SOS HOTEL

ON THE ROAD

SOS HOTEL

BOOK 8

ADAM VEX

SOS Hotel #8, On the Road

Written by 100% not sus Adam Vex, no cap.

Copyright © Jan 2025 Adam Vex (aka Ariana Nash)

Givn’ Gen Zee vibes for reasons you gotta read the book to find out.

Boring legal stuff that nobody readsbackhand index pointing down

Editor who understood the assignment: S J Buckley

Cover design do be hitting different: Ariana Nash

Serving looks, living rent-free in your head, spilling the tea from me! Zodiac. No suckers allowed

Listen besties: Crazy Ace Publishing stays catching ops on sketchy sites fr fr. Catch these hands if you're out here doing illegal downloads/uploads, no cap we taking legal action

Deadass no part of this book can be reproduced any way - not electronically, not mechanically, not in your notes app, nothing - without the author sliding into your DMs with permission first. Only exception is if you're lowkey quoting for a book review

All these characters and what happens? Totally giving main character energy but they're fiction, bro. If anybody's givin’ similar vibes irl, living or unaliving, that's just a coincidence.

Zodiac, this copyright page is gibberish and cannot be used for its intended purpose as a legal caveat.

Sure, Vic - We absolutely definitely probably will not use it

Or we might? A tiny bit? Who fkin knows? Probs not me skull

Did Adam not put you in control of formatting?

Sassy Fangs, u r ALWAYS the one in control squinting face with tongue

BLURB

Did you think it was the end of our wild hotel adventures?

Yeah, us too.

The Big Bad is gone. We’re heroes! Adam, Fancy Fangs, and me (Zee, obvs) are long overdue some downtime. I’d also like a foot rub, a string of Tom’s hallucination-inducing cocktails, and endless hours of some much needed personal time between the sheets with my two favorite people. And my pole.

Hello, happy ever after!

But it turns out, fate ain’t done with us yet.

Everyone’s favorite sunshine twink is great at unexpectedly unaliving folks who probably deserve it. What he’s not great at is keeping secrets. So when Adam packs our bags and springs a surprise vacation on us, it’s obvious—even to senile ancient vampires like Lord Fancy Fangs—that something is up.

We’ll play along and won’t ask questions, because it’s Adam. He’ll tell us what’s really going on . . . eventually.

But as we take the SOS Hotel team on the road and the weirdness stacks up—biker-gang werewolves, psycho witchy influencers, trolls, fairy souls, and sinkholes—there’s one question Fancy Fangs and I can’t shake.

What the f*ck do dragons run from?

(We’re back! Ha, didn’t see that coming did you? Yeah, neither did we. I still don’t get a book about ME, but the author “allowed” me to write this blurb, so long as I don’t f*ckin’ swear. Pfft. So buckle up, b*tches, the ride ain’t fuckin’ over yet. You think you’re ready? Think again, cupcake. The crazy just got crazier.)

Welcome to the SOS Hotel ~ Where we’re definitely not on the run.

CHAPTER 1

You don’t get to be famous without breaking a few legs. That’s what Zee says. Although . . . he may have meant breaking a few eggs? But that doesn’t make much sense either.

Whether it’s eggs or legs, I never wanted to be famous. All I wanted was to live happily ever after in our tired hotel with the two people who matter the most. The two halves of my heart—Zee and Victor.

Sure, I’d done some bad things. Like eating a vampire duke . . . and maybe that one time, when I’d been having a real bad night and lured three demons into following me down a dark alley so I could eat them too.

Oh, and killing my entire family. But that was from before the veil sealed itself, locking a bunch of Lost Ones on the human side where we didn’t have much choice but to somehow get along.

I’d also killed a vampire queen . . . twice. Although technically, that had been an accident . . . twice. But who was counting?

We’d also saved lots of people from the dark sorcerer Gideon Cain’s wicked ways, preventing him from taking over the world, or just San Francisco. Not bad for a dragon hiding out as a human, an ex-adult movie star, and an out-of-work ex-billionaire vampire daddy.

The prophecy was fulfilled. My heart saved the world. It was over.

But I guess even after you turn the last page and close the book, the story never really ends. The heroes go home and live their lives.

And that’s where we begin—at the end, during our happily ever after. We didn’t know it yet, but our story was far from over. In fact, it had only just begun. And what happened next made Gideon Cain’s attempted reign look like the warm-up act to the real showdown.

CHAPTER 2

In the two weeks since I’d eaten Gideon Cain in full view of the world’s press, the SOS Hotel had been at full occupancy. It turned out live villain-eating made for great publicity.

Zee’s performances filled the hotel bar every night, keeping the drinks flowing and Tom Collins as happy as Tom Collins could ever be—i.e., not very. The gremlins had been hard at work, under Little Jimmy’s strict management, making sure the hotel’s moving parts were well oiled so nobody accidentally died in an elevator malfunction. And Victor was in furniture-making heaven, renovating two additional rooms and the attic so we could maximize occupancy and profits. Madame Matase kept the front desk and bookings operating smoothly, and Chef Étrange kept the mac and cheese flowing.

As for me? I oversaw it all. Putting out fires—some real—and making sure the hotel ran as smoothly as possible.

Somehow, it all came together, and the SOS Hotel thrived.

On nights like tonight—with the bar bustling, the foyer abuzz, and the guests happy—I toured the building, checking in on Zee who was belting out a hit and giving a fabulous performance as usual, before moving on to find Victor upstairs in one of the quieter corners of the hotel.

The door to his latest room renovation hung ajar. Easing it open, I spied him standing with his back to me by the window, lit by moonlight and surrounded by pieces of flat-pack furniture. He’d bundled his hair into a messy man bun, in contrast with the business suit and dark-purple, almost black shirt. Only Victor would wear a suit while assembling furniture.

Folding my arms, I leaned against the doorframe and admired the view. The way his shirt cinched around his narrow waist, and how those straight-legged pants made all his edges sharp? The man was designed to ensnare his victims. It had to be some kind of miracle I got to wake up between him and Zee every morning. I was still waiting for this dream to end.

“Adam,” he said, without looking. That voice . . . my name on his lips? It melted me into a puddle every time.

“Hey.” I crossed the room and folded my arms around his waist, then stood on my toes to peer over his shoulder at the highly organized display of bits and pieces that would eventually make the world’s most sturdy dresser. “You should take a break and come down to the bar. Zee is getting his ‘Lady Marmalade’ on.”

Victor purred low in his throat—a sound I’d learned was a good one—and twisting in my arms, he scooped me up around the waist so fast my insides dropped. At my sharp gasp, he buried his face in my neck, breathing me in, and my heart skipped, tripping over a rush of adrenalin.

“Is he wearing stockings?” Victor growled.

“And knee-high boots.”

Victor rarely told Zee how much those outrageous outfits rewired his typically calm and collected thoughts, turning them savage with lust. Probably because it was obvious when they were together that Victor couldn’t take his eyes off Zee, especially during Zee’s performances.

Hashtag Reyzee had gone viral since the rumors about them had been proven true. Nobody cared much for my part in the threesome, though, which was fine by me. I already had enough of a spotlight on me for being the last dragon.

Victor’s firm hands lowered me back to my toes, but instead of letting me go, he swooped in for a kiss. Helpless to resist, I flung my arms around his neck and kissed him back, throwing enough strength into it to make him stagger. I could do that now—be free with who and what I was, without fear.

He growled into my mouth and nipped at my bottom lip, making it spring back with a pop.

I laughed and bumped my forehead to his, watching his silvery eyes attempt to hypnotize me. “Hm, furniture makes you hungry?”

“No, but you do.”

I wanted nothing more than to climb him like a pole right here and now, and the only way to improve on that idea would be for Zee to join us. “I’m on shift,” I rasped.

“Then I shall leave you ravenous for later.” His hot mouth scorched a path down my jaw and teased my neck, fangs scraping, igniting a thousand tiny fireworks in my veins. I turned my head away, inviting him to sink those fangs in deep.

Mercy, yes.

Hooking a leg around the back of his, I ground against his hip, needing the delicious friction.

“Adam, tease me at your peril.” His warm hand encircled my neck, his thumb tilted my chin up, and I was caught, pinned in his embrace, absolutely at his mercy.

“You know when you say things like that it just makes me want to tease you more.”

He wet his lips with the tip of his tongue, making them shine like his eyes in the dark. “Later then, and I will not be gentle.” Easing off, he backed up and stroked his ravenous gaze over me.

I fought a broad, satisfied grin. “I’ll hold you to that.”

“I should be finished making this dresser in an hour. Perhaps we might go dancing?”

A glance out the window revealed a man standing across the street, peering right up at me. If he had any kind of night vision, he’d probably seen me and Victor getting personal, but if he was going to stare into windows, what did he expect?

“Adam?”

Victor’s voice faded behind a sudden flicker of recognition.

“Hm?” I grasped the sill and peered through the dusty glass. Torn, dark-blue jeans and a faded, loose-fitting T-shirt. Brown hair. Kinda . . . average looking. He could be nobody, but a shiver tracked through me. I knew him, but I didn’t remember him. It sounded crazy. I’d never seen him before, yet inside some part of me recognized some part of him.

As though we were . . . connected.

Oh dear.

Shoving away from the window, I dashed across the room, skipping over pieces of furniture.

“Adam?”

“Nothing. It’s fine. Everything is fine.” The words fell out in a rush. “I’ll uh . . . see you later!” I called back, already out the door and hoping Victor wouldn’t follow.

Everything was fine.

It was probably nothing . . . but I needed to see that man up close, right now.

The elevator would be too slow. I shoved open the stairwell door and hurried down the stairs, cut though the foyer, ignoring Madame Matase calling my name, and burst outside onto the front deck. A few startled guests looked up from the porch seats.

I scanned the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street. He wasn’t there. Up and down the street . . . nothing, only a few cars cruising away. But it was late, and apart from the hotel’s bustle, the evening was quiet. I jogged down the front steps, still well within the hotel’s overextended wards, and crossed to the opposite sidewalk.

In the spot where I’d seen the man, there was nothing to indicate anyone had been there, of course. I wasn’t sure what I’d been expecting. A neon sign? Breadcrumbs to follow?

Maybe the man really had been a nobody, just like I’d thought. Was my mind playing tricks?

Turning, I looked back at the hotel. All its wonky old windows blazed. Chatter from inside filtered out onto the ocean-scented breeze. Everything appeared as it should, and everyone was perfectly safe.

The garden to the left of the hotel was dark, though, because we hadn’t installed proper outside lighting yet. Zee had trailed a few fairy lights through the brush to light the path, but that was all.

“Just a quick look,” I told myself.

After crossing the street again, I creaked open the old gate and entered the garden.

We’d tried to clear it, but as fast as we did, the weeds and brush grew back even thicker than before, as though the yard didn’t want to be maintained. Jimmy was supposed to get the gremlins onto it, but since much of the grass still came up to my thighs, it looked like he hadn’t yet.

I found the fairy-light path and headed deeper into the garden.

Overgrown bushes muffled the sounds of the hotel, and just a few stars twinkled above. Reaching the end of the path brought me to a rotten picnic bench.

There was nothing here.

Relief surged, and I puffed a sigh.

That man had probably just been passing by and seen Victor’s and my show, so he’d stopped to gawk like anyone probably would. If they hadn’t known who we were, it might even have looked as though a vampire had been about to devour their victim.

That was all.

Nothing to worry about.

A little laugh slipped free. Jumping at shadows . . . that was me. It would take some time to relax into this new, happy life.

But I had a hotel to run, and everything was going to be just fine.

Turning on my heel brought me face to face with the brown-haired, blue-eyed man. A savage scar ran vertically down his right cheek, from the corner of his mouth to just below his eye. He blinked slowly, like a cat blinks slowly, but that didn’t mean he was content. Dragons blinked slowly before they were about to devour their prey.

The corner of his lips curved upward in a smirk.

I did know him. I thought I’d killed him.

Clearly, I’d been wrong.

“Syros,” I whispered.

“Hello, brother,” he said.

CHAPTER 3

“It’s a great day to be me,” Zee announced, emerging from the elevator in the lobby with a dramatic flair that clearly meant he’d been up all night entertaining and was brimming with sexual energy that should probably have been illegal at five a.m.

Dressed in a frilly, partially buttoned white shirt and flowing cream pants, with dark horns and a swooshing tail, he resembled a demon who’d grabbed a disguise from a wedding store while running from the cops.

He saw me . . . then the three duffel bags at my feet. “Ah, three sus duffel bags full of illbegotten drug money, amiright?”

“Uh, no. It’s⁠—”

“Guns, then? Definitely guns.”

“No.” I glanced at Madame Matase behind the front desk, but she didn’t seem all that concerned. Nothing surprised her anymore. “Why would it be guns?” I asked Zee.

He ambled closer. “A bomb? Where did you even get a bomb, and those weird-ass terrorist bags?”

Victor’s arrival gave me a brief reprieve, although as he emerged from the stairwell, dressed in vampire gray and with his hair impeccably braided, I could see he clearly had plans for the day. Plans he’d have to drop. “Adam, I missed you last night⁠—”

“Oh, yeah . . . I, uh . . .” Scratching my neck, I avoided his penetrating gaze. “There was a thing . . .”

“Ask him what’s in the bags, Daddy Spice.” Zee dug an elbow into Victor’s waist, which did nothing to move Victor at all. “I vote drug money. Tom’s dealers finally caught up with him and we’re embroiled in a drug war.” He draped his arm on Victor’s shoulder. “El Capo is after us, but we got this because we’re Heroes of the fuckin’ City.” Zee winked. “I am ready. Let’s go fight crime—or do crime. Both are valid.”

I blinked, briefly stumped. I’d been up all night. My head ached from a million thoughts, my stomach churned . . . and somehow I had to protect the two most important people in my life, this hotel and all its guests, Madame Matase, and Jimmy, and all the gremlins, and . . . maybe the whole city too. All night, I’d been trying to find a way out of this. I’d even asked Tom Collins—without giving details—and he’d agreed that sometimes there was only one solution.

“I packed our bags,” I said, forcing a grin. “We’re going on vacation.”

“We are?” Zee straightened, suddenly interested. “Oh, fun. Where to? Did you pack Carlos?”

Did I pack . . . uh . . . “Carlos is . . . who?”

“My favorite dildo.” Zee flicked his purple bangs and rolled his eyes. “How do you not know this? What? Why are you staring?”

“Do they all have names?” I asked—I couldn’t help myself.

“You have a favorite dildo?” Victor wondered aloud.

“Uhm, no, Carlos is my favorite, as I just said, so he gets a name. And you, Fancy Fangs . . . you don’t have a favorite dick? Pfft. What am I saying? Of course you don’t. The only thing up your ass is that thousand-year-old stick.” Zee knelt and unzipped a bag. “Boooring. Clearly, Daddy Spice’s bag.” He opened a second, revealing an array of colorful fabric. “Adam . . .” He drew my name out on a long sigh. “Not only is Carlos not in here, but there aren’t any sex toys at all.”

In my rush to save their lives, I hadn’t been thinking about bringing his collection of bouncy multicolored vibrating dicks. “Oh, I . . .” I shrugged. “We’ll buy some on the road. Let’s go.”

“Now?” Victor asked. His dark eyebrows began to creep closer. I had three seconds before they met in a frown, and then he wouldn’t let this happen without some kind of reasonable explanation—that I didn’t have.

Zee stood, bag in hand. “Vacation, here we come. It’s about fuckin’ time. We deserve it. Are we going somewhere tropical? Did you pack my mankini?”

“No, and uh . . . no.” I grabbed Victor’s bag and offered it to him.

“You’re terrible at packing,” Zee was saying. “You should have let me do it.”

“Then we’d have only dildos,” Victor remarked.

Zee slung his bag over his shoulder. “And we’d be guaranteed a great time.”

Victor eyed his bag dangling from my grip, then looked up at my face. I couldn’t tell him why this was happening. Not yet. We needed to get far, far away. Then I’d tell him—tell them both. When we were all safe. Please don’t ask.

He couldn’t read minds, we’d established that, but he was very good at reading expressions, and the frown he wore as he took his bag from my hand meant he knew this wasn’t right or normal, but he wasn’t going to ask—not yet. He would, though, and soon.

“Great.” I picked up my bag, told Madame Matase we’d be out of town for a few days, then quickly turned away before she asked where we were going. It was better for everyone if nobody knew. If they didn’t know, then the information couldn’t be coerced out of them.

The rusty pink rental minivan waited out front, basking under the weak early-morning sunlight. It had clearly had a few scrapes in its long life, but it was cheap. And it had been the only vehicle left at the rental company at short notice.

Victor stood in the shade on the porch, squinting down at me.

“I know. I’m . . . sorry.” I hauled open the minivan’s sliding door and flung my bag into the back after Zee had loaded his. When I looked back, Victor’s glare had turned icy. Please don’t ask, I silently begged again.

“The back windows are blacked out . . . for vampires,” I said, hoping it might help defuse some of his scowl.

“Very well.” He dashed from the porch into the back of the van in a blur.

Zee called shotgun and poofed into the front passenger seat, then jabbed at the old-style radio, searching for a station. I climbed behind the wheel, turned the key, and the van’s engine grumbled to life. A puff of black smoke filled the mirrors.

Hands on the wheel, I hesitated, looking up at the porch and what I could see of the hotel from the driver’s window.

It was going to be okay.

This was the best solution for everyone.

The hotel was too important . . . and so was Zee, already mumbling about the heat, and Victor, silently stewing in the back, trusting and supporting me without question like always.

“Road trip!” Zee announced, as I pulled the van from the curb and watched the hotel shrink in the rearview mirror, my heart sinking

The SOS Hotel would always be our home, and we’d see it again. I had to believe that. I needed it to be safe.

On the plus side, Zee had been right. We did deserve a vacation. Stopping Gideon Cain, Sebastien, and Daisy had not been easy, and a few days away would do us good. So it wasn’t all bad. Kill two frogs with one stone, wasn’t that how the saying went?

If only my older brother were as easy to kill.

But I wasn’t thinking about him, or that.

Only about getting away.

“So, where we goin’?” Zee asked, shuffling down into his seat, getting comfortable for the long drive ahead.

“North.” That was all I was prepared to say, mostly because I had no idea. But north seemed accessible. Just drive right up the I-5 and keep on going, maybe even cross the border into Canada?

“Ugh. Where it rains all the time?” Zee grimaced. “How far north?”

“Oh, just a few hours.”

“Why are you being so cagey? Is it a surprise—wait, don’t tell me! Don’t ruin it.”

“Uhm . . . yeah?” A surprise for all of us. Even me. “There’s this thing . . . a uhm portal . . . you know, they keep popping up everywhere . . . and Agent Leomaris said we should uh . . . go take a look . . . because we’re heroes now. So I thought we’d . . . you know . . . do that, and take a break?” Had he bought it? I peeked and found him frowning, but just when I figured I’d already been rumbled, he brightened.

“Business and pleasure. I am here for that.” He shuffled deeper into the seat, propped his boots up on the dash, and turned his head so his purple bangs fell between his horns and over his eyes. “Wake me when we get there.”

“Sure.” At least he wouldn’t be asking any more questions.

A quick look in the rearview mirror showed that Victor had observed the entire exchange, and he was not so easily placated. He held my gaze a few seconds too long—long enough to let me know he knew something wasn’t right—then dipped his chin in a short, affirming nod. If I told him why this had to happen, he’d want to stay. And so would Zee. But they didn’t understand. They didn’t know what having my brother nearby meant.

I couldn’t risk it.

But I was on borrowed time with Victor.

Better he be mad than dead.

As the sun dipped below the endless spiky treeline, and the minivan’s tires droned, my eyelids drooped. If I could just keep going a little while longer . . .

The road ahead got real fuzzy . . .

I snatched the wheel, yanked the van back between the lines, narrowly avoiding a detour onto the verge.

“Adam, there’s a gas station up ahead,” Victor said cooly from the back. “I suggest you stop. I shall drive, henceforth.”

I couldn’t argue when moments ago I’d nearly wrecked us. Zee, of course, snored softly from the passenger seat, oblivious to having been seconds from disaster.

After pulling the van off the road into a gas station flanked by towering pines, I cut the engine and hopped out to pay and pump gas. A family SUV pulled up on the other side of the pumps. The dad got out to fill the tank of their shiny car, and two kids in the back seat fought with plastic dinosaurs.

The sun had set behind towering fir trees, but our van and the SUV were spotlit by the pumps. Exposed . . . We’d been on the road all day, but the miles we’d travelled didn’t feel like enough.

I’d moved from one world to another, and that hadn’t been enough to lose Syros, so why did I think a few miles would be?

“Adam—”

I jumped so hard at Victor’s voice the pump nozzle in my hand almost leaped from the van’s tank. I pulled it free anyway, set it back in its cradle and swiped my card, keeping busy so I didn’t have to meet his gaze. “Almost done.”

“Adam, my dear?” His tone meant business with a hint of empathy. Slowly, I lifted my eyes. He’d removed his jacket, and his shirt was all creased from the ride. His expression was soft and sympathetic, and when he looked at me like that all I wanted to do was fall into his arms . . . He would let it happen, and he wouldn’t even ask why. That was one of the many, many reasons I had to keep him safe.

“I understand that whatever is happening is difficult for you,” he said. “When you are ready to tell us, we are ready to listen.”

My heart wanted to curl up and hide from his kindness and understanding. “It’s uh . . . It’s nothing. Like I said, it’s just uhm . . . the thing . . . for Leomaris. Because we’re heroes now.” Whenever my gaze met his, it skipped away, like two opposing magnets.

“Of course.”

“I’ll just . . . get some snacks.”

Zee poofed behind Victor in a blast of purple sparks. “Did someone say snacks?”

Victor sighed. “Be careful around the gasoline. I’m certain you’re flammable.”

“Fancy Fangs, you wish you were as sparkly as me.” He hair-flicked and strutted past the pumps, pausing to flutter a wave at the kids in the car.

I hurried after him, catching up as he loaded his arms with chips, dips, and soda. “That’s probably enough,” I told him.

“Don’t you want anything?”

“Wait—all that’s just for you?”

He peered down at his bounty. “I’m hungry.”

“It’s just . . . it’s a lot.”

“Kitten, have you seen me? This body has a high aneurism.” He sauntered further down the aisle.

A what now? I kept up with him, and watched as he loaded more snacks into his arms. “Do you mean a high metabolism?”

“That’s what I said. Besides, sugar’s good for you. That’s why they put it in everything. Grab a coffee, I’ve seen dead folks look more awake than you.”

“Right.” I spied the coffee machine and ventured over, leaving Zee to stock up on snacks in all the colors of the additives rainbow. Grabbing a cup, I shoved it under the hot-water dispenser and jabbed at the black-coffee button, definitely needing it.

If we’d driven all night, then we might soon be far enough away to stop and figure out what to do next . . . because we couldn’t drive forever.

Zee’s raised voice tugged on my attention, splitting it between the coffee machine and whatever he was doing that had him drawing the other customers toward him. A glance over my shoulder found him taking a selfie with the dad from the SUV . . . Clearly a fan.

I returned my gaze to my cup and jabbed at the button to dispense coffee. A thick black gloop dribbled into my cup. Was coffee supposed to be syrupy? Were whiskey dispensers a thing? I looked around to find one, but instead spotted a woman waiting in line.

She didn’t seem like someone who demanded attention, like Zee. She was just a young woman in a short white jacket with sewn-on black stars and black leg-hugging pants. I didn’t know her, but something about her demeanor had my instincts twitching.

Instincts that had kept me alive before.

Hot water dashed my fingers. “Gah!” I yanked my hand away from the black-goop dispenser, shook off the water, and glanced over. She’d gone.

No, wait . . . there she was, heading for Zee, who was still taking photos and chatting with his fan.

Why would she be walking over there?

She reached into her jacket pocket.

Wait . . . what if . . . she was sent by my brother? What if she had a gun? What if she was a dragon too? I bolted, skidded around the end of the aisle and tackled the woman around the waist, sending us both plunging into a shelf of tinned goods. Soup rained, although a few loaves of bread cushioned our fall.

“Hey . . . what the heck?!” The woman shoved me back and clambered to her feet. “Are you crazy?”

Half a dozen faces stared until the store assistant helped me up.

Zee tilted his head. “What just happened?”

“Oh, I uh . . . I thought I saw a frog. It’s gone now.”

His eyes bulged and his tail contracted, looping around his leg. “There are frogs in here?”

“Yeah, it was real big.” I motioned with my hands, showing about a foot-long gap . . . which seemed realistic.

“Frogs?” the woman sneered. “There aren’t any⁠—”

“He just saved your life, lady.” Zee turned toward her, even as he reached for the pile of snacks he must have set down to take the photos.

“Okay, uh, so we should go, I guess.” I grabbed Zee’s arm and pulled him away from the chaos. “Uhm, sorry . . . about the mess.”

“My snacks?” Zee whined at their loss.

“We’ll grab some later.”

Outside, Victor waited by the minivan’s open door. He straightened at our sudden appearance. “Am I to assume your haste is not excitement to resume our impromptu adventure, but rather, an escape attempt?”

“Adam just saved them all from a giant frog. Ungrateful assholes.” Zee poofed into the back of the van. “Vic, you take the front, imma stretch my best bits back here.” His wings poofed out, painting the inside of the windows and the roof with purple glitter.

As I made my way around the front of the van and climbed into the passenger seat, Victor side-eyed me from behind the wheel. He didn’t ask, but he didn’t have to.

There hadn’t been a frog.

With a puff of smoke and a rattling cough, the van grumbled to life and we got underway.

A glance back as we pulled onto the road showed the family man by his SUV, watching us leave.

Maybe I was paranoid . . . Or maybe I’d just saved Zee? How was I supposed to know if someone had good or bad intentions?

