Undead and Unwary Read Online Free

that I couldn’t keep them straight), which caused her to let out a small squeak. He absentmindedly soothed her as he rose to his feet. “Hey, babe. You okay?”
    “Hmm?”
    “Where’d you go?” I asked, curious. She was acting like she was in a trance or had been mojo’d by a vamp. I knew it wasn’t the latter because it was daylight hours and also, no vampirewould fucking dare because I would kill them so much. And who’d want to put her in a trance if it wasn’t vamp related? “Jess? Where were you?”
    “Oh, I took the babies to see your mom.” Jessica had a peculiar expression on her face, a combo of impatience and worry and fatigue. Like, I didn’t think I’d have to talk about this, you poor thing, and stop bugging me and boy am I tired. “That’s what it was. Where I was. Yeah.”
    “The babies are here,” I couldn’t help pointing out. “Remember? Marc’s watching Other Baby in the kitchen while he . . .” Dissects things , but that was no way to end a sentence around Jess. The world’s biggest hypochondriac isn’t as paranoid about germs as a new mother. “. . . does stuff.” Also, DadDick was holding one of her babies. Five feet from where she was standing. Standing without the babies.
    “Yeah, I know.”
    “You—you do?”
    “So we didn’t stay long, obviously.”
    “You and the babies you didn’t actually bring,” I couldn’t help adding because weirdweirdweird .
    “Right!” she finished with a touch of her prebaby snapitude. Then she turned around and walked out. But it wasn’t Jessica’s brisk got-to-get-going-quick pace that she used everywhere. She just sort of . . . wandered off.
    Laura shook her head, a resigned expression on her face. “I don’t know what that is, but it’ll be more than enough to keep you occupied for a few days.”
    “You think?” I managed to keep the hope out of my tone.
    “My point! What ever it is—she’s on drugs, she’s exhausted, she’s been mojo’d by a nasty vamp, she found out she’s being audited—you’ll seize on it as an excuse to avoid your responsibilities from Hell.” She smiled a little, and who could blame her? Responsibilities from Hell, heh. Maybe the “I’ve got the [ fill in the blank ] from Hell!” thing will make a comeback now. “All right, yes, I hear it, but it’s true, and you’re slacking.”
    “Look, obviously something’s going on,” I began.
    Laura’s beautiful face (the Antichrist has never had a pimple) remained unmoved. “Something always, always is.”
    “Someone could have attacked her!” Argh, dial back the excitement, Betsy.
    “In broad daylight? Without leaving a mark on her?”
    “Okay, someone might be . . .” I cast about for what “someone” might do. “They could be blackmailing her!”
    “Who would?” Laura asked, displaying a shocking display of callousness when everyone in the house knew being a callous asshat was my job. Nagging and now poaching on my territory! My torments were endless. “She’s a billionaire who lives with murderously protective vampires.”
    “She is not!” I snapped back. “The economy has sucked so hard and so long, she’s only a millionaire now.” The vampire thing was harder to argue.
    “Like I said. It doesn’t matter what this is. You’ve got your excuse du jour to avoid keeping your word.”
    “Boy, you just don’t care about anything but yourself, do you, Laura? I’m sorry to say it, but it’s shocking to see.”
    The Antichrist, usually pale as milk, started to blush. It only made her more dazzling, which was just annoying. Tall, slim, with blue eyes and long blond hair (until she lost her temper, then it went red and her eyes poison green), looking better in faded jeans and a Livestrong T-shirt (“Just because Mr. Armstrong cheated doesn’t mean the charity isn’t a worthwhile endeavor,” she says) than I did in my wedding dress . . . I didn’t like being the ugly sister and the mean one.
    So I kept up