Music is blasting from all around me and basically making my ears bleed.
I don’t know whatever song is playing, but I don’t care to know, for once.
I’m not really having a great time.
Sadie is much too friendly to hang out with one person all night, regardless of her initial complaints when she begged me to come, so I am forced to sit back a lot and watch her interact with people I have zero interest in talking to.
Sometime after that, I see two of my brothers; Nate is dirty dancing with a blonde girl and Connor is sitting on the couch next to a short red-head.
They seem to be having a very serious conversation.
The very fact that he’s sitting down instead of dancing just proves to me that he really does care about what’s-her-face.
Sadie then drags me to the keg and pours herself a drink.
Time passes and she starts moving with the music.
Then she has another.
Then another.
Before I know it, she forces me onto the dance floor, giggling like crazy.
It doesn’t take a genius to see that she’s a little more than just tipsy.
I wonder again what’s so important that Cade left her alone at a party.
After a couple of minutes, as Sadie dances around next to me, I see him coming through the front door with Logan.
I wave around to catch his attention.
When they see me, the two of them walk over.
“How many drinks did she have?” he yells when he sees his mate, for once not the least bit hostile.
“Enough that you should get her out of here,” I yell back.
He nods and grabs her arm.
She stops dancing and looks up at him, her face immediately lighting up.
“Cadey!” she squeals and throws her arms around his neck.
“You’re here!” “Come on, Sade, let’s go somewhere more quiet,” he tells her.
He puts his arm around her waist and leads her away.
I’m left standing there with Logan, who is staring at me like he’s expecting me to start dancing.
It’s too awkward for me, so I decide to walk around and find something to do.
“I’m going to look for my brothers,” I let him know.
He nods but doesn’t move and continues to stare me down.
I turn my back on him and walk up the stairs, intending to search the rooms for my brothers.
When I get to the top, I glance back behind my shoulder, and he’s still standing in the same position like a stone, his eyes on me.
This guy gives me the creeps without even trying.
It’s totally unfair.
The upstairs level is more difficult to maneuver around, basically because there’s no difference between bathroom doors and bedroom doors.
It’s impossible to follow my sense of smell because of all the different smells in the air and the alcohol overpowering everything else.
I’m going to have to check them all.
The first door opens up to a couple making out on a bed.
In the second one, I find Mason vomiting in the toilet.
“Man, we haven’t even been here that long,” I comment, keeping my voice normal since music is more muffled up here.
“How are you so drunk already?” He mumbles out something I can’t catch; I only make out the words “what” and “time” and conclude what he wants to know.
I check my watch and am surprised that it’s almost ten thirty.
Have we really been here more than an hour?
I didn’t even feel the time passing, although I was bored for most of it.
Before I have a chance to answer his question, he grabs the toilet seat again and empties whatever’s left in his stomach.
I lock the door and rush to his side.
“Mason,” I sigh.
“Why would you do that to yourself?” He slurs something else of which I only understand “miss her.” “Seriously?” I ask with exasperation.
“You think that poisoning yourself like that will make you miss her any less?” He groans and puts his hands on his forehead.
“Alright, fine.
I’ll find the others and we’ll go home.” I lift him as carefully as possible and lay him against the bathtub.
His eyes close and his head falls back against the edge of the tub.
When I’m sure that he’s okay, I leave and close the door behind me, hoping to God that it will be enough to keep people out of it.
I have to be fast.
It doesn’t take too long to find Nathan; he’s in one of the rooms playing strip poker with a couple of girls.
From their lack of clothing and non-stop giggling, and his single discarded shirt on the side, I’m guessing he’s winning.
“Yo, Nate,” I call out to him, and he looks up at me and laughs like a true drunken idiot.
“Put your shirt on, we’re leaving once I find the other two.” “Aw,” the girls say in disappointment.
Before he can complain and waste some of the time I can spend locating my remaining brothers, I get out of the room and close the door.
The second I’m out in the hallway again, a hand grabs my arm and yanks me towards the person to whom it belongs.
“You look like you’re lost,” a girl’s voice slurs.
We’re at eye level, and it doesn’t take me more than a moment to see who it is.
“What do you want, Reena?” I ask impatiently.
I need to get out of here.
She smiles and trails a finger down the length of my other arm.
“Well, that’s a very good question,” she says.
