She lifted a brow as he strolled right out. She’d seen him slip out of all manner of kitchen duties already. And she had to admit, he was slick about it.
Resigned, she turned the bacon herself, then heated a second skillet. She was about to dunk the first piece of bread when she heard voices. The newlyweds were up, she realized, and added to the batter to accommodate them.
Effortless style. It was something Glenna had in spades, Blair thought. She wandered in wearing a sage green sweater and black jeans with her bold red hair swinging straight and loose. The urban take on country casual, Blair supposed. When you added the pretty flush of a woman who’d obviously had her morning snuggles, you had quite a package.
She didn’t look like a woman who would rush a squad of vampires while she bellowed war cries and swung a battle-ax, but she’d done just that.
“Mmm, French toast? You must have read my mind.” As she moved to the coffeepot, Glenna gave Blair’s arm an absent stroke. “Give you a hand?”
“No, I got this. You’ve been taking the lion’s share of KP, and I’m better at breakfast than dinner. Didn’t I hear Hoyt?”
“Right behind me. He’s talking to Larkin about the horse. I think Hoyt’s a little put out he didn’t get to Vlad before Larkin did. Coffee’s good. How’d you sleep?”
“Like I’d been knocked unconscious, for a couple hours.” Blair dipped bread, then laid it to sizzle. “Then, I don’t know, too restless. Wired up.” She slanted Glenna a look. “And nowhere to put the excess energy, like the bride.”
“I have to admit, I’m feeling pretty loose and relaxed this morning. Except.” Wincing a little, Glenna massaged her right biceps. “My arms feel like I spent half the night swinging a sledgehammer.”
“Battle-ax has weight. You did good work with it.”
“Work isn’t the word that comes to mind. But I’m not going to think about it—at least not until I’ve gorged myself.” Turning, Glenna opened a cupboard for plates. “Do you know how often I had a breakfast like this—fried bread, fried meat—before all this started?”
“Nope.”
“Never. Absolutely never,” she added with a half laugh. “I watched my weight as if the, well, as if the fate of the world depended on it.”
“You’re training hard.” Blair flipped the bread. “You need the fuel, the carbs. If you put on a few pounds, I can guarantee it’s going to be pure muscle.”
“Blair.” Glenna glanced toward the doorway to ensure Hoyt hadn’t started in yet. “You’ve got more experience with this than any of us. Just between you and me, for now, anyway, how did we do last night?”
“We lived,” Blair said flatly. She continued to cook, sliding fried bread onto a plate, dunking more. “That’s bottom line.”
“But—”
“Glenna, I’ll tell you straight.” Blair turned, leaning back on the counter for a moment while bread sizzled and scented the air. “I’ve never been in anything like that before.”
“But you’ve been doing this—hunting them—for years.”
“That’s right. And I’ve never seen so many of them in one place at one time, never seen them organized that way.”
Glenna let out a quiet breath. “That can’t be good news.”
“Good or bad, it’s fact. It’s not—never been in my experience—the nature of the beast to live, work, fight in large groups. I contacted my aunt, and she says the same. They’re killers, and they might travel, hunt, even live together in packs. Small packs, and there might be an alpha, male or female. But not like this.”
“Not like an army,” Glenna murmured.
“No. And what we saw last night was a squad—a small slice of an army. The thing is, they’re willing to die for her, for Lilith. And that’s powerful stuff.”
“Okay. Okay,” Glenna said as she set the table. “That’s what I get for saying I wanted it straight.”
“Hey, buck up. We lived, remember? That’s a victory.”
“Good morning to you,” Hoyt said to Blair as he came in. Then his gaze went straight to Glenna.
They shared coloring, Blair thought, she and her however-many-times great-uncle. She, the sorcerer and his twin brother, the vampire, shared coloring, and ancestry, and now this mission, she supposed.
Fate was certainly a twisty bastard.
“You two sure have the glow on,” she said when Glenna lifted her face to meet Hoyt’s lips. “Practically need my shades.”