I settled in my seat and gazed out the window at the endless treeline rolling by. Had I done the right thing by leaving the hotel and its wards? Could I really protect them by running? I’d been so sure, but now . . .

How far away would be far enough?

CHAPTER 4

The rocking van and slamming door roused me from my broken dreams. The bits and pieces of those dreams left me with frayed nerves and a mild sense of panic. Where was Victor? Zee?

Sitting bolt upright, it took me a few seconds to realize Zee had climbed out. He flicked his wings, stretching their sparkly leather expanses wide, and lashed his tail, loosening tight muscles.

Victor strode across the lot, heading toward the covered porch and flickering sign that read: Open.

They were okay. We were safe.

Rain fogged the windshield and my view of the single-story motel we’d stopped at. The SOS Hotel had looked just as beat-up as this place when we’d bought it—and it had been abandoned. I did not want to know what critters lived inside these walls.

Hopping out, I stretched my legs. Victor was right, we did need a break from traveling. A brief stop wouldn’t hurt.

There was only one other vehicle in the lot, a rusted pickup truck with grass growing around its wheels. Thumping music and murmured chatter drifted from the bar next door—the one with rows of shiny black and chrome low-rider bikes parked outside.

“Hey, Kitten, you don’t think he’s gone in there to rent us a room, d’yah?” Zee asked as I met him on his side of the van.

Victor was an ex-billionaire; he had standards. But he’d also chosen to stay at the SOS Hotel when we’d still had a few improvements to make, so those standards might have been really low.

“We should check,” I told Zee, and we hurried across the lot.

Opening the rickety door into a cramped reception area, a blast of sweet perfume tickled my nose, making me sneeze. Sniffing, I blinked through tears, and spied succulent plants of all shapes and sizes covering every shelf, counter, desktop, window sill . . . and the floor, leaving a little vacant path to the main desk.

The young woman behind the desk, with short pixie-cut brown hair, lifted her eyes and arched an eyebrow, taking in all of Zee’s seven-foot-tall demon-with-horns glory—he’d hidden his wings—then me.

“They with you, bestie?” she asked Victor, having already assessed him before our arrival.

“Yes. Is that permitted in this fine establishment?”

“Whatever. Welcome to the No Tel Motel,” she drawled, adding zero enthusiasm. “I’m Jenny—manager, cleaner, receptionist, everything else. We givin’ liminal-space vibes in a quirky way. The aesthetic is low-key cursed but make it cozy. Wi-Fi’s mid but it works, and the vibes are slutty core. We’re living for it, though. Cash only, we don’t claim technology in this establishment. You want hourly? No shade no tea, we literally don’t judge here. Room six’s available . . . actually most rooms are empty, but sheets are clean in six, no cap.”

I wasn’t sure if I’d zoned out from lack of sleep or if she was speaking an entirely different language. ”Uhm, there’s no tea?”

“Thank you, Jenny.” Victor took the room key from the desk and saw my face. “Adam. We’ll rest up here for the day. Zodiac can stretch his wings and you should eat at the bar next door. We all need the break.”

Zee’s tail flicked, and struck a stubby succulent, sending it flying. He swooped in, grabbed it before it could hit the floor, and delicately placed it on Jenny’s desk. “Oops.”

“Are you uh . . . sure?” I asked, spying a condom vending machine beside the tourist leaflets.

With a huff, Victor lifted his chin. “I have driven all night. You are tired, and Zodiac has talked for an insufferable three hours about his favorite cookie. Our stopping is not up for discussion.”

If we’d driven all night on top of the drive through the day, then we were a long way from San Francisco—which would explain the enormous trees, drop in temperature, and dense mist. That was good. We could stop for a while to recharge and figure out what came next. Frankly, we’d stayed at the SOS Hotel when it hadn’t even had running water. What could be worse? “Alright, I guess.”

Victor turned on his heel and marched outside.

“He gets hangry,” Zee explained to Jenny. “I like your plants. They are . . . There’s lots of them.”

“Yeah.” She flopped back down into her chair and buried her face in her phone. “Plants are nicer than people. Enjoy your stay at the No Tel Motel.”

That was our cue to leave. As we stepped outside, Victor cut a striking figure carrying his bag up the step outside room six. Zee and I enjoyed a few moments admiring the austere figure of our suit-clad vampire lord carrying our bags.

“Did you see the way those pants sculpt dat fine ass?” Zee asked. “And how the mist clings to his dark hair?”

A small chuckle fell out of me, prompting Zee to act shocked. “What? He needs to stop bossing us the fuck around, and then maybe we won’t both bend over backwards—or forwards— for him, amiright?” His purple eyebrows jumped.

It was true. When Victor said bend over, we both asked how low. “Maybe, yeah.”

“Helloooo . . . sex demon. He knows he’s a turn-on and deliberately struts around flaunting his big-dick energy.”

Like someone else I knew very well.

He started toward the room, and nodded at the motel sign. “No Tel? Cute.” Someone had either stolen the V and O from Novotel, or the letters had fallen off and the owner figured its new name worked just fine, leaving it NO TEL MOTEL. “If I get crabs from this dive, imma share them with you.”

We climbed the steps and joined Victor inside an orange and gray 1930s-styled room. The weird chairs were all slippery, frayed fake leather, and the carpet had so many stains I wasn’t sure what was supposed to be the pattern and what may have been left from a murder scene.

Zee froze a few steps inside. “This is where hopes and dreams come to die.”

“It is adequate for our temporary needs,” Victor said, standing by a dresser that was also covered in suspicious burn stains. He tugged at his cufflinks, jerking them off.

“It’s nice.” Nice was generous, but I had to say something.

“Uh.” Zee dropped the bags and grumpily folded his arms. “There’s only one bed, and as much as I love tropes, my fabulous self will not fit on that tiny mattress with you two.”

“Fear not, Zodiac.” With a step sideways and a flick of the wrist, Victor opened a second door, revealing the room over with two singles in the same migraine-inducing orange. “Adjoining rooms.”

“Your skinny asses can take those skinny beds. I’m too fabulous to ever sleep in a single. And I have wings.”

“Thank you for the reminder. We surely hadn’t remembered your impractically large appendages.”

“Are we talkin’ about my wings or something else?” When Victor didn’t laugh, Zee headed over to him. “Sassy Daddy is sassy.” He side-stepped up in front of Victor and with no thought for his own personal safety, booped Victor on the nose. Victor blinked. Nothing else. The blink was his only movement. “You’re adorable when overtired.”

“Boop my nose again and one of two things will happen. I will perform an armlock that will debilitate you. Or, during our next intimacies, I’ll ensure you spend the entire time on your knees, begging for a release that will not come.”

Zee’s delicate purple lashes fluttered as his smirk grew. “Is there a third bad option, because honestly, both of those just make me wanna administer more boops—” Victor snarled, baring his fangs. “Alrighty. No touchy grumpy vampire.” Zee huffed and retreated to the double bed. “Boops are bad,” he air-quoted.

We were all getting restless and angsty, which was entirely my fault. Every bone in my body ached to apologize for dragging them so far north and spill everything about my brother, but if we weren’t far enough away, they’d turn the van around and head right back to the SOS Hotel. Where they’d die, making some grand last stand.

No, nope. I grabbed my bags and began to unpack what few items I’d brought.

After getting settled—which saw Zee poke into every cupboard, shelf, dresser, and hidey hole he could find—Victor pulled the drapes, blocking out any chance of seeing some sun, and stretched his lean body out on top of one of the two single beds.

“So uh . . . how far did we get exactly?” I parted the drapes and peeked outside. A few more cars had pulled up since our arrival, but the lot was pretty quiet.

“We’re outside a small settlement called Whiteacre Falls,” Victor explained. He rested his clasped hands on his chest and closed his eyes. “A few hours from the Canadian border. Is that as far north as you wish to run?”

“Run?!” I spluttered, then squeaked a laugh. “What? We’re not running. You’re so funny, Victor. That’s just . . . If we were running, I’d obviously tell you that was a thing that was happening.”

“Of course you would.” His eyes stayed closed. “Because there’s no reason not to tell us when we’ll always support you, no matter what or how bad such a thing might be to cause you to run in the first place.”

“Uh, sure. If that was happening. But it’s not, so we’re good.” It was definitely time to change the subject. “Uh, Zee?”

“Hullo, Kitten?” Zee called back from the other room.

“What’s your favorite cookie?”

He immediately poofed into our room, making sure we had no choice but to look at him, meaning I definitely did not see Victor’s raised eyebrow or his pinched lips.

“Let me tell you all about the little-known cookie I have recently discovered.” Zee swept a hand through the air, then grabbed a nearby chair, spun it on its legs, and sat on it backward. “’Twas born long ago, in the human year of nineteen twelve, and has risen through the chocolatey, crunchy-cookie ranks to become the undisputed worldwide champion of cookies, decided by everyone with great taste. A cookie so delicious it might actually bring about world peace⁠—”

“It’s the Oreo,” Victor said.

All the dramatic air deflated out of Zee. He glared through narrowed eyes. “You, sir, are no fun. He’s definitely hangry.”

“What is this . . . hangry?” Victor grumbled. “Never mind. If you mention cookies one more time, I will take my tie and use it to gag you—in a decidedly unsexual way, before you so much as attempt to arouse me.”

Zee hesitated, probably wondering whether to poke the angry vampire bear some more. “Adam, wanna grab snacks from the bar while Fancy Fangs gets over his funk? Then we can come back here and top up his lordship on Type A or O or whatever blood type dragons are?”

My stomach grumbled. “Yeah, for sure.”

“Be careful,” Victor warned, as we ducked outside. “Our notoriety may not have spread this far but I’m sure our arrival will spark gossip.”

Zee closed the door, eager to be outside Victor’s grumpy radius.

The mist clung on, making every surface damp and the air smell like wet pine, but it wasn’t all bad. We were outside, in nature . . . naturing. So, like a real vacation?

We crossed the lot, avoiding puddles and divots, before arriving at the bar which didn’t seem to be much more than a patched-up cabin. Stickers marred its tiny dark windows but the big long bikes parked outside gleamed.

Zee went ahead, pushed open the door, then promptly closed it again. “You know, I think I saw a vending machine at the front desk. We should go back⁠—”

“We’re here now. Let’s—” I reached by him to push open the door but he grabbed my shoulders and peered into my eyes.

“This is where sunshine twinks get eaten alive, and not in the fun way. You feel me?”

“Don’t be silly. It’s just a bar.” Laughing him off, I wormed from his grip and pushed open the door. “We walked into Vampire Mansion, we brought down a sorcerer the size of a high-rise, and I once rode a werewolf . . .” My eyes adjusted slowly to the gloom. Various retro signs covered the walls, and nicotine smoke left over from the 90s stained the hanging lights. Plenty of shadows crowded the corners, but the bar counter was well lit and packed from end to end with huge leather-jacket-clad men. Emblems on the back proclaimed them the WHITEACRE RIDERS.

“So much body hair,” Zee whispered, sticking close to my left arm.

Where the jackets ended at necks, wrists, and ankles, the body hair tufted. Beards mostly, but also a few man buns and mullets and a whole lot of hairy arms.

“It smells like diesel, masculinity, and found brotherhood,” Zee added.

The group must have heard him, because all of them turned and stared, perfectly timing it like a strange hairy dance troupe.

“Erm, hi.” I raised my hand in a small wave. “We’re uh . . . is there uhm . . . food?”

Zee gulped audibly. “I think we’re the food.”

The two biggest burliest men at the counter in front of us shimmied apart, creating a tiny gap between them. There definitely wasn’t room there for Zee and me. “You grab a table. I’ll order something to eat,” I told him.

“Ah yes, a spot by the door will be perfect for when we need to run for our lives.” He left my side and claimed the table nearest the exit.

Released from their synchronized staring, the group of men went back to chatting, picking up their conversations where they’d left off as though our arrival had been a minor blip.

I eyed the thin gap between the two hulking males. I could do this; it was just a little snug . . . and they seemed like nice people . . . mostly. A growl from my stomach reminded me why we were here and urged me on.

A few steps in and I squished myself between two of the biggest men I’d ever seen. After hailing the barman, I ordered bacon and pancakes from the pencil-scrawled menu, while the hairy duo took sips from their early-morning beers and glared from the corners of their eyes. This was fine, right? We were all friends here. There was no reason for anyone to be nervous.

“I like a good whiskey in the morning,” I said with a beaming smile. “Wakes me right up.”

The bushy eyebrows on the guy to my right climbed his forehead. He nodded at the barman and grunted, “Whiskey.”

“Oh, uh . . . I uhm.” I hadn’t meant for him to order me one.

Too late. The barman poured the whiskey and slid it over. “Five bucks,” he said.

“Uhm, right, I just . . .” I patted my pockets.

The barman’s glare narrowed further.

This was going so well.

“On me,” my burly barmate said, and nodded encouragement as our gazes met.

With a huff, the barman glowered. “You better pay for the pancakes, buddy.”

“Yes, of course, my uh . . . friend Zee has my wallet. I just . . .” I trailed off as the barman turned his back and served other customers, his demeanor suddenly one of the sunniest guys you’d ever meet. Just not for me.

Sipping my whiskey, the warmth did help soothe my nerves. “Thanks again.” I saluted, and was met with those bushy eyebrows pinching together. The older guy on my left glared through his thick, dark, bottle-brush lashes. Maybe this was how they welcomed tourists? It seemed a bit icy, but I couldn’t really judge when our barman told most customers to get lost . . . but less politely. “Nice jacket.” I smiled again. “You all have them. Did they come from the same leather store?”

A growl bubbled up through my new friend, and the stack of pancakes arrived just in time for me to make a quick retreat to our table.

Zee brightened at the sight of honey-drizzled pancakes and a mountain of bacon.

“Come to Uncle Zee.” He spotted my whiskey. “Where’s mine?”

“I didn’t get much choice in the matter.” Glancing back at the bar, I found we were still being watched, and raised my whiskey with a grin that hopefully made it clear we were all friends.

“Sit.” Zee cut up some pancake and stuffed it into his mouth, speaking around it. “You makin’em nervoush.”

The men here didn’t look nervous. They looked as though they were buying time until we left so they could jump us, rifle through our valuables, then give us a stern warning to get out of their neck of the woods.

We tucked into the pancakes, with Zee wolfing down over half in under a minute, eating like he’d never seen food before. Done with his half, he shifted sideways in the large chair and draped an arm over its back, getting comfortable. “Those were the best pancakes I’ve ever eaten.”

“I could tell,” I chuckled, shoving a forkful of bacon and pancake into my mouth and washing it down with the whiskey.

He went on to describe how pancake eating should be a sport, and how we should hold a competition at the hotel and invite the Razorsedge demons. He’d definitely win, he explained, but the event would be hilarious. His eyes brightened whenever he spoke about his friends, and a pang of guilt tugged at my heart. I’d made him leave. We’d go back. I just needed . . . a plan.

“Do you have family, Zee?” I asked him.

“Family?” He sat up, probably because I rarely asked about personal stuff.

“You don’t really talk about anyone on the other side of the veil much.”

“Uhm, sure. I guess. I got sold into soldiering real early on.” He plucked at his sharp teeth with the prongs of his fork. “I don’t remember much other than I had parents, but they’re a blur. Blood family’s not a big thing for demons. But found family?” He pointed the fork at me. “People you choose to love? That’s where it’s at.”

Like the family we had at the SOS Hotel. A bunch of misfits who fit.

“What about you, huh? I know you like”—he lowered his voice—“killed them all, so I get it if it’s a taboo subject.”

“Oh uh, yeah, no. It’s complicated.” I’d never told anyone about my homelife. I was different here—everything was different here—and talking about my real home and who I’d been before made everything I’d worked for at the SOS Hotel seem fragile. “We uh . . . so, we hatch. There’s usually lots of us⁠—”

“Wait, hold up. You fuckin’ hatched? Like a chicken?”

“More like a lizard, but yeah.”

He pulled back and blinked. “I did not see that coming.”

“Yeah, so, there’s loads of eggs in a clutch, and we hatch, and pretty much from the beginning it’s survival of the fittest. I wasn’t really all that fit, or big, or much of anything really.”

“Pfft.” He flapped a hand. “You’re the best dragon. Everyone knows it.”

“Yeah, but . . . I really wasn’t. I don’t know how I stayed alive, other than by mostly running and hiding . . . and then there was the whole prophecy thing, and all the family wanted a piece of me. I never really liked them much. Things got wild before I came here.”

“You’re not really into blood ties either then, huh?”

“Not really.”

“Can’t choose our blood, but we can choose our friends.” He winked, stabbed my last piece of pancake, and shoved it between his lips. “Hmm, sho good.”

The bar door flung open and a butch woman skidded inside, soaked through, with soggy leaves stuck to her leather biker gear and dripping hair. “Murder! There’s been a murder!”

Silence once again fell over the bar, and just like when we’d entered, all stares turned to us.

Oh dear.

“Uh . . .” Zee froze, then very slowly lowered his fork.

The grin I’d been sporting turned wooden the more I tried to convey the idea that everything was fine and we could all get along if nobody overreacted. “We uh . . . we just got here.”

“Newcomers!” someone at the back growled.

Eep. “We don’t murder people.” I winced. “Much.”

“Kitten, why you gotta be so honest? Now they’re going to think we did it.” Zee stood and stepped out from behind the table, drawing all gazes to him. “Okay, folks. Everyone calm the fuck down. Lady, you can’t just run into places and shout murder like it’s fuckin’ daytime drama TV. Where’s the body, huh?”

Right on cue, another man with a matching jacket stomped in out of the rain, carrying the unfortunate dead person over his shoulder. He knelt, and unceremoniously flopped the body onto the floorboards.

“That was not us,” Zee said. “Never seen him before.”

Four nasty claw marks in his belly were his likely cause of death.

Growls simmered throughout the bar.

“Yup, time to go.” Zee reached over the table to grab my hand.

“We can’t run,” I muttered, leaving his hand outstretched as I stood. “We’ll look guilty.”

“Oh great, so at least we’ll have the moral high ground while they rip out our insides. Read the room, Adam.”

That last part Zee growled too.

Admittedly, the room was looking pretty hostile. All the folks dressed in matching jackets had gotten to their feet and were closing in.

“Guys.” I raised my hands. “Let’s talk about th⁠—”

One of them lunged. I know, because Zee’s blast of sparks signaled he’d poofed from beside me to in front of my would-be attacker. I couldn’t see much of what was going on, just Zee’s back and his arm swinging, about to land what would probably have been a devastating punch. But someone grunted, then Zee was gone—swung around, off his feet, and slammed into the bar. The big guy who had hold of him locked a hand around his neck, but instead of Zee looking worried, he grinned. “Fuck yeah. Hit me, big fella. Give me an excuse to hit back harder.”

Oh no. This was not going to end well.

Someone lunged at me from the right. I ducked backwards, avoiding their grabby hands, letting them stumble on. “C’mon, everyone. Can’t we all be nice?”

“Get ’im!”

Zee dodged a fist to the face. That fist smacked into the bar countertop next to him instead. “Oh baby, such a tease.”

“Zee, de-escalate! De-escalate!”

“Escalate? Fuck yeah!”

“No!” A chair flew over my head and smashed against the wall behind me. “Don’t taunt the big angry people!”

“Where’s the fun in that?” He poofed right out from under the big guy’s grip and reappeared behind him, then hopped onto his back, an arm around his neck. The big guy straightened and whirled, grabbing at the seven-foot demon on his back. “Dance, Hodor!”

Oh no.

CHAPTER 5

Another chair was lifted over a head, and the entire bar erupted in growls and threatening body language. “Wait!” I shoved out a hand and ducked, fully expecting that chair to come flying in my direction. “We’ll find your killer!”

The chaos and commotion stopped. I peeked through my fingers to find all the faces turned toward me again. “We’re uh . . . It’s uh . . . We’re good at . . . finding killers?”

“We are?” Zee queried from the back of his assailant.

The man who had bought me a drink earlier stepped forward. His dark-whiskered chin and hair hid much of his face, but the brown eyes shining through seemed honest. “You vow this?”

“Yes. It’s uh . . . it’s what we do.” An idea formed. “It’s what we’re here for, actually. Heroes of the City. We uh . . . we help fix things.” Yes, this was perfect. We’d hole up here for a few days, find the killer, and nobody had to look any closer at why I’d shipped us north with no warning and no plan.

Zee lifted his head and addressed the whole room. “You may have heard of us? We stopped the big bad sorcerer in San Francisco⁠—”

“You see any cities or sorcerers around ’ere?” The gruff older man with salt and pepper hair who had stood on my other side at the bar spoke up. He’d stayed at the bar during the brief fight, and watched it alongside his soft-eyed friend. Old Furry guy and his friend Brown Eyes gave off the same kind of calm authority vibes as Victor, suggesting they may be the ones in control.

Speaking of vampires . . . The bar door opened and our tall, grumpy vampire entered, his face as mean as I’d ever seen it.

“Late again, Fancy Fangs.” Zee huffed from the back of the big guy.

Victor studied the chaos that included broken chairs, bloody noses, and a corpse. “Zodiac, why are you mounted on the back of that werewolf gentleman?”

“The what now?” Zee’s eyes grew. “Ooohh, werewolves? Fuck, right.” He plucked himself off the back of the werewolf gentleman and picked his path through the gang of twitchy werewolves to stand between Victor and me. “All the hair makes fuckin’ sense now.”

“You did not know they were werewolves?” Victor asked, incredulously.

“Pfft, what?” He brushed himself down and ruffled his hair. “Of course I did.”

“There appears to be a deceased pack member. My condolences.” Victor stepped forward, prompting more growls, but as he approached the dead man—werewolf—none of them pounced on him like they had us. “Murder?”

“Duh,” Zee coughed into his hand.

“Is this vampire with you?” Brown Eyes asked me.

“Oh yes, introductions would help. This is Lord Victor Reynard of the West Coast Vampire Council, and he’s uh . . .” I gestured at Zee. “He’s Zodiac.”

Zee tossed his hair about his horns. “Of the Too Hot to Fondle viral social-media hit, or Tamed by the Rabid Werewolf, a title I had no creative control over. Everyone knows werewolves rarely get rabies.” As a few of the pack growled, Zee shrunk back. These folks definitely were not fans.

“And I’m Adam.”

Brown Eyes studied the three of us, then stepped forward and extended his huge hand. “We accept your vow, Adam of the San Francisco City Pack.”

“Great.” My hand disappeared into Brown Eyes’s enormous grip.

He yanked me forward, prompting Zee to bristle again and Victor to growl. “But know this, Adam. I am Galbraith of the Whiteacre, alpha of this territory, and you had better keep your vow or you’ll be bones in our back yard.” He freed my squished, bloodless hand.

Grateful to have my hand back, I tried to shake some feeling back into it. “Understood.”

Galbraith barked at the others to move Cameron—the dead guy—somewhere more respectful than the bar floor, and for the rest of them to aid us in whatever we needed to find the killer.

While the majority of the pack was focused on their own goings-on, I nodded at Victor and Zee to head outside so we could speak privately.

“Do you think I should grow a beard?” Zee asked as we crossed the lot.

“I think we should prioritize not getting killed by angry werewolves, not your potential facial hair,” Victor replied.

“You can grow a beard?” I asked. There hadn’t been many bearded demons at Razorsedge.

“Probably not.” Zee stroked his chin. “I could draw one on?”

“Radical as the suggestion may sound,” Victor began, opening our motel room door. “Shall we focus more on not dying and less on Zodiac’s lack of body hair?”

Zee planted himself in front of the mirror and dabbed at a minor bruise on his chin. “Oh, I know, I’ll glamor one on.”

Victor rested his ass on the window sill, quiet in contemplation.

For some reason, it felt as though all of this was my fault. I had technically volunteered us to help. I scratched the back of my neck. “So uh . . . I guess we’re staying here for a while . . . at least until we find the killer who did that to their packmate.”

“It is rather unusual—” Victor began, but was promptly interrupted by Zee.

“I’ve never seen so much fluff in one room. They have no chill. We were minding our own business, eating the best pancakes, and then to just dump a body on us and claim we did it? So fuckin’ rude, amiright?”

I sat on the end of Zee’s double bed, aimlessly testing its bounce. “I guess they don’t like outsiders much.”

“May I continue, or are more random thoughts likely to fall from your mouth?” Victor asked Zee.

“No, I think that’s all of them.” Zee propped himself against the dresser and crossed his arms.

“As I was saying . . . it’s rather unusual for werewolves to invite outsiders into their personal altercations. As you noted, traditional packs such as this one, generally police their own pack.”

“They probably would do that, but I kind of volunteered us.”

“You did?”

“I guess it’s uh . . . actually what we’re here for. To help fix things. It’s what we do now, right? As heroes.”

“I see . . .” Victor said skeptically. “That somewhat explains our involvement.”

“Why don’t they just call the SSD?” Zee asked.

“The SSD is already stretched thin. Their agents would take days to get here, if they even arrived at all. Outside the cities, Lost Ones police themselves,” Victor explained.

“Fair. Nobody calls them much in the city either. So I guess we’re stuck here . . . unless Adam dragons all over them?” Zee faced me. “You could, now you’re not cursed.”

“It’s not that simple. In this form I’m stronger than I look, but to do more I’d have to shift, and if I did that . . . You’ve seen how big I am. I’d crush the bar, everyone in it, and you guys too. It’s too risky, and as much as I enjoy a good massacre, I’m not sure they all deserve to die-by-dragon just because they accused us of murder.”

Zee pursed his lips. “Valid,” he said after a moment’s thought. “At least we’ve got the nuclear eat-everything option as backup if this improvised murder mystery goes balls-up.”

“Werewolves can be managed with sensitive treatment, but Adam, why would they even want our help or your vow?”

“Because they know we’re awesome?” Zee asked.

“No, there’s more to it⁠—”

A knock at the door interrupted Victor.

