The Rogue Hunter - Argeneau Series - Book 10 Page 0,2

informed her, "You're still bleeding. Maybe you should try some of that After Bite stuff on it."

"Yeah. I need a refill on my drink anyway," Sam murmured. Giving up on her neck, she got to her feet, asking, "Can I get something for anyone else while I'm up?"

"Nothing for me, thanks," Jo said.

"I could use another beer. I meant to grab one while I was up going to the bathroom, but forgot," Alex said and then grabbed at Sam's elbow to steady her as she swayed unsteadily. Amusement clear in her voice, she commented, "Maybe you should switch to soda."

"She already is on soda," Jo announced. "She isn't drinking."

Alex's head swiveled sharply to Sam. "Not another ear infection?"

Sam nodded reluctantly, not surprised when Alex began to curse. Knowing it was just a result of her worry and that it would be followed by a rant about rotten doctors, the useless health care system, and the length of the wait to see a specialist, Sam didn't stick around to listen. She moved cautiously off the dock and up the lawn, but wasn't halfway to the cottage before she began to regret not having grabbed the flashlight from Jo. This was not the city with streetlights to brighten the situation. Here in cottage country, night was black velvet, dark and heavy. While it had seemed lighter on the dock with the starlit sky overhead, here the trees blocked out the starlight. It was much darker, and Sam found herself stumbling over exposed roots and rocks in her path. Between that and the lack of balance her ear infection was causing, she was having a bit of a struggle.

Grabbing at the thigh-sized trunk of the young maple tree between the cottage and the dock, Sam paused briefly to get her bearings. She was about to continue again when the sound of a door closing drew her eyes to the cottage next door. It was in darkness, as it had been when they'd arrived.

As it always was, in fact, she thought with a grimace. The cottage had been sold two years ago, but they still hadn't yet met the new neighbors. The new owner never seemed to be up here, at least not when Sam or her sisters were at their cottage. They checked every time they came up, hoping to finally get to meet them. It wasn't that they were overly sociable. The fact was, life here wasn't like life in the city. Neighbors depended on neighbors up here. They didn't bother each other, but did like to know who they were and tended to look out for each other. It was a necessity in an area where the power was frequently knocked out and amenities could be so far away in an emergency.

There had been a lot of speculation on the lake last summer about the new owners. Grant, their neighbor on the other side and a year-round resident, had said that the cottage had been in use at a couple of points during the winter. He'd seen the lights on at night, and a man walking around the building to the shed a couple of times, but the man had kept to himself. Sam doubted Grant had encouraged him to do otherwise, however. He pretty much kept to himself too and only talked to those on the lake for whom he did handyman work, and then only when—and as much as—absolutely necessary. He probably wouldn't even have mentioned it if she hadn't asked if he'd met the new neighbors yet.

That thought made her glance toward Grant's dark cottage on the other side of theirs as she briefly wondered if the noise she'd heard hadn't come from his place. Sound carried oddly on the lake, and it could have come from just about anywhere, even from one of the cottages across the lake.

Shrugging the worry away, she released her hold on the tree trunk and continued up toward the cottage.

"Cottage country."

Garrett Mortimer chuckled at the disgust in his partner's voice. "I can tell you're thrilled by this assignment."

Justin Bricker grimaced. "It's cottage country, Mortimer. Cottages are all about sun and sand and fun. We're vampires. We avoid sunlight like the plague. What are we doing here?"

"Looking for a rogue immortal," Mortimer said calmly, managing not to wince at his younger partner's use of the term vampire. He couldn't help it, he—like many of the older ones of their kind—had a terrible abhorrence for the word. It brought back memories of marauding villagers