“It’s not a normal place for a vampire,” Chief continued. “The area is too sparsely populated. Anyway, after the mortal gained consciousness, he said the last thing he remembered was a beautiful blonde with huge br**sts who approached his campfire at night and asked for help. He thought it was his lucky day.”
Phineas snorted. “He’s lucky to be alive. The description sounds sorta like Corky, so I’ll check into it. Thanks, Chief.” He hung up.
“What’s up?” Freemont was sitting in front of the desk, munching on a hamburger from the Romatech cafeteria.
“A possible lead on Corky.” Phineas paced across the security office. “Or more like impossible. Wyoming is the last place we would expect her to go.”
“In other words”—Freemont popped a French fry into his mouth—“it’s the perfect place for her to hide.”
Phineas halted. Could it be true? Could Angus have ninety-nine percent of his employees on a wild-goose chase halfway around the world while Corky was hiding in their backyard?
“I need to call Angus.” Although he was probably in his death-sleep right now. Phineas grabbed the phone off the desk and dialed Angus’s number.
“Hey, Dr. Phang,” Phil answered. “What’s up?”
“Got some news, Wolf-Bro.” Phineas repeated what Chief had told him.
“Interesting,” Phil murmured. “I’ll pass it on to Angus as soon as he wakes up. But you can guess what he’ll say. He’ll expect you to check it out.”
“You should be the one checking it out,” Phineas insisted. “You’ve got that place in Wyoming, and you know the territory.” Phil Jones’s father was Supreme Pack Master of Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho, so Phil had grown up there. He owned a bunch of land and a cabin in Wyoming, a gift he’d received on his eighteenth birthday.
In the werewolf world, Phil had the status of a prince, which meant his sister, Big Bad Wolfie-Girl, was a princess. Don’t think about her. Phil had been banished shortly after acquiring the cabin, and over the following years, his sister had used the site to hide other young werewolf boys who were banished. Now the Lost Boys lived at Dragon Nest Academy.
“I’m stuck here in middle of Siberia,” Phil grumbled. “I can’t leave Angus and Mikhail unguarded, and I doubt they’ll want to teleport me back when we’re following a legitimate lead here. Why don’t you go? You’ve teleported to my cabin before, so you know the way.”
“I can’t leave Romatech unguarded. My brother’s here, but he’s a rookie.”
“Hey.” Freemont gave him an indignant look.
“Look,” Phil continued, “Roman and Gregori aren’t helpless. They know how to fight. They’ll be fine with your brother. And if Roman thinks it’s too dangerous, then he can close Romatech for a few nights and take a vacation. He won’t mind. He wants Corky captured as much as anyone. She’s making a mockery of his position as Coven Master.”
Phineas took a deep breath. Phil was making a lot of sense. He would discuss the matter with Roman, but it was a safe bet that Roman would urge him to check out this latest lead. As Coven Master of East Coast Vampires, Roman couldn’t afford to have his authority questioned and his court decisions blatantly ignored.
“All right,” Phineas conceded. “I’ll go.” But he still didn’t know his way around Wyoming. “Do you think any of your werewolf boys from school could go with me?”
“That’s a good idea, but I’m not sure if Toni will let them go right now. You’ll have to check with her.”
“All right. Let Angus know what’s happening. I’ll e-mail a report when I have more details.” Phineas hung up.
Now he’d have to teleport to the Dragon Nest Academy. And she was there. Phil’s twin sister, Big Bad Wolfie-Girl. If he was lucky, he’d get in and out without having to see her. And her beautiful sky-blue eyes.
“So I’ll be in charge here? And you’re going to Wyoming?” Freemont stuffed the last bite of hamburger into his mouth.
“Yeah. Think you can handle it?”
Freemont nodded with his mouth full.
Phineas took a deep breath. “Looks like I’ll be headed out West with a couple of werewolf boys.”
Freemont snickered. “Yee haw! Git along, little doggies.”
“I’m afraid it’s not possible,” Toni MacPhie said, seated behind the administrator’s desk in the main office of the Dragon Nest Academy. “We start finals in a few days, so we need all the students to remain here.”
Phineas groaned inwardly. It was dangerous for a Vamp to go into strange territory alone. Without a day guard, he would be too vulnerable while in his death-sleep.
He glanced at Phil’s wife, Vanda, who perched on the corner of Toni’s desk. She was a Vamp, so she couldn’t guard him during the day, but it was better than being alone. “How about you? Want to come hunt for Corky?”
Vanda snorted. “I’d love to see that bitch in chains. She tried to sue me for a fortune.”
“Well, you did assault her,” Toni murmured. “You practically squeezed her head off on live television.”
“She deserved it!” Vanda protested. “She was rude to Ian.”
Toni grinned. “I know. I was cheering for you.”
“So do you want to come, Vanda?” Phineas asked.
She made a face. “I wouldn’t be much help. I’m as useless as you are during the day. And I’ve never ventured very far from the cabin, so I don’t know the area at all.”