I hopped to my feet to open it. “I guess we’ll find out.” Opening the door revealed a six-foot-high pallet of boxes on a delivery trolley, and a young woman peeking out from behind it.

“Hullo. Delivery for one Mr. Zodiac?”

“Uh, Zee?”

Zee poofed into the doorway, muscling me behind him. “Perfect timing. Thank you, delivery lady.”

The delivery woman wheeled the Victor-height pallet of boxes into the room, unhooked her trolley, and waved a goodbye, leaving the three of us staring at the stacks of unmarked packages.

Zee rubbed his hands together with glee. “Hello, my sweet, precious babies.”

“I fear I’ll regret asking, therefore I shall refrain from doing so,” Victor remarked dryly.

“Be prepared for amazement.” Zee dove into the topmost box, pulled out a packet of Oreos, and tossed it to me. After catching it, I frowned down at the cookies, then back up at the stacks as tall as Victor and as wide as one of the big werewolves. That was a lot of Oreos. Several questions came to mind. How had he gotten them here so fast, and were that many boxes really necessary? But mostly, I just wanted to know . . . “Why?”

He presented a packet of cookies in the palm of his hand. “You’ll be surprised what an Oreo can do. They come in handy sizes, make a great breakfast, lunch, or dinner, and they’re full of chocolatey vitamins.”

“Chocolate vitamins do not exist,” Victor grouched.

“Okay. But Zee, uhm . . . why?”

“Why not?” He plucked out another packet and tossed it to Victor.

Victor snatched the cookies out of the air and immediately tossed them onto a nearby chair, less than impressed.

Of all the things going on, a few crates of Oreos was the least we needed to worry over. “Okay, I guess.”

“Okay?” Victor repeated.

I shrugged, then smiled. “Now we have Oreos.”

“How much did they cost?” Victor asked.

“Nothing. It’s called sponsorship, Vampire Daddy. Which you won’t understand since your billionaire ass barely knows what it’s like to scrape by with five bucks in your pocket.”

“A cookie company sponsored you?” Victor asked incredulously.

“Why not? I’m fuckin’ famous, don’t you know? An upstanding member of society. I pay taxes . . . sometimes. I just gotta mention Oreos on my socials and wait for the free money to roll in.”

“They haven’t paid you?”

“It’s a pay-per-view thing. Whatever. Do you not see the tower of Oreos?”

Victor sighed, long and hard. “Every day with you, Zodiac, is a wonder.”

“Wonderful,” Zee corrected. Using his tail, he tossed a second bag of cookies at Victor’s face.

Victor snatched them out of the air but held onto them this time. “Indeed,” came his monotone reply.

“You’re just grumpy because you want to sink your fangs into Adam’s neck. Even you’ll come around to the many benefits of Oreos eventually.”

I’d forgotten Victor hadn’t fed in days. He was overdue and grouchy. “Oh right, yeah. Would you like a top-up?” I quickly unbuttoned my shirt from the collar down, and Victor’s gaze shot to my fingers, giving away his need. Even though he was too polite to demand it, I’d always open a vein for him.

“Do you think the fluffy good boys would like some Oreos?” Zee asked, lifting packets of cookies like dumbbells.

“I think, maybe, give them some space for a while.” The last thing they needed was Zee giving out Oreos when they were probably grieving the loss of their packmate. “But we will need to speak to them after Victor’s fed.”

“And visit the site of the murder before any evidence is potentially . . . tampered . . . with . . .” Victor’s voice trailed off but his gaze remained glued on my neck.

I had all his attention zeroed in on me now, and an illicit thrill shivered down my spine. There was no time for anything more intimate than making sure he was topped-up, but sometimes that was enough. Crossing the floor, I stopped in front of him and tilted my head away, inviting him to take me.

“Mydros . . .” He breathed my true name in my ear, folded his arms around me, and those cool, sharp fangs slid neatly into my neck. It never got old, or boring, or weird. It was always like the first time, when he’d needed me. His touch alone could set me ablaze.

I melted into his embrace, surrendering completely. Safe. Loved. These were the things that made him and me and Zee everything to each other.

I should tell them why we’re running . . .

Victor’s fangs slid from my neck, freeing pleasant shivers through my entire body. He hadn’t taken much blood, just enough to shore him up. We’d learned dragon blood was potent and were still figuring out all the benefits being close to a dragon brought them both.

I clung to him for a few seconds longer, and contemplated throwing him onto the bed and demanding he take Zee and me for a wild ride.

Zee’s cookie crunching summoned my thoughts back into the room. “Hm, shogood.”

“Zodiac,” Victor grumbled.

“If you’re gonna suck neck in front of me, imma eat my feelings.”

And the moment was gone. “We’ll have time for more personal uhm . . . stuff . . . later.” I checked my reflection for any stray drops of blood, but as always, Victor was meticulous in clean-up, his bite invisible—and his heated gaze in the mirror suggested I’d definitely get my wild ride later. “We need to get a look at where the body was found,” I said, clearing my throat. “And the person who found him.”

“Finally,” Zee exclaimed, tossing the cookies onto the boxes and strutting toward the door. “Let’s go and Scooby-Doo the fuck out of this furry whodunnit.”

Galbraith loomed outside the bar, with Old Furry flanking the other side of the doorway. “Thought you’d skipped out on us,” he said, big brown eyes glaring from under bushy eyebrows.

“We made a vow.” My tone was clear—we did not break our promises. The pair of werewolves grunted a noncommittal noise. “Will you show us where Cameron was found?”

Galbraith nodded. “This is Duke, our beta,” he said, putting a name to Old Furry. “He’ll lead the way.”

I wasn’t sure what a beta did, but I assumed he was the pack’s second-in-command. Duke was bigger than Galbraith, stocky and firm. His eyes were cooler, though. Harder. He didn’t waste any time with greetings, just stomped off into the woods behind the bar.

A little over one hundred meters in, we came to a disturbed patch of dirt. Half-rotted pine needles and leaf litter revealed where there had been a struggle—blood splatters confirmed the outcome of that fight. This was Cameron’s final resting place. There wasn’t much blood, though, especially for a gut wound. Not that I’d know much about stomach wounds, not having gutted many people myself . . . Well, there was that one time . . . A few times, actually. Never mind.

“It’s close to the bar,” Victor said, eyeing the back of the bar through the trees. “Whoever did this was not concerned about witnesses.”

“When was Cameron last seen alive?” I asked Duke.

“Early this morning,” the gruff beta replied in a deep, growly voice. “He left the bar around two.”

“We got here after six,” Zee explained, and was met with two werewolf frowns. “Just sayin’ . . .”

“And his body was discovered not long after,” Galbraith added, standing back between us and the bar, perhaps blocking any escape route should we attempt to run. Maybe they were using the excuse of us helping to keep us in their sights. Keep your enemies close . . . But if they continued to believe we’d murdered their packmate, we might miss important clues.

I had to make sure we were useful.

“Did Cameron have any obvious enemies?” Victor asked, hitching up his trousers and crouching to scan the disturbed forest floor up close.

“No, he’s well liked.” Duke sniffed. “Was well liked.”

“What about the woman who found him?” I asked. Screaming murder instead of help had been an interesting choice, but people did weird things in stressful situations. Again, not that I’d know what people screamed when confronted with death, since it’s not something that happened around me . . . much.

“Kate? She’s the cook. She was out back vaping and heard a noise.”

“What kind of noise?” This came from Zee. “A scurrying? A scuffle? A kerfuffle?”

“You’ll have to ask her,” Galbraith replied, turning his attention to Victor who was visually scanning the scene.

“He has a photographic memory,” I whispered. Whispering seemed appropriate now we’d all fallen quiet. The trees around us rustled softly, and somewhere far off a confused daytime owl hooted.

Galbraith’s bushy caterpillar eyebrows lifted. “You guys do much of this? Solve murders?”

Zee laughed. “Fuck no. We mostly cause them⁠—”

“Yup!” I interrupted before Zee’s mouth dug our graves for us. “We have a lot of experience with murder.”

“You’re really the three heroes of San Francisco?” the big alpha asked.

“That’s us.”

“So why you all the way up north?”

“Great question.” Zee’s grin wasn’t entirely innocent as he flung it my way. “Why are we all the way up north, Kitten?”

“For this.” I gestured at the dirt. “For things like this. Not for this exact crime scene. Just to help out. With uh . . . murders? And for a vacation.”

“Right.” Galbraith’s gaze flicked to Zee then Victor and back to me. He didn’t appear to be convinced.

“Your attacker came up on Cameron from the north,” Victor said, straightening. “Approaching tracks make it clear they came from within the cover of the woods . . . not from the bar. This means anyone inside the bar during the early hours of this morning is unlikely to be your suspect.”

“Well, that’s most of us,” Duke said gruffly.

“Most is not all,” Victor countered.

Our group fell quiet again, with the werewolves sharing glances that may have meant they were impressed or about to murder us and leave us in the woods for the worms.

“Our vampire’s very good at this,” Zee said, not without some pride. Then he plucked a packet of cookies from behind him—from where, I’ve no idea—and offered Galbraith one. “Oreo?”

The big werewolf growled. “Is murder a joke to you, demon?”

“Au contraire, I challenge anyone to be sad while eating an Oreo.”

Standing over a murder scene was not the best time to tell the werewolves how great Oreos were. “Zee, I don’t think now is the time⁠—”

Galbraith shrugged his massive leather-jacket-clad shoulders, took a tiny cookie in his thick fingers, and crunched out a half-moon shape. “Ishgood.”

“See.” Zee’s smile could brighten even a murder scene. He spotted Duke leaning against a tree scowling. “Big guy wanna cookie?”

“No,” Duke grouched.

Zee waved the cookie enticingly, but instead of looking intrigued, Duke exuded murder-the-demon-next vibes.

“Alrighty, then.” I grabbed Zee’s shoulder. “So, what’s next?”

“We talk to Kate, the woman who found him,” Victor said. “Find out who wasn’t in the bar this morning, and examine the body.”

CHAPTER 6

The cook, Kate, didn’t have much to say, only what Galbraith had already explained. She’d stepped out for a few minutes to vape, seen a figure in the gloom and headed over to investigate. By the time she’d arrived, the killer had fled, and Cameron was very deceased.

Asking around the bar, however, to find out who wasn’t accounted for, did turn up a name.

“Zander Pullman?” Galbraith echoed my question, after meeting up with me again in the motel parking lot. Zee and Victor had gone on ahead to our motel room.

“I doubt it’s him,” the pack alpha said. Drizzle clung to his unkempt hair, and when he ran a hand over it, the thick locks stayed slicked, making his face leaner and harsher.

“He wasn’t in the bar, and he lives close by according to your packmates,” I said. Packmates who’d gotten shifty any time Zander’s name had been mentioned.

“If close is a three-mile hike, then sure.” Galbraith eyed the gloomy woods behind the motel.

“Still, we thought we’d take a look, and it’s better to do it now, just in case he thinks about leaving the area.”

“Think you’re barking up the wrong tree, but if you wanna go, d’yah need an escort? It’s a long hike. Easy to get lost in this weather.”

“We’ll be alright.” I figured we might get more truth from Zander without his alpha looming like a judgmental parent. Especially if he was someone who the others in the bar didn’t seem to like.

Galbraith looked me over, and I recognized that doubting expression. “Be careful,” he warned. “Zander is an odd one.”

That sounded ominous. “How so?”

“You’ll see. While you’re gone, I’ll make sure Cameron’s body is kept safe for your examination when you return.”

“Thank you. And uh . . . we’ll do everything we can to help you with this. I know I vowed it already, but I mean it. We don’t walk away from people who need help.”

His skeptical expression eased. “You know, I wasn’t sure about you when you offered to help, but keep this up and I could be persuaded you’re as useful as you claim.”

“Then you don’t think we’re killers anymore?”

“Didn’t say that.”

“Right.” Not friends yet, then.

Galbraith stalked across the lot, turning once to check that I still stood out in the open. I gave him a small wave, which he didn’t return. Werewolves seemed like a cagey bunch. Maybe Victor was right and they had more to hide than they were letting on. As long as they did genuinely want our help, though, I was happy to give it, especially as it distracted Zee and Victor from my other huge problem.

The fact remained that someone had killed Cameron.

A shame, really. After speaking with the pack, Cameron had sounded like an all-round nice guy.

He’d been well liked, and generally didn’t ruffle any fur, but nice didn’t mean good—I was proof of that. Someone had disliked Cameron enough to kill him. Maybe this Zander person? He was definitely not well liked, and as far as I could tell from the brief conversations I’d had, he’d been shunned by the pack a few months ago. Was that reason enough to kill someone?

We were about to find out.

I returned to our room to find Zee dressed in a camo-patterned vest, with his arms bare and tight black pants tucked into glossy black-heeled boots. Not the most appropriate footwear for hiking, but he did have wings if the terrain got rough. Where had he even gotten that camo vest? It didn’t seem all that practical while missing its sleeves, and the fit was pretty tight. It did show off his arms, though, with their defined muscles and innate strength.

“What do you think?” He struck a pose, one hand on his hip, tail flicking. “Found it in the lost and found. Probably from someone’s kinky role-playing kit.”

I threw on the only jacket I’d packed. “It suits you, but won’t you get cold?”

“Kitten, pretty trumps warm.”

Victor opened the adjoining door and entered the room.

“What in the fucking Indiana Jones are you wearing?” Zee flicked a wrist. “Did an outdoor store throw up on you?”

Victor wore baggy brown cargo pants, which might have been weird enough, but he’d also found some kind of camo utility jacket with pockets in every conceivable place a pocket could be. With his hair bunched back in a messy tail, he looked like some kind of outdoor guru—a taller, stricter Bear Grylls, but with better hair, an intense no-nonsense expression, and silvery eyes that could see in the dark. So . . . not really like Bear Grylls at all.

“Why are there so many pockets?” I asked.

“Adam, I am glad you asked.” Victor flicked a wrist, and began a tour of his jacket. “Allow me to demonstrate.”

“Look what you’ve done. You’ve triggered him,” Zee groaned and folded his arms. “Kill me now.”

“This pocket, situated on my left hip for easy access, holds a multi-tool pocketknife.” He removed the knife and showed us. I also had no idea where he’d gotten that from—probably the same place as Zee got his camo vest. After slotting it neatly back, he went on. “In this pocket, there is a convenient second pocket within a pocket for items of importance.”

“Condoms,” Zee said.

Victor hesitated for only a few seconds. “I suppose some may choose to use it for storing copulatory protection.”

“What was I thinking?” Zee snorted. “Nobody wearing that jacket is having sex.”

“I’m guessing you don’t have condoms in there,” I said, trying not to smile.

“No. I do in fact have a . . .” He pulled out an Oreo. “Snack.”

I laughed. Zee did not.

“Is that my Oreo?” Zee asked. Unamused, he stomped over to join Victor in the adjoining doorway. “Do you have my Oreo?”

Oh dear. “Zee, c’mon, you have a hundred of them.”

“Thousands, actually.” He gestured at the stacks of boxes still in the middle of the room. “But I was looking for that particular one. I left it on the side earlier, and then it was gone. I figured gremlins, but no, it was you! Neck-sucking thief!”

Victor’s rare smile made a brilliant appearance as he held up the Oreo. “I will return it into your possession for the price of a single kiss.”

“Fuck you, vampire.” Zee grabbed him by the back of the neck and plundered Victor’s mouth with his own as though he were a Viking raiding the first village after a long hard winter. Or you know, something equally desperate and crazy hot.

I loved these two idiots. Like chalk and cheese, they shouldn’t work together, but somehow they did. And when they got together like this, fireworks exploded—sometimes literal purple ones from Zee’s wings.

Zee pulled away from a breathless Victor, plucked the Oreo from Victor’s fingers, and tossed it into his own smirking mouth. In two bites, it was gone. “Let’s saddle up, pardners.” He lassoed a finger in the air. “And get this crazy rodeo on the fuckin’ road.”

“In the woods.”

“Yeah, that.”

As prepared as we could be, we left the motel via a back trail, with Zee up front using his phone’s GPS and details from the folks at the bar for rough guidance. The mist hadn’t lifted all day, and deeper in the trees the air was even heavier with damp. Every tree we passed resembled its neighbor. Galbraith had been right, it would be easy to get lost out here.

“Ugh, the damp is frizzing my hair,” Zee said, checking his phone every few paces.

“I’m sure the squirrels are horrified,” Victor replied, following behind us.

“You see any woodland critters?” Zee fired back. “Or anything dumb enough to be out here besides us?”

“I do not, which in itself is rather strange. These woods should be teeming with wildlife.”

“Yup, not spooky at all. So here we are, marching through the woods to a murder cabin in the middle of fuck knows where to speak with a maybe murderer. I’m sure it’ll be just fine and nothin’ is gonna jump us, right Adam?”

“It will be fine. You’ve got me, remember?”

Zee grinned over his shoulder. “I forgot, you’re a badass murder machine.”

“Less of the murder until we’re out of werewolf territory, please,” Victor warned. “They’re already nervous, and we do not want to rile them up even more or it’ll be our corpses on the bar floor.”

“Ha! A werewolf can’t bring down a dragon,” Zee dismissed.

“One cannot. A pack most certainly can.”

He sounded grim, as though speaking from experience. “Have you seen it?” I asked.

“During the wars, vampires employed mercenaries to perform tasks they did not wish to dirty their hands with. One such task was removing a rather stubborn dragon who had no interest in the war or either side’s argument but was in the way of our forces. The dragon was extracted rather brutally.”

Zee pulled up short and turned toward a bank of thick brush, eyeing a hole the local animals had used to track through. “This way.” He plowed on, shoving his way into the bushes. Several bendy wet branches smacked me in the face, and then we emerged into the deepest, darkest patch of woods I’d ever seen—although I didn’t really get out much.

With a shiver, Zee pointed his phone. “Onwards, into the gloom.” A few paces further in, he said to Victor, “That was you, then? You hired the werewolf mercenaries?”

“Indeed.” Victor didn’t sound proud of it.

“Fuckin’ vampires.”

I glanced back and caught Victor’s lifting gaze. “I regret a great many actions of mine.”

“We’ve all done things we maybe wished we hadn’t, and probably wouldn’t do again given a second chance.” I tried to reassure him, but Victor was the very definition of still waters running deep, and he kept his heart so far hidden that sometimes only he knew how to reach it.

As for me, I’d often wondered whether I’d really needed to kill my entire family. It did seem a bit extreme, looking back, but if I hadn’t, they’d have killed me. I had tried talking to them, at least in the beginning. Maybe with Syros I could have tried harder?

“Oh my fuck.” Zee halted. “Sweet baby Gareth.”

“What—” I grabbed his shoulder and peeked around his arm, expecting something hideous, like another murder scene or a vicious frog. “What is it?”

Victor gasped. “What is that monstrosity?”

“What?!” I couldn’t see whatever had them spooked—they both had better low-light vision than me—but I scanned the trees and the deep shadows between their vertical trunks. Did I need to shift? Was it going to eat us? Then I saw a flash in the corner of my vision, and there, as the bank of murky fog briefly rolled away, stood a pink timber cabin.

Pink.

Every single plank, every board. The porch, the shingles, all of it . . . was a brilliant pink.

“I fuckin’ love it.” Zee rushed ahead, thrashing through the brush.

“Zee, wait!”

A gunshot boomed.

Zee ducked behind a bush, I dropped behind a second one, and Victor took shelter beside me.

“Ugh, you’d think someone with a pink house would be friendlier!” Zee made sure to speak loud enough for half the forest to hear.

“Is this Zander’s place?” I whispered to Victor.

“It seems likely.”

The werewolves hadn’t mentioned anything about his house being pink. “Maybe he doesn’t like strangers.” It probably wasn’t every day a dashingly handsome Scout-leader vampire, a seven-foot-tall demon in glossy heels, and an average human wandered into his yard.

“Uhm, hello?” I called.

“Get back!” a man’s muffled voice sounded from inside. “Or the next one goes in the demon!”

“Rude,” Zee huffed.

“I see the gun,” Victor said. “It’s propped on the leftmost window sill. Adam, I can make it to the cabin and take the gun before he can fire again.”

Victor could probably eliminate the threat in under three seconds, but that didn’t seem like a nice way to get to know someone. “No, we need him to talk to us.”

“Bro!” Zee called. “Your cabin is pink. You don’t seem like the sort to kill us.”

“I am passive aggressive!”

“This seems mostly active aggressive,” I mumbled, then shot to my feet and raised my hands. “Hi, uh . . . my name is Adam. Please don’t shoot.”

“Adam!” Victor growled, warning me to drop back by his side.

A gunshot would hurt, but it wouldn’t kill me. I’d take the risk that this guy wasn’t going to follow through on his threat.

“Are you Zander?” I called.

“Maybe.”

“We just want to talk.” I took a step forward, and when no shot came, took another.

“Stay back!”

“Just so you know, if you shoot Adam,” Zee called out. “You’ll have about two seconds to regret it before me and the vampire come in there and turn your pink walls red. You feel me?!”

“Zee, c’mon . . .” I whined. “I’m trying to be nice.”

He shrugged. “I have anxiety. You’re giving me anxiety.”

“I’ve got this,” I told him. He muttered something indecipherable which I took to mean go right ahead then. “So uhm . . . I don’t know if you know, but there’s been some trouble at the bar? You know the bar? With the werewolves . . . uh the uhm, Whiteacre Riders.”

“Those assholes can bite my furry ass!”

“Oh, well, uhm, we’re not technically with them, I guess. We’re kind of . . . uhm . . . consultants?”

Zee circled his hand in the air, signaling I should get to the point.

“So uh, somebody has died,” I went on. “And a few folks said we should talk to you?”

“What?”

“Uhm . . . somebody has died⁠—”

The cabin door creaked open and a short guy, not much taller than me, stepped onto the pink porch with a shotgun slung low at his side. I’d been expecting someone who maybe looked like a werewolf outcast—scruffy, grouchy, big and mean— but Zander looked like any other guy I’d pass in the grocery aisle without a second glance. Brown hair that hung half over his eyes and curled at the jawline, jeans, and a T-shirt with some kind of faded message on the front. Kinda boring, like me, except for the pink cabin . . . and the sandals.

“I like the color choice,” I said.

“Huh?” He jogged down the steps, sandals slapping the boards, and stopped a few feet from his porch, then looked back, as though forgetting his entire home was pink. “Oh, you do?”

“Very uhm . . . bold.”

“Thank you,” he said with some flamboyance and relief. “Pink is a calming color. Nobody gets it!” He waved the gun, making Zee hiss. “They all think I’m nuts.”

Keeping my eyes on the gun, I smiled and tried to make myself look smaller . . . more helpful, less harmful. “Ugh, not me. I get it.”

Zander’s face screwed up in doubt. “What did you say your name was again?”

“Adam. And this is Zee.” Zee popped up from behind his bush and gave a wary wave. “And Victor.”

Victor stood and bowed his head, but his narrowed silvery eyes suggested Zander may want to put the gun down soon. “Greetings.”

“You said someone died?” Zander called, as there was still some distance between us.

“Yeah . . .” I lowered my hands and started slowly forward again. “Can we talk?”

“Without the gun?” Zee suggested.

“Oh, right. Oops.” Zander cracked the gun barrel and popped the rounds free. “Let’s go inside. You guys like lemonade?”

“Sure.”

Zander waved us after him, but Zee held me back with a hand on my arm. “What if this is some kinda gingerbread-house trap and he’s luring us into his murder cabin with his super-pink vibes and lemonade where we’ll be seduced into a huge group orgy only to be shoved into an oven and roasted?”

“Wha—” My heart dropped. “Is that a thing?”

“Haven’t you seen my movie, Hansel Gets Handled?”

“Uhm . . . no?”

Victor sidled up to us with a growing, predatory smile. “Then he’ll soon discover we’re not as dumb as you look, demon.”

Zee’s right eyebrow lifted. He began to nod, then frowned. “Wait, excuse you. You did not just call me dumb. Hullo. You don’t think my flouncy himbo performance is real, do you? Oh Victor, you sad dinosaur. Do not let my pretty fool you. I let y’all think I’m the comedy sidekick because, Lord Fucks-Hard—” Zee draped an arm over Victor’s shoulders. “This little dumb act allows me to walk the fuck all over you and get away with everything and anything I like. Or had you not figured me out yet?”

“Hm.” Victor had definitely figured that out.

With a laugh, I told them to follow, and we headed inside where the pink theme continued. Only now it became pink and white and fluffy all over.

“I’m so torn,” Zee whispered. “I should hate it, but I fuckin’ love it.”

“Grab a beanbag,” Zander offered, setting the gun down by the door. “There’s some cushions over there.”

“Oh yes, I almost missed the rainbow cushions among all the vibrant décor.” Victor snarled the word vibrant like most people say vomit.

“You hush, Fancy Fangs, and grab us each a beanbag,” Zee ordered. “Apologies, our vampire is boring and only sees the world in shades of gray.”

“Oh, that’s sad,” Zander said, meaning it.

Zee’s gaze snagged on something across the large open-plan room. The pupils in his eyes swelled. “Oh, that’s . . . that’s a classic.” He poofed to the fireplace and picked up a rubber . . . dick? Because having dicks lined up on your fireplace mantle was a totally normal thing to have in your entirely pink timber cabin filled with multi-colored décor three-miles deep in the woods.

I glanced at Victor. Yup, there was his raised eyebrow of puzzled judgement.

“May I?” Zee asked.

“Sure,” Zander said. “It’s pretty much indestructible. Believe me,” he chuckled. “I’ve tried.”

Uhm. Okay.

Victor brought the three brightly colored beanbags into a circle around the fireplace. “It is as though we have entered one of Zodiac’s fever dreams.”

“This is a late-seventies Wiggly Wizard,” Zee said, gaping at the dick in awe. “There aren’t many of these left.”

I had no idea how to respond. “That’s . . . nice.”

