Brothers 3

Chapter 11

"You are going on a date with her and I shouldn't be annoyed?" Ella thumbed her foot on the floor of the car.

James massaged the bridge of his nose and turned the wheel with his other hand. "I am going on a date with her so that she likes me enough to help."

"You don't know any other way to make people like you?"

James pressed his lips together. He was on the edge of telling her that he wasn't totally familiar with making friends. That his friends that she had seen burnt alive met him through Robert and that he isn't much of a people person. Instead he stayed quiet.

"If you think saying nothing makes this better you are so wrong."

James could feel Ella staring at the side of his head. He kept his eyes on the road.

She threw her hands up in the air. "I give up my whole life for you and now you are going out with other girls."

"I am going out with her to tell her that I have been linked to someone I don't love and in order for us to be together she needs to unlink us. It's called giving her motivation to help." James growled.

"You couldn't have just asked her?"

"Witches don't like vampires or werewolves."

"She doesn't even know she is a witch yet!"

"I will tell her everything."

"When? On the third date?"

James jerked the car around another corner very sharply. The tires squealed and the wheel clicked back around when he released the tension. "Look, once I get her help then we can go back to living our lives like a normal couple," He muttered the next part under his breath. "one that doesn't have to see each other every second of the day."

When they got back to the house Mrs. Greene was outside tending the garden under a huge yellow umbrella. She was knee-deep in compost and her jeans were stained.

She rose to greet them. "I hope the trip went well."

James opened his mouth to reply but Ella got there first. "It went well for James. He got a hot date for tomorrow night." James cringed at her tone.

Mrs Greene put her hands on her hips. "He did what?"

"Look, I need the witch to like me if she is going to help. Besides, I couldn't tell her the real story, she would run for the hills before getting involved with something like that. Trust me when I say that this is the lesser of the evils." James wandered past them and into the house before they could argue further. He was taking off his coat when he caught a whiff of something earthy and damp. He took another sniff. Werewolf. There was a werewolf in his house.

He bent his fingers like claws and crept into the living room. The floor didn't make a sound under his steps and as a vampire he didn't need to breathe.

Listening carefully, he could hear a heartbeat and the expanding and sagging of lungs. There was certainly something living in the room and it stank. He came up on the edge of the living room arch way and rounded it, keeping his body close to the wooden frame. Once he could peek around he caught sight of the intruder. He was standing with his hands in his pockets scrutinising the ornate fireplace, the one covered in the scenes of brutal torture. His shoulders were relaxed but he kept looking around for something. The lights cast his long shadow across the floor to where it bent up and climbed the fireplace.

James narrowed his eyes. Something about the frame of this wolf looked familiar.

Ella stomped down the hall behind him and James cringed at how loud it was. The intruder turned and smiled when Ella came into the room. The smile somehow made James want to take Ella to another room where she wouldn't see it.