Blood Twist (The Erris Coven Series) - By Bonnie Wheeler

1

LIZ

The large house was empty. Liz peeked through each room carefully before unpacking her bag of groceries in the kitchen. Why she insisted on spending the afternoon in the old manor house was a mystery, even to her. After all, the two dead werewolves she found in the basement on the evening she arrived would have been a turnoff for anyone else.

Wisps of black hair fell across her eyes as she rinsed a pile of Yukon gold potatoes under a stream of cold water. She had never made potato salad for a coven of half-vampires before, but she was up for trying new things. Other than the statement that they didn’t drink human blood, their dietary needs weren’t discussed in detail. If her Aunt’s salad recipe didn’t tickle their taste buds, Liz couldn’t help them. It was one of the few foods she knew how to cook.

Glancing around the sizable room, it was pretty easy to guess where Lexie’s mom, Ruby, would have stored her pots and cutlery. After spending years hanging around Lexie’s childhood home, Liz had learned that Ruby was a creature of habit. Saucepans were always kept under the sink, just like knives and forks would be in the drawer closest to the stove.

The last forty-eight hours certainly created a new slant on the way she viewed her world. Liz thought things were tough enough when Lexie moved from Connecticut to live in Maine, but after two weeks of Lexie’s absence and only being able to contact her through snail mail, Liz had enough. Climbing in her old Chevy Cavalier, she headed to Erris determined to make her best friend move back to Connecticut for her final year of high school.

If that didn’t work, she had a backup plan – she would insist upon staying with Lexie in Erris until Christmas vacation.

When she arrived on Lexie’s doorstep, Liz expected a warm welcome from her best friend. But when she entered the house, she only heard a mournful wail coming from deep within the basement. Instantly, she was alarmed. Her mind went through a list of possible scenarios before assuming Maxim hogtied his family for laughing at his unibrow or something else perturbing.

When she worked her way down the creaking steps, Liz found Ruby buck naked and shaking violently next to the crumpled form of her new husband, Dragos. Ruby tried using her old flannel nightgown to stop the bleeding from her husband’s lethal wounds – but it was hopeless. The man was clearly dead.

The nude body of his eldest son was sprawled out next to him. Maxim’s chest was a gaping mess – the culprit, a sterling silver cake knife, only a foot away.

Liz rolled the potato in her hand as it danced with the paring knife. The skin shards fell in a heap in the sink. She never was a fan of Lexie’s new stepfamily, but she never would have guessed in a million years that they weren’t human.

Werewolves? Really?

All of them were a bit off. It wasn’t just because they were built like linebackers and had the same steel gray eyes. They were intense and always surrounding Lexie and her sister Ella. For reasons Liz couldn’t figure at the time, they didn’t want either girl to have a life outside of the house. Every time Liz stopped over to visit during their month-long stay in Torrington, the brothers would be peering at them from around doorways and listening in on their conversations.

They made weird look normal.

She dropped the potato into the pot. If she had arrived just a tad bit earlier, she could have lost her life as well.

Thank God Lexie got away, she’s the closest thing to family I have.

Lexie, Ruby and Ella were all alive and accounted for, but none of them would ever be the same. Of Dragos and his three sons, only the youngest, Nicolai, got away.

None of them knew if the young werewolf would return or if he was a threat. Ella insisted Nicolai was nothing like the others, but she was thirteen and wasn’t there when her homicidal stepbrother, Alik, decided to become alpha of the pack. As far as Liz was concerned, all bets were off when it came to the youngest Serov.

Better to be safe than sorry…or dead.

It was right after Liz discovered a disoriented Ruby that Braden burst through what remained of the cellar’s hatchway. She wasn’t sure who was more shocked at that moment – her for seeing a six foot tall blond with mesmerizing white