He gingerly set the precious dick back down and moved on to the next. “Gasp! Look! A personal favorite of mine, the Plunder Pole.” He demonstrated by making a circle with his finger and thumb and highlighting what the plunder pole was for, then moved on to a smaller example. “The Teeny Bop. And this beauty . . .” He sighed, and ran his fingers down a huge, veined rubber dick. The biggest on display. “We are in the presence of greatness. If I’m not mistaken, and I know my dicks, this is a Vibranator, named as such because it does not stop.” He pressed his hands to his heart. “You, Zander . . . sir, are a man of exquisite taste.”

“Oh, thank you. You’re too kind. It’s so nice to have people visit who appreciate dicks.”

So . . . uhm . . . I guess he wasn’t wrong.

Zander gave a small excited giggle and placed both hands on his crossed knees. “Well, my new friends, who died?”

I blinked, still getting over the sight of Zee stroking another man’s collection of dildos. “Uh . . .” A quick cough, and I was mostly back in the room. “A pack member. Cameron.”

“That vicious asshole?” Zander shivered. “Good.”

“You didn’t get along?”

“He was the main reason they exiled me out here, although I don’t mind . . . much. I like it here. They don’t mess with me and I don’t mess with them. Did they tell you what they said to me? They said I was too different, too . . . flouncy to be in the pack. Cameron spearheaded the whole petition to remove me.”

“Bastards,” Zee growled, waving the antique dildo with feeling. “Did anyone wonder if maybe Cameron deserved it?”

“Almost everyone we spoke to said he was a good person,” Victor replied, sinking deeper into the beanbag. “Except you, Zander.”

“Of course they did.” Zander tossed his head. “They’re all the same. Wait . . . you don’t think I killed him? With these nails?” He showed Zee his perfectly manicured nail art. “It takes hours to get them just right.”

“Oof. Those tiny rainbows are a work of fucking art. I am so jealous right now. Can I come live with you? These guys suck.”

“Zee’s joking,” I added, after Zander’s eyes widened.

“He sucks.” Zee grabbed and pointed the Wiggly Wizard at Victor.

“Oh, I’m sure he does,” Zander purred.

Victor sank another inch into the beanbag. “This is unsettling.”

“That proves it. There’s no way Zander could murder Cameron then hotfoot it back here and paint his fabulous nails in the limited time he had. And had they already been painted at the time of the murdering, they’d be chipped and ruined.”

It did seem unlikely that Zander was the murderer. It was more likely the pack pointed the finger because he was different. We all knew how that felt.

“I’m sorry we suspected you, Zander. We have to follow up on what we’re told. But if you ever travel south and need somewhere to stay, you should come visit the SOS Hotel,” I offered. “I think you’d like it.”

Zee slammed the dildo back down among its sentinel friends. “Oh my Gareth, yes.”

“You have a hotel?” Zander asked.

“For Lost Ones like us, yes, and it’s rated five stars on Hotels4U.”

Because Zee had rated it five stars . . . multiple times.

Zander grabbed the pitcher of lemonade on the coffee table and poured us all glasses. “Maybe I should get out more? Sometimes it’s just me and the dicks, you know? And they don’t really talk back.”

“I’d be more alarmed if they did,” Victor muttered.

“You’d love San Francisco,” Zee gushed. “Parts of it. Eh, maybe not Demontown? We’d have to ease you in slow to that experience.”

“Aright, let us refrain from getting ahead of ourselves,” Victor’s voice of reason interrupted. He’d sunk so far down in the beanbag it had molded to his body. “We still have a murder to solve.”

“You should look at Duke.” Zander lowered himself into his beanbag. “He’s the beta, but he’s got anger issues. You hear any woodland creatures on your way over? No, because he eats ’em. The little guys . . . rabbits, squirrels, you know?”

Zee grimaced. “So that’s why it’s so quiet outside.”

“Yeah, Duke?” Zander pulled a face and tapped his head. “Not right up here if you ask me. He probably wants Galbraith’s top spot. I bet he’s doin’ all this to make the alpha look bad.”

Duke had been frosty with us, but no more so than the others. Perhaps a closer chat with Galbraith about the beta might prove useful, but doing so without the pack thinking we were about to accuse a high-ranking member would be tricky. In fact, all of this was proving more difficult than merely finding tracks in the woods and following them to the killer’s pink cabin.

“What do we do now?” Zee asked. “Look at Duke?”

“Not yet. Now . . .” Victor began. “Or rather, after I’ve extracted myself from this remarkably comfortable bag filled with polystyrene beads, we return to the motel and examine the victim’s body.”

“Don’t you guys think it’s weird they asked you to figure this all out?” Zander asked. “No offense, but why you three?”

“I volunteered us.”

“You volunteered to intervene in a werewolf pack’s murder mystery?” Zander coughed a laugh. “You guys must be crazy.”

Smiling as I sipped my lemonade, I said, “Not crazy, just tougher than we look.”

A rumbling growl—like distant thunder—sounded outside the cabin. I glanced at Zander but he didn’t seem concerned, just carried on pouring lemonade. “Ignore it. They come over and sniff around sometimes.”

Zee and Victor shared a glance. Victor somehow gracefully extracted himself from the beanbag’s clutches. Unlike me. I had to tip myself out of the bag, onto my knees, and accept Zee’s hand to get back to my feet.

The growls rumbled on, gradually circling the outside the cabin. When whoever it was reached the porch, claws clicked on timber and the growls bubbled louder. Were Zander’s visitors usually this aggressive sounding?

Again, Zander didn’t seem concerned. He lowered himself into his beanbag with his glass of lemonade. “So, are there many werewolves in the city?”

More growls boiled.

Zee’s tail twitched. “That pupper does not sound friendly.”

Victor tilted his head, his sharp gaze narrowing. “Something is wrong. Zander, are you certain this visitor is normal?”

“It’s fine.” Zander flapped a hand. “Don’t let them intimidate you or they’ll just keep at it. Whoever it is will get bored and wander off.”

The sound of plodding footfalls and clicking claws stopped.

“Did they leave?” I whispered. Zee frowned, but Victor had zeroed in on a spot against the far wall. His predator senses had locked on. The werewolf had definitely not gone.

Only the sound of the crackling fire filled the cabin. That and my thudding heart.

A heavy thump sounded on the roof.

“Huh.” Zander slowly set his lemonade to one side. “They don’t usually climb up there.” Shoving out of his beanbag, he strode to the door and picked up the shotgun. “Don’t worry, ol’ Betsy usually frightens ’em off.”

I assumed Betsy was the gun.

“Wait—” Victor warned, but Zander had already yanked open the door. He stood on the porch and loaded the shotgun with a dramatic cha-chunk pump action. Suddenly an enormous furry blur shot from one side, and in a blink, Zander was gone. He didn’t even have a chance to pull the trigger.

“Stay inside!” Victor vanished next, dashing out the open door.

A growl rumbled so deep it shook the cabin. The shotgun blasted.

“Wait here? What are we, demon bait?” Zee’s wings popped out, his tail lashed, claws glinting. He grinned and made his eyebrows jump. “Wanna go housebreak this puppy?”

I fluttered my lashes, interlaced my fingers, and cracked my knuckles. The sweet taste of rising violence roused the beast within. “It’s been a while, but sure.”

Sparks danced in Zee’s purple eyes. “This bad dog is about to realize he fucked with the top of the foodchain.”

CHAPTER 7

Rushing outside didn’t immediately reveal a fight scene. In fact, nobody was in sight. No Zander, no giant furry werewolf, and no Victor either.

“Heads up!” Zee yelled, then dashed forward and reached out to catch the half-shifted werewolf tumbling down off the roof. The stretched and torn clothes suggested the wolf man was Zander but it was hard to tell under all the gray fluff.

Terrified eyes locked on me. “Woof!” Zander wheezed.

“Woof?” Zee asked.

“I think he means roof?” We both looked up in the hope of seeing something on top of the cabin, but our angle from the ground hid whatever was happening up there.

“Adam, you got him?” Zee asked me.

He had wings, and could poof up there in a blink. “Yeah, go.”

Zee set Zander on the ground, flung open his wings, and shot into the air.

Zander was clearly not alright. In my limited experience with werewolves—which mostly consisted of Zee’s old client Abe, and riding one once—they didn’t generally like to be half shifted like this. The half-wolf, half-man state left them vulnerable, and right now Zander’s elongated snout was wolf but his eyes were human and showed pain.

“Hey, we got you, alright? You’re safe now.”

Zander thrashed his head and the poor guy tried to speak, but the snout wasn’t meant for forming words. Everything he tried to say came out as snuffles and snorts.

I scooped him up, intending to take him inside, then saw the gaping wounds in his middle. Four jagged claw gouges . . . just like Cameron. Zander would die if we didn’t get him medical help. I had to get Zee. “Wait here. I’ll be right back.”

His furry hand grabbed mine and yanked me back down. Big sad eyes begged me to stay. He was scared. Scared of being left alone, scared of dying. I covered his hand with mine. I knew how it felt to face what you believed were your last few minutes on this earth.

“It’s going to be alright. I’ll make sure of it.” I pulled his hand from mine and dashed for the door.

Snapping sounds of cracking timbers shattered the quiet like gunshots. Skidding to a stop on the deck, movement to my right caught my eye. A huge tree came at me, getting bigger as its broken top half fell. It seemed personal, as though this one tree really didn’t like me and would like to flatten the porch with me under it.

“Adam!”

Zee’s shout came half a second before the world turned into a hail of whipping branches and cracking timber. I buckled, driven to my knees, arms over my head, and waited out the pummeling onslaught. When the chaos settled, I lifted my head and shoved broken branches and snapped timbers aside, then climbed out of the wooden carnage.

Zee’s wings flapped, whipping up a storm of pine needles. “Oh my fuck, you scared the pretty right outtah me. Don’t ever fuckin’ do that again. You alright?”

My arms were cut up some, but no broken bones. “I’m fine. Next time I’ll ask the tree not to fall on me.” Reaching out, Zee plucked me from the pile of broken branches onto the large tree limb next to him. “We need to get Zander to a hospital, or somewhere with medical supplies,” I told him, shaking twigs from my hair. “He’s cut up bad.”

“The motel?” he asked.

“If they don’t have medical supplies, Jenny will know where to take him.”

“I got Zander. You help Fancy Fangs. He’s busy pretending to be a squeaky toy for the fuck-off rabid wolf man.” Zee jerked his chin toward the broken tree stump and the storm of splintered wood to indicate the figures wrestling in the gloomy mist. “Be careful, Kitten. I’ve never seen a werewolf like it.”

I nodded. “Victor and I will stop it. Save Zander.”

“Aye aye, General.” Zee saluted, then threw himself off the ruined porch like a shot from a gun. A few moments later, I spotted Zee’s wings unfurling from the clearing behind the cabin. Those sparkly purple expanses of leather whipped the air, and with Zander draped in his arms, he vanished through the canopy, disappearing into the mist.

With Zee gone and Zander out of harm’s way, my thoughts turned to the sounds of snapping trees, snarling growls, and vampire grunts coming from the fog.

A niggly worry tried to nibble at my resolve, but Victor and I had this under control. It was just one werewolf. How tough could it be?

After dropping the last bits of shattered tree to the mulchy ground, I headed for the sounds of fighting. The mist had descended, pouring between the trees and obscuring my sight. I couldn’t see exactly who had who, but the sounds of battle were loud enough to zero in on.

Until everything fell silent.

No more snapping trees or vicious growls.

No scuffling or grunts.

Just a weird, suffocating silence.

My steps suddenly seemed too loud. I stopped.

“Victor?” I whispered.

A blur flew out of the mist. My heart lurched, a scream lodged in my throat. Victor’s hand slammed over my mouth, silencing my yelp.

His cheek brushed mine. His body burned hot against my back. “Do. Not. Move.”

Oh dear.

Victor was no pushover, and the strain in his voice was very real.

He slowly took his grazed hand away but stayed pressed close.

Mist swirled around us. Occasionally it would part like smoky drapes, revealing tree limbs or just more of the forest, but then it rolled in again, blinding us to a way out.

The deep, throaty growls of something big circled us. Big enough to make Victor’s heart race.

I smelled blood . . . maybe Victor’s. His knuckles were bloody, but I hadn’t yet seen his face. He was hurt, I knew that much.

“Where’s Zodiac?” he whispered against my ear.

“Safe.”

His hand settled on my hip. “On three, run. I’ll meet you back at the motel. Do not stop.”

Our plan was running? I mean, I’d spent a long time running from things, so I shouldn’t have been so surprised. I guess the surprise came from the fact Victor had said it.

I could shift, but it would take several seconds, and I’d flatten the immediate trees and probably Zander’s home too. The mist meant that even as dragon, I wouldn’t be able to see much, and I’d be too big to see our attacker in the trees.

“One.”

The big beast continued to plod around us, gradually closing in. I could growl like that too, but instincts told me to hold back. Generally, two apex predators growling at each other did not end well, and the last thing we needed was another dead werewolf.

“Two.”

The beast stopped to our right.

Mist curled in the air.

“Run!”

I bolted, vaulted a fallen tree and kept on running, arms pumping, legs burning. Victor was faster than any werewolf, he’d be alright.

I’d done a lot of running over the years, but would my short legs outrun whatever this beast was? And I had no idea if I was running toward the track we’d arrived on, or in the completely wrong direction.

Zee had the map on his phone.

Trees leaped out of the mist, into my path. I swerved left and right, hurdled rotten logs and over a stream. The log I’d just jumped looked familiar—it had the same fern tuft as the one I’d vaulted seconds ago. Fallen logs all looked the same, right?

Or maybe it looked familiar because we’d passed it on the way out?

Was I running in circles?

Why was running so hard?!

Wings would have been a real help right about now. Could I shift? Nobody would notice an enormous dragon in the misty woods, right?

I lurched off the path, onto the track, and through the bush we’d definitely plowed through earlier, then slowed to get my bearings. A quick glance back didn’t reveal any sign of the beast on my tail, just thick mist. I waited . . . panting . . . holding my thighs to keep my lungs from burning me up, but nothing huge came stalking after me. No Victor either.

He was probably ahead of me.

Might even be back at the motel already.

Keeping my steps light on the mossy track, I jogged back down the trail that would eventually lead to the motel.

It would be fine. Zee had probably gotten Zander somewhere safe by now, and Victor would be there waiting. Once we were all back together and better prepared, we’d return and search for Zander’s stalker.

The motel loomed ahead, cloaked in mist. Quickening my pace, I skidded around the front of the units, passed our parked van and burst into our room, expecting to find Zee or Victor waiting inside. But it was empty.

“You alright?” Duke loomed in the doorway. “Saw you run in like your tail’s on fire.”

“Uh, no, I . . .” I breathed hard, trying to think around my thudding heart. “You seen Zee or Victor?”

“Just you.” Duke’s whiskered face darkened with shadows. “You all alone here?”

I looked up and squinted around heavy breaths. How had Duke gotten here so fast? Had he been watching the motel or had he been following me? He didn’t seem out of breath . . . If he’d been Zander’s stalker then he’d have been gasping like me, right? And he’d probably be naked since he’d have shifted, and he wasn’t a dragon—dragons keep their clothes after shifting back, just go with it.

“How long have you been out there?” I puffed, straightening.

Duke invited himself into the room, getting a good look at the huge stacks of Oreos, the double bed, and Zee’s ever-growing collection of scattered clothing all over. “You know . . .” Duke stroked his beard. “For Heroes of the City, you don’t look like much.”

I didn’t know where his weird vibe was going, but I did not have time for it. “That’s kind of the point. Did you see Victor while you were lurking outside?”

Duke raked his glare over me. “Dragon, huh?”

“I don’t have time for this.” I strode for the door. Victor told me he’d be back at the motel. Maybe he was outside somewhere, or at the bar? He could be with Zee and Zander⁠—

Duke’s growl bubbled behind me, then his big hand snatched my arm, spinning me around. “I’m not done talkin’ to you.”

It takes a lot to rattle my scales. I’m generally a nice person . . . until I’m not. Smaller than Duke, I had to tilt my head back and glare up while he loomed in my personal space. A quick yank, and I freed my arm. “Listen well, and trust me when I say you do not want to pick this fight.”

Duke’s grin told me the man was a bully, and an idiot, and we’d get back to this conversation. I turned my back on him and hurried out of the room.

Victor wasn’t in the lot. I checked Jenny at reception, but found only her plants, so that just left the bar. But even as I strode toward it, the sinking sense of doubt was getting worse.

The inside of the bar was as gloomy as ever, and busy with the biker gang who apparently didn’t have homes to go to. “Has anyone seen Victor . . . the vampire I came here with?” I asked, raising my voice some.

A whole bunch of blank faces stared back, and then returned to their conversations and daytime drinking.

Dammit. They would listen! I slammed a hand down on the bar. “Hey!”

The kitchen door flew open and Galbraith stomped out, eyebrows pinched into one long bushy line. “What’s this? You comin’ in here, demanding⁠—”

“Do not test me,” I snapped back. “Where’s Victor?”

Galbraith’s top lip curled. “Some respect⁠—”

After taking two strides across the sticky floor, I jabbed at the alpha werewolf’s chest, which felt a whole lot like poking a brick wall—so firm. Looking all the way up, I eventually met his glare. Our showdown probably looked comical to anyone watching. Galbraith was twice my size in both directions, but when his gaze stuck to mine, a flicker of realization softened his gaze, then his snarl faded too. He must have seen something of the real me in my eyes.

The pack leader took a step back.

Duke flung open the bar door. “Kid thinks he can threaten⁠—”

That’s it. I was done. No more Mr. Nice Adam.

“Threaten you?” I barked a laugh and stepped back too, so the whole bar and its customers could get a good look at little ol’ me. “Don’t worry. Should anyone stand between me and mine, there won’t be threats.” Power fizzled through my veins, and when I next spoke, my voice brought with it a growl born from the depths of my dragon soul. “There’ll be nothing left but ash.”

Galbraith clicked his fingers. “Outside, all of you. Find the vampire.”

The entire bar sprang into motion and bounded for the door, suddenly so eager to help.

Galbraith smiled, but there was no hiding its nervous tick. “Nothing vanishes in these woods. We’ll find him.”

“You’d better.”

Galbraith’s own predatory gaze flashed a warning, but he kept his smile. “I think I like you, Adam.”

He wouldn’t, if we didn’t find Victor.

Making my way outside into the misty lot, I spotted the pack members heading into the woods. A few minutes later, the howls started up, muffled by mist.

Victor would be fine.

He had to be.

As haughty as he was and prone to getting himself kidnapped, he’d always survived.

I paced, torn between going after them and waiting here for him to return like he’d said he would. What I really wanted to do was shift out of my skin and burn the entire forest down. He’d said he’d be here, but he wasn’t. What if he’d never intended to run with me? What if he’d just wanted me out of the way while he distracted the beast?

Damn, I hadn’t told them about the beast.

Too bad. If their beta hadn’t riled me up with all that macho posturing, I’d have remembered to warn them.

Jenny stepped out of her reception office and headed toward me. “What’s happening?”

“Victor is missing.”

“My bestie? Bro. What the fuck?”

“We were attacked. He was with me. He said to run, and I . . . I did, and now he’s missing and if we don’t find him, I don’t . . . I don’t know what I’ll do.” Yes I did. I knew exactly what I’d do. I’d burn every single tree in the forest if I had to. And then I’d start on the people.

“Hey.” Jenny smiled softly, trying to snag my vacant gaze. “He’s a vampire, right? They got mad skills. He’ll slay.”

I sort of understood her meaning without Zee to translate. She was trying to be kind, but kindness wouldn’t find him.

“Over here!”

Two figures stumbled from the misty treeline, one slumped heavily against the other.

“Victor!” I bolted toward them. He was hurt. Blood. So much blood. He hadn’t healed. Why hadn’t he healed? I vaulted a fence, dashed over some grass, and only slowed when he reached for my hand.

Our fingers locked. I brought his hand to my chest.

“I’m alright.” He grimaced.

He didn’t look alright. He looked in pain. His face was cut up, his shirt bloody, his hair knotted with leaves. I took him from the pack member, scooping him against my side. He’d never felt so frail. Victor was never weak. He was never broken. He was my rock, my safe place, one of only two reasons I was still alive.

“Adam.” His fingers slipped into my hair.

“You didn’t run!” I snapped. The words shot out of me before I’d had a chance to even think them. “You didn’t run. You said you would . . . You lied.”

“To save you.” Bloody fingers skimmed down my cheek.

We hobbled on, limping toward our room. Anger and fear combined to make a heady concoction, making me see red. It was too much. He could have died.

“I am so mad at you.”

He pulled me close and bumped his head with mine. “My dear, I am sorry.”

“Are you going to be alright?” Galbraith approached. “Do you need anything? First aid?”

“No, he’s mine.” Another growl rumbled out of me. “I’ve got this.” I needed to get Victor back to our room.

Galbraith raised his hands and backed up. “Alright. No harm meant, Adam. Your demon friend? Jenny tells me she pointed him in the direction of Whiteacre Falls, where the nearest hospital is. He had Zander with him.” The alpha held my gaze, his concern valid. Was I a risk to him and his pack?

“Thank you,” I squeezed out through clenched teeth.

“Zander might not be pack, but he’s kin. So thank you for looking out for him. All three of you.”

I might have said more than a grunt if Victor hadn’t been bleeding all over me. It took an age to hobble up the motel steps and into our room. Once inside, I set Victor down on the end of Zee’s big bed. “I’m going to eat them all,” I grumbled. “Slow roasted.”

Victor’s hint of a smile summoned my own. I rushed him, flung my arms around him and buried his face against my chest, my hands in his hair. “What do you need?”

“You . . . just you.”

I held him, and he held me, and for a moment it was just the two of us against what felt like the world. The only thing that could have made the hug better was Zee, but he was off saving a life, so I couldn’t blame him for that.

“I will never stop protecting you,” Victor whispered, his voice raw.

I pulled away and knelt, resting my hands on his knees so I could peer up into his eyes. “Victor, you know I’m almost indestructible.”

“It is the almost that concerns me.”

He was a fool. I should have been the one protecting him. I brushed his hair back from his face. He turned his head and nuzzled my wrist, fangs emerging. If he waited much longer, with all the blood loss he’d become vicious. It had happened before, and I did not want to see him rabid and starving like that ever again.

“Lie back,” I told him, sounding snappy and not caring.

“I fear I am in trouble with you.” He lay back, propped on his elbows, and when I climbed onto the bed next to him, he settled down properly, resting next to me.

“Yes, you are. There will be groveling and apologies. But first, let’s get you healed.”

After hooking a leg over his, I snuggled closer and tilted my head, exposing my throat. His arm came around me, folding me into his embrace, and those smooth, cool fangs slid into my neck, unleashing a wave of lustful sparks. There was no chance of stopping the moan that slipped free, or preventing myself from clutching him tighter. Being close to Victor was like catching a star—he consumed my body and thoughts, turning me into a thing of pure need.

He was all cut up and needed my blood to heal, so this was not the time to hump his leg, but I was as much animal as man and I’d never stop wanting him, even when he was bloody and bruised. Maybe because he was bloody and bruised.

It wasn’t long before his hand eased up on gripping my arm and slipped between us to clutch my dick.

“If you think this is going to make up for lying to me . . .” I began, but then his experienced fingers stroked. With his other hand, he flicked open my fly, burrowed inside and found his prize. Skin on skin lit me up like a firework. I forgot how to speak, forgot I was a man, and growled his name like a mating call.

“You were saying?” Silvery eyes tried to pull me into their allure.

“Then you are absolutely right,” I croaked.

“Hm, good. That is my plan.”

He hadn’t taken much from my veins, but it was enough that the cuts on his face had begun to heal. A few smudges of dirt and dried blood remained. I swept them away with my thumb, prompting his smile. He was going to be alright, and that was all that mattered. Relief made me dizzy, or perhaps that was his merciless handiwork.

He nudged me onto my back, spread my knees, and crawled between my legs. When a disheveled, bloodied, scuffed-up Victor Reynard got between your knees, there was nothing to be done but to sit back and enjoy where this was heading. In the next breath, my dick was between his lips and fangs. The cruel pleasure that tore through me had my back arching and toes curling.

I grabbed at his shoulder, probably his hair too, and tried to get some hip action going—chasing more, needing more—but Victor preferred to control things, and he pinned me down. Mercy, I hadn’t realized how much I’d needed this.

With everything that had happened during the past few days, I hadn’t known the emptiness inside was because I’d been putting distance between us.

How could I be mad he’d lied, when I’d been lying this whole time?

“Victor—”

His hand slammed over my mouth. His other hand mercilessly pumped my cock. Whatever thoughts I’d had about confessing succumbed to a rising wave of Victor getting me off. Nudging the point of no return, I grasped the sheets, surrendered the hardest part of me to Victor’s lips once more and fell over the edge, coming down his throat.

Mercy, I was weak for him.

Licking his lips, he prowled over me, then bowed his head. His mouth slammed into mine, his tongue thrust in, and it was all I could do to give as good as I got. He kissed me hard, tasting of blood and cum and everything delicious to the dragon inside.

“How was my apology?” he teased, when the bruising kiss ended.

“Hm . . .” I licked swollen lips. “It was a start.”

Rolling onto his side, he flung an arm over his forehead. “The werewolves who found me appeared to be rather tense. Did you threaten them?”

“Maybe . . . a little bit?” I turned my head, caught his smirk, and echoed his grin with my own.

“Measured violence is a language they are fluent in,” he purred, sounding all olde worlde vampirey.

Snuggling closer against his side, I teased the buttons on his shirt. “Victor . . . what was that thing in the woods?”

“Hm . . . I will explain what it’s not.” His deep but soft voice rumbled through him and me. “It’s not an average werewolf. More accurately, it may not be a werewolf at all. It’s certainly not of lupine origin. It’s faster and stronger than any werewolf I’ve encountered before.”

