes.

"Language," Mom says automatically, but her heart's not in it.

"How?" Dad asks, looking around the living room like he's expecting the vampires to suddenly reappear. "How did they just... disappear?"

"And the scent," Mom adds, taking a deep breath. "There's literally no trace that they were ever here."

I have no answer for them, because I don't understand it either. I know vampires can move quickly, blend into shadows, maybe even teleport or phase through walls like supernatural smoke. But eliminating their scent completely? That seems like advanced-level vampire magic that goes way beyond anything I learned from bad movies and romance novels.

"Maybe they have some kind of... scent masking ability?" I suggest weakly.

"Vampires don't work that way," Dad says, running his hands through his hair. "They can't just erase their presence. It's not biologically possible."

"Maybe these vampires are different," Amy says. "Maybe they're... evolved vampires?"

"There's no such thing as evolved vampires," Mom protests.

"How do we know?" I ask. "How do we know what vampires can and can't do if we're not supposed to interact with them?"

It's a fair point, and everyone knows it.

"The important thing," Dad says finally, "is that they're gone. Whatever they wanted, whatever they were doing here, it's over now."

I nod, because I can't exactly tell him that what they wanted was me, and that this is probably far from over.

"And Mr. Jingles?" Amy asks. "What's going to happen to him?"

"Mr. Jingles," Dad says with satisfaction, "just destroyed any credibility he had left in this pack. Nobody's going to believe anything he says about us for a very long time."

Which is probably true. Mr. Jingles has always been unpopular, and now he's unpopular and unreliable. His chances of ever challenging Dad for the Beta position just went from slim to nonexistent.

"Good," I say, and I mean it.

Because if the vampires had been caught, if the Alpha had found them in our house, my entire family would be dead right now. Not just me—all of us. Mom, Dad, Amy, probably anyone who's ever been nice to me.

All because Mr. Jingles has too much time on his hands and a grudge against my father.

The fact that he was right doesn't make me any less angry at him.

If anything, it makes me angrier.

Because being right about the vampires but wrong about being able to catch them means he put my family in danger for nothing.

And that's unforgivable.

"Julia?" Mom's voice interrupts my mental planning of Mr. Jingles's unfortunate demise.

"Yeah?"

"How did you know to clean the house so thoroughly this morning?"

I stare at her, my brain scrambling for an explanation that doesn't involve admitting that I didn't clean anything and have no idea how the vampire scent disappeared.

"Lucky guess?" I offer weakly.

She studies my face for a long moment, and I can see her trying to decide whether to believe me.

"Very lucky," she says finally.

"I'm a lucky person," I say, which is possibly the biggest lie I've ever told.

But she nods and turns away, and I'm left standing in our vampire-free living room, wondering what the hell just happened and whether I'm ever going to see Rowan again.

Somehow, I doubt this is over.

Knowing my luck, this is just the beginning.