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The Reluctant Vampire(12)

By:Lynsay Sands


Drina smiled faintly but just nodded. It couldn’t hurt, and she didn’t care if she was in the front or not anyway.

“And you should sit right behind him, not behind the passenger seat,” Stephanie whispered as the garage door finished opening, and they saw Harper waving to them from the driver’s seat of a silver BMW.

“Why?” Drina whispered back, using the excuse of closing the still-open door of the SUV to delay approaching the car.

“That way, every time he looks in the rearview mirror, he’ll see you,” she pointed out.

Drina peered at her with surprise. The kid was smart, she thought, and knew by the way that Stephanie smiled widely that she’d heard the compliment. Chuckling, she slid her arm around the girl and used it to steer her toward the car.

“You can sit in the front if you like,” she said with amusement, steering her that way, and then breaking off to move up the driver’s side of the car herself.

“You’re sure you don’t mind?” Stephanie asked with feigned concern, pausing beside the passenger door.

“Not at all,” Drina said dryly and had to bite her lip to keep from laughing when the girl grinned at her over the roof of the car, out of Harper’s view. Shaking her head, Drina opened the back door and slid in behind him.

“Thank you, Harper. This is really sweet of you,” Stephanie said as she slid into the front seat. “Isn’t it sweet, Drina?”

“Very,” she agreed mildly.

“It’s no problem,” Harper assured them, smiling at Stephanie, and then meeting Drina’s gaze in the rearview mirror and smiling at her as well. “Just tell me where you want to go, and we’re there.”

“Well, Drina insisted we had to stay in town because she doesn’t know her way around, so we were just going to go to Wal-Mart. But with you driving, maybe we could go into London,” Stephanie said in a rush.

“I don’t think so, Stephanie,” Drina said firmly when Harper hesitated. “It isn’t just that I don’t know the area. I think it’s better that we stay in town until we’re sure no one trailed you guys from New York. Here we at least have the house relatively close and can call Teddy Brunswick if we need help.”

“But there are so many cool stores in London,” Stephanie protested. “We could go to Garage or the Gap or—”

“I’ll tell you what,” Harper interrupted. “How about we try Wal-Mart today for the necessities, and then maybe later in the week we can venture out to London if you don’t find everything you need here in town?”

Stephanie heaved out a sigh. “Oh, all right.”

“Good. So, do up your seat belts, and we’ll be on our way.”

Drina smiled wryly at Harper’s relieved tones and did up her seat belt, then sat silently in the backseat as he maneuvered the car out of the garage and past the SUV.

“If you’re the daughter of Lucian and Victor’s brother, how come your name is Argenis and not Argeneau?”

Drina blinked at the sudden question from Stephanie, caught a bit by surprise, but it was Harper who answered.

“Argenis is just basically the Spanish version of Argeneau. They’re derivatives of the same root name,” Harper said, sounding like a schoolteacher. “As each branch of the family spread out to different areas of the world, the name changed to fit the language of that area. Argenis in Spain, Argeneau in France, Argent in England, and so on.”

Stephanie peered at Harper curiously. “So what’s the root name?”

“I believe it was Argentum, which means silver in Latin,” Harper said solemnly. “It was because their eyes are silver-blue.”

“They named people for their eye color?” Stephanie asked with disbelief.

Harper chuckled at her expression. “Back then they didn’t really have last names. They were mostly first names and then descriptors, like John the barber, or Jack the butcher, or Harold the brave and so on.”

“So it was Lucian the silver?” she asked dubiously.

“Something like that,” Harper said with a shrug.

“Hmm.” Stephanie swung around to peer at Drina. “And you’re a rogue hunter in Spain?”

Drina nodded.

“Is it different than being a rogue hunter here?”

Drina raised her eyebrows. “I don’t know. It doesn’t appear to be so far.”

“They have different laws in Europe,” Harper put in quietly.

“Like what?” Stephanie asked, turning back to him.

“Biting mortals is not outlawed there,” Drina answered stiffly when Harper hesitated. She knew that was the reason for the hesitation. It was a bit of an issue between the North American council and the European one.