Twisting side-on, I propped my head on a hand and admired him all over, from his bloody shirt to the healing bruises on his knuckles. Still coming down from the buzz of him getting me off, it wouldn’t take much to lean in and spark our embers all over again. But we had work to do, so I fiddled with his buttons some more, skimming my fingers over his pale skin through a torn hole in his shirt. “If it’s not a lupine shifter, what are we dealing with?”

“I suspect it’s a loup-garou, but it’s rare to find one this side of the veil since they do not integrate particularly well with humans . . . So rare, in fact, I remain uncertain.”

“What’s that? A loup-garou?”

“Not so much a werewolf as a shapeshifter that can adopt a lupine form.”

“A shifter like me?”

“Hm, no. You’re a fixed-form shifter, like a werewolf. You have two states, dragon and man. A loup-garou can shapeshift into anything roughly humanoid, and is able to alter parts of itself. It can camouflage itself, for example . . . or sprout wings, should it need them.”

Placing my hand flat over his chest, I soaked up his steady heartbeat under my palm. “So it can pretend to be a werewolf?”

“It can pretend to be almost anything. But as I said, I am uncertain that’s what we’re dealing with. I only saw glimpses of it.”

The door to our room flew open and Zee’s unmistakable silhouette filled the frame. His wings fizzled away. He cocked a hip, striking a pose. “Hullo, bitches. Did you miss me?” He took a step into the room, stopped abruptly, and frowned. His camo vest had some bloodstains, but those were likely from Zander. “Hold up, did you start a party without me? Was there pegging? Did I miss it?”

“Victor and I uhm . . .” I began to explain how Victor had needed to apologize.

Victor swung his legs off the bed and stood. “I’d better shower.”

“Hey, wait.” Zee marched across the room—around the Oreo tower—with enough strut in his stride to pull Victor up short. “You’re bloody and bruised. You good, vampire?”

“I am good—well. Yes. I am well, thank you, demon.”

“Because you look like shit.”

“As eloquent as always.” Victor vanished into the tiny bathroom, leaving the door open, and a few moments later the sounds of the hissing shower filled the room.

“I’m not worried.” Zee shrugged, then sat on the bed beside me and whispered, “Should I be worried about him?”

“I think he’s okay, but he got pretty beaten up.”

“Ah, that explains the make-up sex. Are you okay?” Zee reached out and our hands automatically came together.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Better now you’re here too.”

“Kitten, you are never getting rid of me. Like an itchy rash, I always come back.”

He was so silly, but the hiccupping laugh he summoned was welcome. “How’s Zander?”

“Alive, but the first hospital I took him to doesn’t treat Lost Ones, so I had to fly him to a veterinary clinic. It worked out, since he was half furry anyway.” Zee leaned down. His thumb stroked my cheek and he peered into my eyes. “I didn’t want to leave you. Or Fancy Fangs, I admit . . . I guess . . . whatever.”

“It’s alright, Zee.” I covered his hand with mine. “Victor tried to be a hero, that’s all.”

“Ugh, of course he did.” Zee rolled his glittery purple eyes. “Did you have to save his perfect ass?”

“Sort of. Yeah.”

Zee snorted. “Least he’s fuckin’ consistent, right?”

“I heard that,” came Victor’s rumble from inside the shower.

“So, stop listening,” Zee sang back.

They were cute when they bickered like an old married couple. Now Zee had returned and Victor was safe again, all the murderous rage and bone-aching worry faded away. The blow job had probably helped too.

“Was the make-up sex worth it?” Zee eyebrows bounced.

“No,” I snickered, and sat up, drawing my knees loosely to my chest. “There will be more of it—at least another two rounds—then maybe I’ll think about forgiving him.”

Victor emerged, stark naked, dripping wet, patting down his long black hair with a towel. A few bruises marked his pale skin, but he was mostly healed. There are naked men, and then there’s Victor, whose nakedness is both so rare and mind-numbingly gorgeous that none can resist it.

“Sweet eye-fucking porn,” Zee tried to cover my eyes. “Adam, look away from the masculine perfection so I can ogle him in private.”

I laughed, and swatted Zee’s hand away. “Hey, no way am I letting you enjoy the show without me.”

“Goodness, it’s as though you two have never seen a naked man before—which I know for you, Zodiac, is unfathomable.” He stopped at the dresser, with his back to us, and there was no way Victor didn’t know how we admired the glorious view. The smooth roll of his shoulders, the curve of his back, and the way his waist tucked in before his ass . . . I sighed. All rational thought vanished. Gone.

“Adam, you’re drooling.”

“What?” I dabbed my chin. “Am I?”

Zee laughed, tilted his head, and sighed. “I’ve seen swinging dicks, big dicks, small dicks, chonky dicks, double dicks, and all the skinny dicks a porn demon can see. But what I’ll never get enough of is your dick, Your Lordship. Bring it over here so I can get some action before we go right back to saving the fuckin’ day . . . or werewolves . . . or whatever the fuck we’re doing in the middle of nowhere because Adam says so.”

“We do not have the time to indulge⁠—”

Zee poofed behind Victor and plastered his entire seven-foot-with-horns self against Victor’s bare back. His wings bloomed, pulsing purple with sexual energy. “That a challenge?”

Victor’s smirking reflection in the dresser’s mirror revealed he’d known exactly what he was doing by striding in naked, and Zee didn’t stand a chance at resisting.

Zee’s tail looped around Victor’s bare leg, making it clear there was no escape. His hand dropped around his hip, out of my sight, but I could guess where it had landed from the soft parting of Victor’s lips.

I’d already had my share of Victor, so it was only fair that Zee should get his. I was more than happy to watch from the sidelines.

Zee roped Victor’s wet hair in a fist, wringing it tight, and pulling Victor’s head back, he held him rigid. “I know you like it rough, Daddy,” Zee purred, fluttering the words down Victor’s lean neck. “And since it seems you owe Adam some groveling, maybe I can pump it out of you?”

Victor’s smirk twitched, turning snarl-like and showing a hint of fang. “Careful, demon.”

“I always am.”

They were different together than with me. Good different. Zee had learned exactly what fired Victor up, and Victor knew what Zee needed. They bickered and slung insults at each other outside the bedroom, but all that discourse resulted in an inferno between the sheets.

Zee worked Victor like Victor had done with me earlier, but Zee didn’t need to bend him over for them to be physically joined. His allure had already wrapped around Victor, feeding off Victor’s pleasure, and his wings were ablaze, casting shadows that danced sensually on the walls with the soft rocking motion of their bodies.

It was beautiful.

Whatever Zee said when he bowed his head and whispered into Victor’s ear, his words brought a rare flush of red to Victor’s skin, and tipped him over the edge of coming. Those soft, satisfied grunts had me wishing I was over there too, but this was for them.

Victor liked to be in control, but sometimes he also liked the wild, uncontrollable power that Zee wielded better than anyone else. Sometimes he wanted to be held down, or guided, and that was something I had the impression he’d only ever explored with us, even after all his years of experience.

Brimming with sexual energy, Zee kissed Victor’s neck and brought his wings around them both, rocking Victor gently back into his whole-body embrace. He murmured something that had Victor swallowing a knot of emotion. Then flicking out his wings to vanish them, Zee carried a smug smile as he headed into the bathroom, leaving Victor braced and panting against the dresser.

It was an honor to see them at their most vulnerable with each other. They fought and slung insults, and generally treated each other as though they couldn’t care less. But it was all a game. “That was one hell of an apology,” I purred.

“I forget sometimes . . .” Victor breathed the words, still reeling. “How powerful he is.”

“Fire!” Jenny yelled from outside. “In the forest! Someone! Help, fire!”

“Get dressed,” I barked, and sprang off the bed.

Dashing from our room, I met Jenny in the lot, where she was pointing the werewolf pack toward the forest. It seemed impossible that anything would burn out in the misty, wet forest, but I saw it too—a distant glow, like a burnt-orange smudge in the murky sky.

Jenny’s face fell. “Oh no, that’s Zander’s cabin.”

CHAPTER 8

“It’s a fuckin’ tragedy,” Zee said, standing by the edge of a swathe of burned timbers still radiating heat and the occasional ember.

“I know, it’s terrible.” Poor Zander didn’t have anywhere to call home anymore.

“All those antique dildos. Gone.”

“Uh . . . yeah. Tragic.”

A few of the pack members ambled through the cabin’s remains, kicking over charred timbers and poking bits of half-burned, brightly colored furniture, but the only solid thing left of Zander’s home was the stone fireplace. Unfortunately, Zander’s collection had melted in the inferno, so all that was left were colorful splodges that could pass for melted candles.

Zee spotted Victor picking through the debris, then he grinned at me. “We still got our antique dick.”

We did, but Zander’s home was gone. He’d probably be able to stay at the motel, but if the pack didn’t want him back, his options seemed slim.

It wasn’t right that bad stuff happened to nice people.

Someone or something had set the fire deliberately. But why? Why go to these lengths? Was it just because Zander was different, just a random encounter, or had the loup-garou—if that’s what had done this—needed the cabin and Zander destroyed?

“It’s not right,” I huffed.

“Nope. And do they care?” Zee gestured at the packmates. “You guys need to get onto this.” He’d raised his voice, making the werewolves take notice. “You let this happen to one of your own in your back yard? What the fuck is wrong with you? You gotta get a grip and stop this shit. Find whoever did this and make them pay!”

“Uh, Zee? That’s kinda our job.”

“And we are fuckin’ on that. Right now.” He pointed a finger at them all in turn. “We will save the day.”

The werewolves went back to rifling through Zander’s things and collecting anything salvageable, hopefully to give back to him after he’d recovered.

Victor made his way over. “There’s nothing more we can do here. Let’s regroup back in our room.”

After we’d hiked back to the motel and Zee had helped himself to another pack of Oreos, Victor lingered by the window. He perched his ass on the sill and hmmmed, deep in thought to the sound of Zee’s munching.

“Do you guys think this all feels a bit strange?” I said from my spot on the end of the bed.

“Indeed.” Victor looked up. “We’re missing something.”

“Seems like an average Tuesday to me.” Zee tossed another Oreo between his sharp teeth.

“Are you supposed to eat the merchandise?” Victor asked him.

“My agent didn’t say I couldn’t.”

“Zander has lived in relative harmony in his pink cabin in the woods for months, but the moment we visit him he gets attacked. That timing is unlikely to be a coincidence.”

“You think we’re being watched?” Zee asked.

“I’m certain of it. And whoever burned that cabin and attacked us didn’t want us speaking with Zander. He must know something.”

If the attacker learned Zander was alive, they might strike again. “Zee, we should take the van and go visit Zander. See if he knows anything that might help.”

“I’ll examine Cameron’s body,” Victor suggested. “Ascertain whether there’s anything that may have been missed or tampered with.”

I pushed from the bed, crossed the floor to Victor, and laid a hand on his arm. It hadn’t been long since he’d limped in here, beaten up and hurting. “Be careful. No more self-sacrificing heroics.”

His hand came down on mine and gave it a comforting squeeze. “Likewise, Adam.”

Zee huffed and headed for the door, rolling his eyes. “Don’t make it so we gotta save your ass again, vampire.”

“I will endeavor to oblige, demon.”

Zee had his hand on the door handle when a chirping from his pocket interrupted us. He pulled the phone free and grimaced. “It’s the hotel! What do I say?”

“Just tell them we’re on vacation.”

Zee pulled a disbelieving frown, but before he had a chance to ask for a better excuse the phone buzzed harder. Zee yelped. The phone jumped from his hand and clattered to the floor, and a misty haze of electronic static bubbled like smoke from inside, filling out into the figure of a man. A few seconds later and the ghostly apparition wore a pair of pressed black pants, a burgundy-red vest, and a dapper black bow tie. Slicked-back dark hair and piercing eyes speared into us like a slap to the face. Our djinn barman had arrived.

“What in the fuck is this shitheap?” Tom Collins said, recoiling at the sight of our room. “Even the stains have stains.”

I’d forgotten he was free range now, and could practically travel anywhere with a phone signal. “We’re on vacation.” I winced. “Remember?” I had talked with him about this—not about my brother, just that something dire had come up and we’d needed to leave town for a while—but something must have changed for him to be calling. Or he just felt like a rant.

Disgust was a whole new look for his resting AI-barman face. “You took a vacation in a hotel shittier than ours?” His lip curled as he gave our motel room a visual once-over, then made the same visual assessment of us. “Am I really goin’ to be the one to say it?”

“Say uh . . . say what?” Zee shifted his weight restlessly by the door.

“It’s better that you don’t,” Victor warned, probably for my benefit. So they knew this wasn’t a vacation? They’d always known. Everyone had known, of course they had. I really wasn’t very good at lying.

“I’ve worn shoes smarter than you three.”

“Do you even wear shoes?” Zee asked. “Like, actual real shoes?”

Victor sighed, already resigned to the incoming Tom Collins pep talk. “Interesting comparison⁠—”

Tom folded his arms angrily. “You leave the hotel at the crack of dawn, don’t tell anyone where you’re headed, and there’s some over-the-top nice guy asking after you who gives off more creeper vibes than Victor Reynard’s bloodsucking family. So, what in the flying fucking pixies is really going on . . . and if you feed me some bullshit line about needing a vacation I swear to the gods of djinn I will quit this shithole hotel and go⁠—”

Tom’s static figure vanished.

“Oops,” Zee said from his crouched position. He picked up the phone. “Just gonna turn it off. There we go. Ah, glorious fuckin’ silence. Also, was that gods of djinn or gods of gin? I feel like it’s an important distinction.”

“That won’t stop him for long,” Victor grumbled. “If he figures out where we are, he’ll call the reception desk.”

“There goes our discount.”

I chewed on my lip. There was a huge vacation-shaped elephant in the room. Someone was back at the hotel asking after us, and they all knew I knew who he was . . . Someone I was running from. This whole trip north was a lie.

Victor pushed from the sill. “As we were saying before being rudely interrupted by our Wi-Fi barman, I’ll examine the body, and you two speak with Zander and find out what he knows that the beast doesn’t want revealed.”

“Alrighty then! To the Murder Machine!” Zee was out the door and marching toward the van without a second’s hesitation.

I let out a sigh and smiled sheepishly at Victor. “Thank you.”

“As I said, we’re here to listen when you’re ready.”

I swept into his arms and hugged him hard. “You know when you protected me by luring the beast away?” I mumbled into his shirt. He always smelled so good—woody and spicy, cinnamon and pine.

“Of course.”

“This is like that.”

The weight of his hand stroking my hair had a throaty purr rumbling through me. “I understand, Adam.”

I had to pinch myself every day to believe Victor and Zee were mine and I wasn’t in some dream. I owed them so much. Without them, the SOS Hotel would not exist, and neither would I.

“Adam.” Victor brought his hand to my face and tilted my head up. His eyes tried to capture my heart—a heart he already owned. People said vampires were soulless, but that wasn’t true. They just hid their souls down so deep, where only they could keep them safe. But Victor showed me his now, and every time he looked at me like this. Like I was the special one.

His mouth ticked into a small, genuine smile. “I’ve always wanted to go on vacation to a pay-by-the-hour motel in the middle of the Pacific North West with a sex demon who exhibits an unhealthy obsession for Oreos and an exceedingly average human.”

“Oh . . . that’s good.”

Zee honked the van’s wheezy horn.

“That’s our cue,” Victor prompted.

After reluctantly extracting myself from his comforting hug, I gave him a soft, shy smile. We left the room together but split up outside—Victor headed left toward the bar, and I crossed the lot, approaching our minivan.

“You good?” Zee asked, when I climbed into the passenger seat beside him. He probably sensed he may have missed a moment.

Watching Victor stride across the lot, long hair messily restrained into a ponytail swishing against his back, I smiled after him. “Yeah.”

Zee pulled the van out of the lot, and we were on the road again.

“So . . .” Zee sang. “That creeper guy Tom mentioned?”

I side-eyed him. “Trust me. He’s nothing we need to worry about right now.”

“Okay then.” We drove a little way up the road before Zee blurted, “Because if anyone’s threatening you, don’t let my sunny disposition and amazing fuckin’ hair fool you. I will fly back there and fuck them over so hard they’ll be eating through a straw for the rest of their agony-filled days.” He flashed a murderous grin. “Just puttin’ that out there.”

“Thank you, Zee.”

Happy now that he’d issued some threats to kill, Zee settled into driving and I stared out the passenger window.

But if it came to a Zee and Victor showdown with my brother, they wouldn’t stand a chance.

CHAPTER 9

Whiteacre Falls seemed to be a sleepy, out-of-season tourist town made up of one main street sporting a combined hardware and grocery store, a café, post office, and not much else. The small veterinary hospital Zee had flown Zander to was probably the biggest building on the outskirts of the whole town.

Zee pulled our beat-up van into a bay and cut the chugging engine, and as we climbed out, I squinted into the sun’s glare, shielding my eyes. The warmth was weak, but coming from the gloom that seemed to permanently hang over the No Tel Motel, it felt like a summer’s day.

Zee led the way into the vet clinic where a couple of people waited next to pet crates containing their unwell pets.

A whole bunch of kitties suddenly got real hissy. I winced, and stepped back outside so they didn’t blow my cover.

Alone with my thoughts, my old friend guilt tried to knot my insides. Maybe I should have told Tom more about my reasons for leaving, but if I had, he’d have loaded the shotgun he kept behind the bar and baited my brother into buying a drink. Or worse, he’d have left the relative safety of the hotel, gone after Syros, and gotten himself burned to ash. Tom was family, just like the rest of the SOS Hotel staff. I’d killed my previous family—or tried to—but I’d protect my new, chosen one at all costs.

And if keeping them safe meant hiding out in the woods while solving a werewolf murder, then it was a small price to pay.

Zee reappeared and approached, his smile growing. He’d changed out of the camo vest into a dark oversized shirt over tight pants. It was about as casual as he got, and he still looked amazing.

“Hm,” he purred, sidling up next to me. “You look good in the sun, Kitten.” His knuckles skimmed down my cheek, and when his thumb brushed my lip, I tilted my head back and welcomed the soft, quick kiss.

“As dragon, during the rare times I wasn’t afraid, I used to bask in the sun by the sea,” I told him, opening my eyes and gladly losing myself in his glittery gaze. “Not much beats the feeling of sun on your scales.”

Zee gazed down at me, his expression suddenly serious. “Dayam, you’re beautiful.”

A blush warmed my face. “You really think so?”

“I know it.” His hand rested gently over my heart. “Inside and out, you’re the most beautiful thing I ever saw, and I’ve seen Daddy Spice naked.”

Snorting a laugh, I stepped back. “That’s a close second, though, right?”

“Oh, fuck yeah.” Zee nodded across the street. “The nurse took Zander in. She lives right over there.” He pointed to a single-story dwelling with a cute little porch and windows flanking either side of the front door.

We crossed the quiet street and started up the path.

“We should get a pupper,” Zee said.

“You’re kidding, right? We have a thousand gremlins and a pixie. Where the heck are we going to keep a puppy?”

“Adam, Little Jimmy is not a pet. They did a whole fucking media campaign about it.” He climbed the porch steps. “Had a song and everything, because folks keep capturing pixies and gettin’ themselves unalived. They smile so sweet then tear out your tongue, dance in your gore till day is sprung. And we can’t get a cat because cats hate you.”

I shrugged. “That’s a cat problem, not my problem.” I liked cats, they just didn’t like me.

“Dogs are loyal, and friendly, and they get away with biting people’s balls.”

Kinda like Zee.

“Not gonna happen.” I had to put my foot down somewhere, right?

“Meh, you’ll come around.” Zee knocked on the door and Zander’s chipper voice beckoned from inside, so in we went.

Zander, who had obviously made himself at home, was draped in a blanket on the couch with an array of snacks surrounding him. “They fixed my arm,” he said, raising his plaster-cast arm. “But I’m not allowed to lick it, else I have to wear a cone of shame. Can you believe that? Mia threatened to cone me. But she also gave me a lot of drugs, so I can’t complain!”

He looked well, especially since the last time I’d seen him he’d been in a bad state. “You’re doing okay, huh?” I sat in one of two armchairs opposite his couch. “We were pretty worried for a while.”

“Yeah, I’m alright. Thanks to you guys.” He flicked his floppy hair out of his eyes. “I don’t know what I’d have done if you weren’t there.”

“It’s what we do,” Zee smirked. “Being heroes an’ all. Speaking of heroes, your vet nurse, Mia, says you gotta take more drugs right about now.”

“Ah, Mia . . . she’s the best. She’s letting me stay here while I get fixed up after she heard about what happened to my place. The fire . . . Ugh. Bunch of dickless pricks. They really do not like pink.”

“Yeah, well. I uh . . . I think the pack saved what they could from the remains but there’s not much left.”

He flapped a hand. “They’re just possessions. The important thing is I’m okay.”

That was a positive way of looking at events. “We’re not certain it was the pack who burned your cabin. We think it was something else.”

“That thing? The big horrible angry monster thing? What was that?”

“Maybe a loup-garou. At least, that’s what Victor thinks.”

Zander’s eyes widened. “A loup-garou?” he whispered in awe. “Wow.”

“Do you know what that is?” I asked.

After a few thoughtful beats, Zander asked, “Is it French?”

“Uhm, maybe?” I wasn’t sure why the language was important, and Zee shrugged when I looked to him for an answer. “Don’t you speak French?” I asked Zee.

“Moi? What the fuck gave you that idea?”

“You just said moi? That’s French, Zee”

His face got all gnarly with denial. “No it’s not.”

“Yeah, it is.” Wasn’t it?

“No, it’s not. It’s Zee. I speak Zee.”

Was it Zee or French? Now I wasn’t sure. “Hold up, are you French?”

“No, Kitten.” Zee rolled his eyes. “I’m a demon.”

“I know, I . . . never mind.” Anyway, the language didn’t matter, and trying to keep these two focused was like trying to catch two ping-pong balls at once. “Victor said it’s maybe a loup-garou that attacked you, which is like a shapeshifter. So it can shift into a humanoid wolf, but it isn’t lupine like you and the pack. It’s different and more dangerous, bigger and stronger.”

“Wow, sounds badass.” Zander grabbed the glass from a side table, and using a wide straw he fished for a bunch of bubbles at the bottom. “Bubble tea? So good.”

“The popping bubbles are the best!” Zee joined in.

“I know, right. You guys want some?”

“Thought you’d never fuckin’ ask.”

“Oh, uh, I can’t get up . . . Kitchen’s right through there.”

Zee sauntered out the door and clattered about somewhere near the back of the house. Hopefully Mia wouldn’t mind a seven-foot demon rummaging through her kitchen cabinets for bubble tea.

“Do you have any idea why the loup-garou would come after you?”

“It wasn’t just some random attack?”

“We don’t think so. Cameron was killed, probably by this beast, and then it almost got you not long after we arrived at your place.”

“Seems to me that maybe it’s after you guys.” Zander pointed the thick straw.

“Cameron was killed before we arrived, so we don’t think so. It could be random, I guess, but what if it’s not? Can you think of any reason it might want to hurt you? Has anything out of the ordinary happened lately? Have you seen anything weird?”

“I don’t know what you want me to say. I don’t really get out much, just stay in my cabin . . . which is gone now . . . I guess . . .” He sniffed and looked up. “Wow. It’s really gone. What am I gonna do? This couch is nice but I can’t stay here.” His eyes got all big and glossy.

Zee reappeared with a drink and thick straw, and leaning against the doorframe he swirled his bubble tea. “Bubbles fix troubles,” he sang. “You can fill the whole straw with ’em, pour ’em on your tongue, and pop them all at once.” Which he did, all at once, then spoke around the many bubbles. “Ish like shome kunna fuckin’ parshy in yuh mowff.” He gulped, then blinked. “What?”

“Zander was just wondering what he’s going to do now his house and everything he owns is gone.”

“Oh fuck, right. So sad.” Zee did not sound sad. “Hey, I know. You can come back to San Francisco with us. We’ve got plenty of room . . . and dildos.”

“Really?” Zander brightened, and sniffing, wiped a tear away.

Oh dear. “Uhm⁠—”

“Yeah, sure. Right, Adam?” Zee fluttered his lashes, and Zander’s eyes got even bigger and full like a scolded puppy’s, but I knew Victor would scowl and say we needed every single room to turn a profit, and we’d just spent all that money renovating them, and then there was my brother . . . but Zander’s big brown eyes . . . and . . . but . . . “I guess?”

“You guys are the best!”

“We so fuckin’ are.”

And apparently, we had a full-grown pupper now.

CHAPTER 10

If Zander knew anything that might mean a loup-garou wanted him dead, then he didn’t know he knew. He did, however, know a great deal about dildos, which meant Zee and Zander bonded over dicks and bubble tea.

After that apparently necessary conversation reached its climax, we discussed taking Zander back to the No Tel Motel with us, but decided he was probably safer with the vet. At least until we figured out if he had been the intended target.

“You guys really are great,” Zander said. He’d scooted up, making room for Zee on the other end of the snug couch. Both of them had brightly colored bubble tea that they fished around in with fat straws. “I don’t know what I’d have done if you hadn’t been there. Or what I’d do now. How can I repay you?”

I waved him off. “It’s fine.” We might have been Heroes of the City, but that definitely did not make us good guys.

“This is what Adam does,” Zee said around a mouthful of bubbles he’d just sucked up his straw. He gulped, and added, “Saves Lost Ones. It’s his thing. He doesn’t get that it’s his thing, but the rest of us do.”

“That true?” Zander asked me. “You save Lost Ones?”

The praise made me squirm in the chair and I rubbed the back of my neck. “It’s not really like that. I don’t plan to save people, it just sort of happens. Most of the time I’m in the wrong place at the right time.”

