Silent Bite-A Scanguards Wedding (1001 Dark Nights) Read Free Page B

it. So if you don’t want your mother to find it in my room, then it’s going to have to be Blake.”
    Ursula ground her teeth. “Oh, crap!” Her gaze drifted to a crowd of people coming down the escalator.
    He chuckled. “I’m assuming that’s a ‘yes’?”
    She nodded reluctantly and glanced at him as he pressed “send” on his cell phone before slipping it back into his pocket. She’d had no choice, because she’d just spotted her parents at the top of the escalator. There was no time to come up with another solution.
    “They’re here!”
    From the top of the escalator, her parents descended, their eyes scanning the waiting area below. Her mother, a petite woman with impeccable taste and style, wore a costume that looked like it was designed by Chanel, though Ursula knew that her mother would never spend that kind of money on clothes. She was a veritable bargain hunter, and Ursula was sure that she hadn’t spent more than a hundred dollars for her entire outfit including her shoes and her fancy handbag.
    Involuntarily, Ursula had to smile. Her mother would be shocked if she found out how much money Oliver’s family was spending on this wedding. Her parents were well off, with her father earning an exceptionally large salary as a high-level diplomat for the Chinese embassy in Washington D.C., so there was no need for her mother to be frugal, but it was so ingrained in her that she just couldn’t help herself. It seemed almost like a sport to her.
    Ursula waved as she caught her father’s eye. He beamed at her, then touched his wife’s arm to point to where Ursula and Oliver stood waiting. Excitedly, her mother waved back, but Ursula’s gaze wandered back to her father. It seemed as if he’d lost weight. His face looked paler than usual too. She shook her head. The neon lights weren’t flattering for anybody’s skin tone. It had to be an optical illusion or the fact that he was tired from the flight.
    When her parents reached the bottom steps of the escalator and stepped off it, Ursula flung herself into their arms, reaching around them both and hugging them tightly.
    “I missed you!” she said, pushing back the tears.
    “We missed you too, Wei Ling,” her father said, calling her by her Chinese name as he did so often.
    “You’re going to squash your mother if you hold on any tighter,” Oliver said from behind her and put a hand on her shoulder.
    Ursula stepped out of their embrace, wiping away a tear that had escaped her eye.
    Oliver moved to her side and stretched out his hand toward her mother first. “It’s very nice to see you again, Mrs. Tseng.”
    Her mother took his hand and shook it, then put her other hand over it to clasp it. “Young man, maybe it’s time to stop calling me Mrs. Tseng. My name is Hui Lian,” she said with the Chinese accent that even after two decades in the US had not diminished.
    Oliver grinned. “I’d like that very much, Hui Lian.” Then he turned to her father and shook his outstretched hand. “It’s good to see you, sir.”
    “Call me Yao Bang. And considering you’re stealing my only daughter from me, I’m rather happy to see you too. It’s good to know she’ll be in good hands.”
    Her parents exchanged a look.
    All of a sudden, a strange sense of unease slithered down Ursula’s back like a snake. A cold shiver followed.
    “Well, let’s get your luggage so we can get you home,” Oliver announced and motioned toward the carousels.
     
    * * * *
     
    He shouldn’t even be on the arrival level at San Francisco International Airport, but he’d followed a particularly tasty smelling woman who’d made her way down there from the departure level where he’d been about to check in for the red-eye to New York. When he’d smelled her enticing blood, he’d decided to get one last snack before his flight and had followed her.
    He was done with San Francisco. After he’d been captured by people from Scanguards, the self-appointed police force and