Flutter by Amanda Hocking Read Free Book Online Page B

that.
    “We don’t mean to bother you,” I said weakly, and
Ezra squeezed my arm.
    From the water, the vampire growled at me, but the
one with the kind eyes stopped him.
    “Stellan!” he snapped, and the vampire in the water
made an argument in Finnish, but he cut him off.
    “You’re American, yeah?” the amused blonde vampire
asked, his tone lilting with an accent.
    “Yes, we are,” Ezra responded. “I’m Ezra, and this is
my sister, Alice.”
    “I’m Dodge,” he smirked at us. “I’m from Boston.”
    “Leif,” the kind vampire gestured to himself, and
then to the vampire in the water. “That’s Stellan.” Stellan turned
back to him and retorted something in Finnish, but Leif shook his
head.
    “What are you doing out here?” Dodge cocked an
eyebrow at us. “It doesn’t look like you’re on a friendly
hike.”
    There wasn’t really a good answer to the question. We
didn’t look like vacationers or skiers, and these were probably the
lycans after Peter.
    “She’s never been here before,” Ezra chose his words
carefully. “She wanted to explore.”
    “I like exploring,” I added, and Ezra shot me a
look.
    Dodge chuckled but that only infuriated Stellan. He
stood up straighter, making himself larger and more imposing. To
Dodge and Leif, we appeared to be a curiosity. Leif especially
looked at us with tolerance, but Stellan seemed threatened.
    Glancing back at Leif, Stellan shouted something in
Finnish. He kept talking to Leif, but he didn’t take his eyes off
us. Ezra could understand everything he said, but he played
dumb.
    “Did you know this was our territory?” Dodge asked
when Stellan finished his rant.
    “No. This is a National Park, isn’t it?” Ezra
pretended to be confused.
    Leif and Dodge exchanged looks. They seemed skeptical
of our intentions. But based on Dodge’s casual shrug and Leif’s
nod, they didn’t think we were a danger to them. We probably
weren’t, so that made sense.
    “This is lycan territory.” Leif looked gravely at us.
“It’s best if you don’t wander around here.”
    “We’ll be more careful in the future,” Ezra
apologized.
    “Make sure that you do,” Dodge said, abandoning his
earlier humor. His face and voice hardened, resembling Stellan’s.
They were threatening us.
    Ezra nodded at them and ushered me away, back the way
we came. The lycans didn’t move, and I felt their eyes on us as we
hurried through the forest. Ezra kept his hand on my back, pushing
me to go faster. I started to say something several times, but he
shushed me until we got to the car.
    “What are we doing?” I asked when he unlocked the
Range Rover and got inside.
    “Get in,” Ezra commanded and slammed his door
shut.
    “It’s only one-thirty.” I climbed in after him. “We
have plenty of time to look for Peter.”
    “If they caught us in the woods again tonight…” He
trailed off.
    He made sure the doors were locked before racing down
the snowy road. He kept glancing in the rearview mirror, and I
turned around, half expecting to see a pack of wolves chasing after
us. But there was only an empty road.
    “What’s going on? They didn’t really seem that bad.
In fact, other than the Finnish one in the river, they seemed like
ordinary vampires,” I said.
    “That’s not the whole pack.” His eyes flitted back to
the rearview mirror. “They were following us, and that’s why I
wouldn’t let you say anything in the woods. Now they’ve seen us,
and they know our vehicle. We can’t do anything more tonight.”
    “You’re just being paranoid.” I shook my head, but
his certainty was unnerving.
    The road had patches of snow and black ice, and the
signs on the side warned of reindeer crossing. In spite of that,
Ezra sped up faster, and his eyes rarely stayed on the road in
front of us.
    “I don’t want to scare you,” he confessed
randomly.
    “Thanks,” I said.
    “I’m not sure how many lycans are in his pack
anymore. At times there were as many as