Single, bi vamp looking for same for blood tryst, not relationship, I thought, hearing her unspoken desire in her last sentence, but I wasn’t ready to deal with it.

“I don’t like living like this,” Ivy said, her words unaccusing and her eyes a deep, honest brown. “But it’s where I am right now. Don’t worry about it. I’ll be okay. And as far as Piscary is concerned, he can burn in hell—if his soul hadn’t already evaporated.”

Her face was expressionless again, but I knew it was a front. “So you’re going to stay?” I asked, both embarrassed and proud that I had learned I could ask for help when I needed it, and boy did I need it.

She nodded, and I exhaled, reaching for my drink. “Thank you,” I said softly.

The idea of leaving everything to play dead the rest of my life scared the crap out of me the way a death threat couldn’t. I liked my life, and I didn’t want to have to leave it and start over. It had taken me too long to find friends who would stick with me when I did something stupid. Like turning a simple snag and drag into an interspecies power struggle.

Shifting one shoulder up and down in a half shrug, Ivy reached under her chair for that paper bag. “Do you want your mail,” she asked, “seeing as I brought it all this way?”

She was changing the subject, but that was fine by me. “I thought you were kidding,” I said as Ivy set the sack on the table and I dragged it closer. Jenks and Jax were excited about something they had found on the list, and people had given up watching them in glances and were blatantly staring. At least they weren’t looking at us.

“It’s the package I’m curious about,” Ivy said, glancing at Nick and Jenks while they pointed at the screen.

I dumped everything out, putting the obvious thank-you-for-saving-my-ass note from a previous run back in the bag along with the insurance bill from David’s company and a late season seed catalog. What was left was a paper-wrapped parcel the size of my two fists. I looked closer at the handwriting, my eyes jerking to Nick in the corner. “It’s from Nick,” I said, reaching for a table knife. “What is he sending me when he thinks I’m dead?”

Ivy’s face held a silent distain clearly directed at Nick. “I’d be willing to bet it’s whatever the Weres are after. I thought it was his handwriting, but I wasn’t sure.”

Very conscious of Nick slurping his shake and reading track titles over Jenks’s shoulder, I pulled the package off the table and put it in my lap. My pulse quickened and I made short work of the outer wrapping. Fingers cold, I opened the box and pulled out the heavy drawstring bag. “It’s got lead in it,” I said, feeling the supple weight of the fabric. “It’s wrapped in lead, Ivy. I don’t like this.”