Midnight Moonrising (Moonrising #2)(88)

"Thank you," she said as she sat down. He sat back down in the chair, but he was still a little humiliated over what he'd said to her, so he focused on the pages in front of him.

"What is that?" she said.

Glancing up at her then back to the binder, he came to the conclusion that telling her wouldn't hurt anything. She was, after all, Phoenix's PA; she would probably be helping him with all of this if she didn't have troubles of her own. That reminded him where they were and that she probably didn't need anything else to worry about. Maybe he shouldn't say anything.

"It's okay if you don't want to tell me. Wolf business isn't any business of mine. I was only trying to make conversation," she said, then seemed to grow shy, shrinking in on herself, as if she wasn't important enough for anyone to tell her anything about what was going on.

So she wanted to talk, he thought, and wondered if maybe she'd wanted to talk to someone all along and nobody had cared to listen. "How about if we play Question for Question? You ask a question and I'll answer it, and then it's my turn to ask you a question."

She looked befuddled by his suggestion. "What do you want to know?"

Roel shrugged as he smiled. "Stuff… about you."

"Pfft!" She rolled her eyes away from him, to her hands folded loosely on her lap, but she was smiling innocently, and that blush on her cheeks gave her pale complexion just the perfect amount of color. It was so damn cute. "I'm not interesting at all."

"Why don't you let me be the judge of that? I would say that I am almost certain you're wrong, but it would be rude of me to tell a lady she is wrong, now wouldn't it?"

She shook her head a little, but kept her eyes on her fingers as she rubbed them. "I wouldn't think you were being rude if you said that."

"Okay, then, you are wrong until you prove me wrong," he said, and smiled when she did. She appeared to be relaxing a little, so he decided to jump right into their game. "You wanted to know what the binder is, right?"

She gave the book a long look and nodded. "Yeah. We can start there."

"It's one of eight. Brad's wife is the bookkeeper for our pack, and the binders contain information on every other pack in the United States. There are over three-hundred packs in the US alone. I have no clue how many there are in the world, so you can skip that question. But if you really want to know, I can have Heather find out for you."

"Wow! There aren't nearly as many vampire clans here."

"That may be because there are a lot more vampires in one clan than there are shifters in a pack. We are almost as educated on the clans here as we are the packs. There are only two High Vampires here in Alabama, and there are five Alpha Pack Leaders, though the numbers of vampires and shifters are about the same in this state."

"Do you think that means that the vampires are more organized than—?"

"Nuh-uh-uh." Roel shook his index finger back and forth. "It's my turn."

She giggled then clapped a hand over her mouth.

He stared at her a second with his mouth open, stunned by the angelic laugh she had. "Do that again."

Blinking in confusion, she lowered her hand. "Do what again?"

He narrowed his eyes at her. There was no way she was ignorant to the fact that she was this amazing. Hadn't anybody ever told her? Surely she'd had boyfriends. Of course he knew that she was a vampire's assistant, but she had to have dated at least one of them or maybe humans before she'd met Phoenix. Right?

"Laugh," he said.

"Whatever for?" And now she sounded defensive, almost as if he'd insulted her.

"Never mind," he said, but made a mental note to try to get her to do it again without bluntly asking her to do it. People sounded like idiots when they laughed for no reason, though he didn't think this girl could ever sound like an idiot. "Back to my turn," he said, and acted like he was actually thinking of a question, though he'd known what he wanted to ask her before he even suggested they play the game. "Why did Jaxon bring you to a hotel?"


"I killed one of Phoenix's vampires."

Blink-blink-blink-blink.

"Uh… Why would you—"

She put up her hand and moved her index finger back and forth. Roel frowned and leaned back in his chair with a loud huff. How could she drop something like that on him and not elaborate?

She grinned, but there was no laughing this time.

"How old are you?" she said.

He smirked. "Thirty-one."

Disbelief showed on her pretty face. "Unless you were bitten in the last three years, that's a lie. I know shifters are immortal."

"Alright, alright, I'll be a hundred-twenty-seven next month, if I live that long," he muttered the last part under his breath.

"What day in February?"

He raised his eyebrows. "It's my turn."

"Ugh! Okay. Hurry up."

He chuckled. "Why did you kill one of Phoenix's vampires?"

"I figured you would ask that," she said, and her shoulders slumped.

"We can stop. I don't want to, but we can if you don't want to talk about it."

It was clear she realized that she would get no more answers out of him if they stopped playing, so she shook her head. "No, I'll talk about it.