“You guys could have left as soon as they dropped Cameron’s body on you. Just ridden outtah town. Not many people would have stayed after being accused of murder, especially if you really didn’t do it. So why are you here . . . really?”

“Adam’s on the run, and because we love him we’re on the run too.” Zee said it so matter-of-factly I almost missed how he’d just neatly voiced the one thing I’d been trying not to mention.

“Wow, you guys seem pretty tough.” Zander slurped bubbles up his straw. “What’s so bad that you gotta run from it?”

“Meh.” Zee shrugged, still fishing for bubbles. “Whatever it is, we’ll end it. We’re actually pretty good at this hero schtick.” He flicked his gaze up to see if I was paying attention. Just like Victor, he’d always known this vacation was a smokescreen, but unlike Victor, he’d decided to play along.

I gave Zee my thankful smile, hurting a little bit inside because of the lies he’d seen through.

A phone rang on the little side table next to the couch. Zander scooped it up and tucked it under his chin. “Oh, right . . . Okay, yeah, thank you. Yeah, they’re still here. Okay. Thanks, Mia.” He hung up, and his gaze shot straight to the front window. “Duke’s here.”

I got to my feet and took cover against the front wall beside the window, then peeked outside. “There’s a beat-up old pickup across the street, outside the vet’s. It wasn’t there earlier.”

“That’s gotta be Duke’s,” Zander confirmed.

Zee poofed beside me, peeking from the opposite side of the window. “What the fuck . . . did the mist follow him here?”

He was right. The sun had vanished and a bank of mist had rolled in, thickening as we watched, obscuring our view of the truck and the street.

“Does it usually get misty like this here too?” I glanced back at Zander.

“No idea. I don’t come up this way much.” He tried to sit up and winced. With his broken limbs and bandages, he wasn’t going anywhere on his own. “I have not had enough drugs for this.”

Zee’s glare turned serious, and when he spoke, he’d lost all his bouncy, easygoing vibe. “The loop-guru ain’t getting through us a second time.”

“Loup-garou,” I corrected.

“Whatever, Victor.”

I almost laughed, and caught his quirking lips.

“Do you think it’s him then . . . Duke?” Zander asked, pulling his blanket under his chin. “Is it Duke doing all this?”

“He’s been frosty toward us the whole time we’ve been here,” Zee said.

“And he didn’t much like Galbraith asking us to help out,” I added. But it still didn’t explain why Duke would murder Cameron and then go after Zander. Where was the connection? Maybe there wasn’t a reason. Some people did crazy things for reasons known only to them. And Duke did eat the local wildlife, so maybe he’d escalated to people?

“Maybe I should go talk with him,” I suggested to Zee.

He dead-eyed me. “You wanna walk into that creepy mist and go talk to the murder guru? Uhm, let me think.” Reaching across the window, he booped my nose and grinned. “Not fuckin’ happening. We’re staying here until that mist fucks off.”

“You know, I could just eat him?”

“Pfft, you can’t eat every problem, Kitten.”

“It’s worked pretty well so far.”

“Imma make us all more bubble tea,” Zee said, probably to keep Zander calm. He turned to him and asked, “What’s your favorite flavor?”

With Zee and Zander chatting, I kept my eye on the swirling mist. The street had vanished beneath its folds, making it seem as though this little house was the only one in Whiteacre Falls.

Could loup-garous control the weather? That seemed like something Victor would have mentioned. A Wilson’s Guide would have been useful right about now. “Hey, Zander, do you know if Mia has a Wilson’s Guide?”

“Maybe. It’ll be in the next room over, on the bookshelf.” He pointed across the short hall into the other room.

I headed toward the dining room but stopped short when a blur passed by the window. Or was it just the bush outside, shifting in the breeze? I hadn’t heard anything, though . . . The mist had made me jumpy.

From the window, I checked the yard and found just a whole lot of mist trying to push in. And the bush wasn’t moving . . . Not a breath of wind.

“Adam Vex,” a growling voice rumbled from outside. I peered closer into the gray gloom and spotted a bulky figure emerging . . . Duke.

I moved toward the front door.

“Don’t go out there,” Zee warned as he left the kitchen, fresh drinks in both hands.

“I’m just going to talk with him.”

“From the doorway.” Zee’s smiles had gone.

“Yup, right here.” Opening the door revealed swathes of churning gray mist, but no Duke. “Huh.” Well, that was . . . weird. “You heard him, right?”

“Yeah . . .” Zee peered over my shoulder. “That’s a big nope to the murder mist.”

“He was right there.” Unless . . . it hadn’t been Duke at all. Victor had said the loup-garou was a shapeshifter that could make itself look like almost anything humanoid. Or anyone?

“Meh, he’s gone now. Bubble tea?” Zee shoved a glass into my hand and turned toward Zander on the couch.

“Zee, something weird is going on.”

“I know. I couldn’t find the peach flavoring, so you’ve got a mix of cranberry and blueberry. It’ll work.” He handed the second glass to a beaming Zander.

We had more to worry about than bubble-tea flavoring. I sipped the tea . . . although it did taste good.

An arm looped around my waist and yanked me backward through the door. A snap of wet-cold wrapped around my body, and by the time I realized I was no longer standing in the house, the mist had swallowed everything recognizable.

The steel-hard arm spun me, then flung me down, face first into the dirt.

Knees or paws—I couldn’t be sure which—pinned me to the ground, and a thunderous growl touched the back of my neck.

“You know . . .” I wheezed, trying to breathe around the crushing weight. “This is a really bad idea.”

The growls continued.

“I may not . . . look it . . . but I’m actually . . . a badass.” All that was difficult to say with a mouth full of grass. If I could just get my hands under me, I could shove whoever was on me off.

“Adam!” The rolling mist made Zee’s cry come from all over. I couldn’t see anything much beyond the grass I was face down in.

“Stay out of pack business,” the growly voice said, more animal than man.

“Can’t do that . . .” I wheezed, trying to pry my hands under my chest wiggle by wiggle. “Made a vow.”

A huge hand slammed into the back of my head and the beast’s hot breath blasted my cheek. “Break it.”

“That’s enough!” I bucked, flung my head back, and threw the beast off, then flipped around to get a look at my attacker. But it was fast and had already vanished into the mist again, leaving smoky gray swirls behind.

“Adam?!”

“Stay there!” I told Zee. “I’ve got this!” This beast had beaten Victor badly. If anyone was going to get hurt again, it had to be me. I could shake off cuts and broken bones, but Zee wasn’t as robust.

I flicked out my hands, freeing long black claws, and let some of the dragon filter through my sweet, innocent camouflage. “Hello, boys.” Two could play the shifter game. But mine were bigger.

“I’m not sitting this out, Kitten!” The location of Zee’s voice had moved, coming from the bank on my left, not ahead of me like it had moments ago.

I couldn’t look out for him and track the beast. “Zee, I’ve got this! Stay with Zander!”

“You really got this?”

The direction his voice came from had moved again. He was either searching for me, or the mist was playing tricks on all of us.

“Yeah!”

“If you die, the trauma will destroy Fancy Fangs. Just sayin’!”

A rustling sounded behind me. Turning away from the sound of Zee’s voice, I zeroed in on it and stalked forward. “Not gonna die, Zee. I got this.”

Finally, Zee was quiet, leaving just me and the loup-garou out here. “What’s the time, Mr. Wolf . . .” I growled, letting more dragon rumble through my voice. I could hear the beast’s breathing, sense its closeness. It was watching me, waiting for a mistake that wouldn’t come.

“Come out and maybe I won’t eat you.” My true self had my voice now, turning it deeper than my sweet and innocent exterior could pull off. My words bubbled up, deep and dark and rich with threat.

The bush rustled some more.

It should be afraid.

Just under half of me wanted to tear into the beast, rip it limb from limb and devour all its best bits—it would solve our murder problem—but even as dragon, I could be reasonable. Maybe this loup-garou had a good reason for being mean? “Come out. Let’s talk. You get one chance.”

The bush the creature hid in was closer now, but the mist was so thick it obscured all detail. Time for some scare tactics. I freed a deep warning growl and sprang, slicing through the spiky brush at⁠—

“Zee!”

Zee screamed, and leaped out of the bush, wings and tail flapping. “Fucccccckk!” He eyed my savage claws and recoiled.

“I almost gutted you!” I yanked my hands back, hiding my claws behind my back.

He blinked. “Fuck, you’re scary.”

“I thought you were the loup-garou.” My claws retracted with a snick. I growled and turned on the spot. I’d been stalking Zee this whole time? Where was the beast now? “You’re supposed to be back there with Zander.”

“Yeah, but I don’t love him, do I? I fuckin’ love you.” He flicked his hair. “And there’s no way I’m leaving you out here alone with Mr. Murder Mittens.”

“Ugh . . .” Why didn’t they trust me to handle these things? Zee and Victor were the ones who needed protection, not me. “We need to get back to Zander.” I picked a direction and marched into the mist, hoping it took me to something familiar so I could find the way back.

“Are you mad at me?” Zee said, following a few steps behind.

“Yes.”

“Mad enough for make-up sex later?”

“No sex.”

“Ugh, you’re that mad?”

Stopping on a patch of asphalt—probably the road or someone’s front drive—I turned and glared at Zee, stopping him in his tracks. “I’m not a fragile ornament that’s going to break at the first sign of some bad guys.” The growls were out and difficult to rein in.

Zee pulled his wings in, and his shoulders slouched, making him smaller. “But, I⁠—”

“You need protecting, Zee. Not me. You and Victor. I protect you, do you understand? I’m the dragon. This is my fault. I keep you safe. There are things out there worse than this loup-garou, Zee. They will chew you up and spit you out like a bug. When I say to stay back, you stay back!”

He swallowed and flipped his tail up, then wrung his hands around its lashing end. “I’m sorry⁠—”

“No, sorry is no good. You can’t say sorry when you’re dead.” I turned on my heel and plowed ahead again. My heart beat in my throat from fear, but I wasn’t afraid for me. Zee wasn’t immortal—he could die just like humans died—he just happened to be a little tougher to kill. And Victor claimed to be immortal, but he just lived a really long time. We’d killed two vampire queens, mostly by accident, proving even the highest of vampires could be killed.

I was a dragon. The only other thing we could encounter that was strong enough to kill me was another dragon. They had to understand that for what was coming.

“I won’t ever stop protecting you, Adam,” Zee called, falling behind.

His stubbornness was going to get him killed.

Zander’s temporary house emerged from the mist, and I marched inside to find him sitting nonchalantly on the couch, sipping his tea.

“Did you get him?” Zander asked.

“No, I lost him.”

Zee followed a few minutes later, sulking in silence. I told Zander we’d wait out the mist and leave when we were sure he was safe. A few hours later, the mist had faded, and Whiteacre Falls was back to normal, basking under weak sunlight.

Zee told Zander he’d organize a stay at our hotel, and with a few quick goodbyes, we climbed into the van, heading back toward the motel and bar where hopefully Victor would have some good news regarding Cameron’s body.

We drove all the way in silence.

CHAPTER 11

Victor folded his arms and scowled. “Who is going to explain what happened?”

Zee’s tail lashed while he mumbled something incomprehensible, although Victor’s keen hearing probably picked it up. I’d had the entire journey back from Whiteacre Falls to think, and now my blood had cooled I’d begun to regret speaking to Zee like I had. I’d been out of line. He’d tried to help. I hadn’t meant to yell at him . . .

“Nobody?” Victor asked, eyebrow raised.

I sighed and shoved my hands into my pockets. “We were attacked, we think by the loup-garou, and warned off.”

“What else?” Victor’s piercing gaze narrowed in on me. This wasn’t about what had happened, it was about the icy chasm between Zee and me, and Victor had wasted no time in pulling us up on it.

“I told Zee to stay inside and guard Zander,” I mumbled. “But he didn’t⁠—”

“There ain’t no fuckin’ way imma leave⁠—”

“Doesn’t need to protect me⁠—”

“Uuh, excuse me.” Zee cocked a hip, and snapped his fingers together with a sharp click. “You can tell me not to protect you until all the dragons come home to fuck, but I ain’t ever gonna stop, Adam. You might as well ask me to stop being me, or ask me to cut off a wing, or even ask me to stop eating mac and cheese. It ain’t ever gonna happen because I fuckin’ love you and I will always fuckin’ love you, and lovin’ you means I will do anything to keep you—and yes, Victor fucking Reynard—safe. There, I said it. And now you made me admit to loving him. He’s way too old for me, and let’s remember, he’s also a fuckin’ vampire, which is like . . . the worst of the worst, and did I mention he’s real fuckin’ old?”

Victor rubbed his forehead. “I wish I hadn’t asked. Zodiac, thank you . . . I think. Adam . . . while we are trying our best not to question the reasons for our being here, or your motives for not simply telling us what we are running from, as you can see, it’s causing quite the strain on our fledgling relationship.”

Why did he have to be so calm and reasonable? They were both ganging up on me. I was trying to do the right thing here. “I’m trying to protect you guys!”

Victor looked me dead in the eyes. “As we have only tried to protect you.”

They both stared. Zee with some regret in his soft, purpled-lashed eyes, and Victor’s glare with its no-holds-barred ability to pin me down and make me squirm.

“Ugh.” He was right.

They were trying to keep me safe, and I had no right to stop them when I was trying to do exactly the same thing. I was in the wrong. I’d messed up. All of it—coming north, running, not telling them—it was all a stupid mistake.

I sighed. It was time to admit the real reason we’d fled the hotel. It had probably been time to tell them back at the gas station, or maybe right before we’d left . . . “If I tell you, you have to promise you won’t get straight into the van and drive back to the hotel.”

Zee shook his head and shoved his palm at my face. “Nah, dawg. I am not making open promises until you’re honest with us.”

“Zee!” I whined. “This is why I haven’t told you. You guys need to let me do this. You’ve both proven why you can’t protect me. I have to protect you.”

“From what?” Victor asked, sharp as a razor blade.

“From my . . .” I bit my lip and turned my face away . . . but when I looked back, their expressions were even more sympathetic, and my heart was done. I couldn’t lie to them anymore. “From my brother.”

“You got a brother?” Zee asked.

“Technically, I had eight of them. And three sisters.”

“Fuck, that’s a lot of Christmas gifts—oh right, the chicken an’ egg thing. That’s why there’s so many of you.”

“I was under the impression your family were all . . . dispatched,” Victor said, choosing his words carefully.

Done with the lies and feeling sorry for myself, I dropped onto the end of the bed. “They were . . . well, I thought they were, but he’s uh . . . he’s back.” I didn’t even want to say his name. Saying his name made it real, and meant I could no longer hide the horrible fact from myself—I was being hunted. We all were.

“Okay, so he’s back and that’s bad because . . . ?”

I looked up at the two most precious people in my life standing side by side. “His name is Syros, and it’s bad because he’s probably a bit angry that I tried to tear his face off . . . then his wings, and you know . . . I murdered our entire family.”

“Yeah. That’ll do it. Oreo?” Zee shoved the cookies under my nose. “There’s a whole lot of goodness in these little ohs.”

“That’s uhm . . . that’s the ad for Cheerios . . .” I told him, then caught his smile and smiled back. He was using Oreos to build a bridge over the chasm I’d dug between us.

Taking a cookie, I nibbled its edges. “Syros is mean and vicious. He’ll burn down everything and everyone to get to me. That’s why I had to get us out of the hotel. If he knows I’m not there, he won’t stay there for long. They’re safe.”

Victor sat next to me on the end of the bed, making the mattress dip and me slide against him. “The wards would have protected us, Adam.”

“Not when you visited the council,” I said, and faced Zee again. He waited, tail swishing. “Or when you went to Razorsedge to see the demons. We’d have been prisoners in our own home. Syros is smart, like you’re smart.” My gaze returned to Victor’s again. “I thought I’d . . . killed him. We fought and . . . it was brutal.” I remembered the blood . . . so much blood. It didn’t seem possible that my brother had lived. We’d torn into each other with such ferocity we both should have died. “I was so badly wounded I didn’t check that he was dead, I’d just had to get away . . . Always running,” I mumbled, then nibbled more cookie. “We can’t go back to the hotel until I figure out what to do about him.”

“Let’s just murder him like we murder everyone else we don’t like,” Zee said.

We didn’t murder everyone we didn’t like. “It’s not that simple. You may have noticed dragons are hard to kill.”

“Victor did it, with werewolf mercenaries.”

“That dragon was old and slow,” Victor said. “Killing it equated to mercy. His own kin would have done the same had they discovered him.”

“Syros is bigger than me . . . more powerful. He’s one of the worst.” Shaking my head, I struggled to imagine how we could stop him. “We just need to lie low, away from the hotel so he doesn’t destroy it, and you guys need to stop throwing yourselves into danger to protect me when I’m a whole lot tougher than you realize. Because he will find you and hurt you, and I just need you to survive . . . I can’t . . . My heart couldn’t take it if you were gone.” I whispered that last part, mostly because my voice had gotten all squeaky and weird, and my heart pounded, and everything felt hot and cold at the same time.

I nibbled more cookie. It did actually help.

“That’s why you got shitty with me earlier,” Zee said. “You’re scared.”

“Yes. I am so scared of losing you guys. You’re all I’ve got. You’re everything to me. He’ll try to take you away because you’re mine. He doesn’t care about anything. He just wants to hurt me, and the easiest way is to hurt you two. I can’t let him . . . I can’t . . .” Overwhelmed, I stuffed the remaining bits of cookie in my mouth and ate them along with my feelings.

Zee sat on my left, flung an arm around my shoulders, and tucked me against his side. “He threatened you at the hotel, didn’t he?”

“He said I should go with him or he’d destroy you both, and I had until the next day to decide. So I ran . . . because it’s all I know that works against dragons. You have to run.”

“He’s a dick,” Zee huffed.

“Yeah.”

“While I do wish you had told us sooner,” Victor said. “I cannot deny we would likely have attempted to make a stand at the hotel.”

“Yeah,” Zee agreed. “I’d have gone for Spyros.”

“Syros.”

“Him too.” Zee smiled, trying to brighten the mood.

“And Syros would have burned it all down.”

Victor’s hand settled reassuringly on my leg. “Indeed.”

“If I’m not there, the hotel is safe. If you’re with me and we’re hiding, you’re safe.” I sighed and closed my eyes. Feeling Zee pressed close and Victor’s hand on my leg, just being with them and having them listen . . . it gave me hope that all was not lost. Not yet. “Running was the best I could come up with at the time.”

“Alright,” Zee said. “We have got this. Together. Like always.”

“Never apart.” Victor echoed the sentiment.

I should have told them sooner, but I was also glad I hadn’t. With distance came the time we needed to figure out what to do next. “I’m sorry I snapped at you, Zee. I never, ever want to change you. You’re perfect the way you are.”

“Uh, I know. And it’s fine. I like it when you get all fiery and protective. For a long time, at Razorsedge, I protected others. I’m not used to feeling safe, or knowing someone’s got my back, but I do with you.”

“In the past few weeks our lives have been turned upside down. We have much to adjust to,” Victor agreed. “There will naturally be some bumps along this road.”

I still wasn’t entirely convinced they wouldn’t team up and try to take out Syros on their own—it seemed like the kind of foolishly heroic thing they’d do—but while we were in the middle of nowhere, hunting a werewolf killer, they’d stay.

“Regarding our current predicament . . . I examined Cameron’s corpse, and it’s clear he was not killed by a werewolf, but something with a larger claw diameter. The loup-garou theory remains the most likely one. Unfortunately, my examination did not reveal any further clues to help us.”

“But how is this loop-guru thing in the area without the pack knowing?” Zee asked. “Werewolves are insanely territorial.”

“Unless the loup-garou is one of the pack?” I asked. “They can shapeshift, right?”

“Wolf packs rarely adopt other species as their own.”

“Yeah, okay. And they kicked Zander out for being slightly different,” I said.

“Duke?” Zee wondered aloud. “We thought we saw and heard him in town earlier, when the creepy mist came in. Maybe he’s pretending to be like them? Would Galbraith be able to spot an imposter?”

“Duke appears to have been their beta for a long time. They’d certainly know if he wasn’t a lupine shifter,” Victor said. “But we should speak with him regardless. It is the beta’s job to look out for the pack alongside the alpha.”

“You guys go speak with him,” Zee said. “Three is a posse, and I get the impression he does not appreciate my rampant fabulousness.”

It was true Duke hadn’t much liked us, and especially Zee. “What are you going to do?”

“Chat with Jenny and see if anyone else is staying at this motel who seems a bit special or murdery.”

“Can we all just agree right here not to take any risks or do anything heroic?” I asked them. “If there’s a risk, we regroup. No going it alone. No luring the bad guy away.” That one I aimed at Victor. “And no lurking in bushes to help.”

“Agreed.” Victor gave my leg a firm squeeze and stood. “Zodiac?”

Zee gave an all-over body shiver. “Say my name like that again, Daddy.”

Victor’s soft chuckle was all he deemed appropriate. “It appears we have a plan. Let’s deal with this loup-garou so we might then focus on our own unfortunate dragon situation.”

An “unfortunate dragon situation” was a great way to explain my murderous, psychopathic brother coming back from the dead to wreak havoc on my life and destroy anything and everything I’ve ever loved. I’d prefer dancing with a loup-garou than facing Syros, any day.

Leaving Zee to drop in on Jenny, Victor and I made our way across the lot toward the bar, where the very person we needed to speak with was sitting outside at a picnic table littered with engine parts. The rows of bikes that were usually parked outside the bar weren’t there now.

The big werewolf beta saw us coming, but said nothing, just continued to use a grubby rag to clean grease off the shiny metal bits and pieces.

“What’s this, then? An intervention?” he grunted.

“We’d like to speak with you about Cameron’s murder and the attempted murder of Zander.”

The old werewolf raised his gaze, studied me and Victor, then continued to wipe a metal ring down. “Is that right? Then you’d better sit and ask yer questions while I work on this block.”

“Where is everyone?” Victor asked, as I took a seat at the bench.

“Ride-out. I got work to do. Engine’s gone. Say whatever you gotta say and then leave.”

I skipped my gaze over all the engine bits and pieces spread over the table between us. Duke carried on selecting each piece then methodically wiping it down. “You don’t seem all that concerned about a killer rampaging through your territory and threatening your pack mates?”

“Folks who step out of line generally get what they deserve round ’ere,” he said.

Was that a threat? “Were you up in Whiteacre Falls earlier today?”

“Been here all day, fixing this up.”

Was he lying? A glance at Victor revealed he was happy to let me take the lead while he stood back and radiated menacing vampire vibes.

“You clearly don’t like us being here,” I said, prompting Duke’s bushy eyebrow to leap. “I figure you think you don’t need our help, but Galbraith appointed us. You disagree, so you’re not going to make it easy.”

Duke grumbled a gruff, noncommittal sound, dropped the metal ring, and leaned back. “Why don’t you just come right out and ask if I killed Cameron?”

“Did you?”

“No.”

“Did you attack Zander?”

“Yes. Have you met him? He’s annoying as fuck and wears pink sandals. But did I threaten him lately? No. Cameron wanted him out, and frankly, Zander was never a good fit, even he knows it.”

“You think Zander killed Cameron because he got him kicked out of the pack?” I asked.

“No, I don’t. The fool hasn’t got it in him. Did he tell you he’s a vegan? A fuckin’ vegan werewolf. He should be eating the squirrels not feeding them.” Duke rolled his eyes. “I don’t know who killed Cameron, but I do know all this shit started when you showed up. Asking you for help was a mistake, but I don’t challenge the alpha. That’s a guaranteed way to get my bags packed for me.”

“Indeed,” Victor said.

“If you think I’m an asshole and a killer, you’re right. And I don’t much like you. Seems to me a dragon could rip the guts out of a werewolf pretty damn easy. And just so happens, here one is.”

I swallowed. “I have no reason to hurt you or anyone here.”

“But trouble rolls into town right along with you. That’s some mighty coincidence.”

Admittedly, it did look suspicious. My brother couldn’t be behind this, could he? No, there was no way he could have known where we were headed or reached the bar ahead of us . . . and if he had, he wouldn’t have been subtle about it. We just happened to be dealing with someone else that also happened to have really big claws and liked hiding.

“Why do you think Galbraith accepted Adam’s offer of help?” Victor asked.

“Yeah, I asked him that. He said we’re all too close to this.”

That actually made sense. Werewolves were a feisty bunch. Justice would have been quick, and probably wrong. “He thinks you’d have all gone after Zander?” I asked.

“Probably. And he’d be right. Looks like you saved that idiot’s life twice.”

“So, if you aren’t the killer, and neither am I . . . who do you think is?”

Duke’s wolfish smile brimmed with blunt, human teeth. “Aren’t we lucky you’re the ones who have to find out. Don’t let Galbraith’s approachable attitude fool you. You’d better find a killer because without one, you, your demon, and this vampire lord aren’t leaving Whiteacre Falls. Ever.”

“Hey, big bear.” Zee waggled his fingers as he smoothly side-stepped into the conversation.

Duke growled. “Wolf.”

“Hm, no, sweetie. You’re definitely a bear. Anyhoo—” Zee flicked his wings and turned to me. “So yeah, Jenny isn’t at the front desk, but the good news is I took a look at the guest log and we’re the only ones staying in this fine fuckin’ five-star establishment, so whoever is doing all this has gotta be local.”

“If you think any wolf would risk Galbraith’s wrath, you’re outtah yer tiny minds,” Duke huffed, returning to polishing his engine parts.

“What if they’re not a wolf, but something else?” I asked him.

“Not much out here but wolves and you guys.”

“What about a loup-garou?” I asked. “A shifter, but one who’s able to shift into anything, including a wolf.”

“No shifter is gonna fool a wolf,” Duke tapped his nose. “We’d sniff ’em out.”

