Free Flutter by Amanda Hocking

his hoodie looked fairly new. He had surprisingly happy eyes,
    reminding me of Jack’s, only with a menacing edge to them.
    The other one appeared to be embarrassed about this little confrontation. His jeans and long-sleeve
    tee shirt were filthy and badly worn. His thick, dark brown was shorter than the other two, but he had a thick
    stubble on his face as well. While he was well-toned, he was smaller, probably closer to Peter or Jack in size.
    His eyes were the thing that caught me the most. They were gentle and large, reminding me of that of a
    puppy. He didn’t have even a hint of rabid intent about him.
    The one in the water crouched down lower, looking poised for an attack, and my mind raced to think
    of a way out of it. Everybody had warned me just to run, but there was no way I could out run these guys. I
    wasn’t even sure if Ezra could. They had some kind of super running trick that I didn’t even know was
    possible.
    “We don’t mean to bother you,” I said weakly, and Ezra squeezed my arm.
    From the water, the lycan growled at me, but the one with the kind eyes looked surprised by me. He
    kept staring at me, but when the one in the water made some infinitesimal movement
    towards us, he stopped
    him.
    “Stellan!” he snapped.
    The one in the water turned to look at him and started to make what sounded like a
    confused
    argument in Finnish, but he just shook his head and cut him off. Quietly, I asked Ezra what that was about,
    but he just silenced me.
    “You’re American, yeah?” the amused vampire asked, his tone lilting with an unfamiliar
    accent.
    “Yes, we are,” Ezra responded, his voice sounding more resolute than ever before. “I’m
    Ezra, and this
    is my sister, Alice.” He had never referred to me as his sister before, and I realized that I was kind of was, and
    I liked it. Or at least I would’ve if I hadn’t been worried about the lycans ripping our throats out at any
    second.
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    “Dodge,” the amused one smirked at us. “I’m from Boston.” Okay, so his accent wasn’t that exotic,
    but it wasn’t like I’d ever been to Boston before to really pick up on it.
    “Leif,” the gentle one gestured to himself, and then to the bewildered vampire in the water.
    “That’s
    Stellan. He’s Finnish, and he refuses to learn any other language. He’s a class act.” Stellan turned back to him
    and retorted something in Finnish, but Leif just shook his head.
    “What are you doing out here?” Dodge cocked an eyebrow at us. “It doesn’t look like you’re on a
    friendly hike.”
    Nervously, I looked up at Ezra and waited for him to speak. He had let go of me but kept his arm
    shielded in front of me. There wasn’t really a good answer to the question. We didn’t look like we were just
    passing through, but I was pretty sure that these were the lycans after Peter, so we couldn’t exactly announce
    that we were here to rescue him.
    “She’s never been here before,” Ezra chose his words carefully. “She wanted to explore.”
    “I’m very curious,” I chimed in, and Ezra shot me a look.
    Dodge chuckled, but that only seemed to infuriate Stellan. He stood up straighter, making himself
    look larger and more imposing, and his eyes glared down at us. To Dodge and Leif, we
    appeared to be some
    kind of curiosity, and Leif especially looked at with us affection and tolerance. I’m not sure if it was because
    we were speaking English or what, but Stellan definitely thought we were a threat.
    Glancing back at Leif, Stellan shouted something in Finnish again. His eyes almost instantly returned
    to us, even though he was still talking to Leif, but I suspected that was because he didn’t trust taking his eyes
    off of us. Ezra could understand everything he said, but he was purposely trying to play dumb, in hopes that
    Stellan would inadvertently confess something.
    “Did you know this was our territory?” Dodge asked when Stellan finished his rant.
    “No. This is a National Park,