“Do you really think Corky could be there?” Toni asked with a dubious look. “She doesn’t seem like the Wild Wild West type to me.”
“Our husbands call us every day, and they’re not finding her,” Vanda said. “Maybe Corky’s doing the unexpected.”
“We won’t know for sure until I check it out,” Phineas said. “Are you sure you can’t spare one wolfie-boy?”
Vanda ran a hand through her spiky purple hair. “Normally, one of the seniors could help you, but not now. They can’t graduate if they don’t take their final exams.”
“Can one of them postpone his tests for a week?” Phineas asked.
Toni shook her head. “Their final in Werewolf Studies requires them to shift, and the moon will be full three nights from now. I’d send Davy with you—he graduated last year—but with Phil gone, we need him here to administer the test.”
“Oh my gosh!” Vanda jumped to her feet. “Why didn’t I think of this before? There’s a perfect solution.” She gave Toni a pointed look. “Right down the hall in the teachers’ lounge.”
Toni sucked in a deep breath. “Of course!” She and Vanda smiled slowly and turned toward Phineas.
He stepped back. The glint in their eyes looked downright suspicious. Surely, they weren’t thinking—
“No one knows the territory better,” Toni said. “She grew up there.”
With a gulp, he stepped back again. Oh no. Hell no.
“And she could guard you during the day,” Vanda added.
“She’d probably kill me,” he grumbled.
Vanda exchanged another sly smile with Toni, then gave Phineas a wide-eyed innocent look. “You know of whom we speak?”
“You’re not setting me up with her,” he growled.
“It’s a job, not a date.” Vanda’s eyes twinkled with humor. “Unless you would like a date?”
“I’m not taking Big Bad Wolfie-Girl with me, and that’s final!”
Toni’s mouth twitched. “Big Bad Wolfie-Girl?”
“Sounds like a term of affection to me,” Vanda murmured.
“Are you crazy?” Phineas shouted. “Why would I have any affection for her when she hates me?” Why, indeed? He had to be crazy.
Toni stood. “We’ll just ask her about it.”
Phineas’s breath caught. “You don’t have to ask her. I know why she hates me. I’m a Vamp. She hates all Vamps—”
“Whoa, Phineas,” Toni interrupted him. “We’re just going to ask her if she’ll go to Wyoming with you.” She strode toward the door.
“But I told you I’m not taking her,” he insisted.
“Don’t be such a wuss,” Vanda fussed at him. “You’ll be fine with Brynley.” Her mouth twitched. “As long as you follow her Three-Step rule.”
He frowned. “What’s that?”
Toni snickered. “You’ll have to ask her. We’ll get her. She’s just down the hall.”
“We’ll be right back.” Vanda accompanied Toni into the hallway, and he heard their poorly concealed laughter.
His hands curled into fists. This was bad. He couldn’t share a cabin with Brynley Jones. It would be sheer torture. In many ways. She would torment and tease him. He would waffle between wanting to jab at her or jump her.
He couldn’t jump her. She was the daughter of the most powerful werewolf Pack Master in North America, a rancher with huge amounts of land, money, and influence. She was a freaking princess.
And he was a poor Vamp from the Bronx. If he laid a finger on her, she’d probably bite it off. Hell, she’d chew all ten of his digits down to mere stubs, and then her father would sic a pack of werewolves on him to rip apart the rest of this body.
Her dad was already pissed that his eldest son, Phil, had married vampire Vanda. Pissed enough that he’d disowned Phil and declared his second son the heir to his empire.
So as much as Phineas was tempted by Brynley, he didn’t dare pursue her. For her sake, as well as his own. She could end up disowned and rejected by her own people. She could lose her status as princess.
Jumping her was out of the question, so all that was left was jabbing at her to keep her at a distance. And since she always poked back, that had to mean she didn’t want anything to do with him. Why would she? She could have her pick of any werewolf in the world. Someday her prince would come. And he’d be a rich and hairy Alpha dude who howled at the moon and pissed on fire hydrants.
Phineas hated him already. He hated this whole situation. Tension coiled inside him, threatening to spring into full panic. He couldn’t allow Brynley to accompany him. He had to find someone else. Fast.
LaToya. She knew about Vamps and could guard him during the day. If he could explain how much he needed her help, she might agree to come with him. As a police officer, she understood the importance of catching bad guys.
Anger seethed inside him that he was forced to beg a favor from a woman who had rejected him. Damn. What a desperate fool he was. He’d do anything to avoid being with Brynley.
He pulled out his cell phone, then recalled LaToya’s threat to never answer a call from him. He grabbed the phone off Toni’s desk, so the call would come from the Dragon Nest Academy.
“Hello?”
“Hey, LaToya.” There was a pause, so he quickly told her what was going on before she could hang up. “So what do you say? You could have an all-expense-paid vacation in Wyoming while we hunt down a nasty vampire villain.”