Victor nodded his agreement. This wasn’t helping. Duke hadn’t told us anything new. We were just chasing our tails, going over the same ground over and over again. Nobody wanted to talk, and those who did didn’t know anything. How was that possible? How did Agent Leomaris deal with Lost Ones every day and not pull out all his gorgeous hair?

“There was something else,” Zee added. “So, the office kinda looks like a bomb went off inside⁠—”

“What?” Victor tensed.

“It could just be that it always looks like that. It’s real hard to tell, what with all the rubbery plants everywhere.”

Victor vanished—or more accurately, did his thing where he moves faster than I can track.

“Zee, you could have led with that,” I said, getting to my feet.

“I was about to.”

“Adam!” Victor’s shout sailed from the open reception doorway.

We hurried on over, with Duke stomping behind us.

Zee was right, the office had been trashed. The chair behind the desk had toppled, leaflets for local tourist hotspots were scattered about, and the succulents had been scattered, flung about as though a tornado had torn through the space.

I stepped around the desk and found what Victor was so fixated on. He righted the chair and turned it to show us. Three huge slashes almost cut the back of the fallen chair in half.

“Oh dear.”

“We must find Jenny.”

CHAPTER 12

Duke muscled his way through the litter of leaflets, toward the front desk, and sniffed the air. “This same scent lingered where Cameron was found.”

Zee’s nose wrinkled. “Usually smells like Jenny’s perfume in here.”

“Can you track it?” I asked the beta.

He nodded, then tore off his leather jacket and dumped it on the desk. Then his shirt went next.

“Oh, okay. Usually you gotta pay for this kind of show⁠—”

Duke’s growl ended Zee’s commentary. He angled his bulk toward the door, and shifted mid-step. I had no idea what shifting looked like when I did it, and didn’t much want to know after seeing Duke’s body rip itself apart. Fur erupted, blanketing his whole body, claws sprouted, and a huge tooth-filled snout projected from his face.

He dropped onto all fours and bounded out the door.

Zee’s gulp said enough. “I cannot unsee that.”

“Follow him,” I told Victor, since he was the fastest of us all. “We’ll try and keep up.”

With a curt nod, Victor vanished, leaving Zee and me to scramble after them.

“Wait.” Zee pulled me up short outside. “Isn’t that the same truck from outside the vet’s?”

The rusted red pickup. I’d noticed it here when we’d first arrived, with the grass that had grown up around its wheels. But that same grass was all flattened now . . . The truck had moved . . . and recently.

“Is it Duke’s?” Zee asked.

Duke had his bike but the truck could be his too. “Maybe.” We didn’t have time to figure out what it meant, or even if it was the same truck.

A howl sounded behind the motel.

“Come on.” Zee flapped ahead, then vanished his wings between the confines of the trees.

Duke’s huge lupine form thrashed through the leaf litter around the back of the motel. He appeared to be bounding into the forest toward Zander’s old cabin, but the scent trail must have switched direction, because he made a sudden right turn and dashed back toward the bar. He turned again, following the trail deeper once more, then again, back toward the bar. Had someone deliberately tried to shake us?

The meandering route gave Zee and me a chance to cut through the brush and stay close, until we all ended up at the back of the bar where the kitchen door hung ajar.

Duke smashed through and vanished inside, but Victor stopped dead, arm out, blocking our path. “Blood,” he warned.

Panting next to Zee, I spotted the pool of blood dribbling out the door. That couldn’t be good.

A gut-wrenching howl filled the air.

Victor vanished again, disappearing inside.

Zee and I stepped more slowly over the creeping blood and into the kitchen. Glossy red splatters dribbled down the walls behind where Kate sat slumped on the floor. The air was rich with the smell of violence.

“This just happened,” I warned Zee.

“It’s weird how you know that.” Zee touched Kate’s neck, searching for a pulse. “She’s alive.”

Kate’s hand shot out and grabbed Zee’s arm.

“Gah!” he yelped.

She pulled him down and wheezed, “Galbraith.” She flopped back, wincing and clutching her side.

“Holy shizzle. Galbraith did this?”

“No. It doesn’t make sense.” Why would he hurt his own pack? No alpha would do that. Unless they’d figured out what he was . . . or were about to?

“Adam, get in here,” Victor shouted from the front of the bar.

We hurried through and found Duke—still a giant wolf—licking at Galbraith’s leg. Just his leg. The rest of the alpha was nowhere in sight.

“Eehk.” Zee recoiled. “Dicks, and fingers, and now legs?! I am so done with this shit.”

Duke howled again and shot from the bar, heading outside, back to the picnic table where we’d been seated minutes ago.

Victor dashed to the door but hesitated . . . “He’s heading toward the motel again. Adam?”

“Go. Stay on him.”

But Victor didn’t move. “The killer is likely close. They know we’re here.”

“We’ll be alright.” I crouched by Galbraith’s severed leg. “Track Duke, he has the scent. But if you find anything, come back here.”

“Very well. Stay . . . safe.” Victor vanished again, leaving Zee and me standing amid the grizzly scene.

“Imma take a guess and say Galbraith ain’t the loop-guru unless he cut off his own fuckin’ leg.”

“No, it’s not him.” Poking the top of the leg, where the claws had cut through the thigh, I separated the sliced leather from the flesh. The cut was almost surgically sharp. There hadn’t been any hacking or grinding, just one savage slice. “Whatever we’re dealing with is real strong, Zee.”

Zee’s tail thrashed. He looked around the bar. “Where’s the rest of the pack?”

“Duke mentioned they’re on a ride-out. Whoever is doing this knew Galbraith and Kate would be alone.”

“Yeah, but who? It’s not Duke, he was with us.”

“Was he, though?” I looked up from my crouched position. “We didn’t come into the bar. We spoke to him outside. He could have done this, seen us coming, and held us up.” Getting to my feet, my heart began to pound. “He’s the only other person around, Zee. He eats tiny animals, and he’s mean.”

“I dunno . . . It doesn’t feel right. I’m good at reading people, and sure, he’s a bunny-eating asshole, but slicing off his alpha’s leg doesn’t seem like his style.” Zee began to pace, heels taping the floorboards.

“Zee, you don’t trust the local postman because he’s too happy, but you think Duke wouldn’t murder?”

“It’s fuckin’ valid.” His tail flicked. “Nobody is that happy. He’s a paper-obsessed psycho.”

“Duke is the only one left. It has to be him.” The beta was playing us. He didn’t want us snooping around his territory, but couldn’t go directly against Galbraith. He maybe even wanted Galbraith out of the way, his rule upended to make it look as though Galbraith could no longer protect his pack. Either way, he was dangerous. “Oh no. I just sent Victor after him, alone.”

I dashed for the door—but didn’t make it.

The liquid form of something not quite wolf and not human either dropped from the ceiling. Twice my size, it spread part-shifted, muscular arms tipped with four deadly claws on each spindly hand, and roared through a mouth full of viciously long teeth.

“Or . . .” Zee squeaked. “Just a thought . . . It’s that!”

CHAPTER 13

The loup-garou rushed me, claws out, like a monstrous freight train of muscle and meanness. I braced, expecting the worst and prepared to take it, just so long as it didn’t get to Zee.

Purple sparks rained. Zee’s wings exploded in front of me, blocking my view, and then a bone-crunching smack sounded. “And fuckin’ stay down you weird-ass giant bug thing.”

Zee had swatted it.

A scream erupted—the sound like nothing I’d heard or felt before. Physical dissonance sliced through my body and bones. Clamping my hands over my ears, I dropped, trying to muffle the horrible noise. Zee rocked. His wings flapped. I saw sparks fly, but the scream splintered my sight too, until the world became a blur.

It cut off. I shook the fuzz from my head and blinked, sharpening my focus.

The loup-garou held Zee off the floor by his neck, while the creature’s other claw-tipped hand rested against Zee’s exposed midriff, over his arrow tattoo, ready to slice him in half.

Zee kicked uselessly, and his wings flapped, but the beast had him. He couldn’t focus enough to translocate or he would have already.

“Easy . . .” I spread my hands, showing the loup-garou I was unarmed. It didn’t need to know I was more lethal without weapons. “We’re just here to find the truth. Talk to us . . . tell us what’s happening . . . we’ll listen.”

Zee’s choking sounds triggered my rage. This creature had a few more seconds, then it was going to wish it had never met us.

Victor was out there somewhere, and as we’d now established, the creature staring at me and threatening to cut half my heart in half was not Duke, because Duke was out there too. Any moment now, they’d barge back in. A dragon, demon, vampire, and werewolf force would be enough to make any beast hesitate.

A wet gurgling sound came from the creature’s lips . . . Laughter?

That couldn’t be good.

“I don’t want to be the asshole here,” I warned. “But if you continue to hurt him, I will destroy you. I think you know I can, right? We’re pretty similar, you and me . . .”

The bubbling laughter cut off and the creature’s gaze fixed on me. I saw something more in the creature’s eyes too.

I . . . knew them?

With a howling screech, the loup-garou flung Zee across the bar. He struck the wall behind the counter, shattering bottles, and dropped into a mass of broken glass. I vaulted over the bar and dropped behind it, wincing at the countless cuts all over Zee’s bare arms and face.

“Are you alright?”

“Yeah . . .” he croaked, pushing onto his hands.

I stole a glance over the bar, but we were alone and the door hung open. The loup-garou had gone, perhaps after Duke and Victor.

“Zee, are you really alright? Can you stand?”

“Yeah, yeah, they’re just surface scratches. I got this.” He wobbled to his feet. “It’s a giant bug, right? You saw that? Some kind of fuck-off enormous ant thing?”

It was more than that. “Zee, it’s Jenny.”

“The fuck?!” He flung his wings wide and gave himself an all-over shake, dislodging more glass. “Gen Z Jenny? She’s the gut-slicing murder guru? No fuckin’ way. I liked her socials. Ugh.”

“We need to find Victor and Duke before she does.”

I should have seen it before. Jenny knew the pack’s daily routines, knew the area well, knew everyone who stayed at the motel and when the bar would be empty. But I didn’t know why she’d gone on a murder spree . . . not yet. Right now, though, our main concern had to be stopping her and finding the rest of Galbraith—and hope he was still alive.

“So, here’s a thought.” Zee limped alongside me out the front of the bar. “We could hop into the Murder Machine, grab Zander—since he’s the only nice person here—and hightail it the fuck out of Misty Psycho Town?”

“We made a vow.”

“Oh, fuck. Ugh. You have morals. Right.”

“Victor?” I called. The motel and its eerily quiet lot swallowed my voice. No traffic, no signs of life at all. The mist had never really left, but clung on even heavier, obscuring the forest in all directions.

“He’s tough. He won’t let her cut him up twice.” Zee tried to reassure me and probably himself too. “Man, it sucks it’s her. Are you sure?”

“Pretty much, yeah. I’m guessing she used the perfume to cover her scent.”

“But she’s so small and cutsey, and she had all those little succulents in tiny pots.”

“Speaking from experience, small and cute is how the best predators hide.”

“Over there . . .” Zee hobbled toward our van, and the patch of blood sinking into the ground beside it. “That can’t be good. You think it’s Victor’s?”

“I don’t know . . .” But there was a trail of scuff marks and drips of blood heading into the forest.

“Ugh, of course she’s going into the woods, where all the fun things happen and definitely nobody dies.”

“We have to follow.”

“Yeah.” Zee gave his wings a shake. “And I can’t even get a look from above through this mist. This is the worst fuckin’ motel ever—even worse than ours. I’m leaving a one-star review.”

We followed the trail around the back of the motel, where a few broken air-conditioning units hummed and rattled. The forest suddenly looked very deep and dark and not at all friendly.

“Yeah, after this place, I’m really beginning to miss our hotel.”

“I even miss the gremlins,” Zee said. “I gave ’em names.”

“All of them?”

“Hard to tell. They all sorta look the same.”

“Victor?” I called, but the thick trees stopped the sound dead.

“I even named the real fuckin’ grumpy one Victor—you know, the one who looks like a potato that’s been in the ground too long?” Zee chuckled . . . then swallowed, and stared into the murky gloom between the pillar-like trunks.

“I know the one.” The grumpy gremlin looked nothing like Victor, but its personality wasn’t far off.

Zee peered into the trees, searching for our grumpy vampire.

“We could have gone south . . . somewhere warm. Could be on a beach sipping cocktails, rubbing oil all over you⁠—”

“You hate sand.”

“I also hate mist, the damp, polyester, frogs, and whatever the fuck this oppressive, suffocating, spooky atmosphere is.” He huffed and stomped on. “Kitten, are we rescuing Daddy Spice again?”

“Maybe?”

With a dramatic eye roll, Zee strode into the gloom.

We tracked the scuffs and turned-over leaf litter for what felt like miles, our steps noisy in the thick silence.

Zee looked up and whispered, “Tracks stop here. She took whoever she has up there, maybe? Or, I dunno . . . There’s nowhere else to go.”

“Can you poof up there?”

“Sure, if you want our location lit up with purple fireworks.”

There wasn’t much around, just more trees and a wall of brush that seemed like a great place to hide if you happened to be a seven-foot shapeshifter. Closing in on the bushes, I found a slight gap in their knotted foliage and shoved my way between the thorns.

A ravine opened up on the other side, like a huge gash in the earth, with a small creek all the way at the bottom. That drop had to be near a hundred feet.

Sudden movement snagged my senses. A cool hand slammed over my mouth, and Victor purred in my ear. “It’s me, my dear. Do not fear.”

I hadn’t been afraid. In fact, I’d gone from startled to intrigued, and now I was distracted by having his firmness folded around me and his lips tickling my ear.

“You could say hello like a normal person,” Zee whispered, creeping in to join us in the brush.

“The loup-garou has a den in the side of the ravine, tucked under the cliff edge,” Victor explained, taking his hand from over my mouth and shifting it to rest softly—and comfortingly—around my neck.

“It’s Jenny,” I told him. “She’s the loup-garou.”

His dark-lashed eyes widened. “Ah. Unexpected and disappointing, but perhaps not surprising.”

“Where’s Duke?” I asked, still distracted by Victor’s thumb now gently stroking my jaw. He probably didn’t even know he was doing it.

“The beta werewolf headed into the ravine, perhaps to find a route inside the den. Unfortunately, werewolves when shifted are difficult to communicate with. I do not know his intentions.”

“Do you think she has Galbraith in there?”

“Undoubtedly. The blood trail vanishes over there, but picks up again by the edge here.”

“Alive?” Zee asked.

“Possibly. If he is, he’s unconscious. There haven’t been any sounds of a struggle.”

“Alright, we’re here, so . . . how do we do this?” The bottom of the ravine was a long way down. Long enough that a fall would kill most things, and would definitely ruin my day. Zee had wings, but I didn’t, and Victor could probably scale the cliff edges. If I had my claws out, I might be able to scramble down.

“I could translocate outside the den, but not inside without seeing the layout. Don’t wanna end up with Gen Z on my insides.”

“We don’t know what we’d be walking into. Luring her out is more likely to result in our success,” Victor added.

“How do you lure out a loup-garou?” I asked.

“Wait.” Zee thrust out a palm. “I got this.” He stretched his arms and cracked his knuckles. “Gen Z is literally named after me.” And with that, he hopped off the cliff edge and flapping his wings, descended into the ravine. As he hovered about halfway down, he started speaking in riddles. “For real, for real, your den is literally givin’ right now, girl,” he called. “The aesthetic so understated slay. Major earth-core vibes, bestie. Need me a natural setup like this, for real. Touch grass? Nah girl, you're livin’ the grass aesthetic on god!”

“I have no idea what he’s saying,” I admitted.

“It is rather perplexing.”

A growling snarl appeared to be Jenny’s reply.

"Listen, bestie,” Zee continued, wings stroking the air. “Not gonna lie, I get it’s giving cozy cave-girl vibes in there, but you can’t keep ghostin’ those feels. Like, no shade, but mental health check? We need to talk through this in real life. Your vibe’s been off, what with all the actual slayin’, and we’re low-key worried, boo. Dead serious, stayin’ in your comfort zone twenty-four seven ain’t the serve you think it is. My broskis are here for you, but you gotta take that first step and touch grass with us. Can’t heal if you’re low-key stuck in your own head, you feel me?"

The growls didn’t come this time. So maybe it was progress?

“Was Gen Z really named after Zee?” I whispered.

“It is highly unlikely, but we’ll let him take the credit.”

“Nah bro, for real, you just don’t get it.” Jenny’s voice came back crisp and clear now. “Like, literally nobody understands the vibe of being a main character in their villain era. It’s giving social outcast for real, and y’all can’t relate. Being shunned hits different when you’re actually living it. Like deadass, I’m not just in my flop era for fun.”

“Can you translate?” I asked Victor.

“I believe she is trying to express how she’s an outcast, and feels as though nobody understands her.”

“She feels alone.” I flicked out my hands, freeing my claws. I knew exactly how she felt. “Jenny?” I called. “I’m coming down. Don’t attack.”

“Adam?” Victor queried. His hand rested on my shoulder, partially holding me back.

“It’s alright.” Gently easing him off, I smiled, hopefully reassuring him. “We’re not that different, and I know exactly what she’s feeling. I can get through to her. Trust me.”

“Very well, but if you need my assistance, say our safe word.”

I grinned. “Indigo. Got it.” And with that, I dropped over the edge and thrust my claws into dirt, roots, and vegetation to scramble down the ravine’s steep sides. “I’m coming in.” I dropped into the mouth of the den, landing in a crouch.

“Say the word and I’m there,” Zee called from his hovering position outside.

Jenny stood a few meters inside with the slumped-over Galbraith behind her. With a leg missing, he wasn’t having the best day, but he was still breathing. We could still save him.

“Hey, it’s alright . . .”

Jenny had seen my claws, and looked at me harder than when we’d spoken before. “You think you understand me? You think you know what it’s like to be low-key shunned because of what you are? To have this rage inside? This need to be loved but to always be ignored or pushed away?”

“I do know.” I raised my hands, projecting calm, and ventured a step closer. “I meant what I said; we’re kinda the same.”

She sniffed, her expression troubled, and rubbed at her arms. “You kill people too?”

“Uh . . . sort of. Sometimes? But I guess what I really meant is that I understand the rage. Sometimes it’s all there is, all you can see and taste and feel, and you can’t contain it anymore. You’re tired and angry. You’ve been alone for a really long time, and it hurts. Believe me, I really do know how that feels.”

“For real.” She sniffed. “I saw what they did to Zander—how they kicked him out—but I thought if I burned his cabin, they’d have no choice. They’d have to take him back. I didn’t mean to hurt him, but he came at me with a shotgun, bro!” Her skin rippled, beginning to come undone.

“It’s alright.”

Calmer, she fought the urge to shift. “But the pack still won’t take him back. They won’t accept him. So they’ll never except me, and if they can’t accept me the way I am, then they can all be dead! Everyone made me their villain, so here I am! Low-key gonna murder them all!”

“Uhm, well, that’s one way of looking at it. I was like that too, I guess. And you know what, the more I uh . . . unalived people, the more it hurt, and the more I had to end more people to try and fix the pain . . . until nobody was left. That loneliness was my own fault. I did it to myself, Jenny, and I know it hurts. But if you see how you’ve hurt yourself too, then you can maybe try and start to heal? It’s not all your fault.”

She sniffed again, close to tears. “You’re a dragon? For real?”

“Yeah.”

“The last?”

“I thought so . . . I maybe missed one, but that’s not important right now.”

“How do you live every day knowing you’re alone and different and everyone hates you?” The rage was back, her tears fizzling away. “Why don’t you just eat them all?”

“I’ve thought about it a few times. There are still days I feel like that, but I found two amazing people. They showed me a different view, I guess.”

“Great for you. But I got nobody. My own family didn’t want me. The Whiteacre Riders don’t deserve me!”

Galbraith huffed, still out cold but sounding as though he might be struggling to breathe.

“Jenny, I hear you, I do, but . . . right now, you have to let Galbraith go. Leaving him there to die isn’t going to fix anything. It’s not going to make you less angry. I know, trust me.”

“Yeah, it will. Actually . . . he’s gonna die and I’m going to watch the light snuff out of his eyes because I have sigma energy and I don’t need a pack . . . I don’t need anyone.” She spun and marched over to where Galbraith wheezed.

I could have been her. If I hadn’t found Zee, if Victor hadn’t checked into the hotel, I may have eaten everyone who I thought deserved it, and this would be where I’d have ended up—in a cave, in the woods, a little bit mad, and very alone. It could still happen. We were all just a few bad days away from going on a murder spree.

“Jenny.” I needed a way to get through to her—reason wasn’t working. “Jenny . . . what about your plants?” It was a long shot. “All those succulents?” Yeah, okay, it was a stretch.

“The plants are all plastic, bro. I tried to grow real ones, even they didn’t want me. They withered and died to spite me.” She knelt beside the wounded alpha. “It won’t be long now. You’ll die and maybe I’ll take over the pack, hm?”

I was beginning to get the impression Jenny may be beyond my reach, but I had to try. “It doesn’t have to be like this.” I inched closer. “You don’t have to hurt everyone else because you’re hurting.”

“I heard your speech, Adam. You can go now. Or stay and watch him die. You might get a kick out of it too, huh?” The smirk she sent over her shoulder did not convince me this was going to get better. “If we’re so alike, join me. We don’t have to stop here, we can go north, go town to town, make them all pay.”

Victor had told me several times that we couldn’t save them all.

I’d been saved, when I really shouldn’t have been. Jenny didn’t have anyone to save her . . . just us.

I took another careful step. “Jenny, please listen . . . It’s not too late. Stop now, let Galbraith live. We’ll help you find a way through this⁠—”

“You seem nice, Adam. If we’d met before, things could have been different. But I have a taste for blood, and as you know, deep down, once you feel this power, once you see the life drain right out of someone, there’s no going back.” Her form shifted and warped, splitting apart and stitching back together in the large, fluid, long-limbed humanoid outline of the loup-garou.

The other thing Victor had taught me is that you cannot save those who don’t want to be saved.

“Werewolf incoming!” Zee yelled.

I twisted in time to see fifteen hundred pounds of werewolf fur barreling down on me. Duke knocked me aside as easily as swatting a fly. I stumbled, braced against the rock wall, and whirled.

Duke reared up on his hind legs, huge jaws open to snap around Jenny’s neck. But Jenny was on her feet too. She met his assault with a vicious slash. Duke danced back, dropped to all fours, then lunged and sank his teeth into her arm. Jenny let out a screeching wail and punched the claws of her free hand up, delivering an uppercut that sank four vicious claws deep into Duke’s snout.

“Stop!”

“A little late, Kitten.” Zee sauntered in. “Hey, Gen Z, wanna cookie?” He tossed a packet of Oreos at Jenny’s face. Jenny, not knowing what he’d thrown—maybe a hand grenade—recoiled, dropping Duke. Reeling, she stumbled backward over Galbraith’s motionless body.

Zee poofed in front of her, illuminating the entire den with neon purple light.

She made an attempt at swiping for him, but blinded by purple sparks, she missed. Zee ducked, danced away, and smacked an accurate jab between her eyes.

Jenny rocked, dropped to the den floor in a limp fwlop, and lay still.

“Ah-ha!” Zee cheered. “Foiled by Oreos! Told you they’re versatile.”

Victor appeared and surveyed the scene. Duke huffed on the opposite side of the den, clearly in pain, but Galbraith was in a bad way and barely breathing. “We need to get Galbraith out of here.”

“You wanna lick his leg?” Zee asked Victor.

“Why would I lick a werewolf’s leg?”

“To make it better,” Zee replied, as though licking was an obvious solution.

“If you’re suggesting my saliva might help reattach a werewolf’s leg, I fear it does not work like that.”

“It stuck your finger back on.”

While they argued about what vampire saliva did and did not heal, I knelt beside Duke. His nose and mouth were all bloody, but at least he was upright. “Hey . . . How you doin’? Can you walk out of here?”

His tongue lolled out and the big werewolf gave an acknowledging huff, which I guessed meant yes.

“You guys are going to have to carry Galbraith out. I can’t hold anyone and climb at the same time.”

“What about Gen Z?” Zee asked.

I eyed the unconscious loup-garou. She wouldn’t be out for long. Someone needed to deal with her. “Maybe we can take her back to the SSD? They have facilities . . .” I trailed off as I was met with two doubting expressions. It would take a long time for the SSD to reach us . . . and they’d lock her in a cell, away from everyone and everything. Killing her would be a mercy compared to that.

“While you chew on your morals, imma move the alpha.” Zee carefully lifted Galbraith and poofed outside, leaving sparks behind.

Jenny’s rhythmic breathing shortened. She was waking up.

“Sometimes cruelty is a kindness.” Victor made everything sound so reasonable, even murder.

Zee poofed back and tried to argue with Duke that translocating him out would be quicker, but nobody is picking up a werewolf who doesn’t want to be picked up. Despite limping badly, Duke made his own way out.

“Have you guys got this?” Zee asked us. “I need to get Galbraith to the vet lady before he fuckin’ dies and we get blamed for it. Again.”

“Yeah, go Zee, we’ve got this.”

Zee poofed away, leaving Victor and me to deal with the bloodthirsty loup-garou.

I sensed Victor moving closer, and said, “I don’t want to kill people.”

“I know.” His hand settled on my shoulder. “You’re not the same, Adam. There’s a kindness in your heart that even the horrors of this world cannot erase.”

My heart would save the world. That’s what the prophecy had hammered into me my entire life.

Jenny’s eyes flew open. She screamed, igniting that same horrible pitch as before. Victor dropped, hands over his ears, silently screaming.

Jenny sprang—at me.

Four claws thrust into my middle, lifted me off my feet, and slammed me against the den’s rock wall. Her scream cut off, but there was a new agony now, one of pain and burning in my gut, where her claws definitely should not be.

Victor knelt, panting, head down. Blood dribbled from his ear, down his cheek.

She’d hurt him.