“I could use a little help with something.
Can you meet me in that room in about ten minutes?” Disgusted, I rip my arm out of her reach.
Nell, I could have handled, but this girl is seriously slut-material when she’s drunk.
“I’m busy,” I snap and stomp off with anger.
How can any werewolf, and an alpha of all people, pick this…
thing as a mate?
Shaking my head, I focus back on my task.
Connor is the one I locate next; he’s with the same girl I saw him with downstairs, and she’s topless -but thankfully has her bra on.
My first instinct is to mentally gag, but then I notice he’s passed out and the girl is sitting next to him, with a very angry look on her face.
She turns her glare onto me when she sees me.
“What happened?” I ask, bewildered.
“We were just having some fun,” she whines.
“I only snuck in here because he asked me to.
He was doing very well, I mean he’s a great kisser and I was totally willing to go all the way.
But then I turned away for a second to lock the door, and he just fell asleep!
I mean, like, seriously?
Am I that horrible?” I’m so uncomfortable that I don’t even know what to say for a moment.
“I’ll be back in a minute,” I blurt.
The girl calls out for me to wait, so I hurry out of there.
Connor is completely in love with his girlfriend, I say to myself, the surprise of it making me halt in my step for a second.
I don’t find Danny in any of the other rooms on this floor, but I do find some other people we both know sprawled on the ground with a couple of passed out werewolves.
“Michael!” Nell squeals, having a giggling fit.
“You want to dance with me?” Furious, I stare at them one by one.
“What the hell are you guys doing here?” Nell and her friend put their hands over their mouths like they’re holding in their laughter.
Brad just has a ridiculously dopey smile on his face as he stares at me, and Nico is talking like a hippie on pot.
“Told you we’re sneak in, dude,” he says.
“Guess you changed your mind about joining us.
Hey, do you know where Danny is?” “How did you guys even get here?” I hiss, hoping to God the two werewolves don’t wake up anytime soon.
The girls laugh out loud, and I struggle against the urge to slap them into sobriety.
Nico explains how his house is so close to the compound that they all simply walked over here, waited for the guard at the gate to be distracted and snuck in.
This changes my plan radically.
No one else in the party is going to care whether or not they get home safely, and they can’t even walk straight to go back to Nico’s place.
I’m going to have to take them myself, but how are they going to fit in Connor’s car with my four gigantic brothers?
I’ll worry about that after I find Daniel, I decide, exasperation starting to make my blood boil.
I leave Danny’s friends and go back downstairs, praying with all my might that he doesn’t take too long to show himself.
It takes a couple of minutes, but I do find him in the middle of the dance floor, grinding on some girl.
He’s got a bottle of beer in his hand that he keeps drinking from.
This whole situation is turning into the worst night of my life.
I rush through the mass of bodies to reach my twin.
He surprisingly doesn’t put up much of a fight when I grab him and pull him away; he’s too far gone to be able to fight back, anyway.
The girl actually seems more upset than he is and lets out a ‘Hey!’ of protest.
“Mickey!
Have you met Sadie’s sister?” he asks with a smile on his face.
That’s when I notice that it’s Zoey he’s dancing with.
She doesn’t look as wasted as he does, but she is a little tipsy.
She frowns disappointingly at me, which I ignore.
“Danny, your friends are upstairs,” I shout in his ear.
“We have to go and get them back to Nico’s place.” He squints at me.
“What?” he yells.
He turns around, looking for Zoey.
I’m about to grab him and literally drag him away when someone comes up behind me.
“Is there a problem?” a voice asks.
I spin on my heels and come face to face with Logan.
He’s wearing his usual stoic mask.
In the back of my head, I wonder why he’s always so cold-looking.
He hasn’t been back for long, but it doesn’t take much to have a good time, at least according to my brothers.
Hasn’t he even tried to have fun?
It’s his party after all.
“We have to go,” I find myself blurting out without even thinking about it, something urging me to be honest with him.
“But there are some humans here that I need to drive home with us, and we can’t all fit in our car.” Stupid stupid Michael!
I mentally berate myself.
How can you admit this out loud to someone who is practically a stranger?
I try to fix my slip up and say something to explain that I can handle it.
However, I don’t get a chance to do that.
“Come on, I’ll give you a lift.” I blanch.
“Um, I-” I stutter.