And all that kindness in my heart Victor had spoken of rapidly evaporated.

“You should not have done that,” I growled, baring blunt human teeth.

Jenny’s thin, pale lips stretched into a grin. “Your soft heart makes you weak.”

I grabbed her outstretched arm, wrapped my fingers around it, and squeezed. “You’re wrong. My strength comes from my heart.” Without it, I’d have been as cold and vicious as my brother—as all of them. That’s why I was different, why I’d survived, and why I had to fight.

Her smile twitched, then fell away.

I tightened my grip.

She buckled, leaning into the pain.

I squeezed harder. The bones in her arm creaked.

“Wait—” Her claws withdrew, jerking from my middle, but I hardly felt it. I’d heal . . . she wouldn’t.

“My heart makes me stronger.”

Her forearm shattered.

She opened her mouth to scream. I slammed a hand over it.

“I don’t want to hurt people, but people keep hurting me,” I told her, marching her backwards, toward the den opening. She bucked and writhed, trying to wriggle out of my grip, but my strength was a hundred times hers, all wrapped up in a neat little Adam Vex package. “My heart makes me ruthless.”

Her eyes widened, realization sinking in. She’d had her chances, and now came the consequences.

At the mouth of the den, I dangled her over the edge and the hundred-foot drop to the ravine bottom.

“I’m sorry,” I told her. “Truly.”

I let go.

She screamed, but her scream quickly faded the farther she fell—then abruptly cut off.

It was over.

I thrust my hands into my pockets and huffed.

Should I have felt more, instead of just empty sadness for the waste that had been Jenny’s life?

Victor’s hand settled on my shoulder again. I took it, and placed his arm around my waist instead, leaning back against his chest.

“We can only save those who wish to be saved.” His powerful voice reverberated through me, chasing away the hollowness, making itself at home somewhere in my soul.

“She didn’t have anyone.” What I didn’t say was how I could have been her . . . and I could be again if Victor and Zee were ever taken from me. Alone, afraid, enraged . . . I’d be like her, but a thousand times worse.

Victor placed a soft kiss on the top of my head. “Come now, do not dwell on it. We have fulfilled our vow; it’s time we moved on.”

Twisting in his arms, I peered into his eyes. “How are you so calm? How have you lived so long without crumbling under the weight of it all? Do you . . . not care, Victor? Is that how you face every day?”

“I’ve lived many centuries, seen a great many atrocities, and I’ve learned to quickly push the pain aside.”

“Oh.”

“That does not mean I do not feel it.” He grasped my face. “It’s always there, waiting to consume me. We must not let it.” He kissed me hard and quick on the forehead.

Burying my face against his chest, I welcomed his arms closing in like a safety net. We were going to be alright, because we had each other. Nobody could take that away, not even my brother.

CHAPTER 14

“Our pack owes you a great debt, Adam,” Galbraith grumbled from his seat at the bar table. Chatter from the pack bubbled around us, along with chinking glasses and occasional laughter, while a baseball game streamed on the wall-mounted TV.

It had been a few days since we’d dealt with Jenny and gotten Galbraith to safety. Duke was doing okay. He’d had his puncture wounds cleaned and wrapped, but refused painkillers, so he glared from a barstool, eying us as though waiting for a true reveal in which we’d been the killers all along.

Galbraith had gotten his leg stitched back on by Mia, the vet. It turned out Duke’s licking had helped, kinda like vampire saliva helped heal their bites, and Zee claimed victory over Victor for knowing more than him regarding werewolf tongues.

Everything appeared to be back to normal for this part of the rural north west.

“But maybe don’t make a career out of sleuthing,” Galbraith suggested, taking a swig of his beer.

I chuckled into my whiskey. We hadn’t really been all that good at solving a murder, but despite our chaotic methods, we did get the job done. And nobody else had died, regardless of Jenny’s best efforts.

“You ever need a favor, Adam of the San Francisco City Pack, we’ll be here,” Galbraith said.

I nodded our thanks. Hopefully, it wouldn’t come to that. These people had already gone through enough, especially Zander. He chatted at the bar with Zee, the pair of them engaged in lots of arm waving—Zander’s still in a sling—and back slapping.

“Where are you headed now?” Galbraith asked.

That was a good question . . . One I did not have the answer to. We’d already stayed too long and did need to get back on the road, but I had no idea where to.

Galbraith picked up on my hesitation, probably sensing uncertainty. “You’re more’n welcome to hole up here. Motel’s gonna need new management and I hear you got experience.”

“Thank you, but we already have our hands full with our hotel.”

“Alright, then. Well, good luck to you.”

“If you’re ever in San Francisco, drop by,” I told him. “The SOS Hotel is supernaturally safe for all.”

Galbraith’s grin stretched across his whiskered face. He glanced at the bar where Victor, Zee, and Zander continued their animated conversation. Although Victor mostly just watched on stoically. “I might just do that. The three of you make formidable allies.”

“What about Zander?” I asked. “I spoke to our barman—uh acting manager, Tom Collins—and we have an extra room.” Tom had called Zee earlier in the day and yelled at him in profanity-riddled threats to never hang up, ever again, or Tom would distribute all Zee’s dildos to the gremlins. After that traumatic declaration, Tom had confirmed that the weird, average-looking guy—my brother—had left the hotel a few days ago. Which was both good and bad news.

“We’ll take Zander back, if he wants to return,” Galbraith admitted. “With Cameron gone, and seein’ what our shunning did to the girl, we’re comin’ around to the idea it may have been misguided to shut folks out.”

“The different ones bring the best ideas. You should look out for each other.”

Zee continued his dramatic hand and tail waving, prompting Zander to laugh.

“We gave him Jenny’s truck, since he’s not much of a biker. What he does now is up to him.” Galbraith extended his massive hand. I reached out and braced for the bone-crushing grip. The painful handshake was over in a few seconds, but I’d be feeling it for a few hours. “The Whiteacre Falls pack thanks you. I reckon whatever you’re running from will realize they’ve bitten off more than they can chew.”

“Running?” I spluttered. “Ha, ha. What?” More spluttered laughter fell out of me. “We’re not . . . it’s not . . . it’s just . . . No. What? That’s not a thing we’re doing.” More laughter. Did it sound strained? “Anyhoo.” I stood, scratching the chair legs across the sticky floor. “We uh . . . we’d better get back on the road. Destiny uh . . . waits for no one. I guess.”

Galbraith saluted me with his beer glass. “See you ’round, Adam Vex.”

I caught Victor’s eye and nodded, signaling it was time to leave, and he tapped Zee on the shoulder. Zee saw me, gave Zander a sudden, massive hug, then blew a kiss at the growling Duke and the three of us filed out of the bar into the foggy parking lot.

“Not gonna miss this murk,” Zee said, snarling at the overhanging blanket of mist. He stretched his wings out and raised them over his head, trying to divert the drizzle. “Zander said he might take us up on our offer to stay,” Zee added. “They gave him Jenny’s beat-up ol’ truck so he can come visit, but he’s gonna try and mend ties with the pack first.”

“That seems sensible for a man who collects dildos as ornaments,” Victor remarked.

“Judgy McFancy Fangs over here can’t talk when he owns a frog ornament . . . like a psycho.”

“That you gave me as a gift, if you recall.”

“Ssh, nobody likes vampires. Also, I was very drunk and you took advantage of my inebriated, vulnerable self,” Zee said, with a grin. Victor opened his mouth, probably to deny doing any such thing, but Zee spoke over him. “So, where to next? Vegas, right? Say fuckin’ Vegas. I’m fuckin’ made for Vegas, baby. The lights, the drama, the rampant gambling addictions, the glitz, the fuckin’ glam, and mental-health implications!” He moaned as though he were deprived of pleasure. “Come to Uncle Zee.”

“If we wish to keep our whereabouts a secret, putting you in the middle of Sin City is a terrible idea.”

“Victor’s right.”

“Ugh.” Zee rolled his eyes, horns, shoulders, and wings until all of him had visibly deflated, but he soon brightened again as an idea must have formed. “I can do boring Zee, remember?”

I did remember, but honestly, boring Zee was just as attention grabbing as normal Zee. Zee was always going to be Zee, no matter what glamor he wore.

“Or as a last resort, Jasyn-with-a-y?” Zee fluttered a hand over himself, vanishing his wings, and wove the glamor of his dull-human disguise. “Remember this guy? So average, so human, but also incredibly handsome and a big hit with the police commissioner’s wife?”

“Frankly, I’d prefer to forget,” Victor grumbled.

I laughed as they both headed toward the van. “I’ll grab our bags. You guys get the van warmed up.”

Zee bounced along, pretending to be human, and Victor followed, eyebrows raised in disbelief.

“Don’t forget the Oreos!” Zee called.

“Right.” I broke into a jog, eager to get us on the road again.

Zee’s sing-song voice sailed across the lot. “Vegas, baby, here we come.”

We were not going to Vegas. I couldn’t think of anywhere Zee was more likely to be recognized, then put on a pedestal and worshipped by all his adoring fans. The chances of him being subtle were about as likely as Victor wearing a rainbow shirt and singing “YMCA” in heels. Impossible.

I pushed open the motel room door—and jolted to a stop.

My brother stood in the middle of the room.

My heart stopped too, and my thoughts. Every part of me seized, frozen by fear.

“Close the door, Mydros.” His voice was deeper than his appearance suggested, and his accent sounded strange to my American-tuned ears.

Swallowing, I closed the door on the distant voices of Victor and Zee arguing over how Vegas was both a brilliant and terrible idea. They had to leave, they had to go now or Syros would kill them.

I had to get them away.

If I could distract Syros, they might have a chance.

I had to do something.

Anything.

I stared. Stuck.

He shouldn’t have been here.

How had he found us?

Was he alone?

“It took a while to find you.” He tapped the tower of Oreo boxes. “When you run, you run hard. I remember that. But your demon friend made the mistake of posting about these cookies on his social media feeds, and it just so happened the name of this motel was in the background of one of those images.”

Oh, Zee . . .

“I’ll go with you,” I blurted, voice small. “Let’s go. You and me. Right now.”

Syros’s smirk cut like a slash across his face. The corner of his lips tugged on the vicious scar in his cheek. He could have used glamor to hide it, but instead he kept it on display . . . for me. “No, our original deal is off the table. You had your chance to save them and failed.”

He was going to kill Victor and Zee. They’d try to fight, and they’d hold out for a while, but even if we worked together, we wouldn’t be strong enough to stop him.

He’d kill them because he could, because he wanted to, because they were nothing to him and everything to me . . . because I deserved it.

Syros tucked his thumbs into his pockets, making himself look approachable. We even looked alike. Brothers. So human, so harmless, definitely not dragons the size of this motel and the bar combined.

My disguise had been perfect, and so was his.

“You always knew I was coming for you,” he said.

“I thought you were dead.”

“You believed you’d killed me?” His thick, wicked laugh brought back all the times he’d hunted me down. All the times I’d barely escaped his jaws. All the times I’d fled, broken and bleeding. “Ah, baby brother. You always were delusional.” He shrugged and looked around the motel room. “I gotta thank you, though, for doing all the heavy lifting this side of the veil. Seems like folks here aren’t afraid of dragons. It’ll make things easier when I take it all for myself.”

The hungry, predatory gleam in his eyes left no room for doubt. Gideon Cain had had aspirations of becoming a god, but he was always going to be just a megalomaniac sorcerer. My brother, however . . . He could level a city in minutes. He could raze the US capital. He could burn millions of innocent people in the blink of an eye.

No, no . . . this was . . . very bad.

“But don’t worry, I’m not going to kill you straight away. You can watch as I burn everything you love . . . burn it all and make myself king of this world. Won’t that be fun? Just like old times.”

“Just like old times . . .” I echoed, remembering the home I’d fled, full of fire and ashes.

No. Nope. Not going to happen. Not here, not ever again.

We would stop him. We had to. I wasn’t alone anymore. I had Zee, and Victor, and the demons, a few hundred gremlins, and maybe a few extra werewolves? But I couldn’t stop him here, not now. I wasn’t ready. If we fought, everyone around me would die. I needed space and time to figure it out.

“Yeah . . . I guess . . . okay.” I scratched my chin, buying precious seconds. “Seems like I don’t have a choice, so—” A sudden shove, and over went the tower of Oreos. My brother’s yelp followed as I dashed out of the room and bolted toward the van. “Start the engine!” I yelled, arms waving.

Victor was behind the wheel, with Zee—his Jasyn disguise gone—leaning on the open passenger door. They stopped chatting and looked over.

“Victor! Start it, right now!” My shoes splashed through puddles. I almost tripped, then righted myself.

They both stared, surprised, and their eyes widened when they saw what must have been Syros leaving the motel room behind me.

“Who’s this guy?” Zee asked.

“Get in the back!” I barked. Zee poofed into the back of the van just as I reached the door, swung around it, and flung myself into the front passenger seat. “Go, go, go.”

Victor turned the key, but the old van coughed and whined, its engine struggling to start.

“C’mon,” I whined. “We need to go right now.”

Zee leaned between the two front seats. “He doesn’t look like much. I can take ’im,” he growled, staring through the windshield.

I looked up, and there he was—Syros, walking toward us as though he had all the time in the world. If Zee went out there, Syros would crush him like a bug.

“No, you can’t, Zee,” I snapped. “Victor, make the van go!”

“I am attempting to do exactly that.” He flicked the key off then on again, and pumped the throttle pedal as the engine whined.

Syros was almost on us. His smile filled his face. His scar stood out crimson against his skin.

The engine coughed again, then stuttered, almost catching.

“Uhm . . . Adam?” Zee mumbled. “What the⁠—”

Syros’s human glamor exploded, and in the wake of that sudden blast of power came the unfurling of a scaled body a whole lot bigger than our van, and growing.

Zee gulped. “The fuck?”

Bigger, Syros grew. Glossy green scales filled the windshield.

“It’s a dragon! Sweet baby Gareth, we gonna die,” Zee squeaked. “Adam, it’s a fuckin’ dragon!”

“I know!”

The van’s engine caught with a shudder. Victor rammed it into reverse and spun the vehicle backward, away from the enormous, still-growing dragon. He swung the van in a savage J-turn, squealing the tires as we hit the asphalt of the road.

Zee shifted to the back of the van now, and peered out the rear window. “Drive!”

Thrusting the stick into gear, Victor lurched our beat-up old van forward, plowing into the murk.

“Guys, Godzilla with wings is comin’.”

I peered in the side mirror and saw Syros’s massive jaws snap together close to the back of the van. Another lunge like that, and he’d swallow us in one bite.

Zee yelped. “Faster!”

Victor’s glance caught mine. The accelerator pedal was on the floor. The van was maxed out.

“I’m too young to die in this shitty rental van. There’s too much I want to do. I haven’t ridden a camel yet! Victor, do something!”

“I’m doing it!”

If I jumped out of the van and shifted, I could slow Syros down enough that they’d be able to escape. It might just work. They’d be alright⁠—

I grabbed the door handle.

“No!” Victor warned, knowing exactly what I was thinking. “We are in this together.”

A massive clawed foot slammed down behind us. The impact rocked the ground, shuddering through the van and us.

A bend in the road sprang out of the murk. Victor shifted down a gear, the van lurched, and we skidded sideways around the corner. Syros plowed on, uprooting countless trees, sending them flying around us. Trunks, dirt, and branches rained, slamming onto the road.

“There!” I pointed left, at a side road.

Victor yanked on the wheel, veering us onto the narrow winding road that wasn’t much more than a fire break. If I couldn’t fight Syros, then hiding was our best bet. While he was huge, and we were tiny in comparison, we might just be able to sneak away.

“Slower . . . Slow down.”

Victor put the brakes on, and the van bounced, skidding on gravel.

“Slower,” I urged again.

“Should we not be going faster?” Victor asked, checking the mirrors.

“Trust me. He’s too big and too angry to notice us now. But we gotta go slow and quiet.”

Victor idled the van down the track. The ground trembled, like earthquake after earthquake, shaking the trees lining our track, but gradually, the shaking faded.

A blast of orange light made the mist glow.

Dragon fire . . . but far in the distance.

We were going to be alright.

This time.

We trundled on, driving until we met up with a main stretch of road again. Victor planted his foot to the floor and the van growled away, leaving my brother and Whiteacre Falls far behind. He might return to the bar, but Galbraith would ensure he would not get a warm welcome. I could only hope Syros didn’t try to bleed information out of them.

“So uh . . .” Zee spoke first, breaking the silence several hours after our escape. “I’m guessing we just met your brother?”

“Yeah . . .”

“I’m all for meeting family, but yours tried to eat us.”

“Uhm. Sorry.”

Zee reached between the front seats and grabbed my hand. “Can’t choose ’em, right.”

“Yeah.”

It had been close. Too close. We had to run harder and faster. We needed to get further away.

After driving through the night, Victor pulled the van into a gas station to refuel. “We need a plan,” he said, switching to the back seat so Zee could drive.

“We have to go somewhere no one will ever think to look,” I added. “Somewhere far away, where nobody asks questions.”

“Somewhere weird, so our brand blends right in,” Zee said, adjusting the seat to accommodate his long legs.

Where could we go where a vampire, demon, and human wouldn’t raise eyebrows? Where our notoriety wouldn’t be recognized, and where nobody would sell us out? “Somewhere with nice people.” Was it too much to ask?

“Mexico?” Zee asked.

“Minnesota,” Victor declared.

To be continued . . . in SOS HOTEL 9: Icy Reception

Read on for a sneaky snippet of what’s to come . . .

SOS HOTEL 9 EXCERPT

ICY RECEPTION

The Stephanie Hotel reminded me of what the SOS Hotel may have looked like in its heyday—bustling and vibrant. Chandeliers glowed like captured stars, deep-pile carpet squished underfoot, and the magnificent staircase swept upward with dramatic flair. But despite its grand scale, a cozy atmosphere welcomed everyone inside, out of the Minnesota cold.

Zee spotted a highly polished concierge service bell on the front desk and made a beeline across the foyer, sashaying around several groups of chatting people to reach it.

“Are you not going to stop him?” Victor asked, lugging Zee’s bags as well as his own.

Stopping Zee from pressing a shiny button that said ring bell? “That window of opportunity has closed.” Assuming there had been a window to begin with.

Zee arrived at the desk and with a dramatic hand-flick, smacked the bell with his palm. Ding! It chimed brilliantly. Ding! Ding! Ding!

“Sir, there’s no need to use the bell when I’m right here and at your service,” the concierge said, looking Zee dead in the eyes. He’d been standing across the desk the entire time.

“It says to push bell, imma push bell.” Zee deliberately smacked it again.

Ding!

“Remind me never to gift him a squeaky toy,” Victor remarked under his breath.

The concierge also did not appear impressed by Zee’s enthusiasm. “Indeed,” he said, bushy unibrow burrowing deeper into his forehead.

“Kitten, we gotta get one of these,” Zee said, waving me over. He flattened his hand, about to strike the bell again.

The concierge snatched the bell away. “My name is Larimer, your concierge. How may I assist you this chilly evening?”

I dumped my bag at my feet and patted my pockets. “Hi there.” Where was my wallet? “I just . . . uhm . . . Wait, I just need to find . . .”

Larimer, a tall man with a long Roman nose that divided his thin face almost in half, peered down that nose at me. “My apologies, but if you wish to stay, we do not have any vacancies.”

“Oh.” My shoulders drooped, along with my mood. We’d been on the road for days, and if I had to spend another bumpy, uncomfortable hour in the van, I might shift just to set it on fire.

Zee spied a little bowl of lollipops, grabbed one, tore off its wrapper, and popped it between his glossy lips. “You sure?” he mumbled, then sucked on that lollipop in a way that not so long ago, most people would have had to pay to watch.

“Uh, Zee?” This fine hotel did not look like the kind of establishment that welcomed erotic lollipop licking.

Larimer’s big unibrow dug into a V above his nose.

“Adam, make Zodiac stop,” Victor grumbled, standing back, arms crossed and watching Zee with growing alarm.

“Ah, I see,” Larimer said, his tone still level and direct. “You’re the lust demon, you’re the human, and you, sir, must be the vampire.”

“Uh . . .” Wait. What? “Uhm . . . We are?”

“You’re the third group we’ve had check-in today. You should have said you were here for the Lost Ones LARP weekend. All our rooms have been reserved for the event. If you give me your payment card, I will sign you in.”

Victor produced a roll of money and slid it across the desk. “Cash is preferable.”

“Cash? How archaic. Very well.” Larimer squirrelled away the roll of cash somewhere in the desk with a flick of that eyebrow that suggested he’d take his own cut later.

While the concierge turned away to tap on the computer, I glanced at Victor, then Zee, and found Zee’s perfectly arched eyebrow directed at Victor too.

“Where did you get the cash?” I whispered to Victor.

“In the last town we stopped at, I sold a rather expensive watch to a fae trader. Cash often opens doors that digital money does not.”

Zee grinned around his lollipop. “Sly dawg.”

“Names?” the concierge prompted.

“Oh uh, Adam, Victor, and Zee.”

The concierge sighed. “Of course you are.”

“We . . . uh . . . we are, though?” I took another look around the foyer and spotted a man with slicked-back hair wearing a long black cloak. He was not so discreetly gazing at Victor. Beside the cloaked man, a young woman was dressed in knee-high glossy black boots, a tiny pair of purple shorts, and wore a hairband sporting horns. Between those two guests stood a stocky short guy wearing a pale yellow T-shirt and faded chinos.

The three of them together looked so . . . familiar.

“Sick Zee vibes, my bro.” The young woman raised her hand, and Zee automatically high-fived her.

“Thank you, gurl. You’re outfit is givin’ too.”

“Right?” She posed for Zee, cocking a hip and bending a knee. “Yours is kinda extra, though.”

Zee looked down a himself. He wore a shirt, knotted at his lower back, cinching it around his waist to show off the arrow tattoo. His boots were tame compared to hers. Somehow his low-slung pants defied gravity and clung to his narrow hips. For him, it was understated.

“The contacts are cool,” she added, referencing his naturally purple eye color. “Nice touch. Zodiac has beautiful eyes.”

“I really do,” Zee agreed. “Some say they’re my best feature.”

“But the horns are overdone.”

Zee touched his right horn, his smile fading. “What’s wrong with my horns?”

“They’re cool, just not OG. See you guys later?” She blew us a kiss and returned to her group.

Zee blinked. “Hold up . . . Is that . . . Wait . . .” He looked at me, then Victor. “Yeah, okay, I see it now. But also, hello?” He pointed at his own chest and rolled his eyes. “I am so obviously the OG Zee.”

“This event is serendipitous,” Victor remarked. “If we play this right, we will blend in without revealing the truth of who we are.”

“Right. Pfft. What he said. But also, Daddy Spice, you could have tried harder. You don’t look anything like that dime-store Dracula over there.”

Victor’s eyes narrowed. “I resemble exactly who I am.”

“That grayman outfit will never do.” Zee frowned at Victor’s creased shirt and gray trousers. “Where’s your cape?” he asked, eyes sparkling. “And fake fangs?” A snarl from Victor gave us a glimpse of real vampire fangs. “Better. But we gotta fix the overworked CEO look.”

“Here’s your room key.” Larimer handed me a keycard. “You’re in the top-floor suite. Take the stairs, the elevator is out of order. Leave your bags. I’ll have the bellhop bring them up in a few minutes.”

After passing by several more groups of costume-clad guests, we took the stairs, climbing five floors, passing more folks dressed as various Lost Ones. Some were Lost Ones, but most were humans pretending to be fae, vampires, trolls . . .

“Live Action Role Play,” Victor said, when we reached our floor. “Larp.”

“People dress up and pretend to be someone else?” I asked, guessing.

“Yes. It’s a form of entertainment and escapism.”

Bounding down the hall to our room, Zee said, “I fuckin’ love role-play.”

“There’s a surprise.” Victor waved our card over the door to room fifteen, turning the little red light on the lock green.

“Hello, handsome,” a short male human dressed as Zee said, striding by and giving us a little wave. His stubby, strap-on wings bounced.

“Hello, yourself,” Zee purred. “Nice wings.”

“Nice tail!” Short Zee called back.

“One Zodiac is frankly more than enough,” Victor remarked, opening the door and flicking the room lights on. “A hotel full of them is a daunting prospect.”

“Wow.” Zee poofed into the cavernous apartment-like hotel room, spread his arms and tail, and circled on the spot—miraculously without hitting anything. “Now this is what I’m talkin’ about.”

The enormous room was split into a living area, a kitchenette, and a double bed in the slightly raised sleeping area by the window. Double doors led through to a second, smaller room with two additional beds, but even that side room was twice the size of anything we had at the SOS Hotel.

“Oh, kinky,” Zee said, spotting the mirrors on the ceiling above the bed. He dashed into a little side room. “Oh my fuck, I’ve died and gone to a billionaire’s bathhouse in the sky.” Zee’s voice sailed from inside another room, its echo suggesting a bathroom.

Victor followed the sound of Zee’s voice and disappeared into the bathroom too. “My, my, that is generous.”

This was . . . a very nice room, but wasn’t it a bit luxurious for us? How much money had been in that roll Victor handed over? Maybe he’d gotten tired of slumming it in the van and this was his throwback to finer living?

“Rub it, vampire,” Zee was saying, his voice echoing from the bathroom.

“I am rubbing, demon.”

“Rub it harder or it won’t thicken.”

While Zee and Victor explored the facilities, I wandered around the spacious suite. Colorful fresh flowers filled a vase, and the minibar was stocked with all manner of tiny expensive-looking alcohol bottles. This was definitely too much.

Straightening, I scanned the rest of the room. With its fine art and fluffed pillows, it was definitely more than we could afford. There had to be a catch. Then, in the corner, on the same wall the bed butted up against, high up where the wall met the ceiling, a little camera stared down.

A camera . . . in a hotel room?

“Uh, guys?”

“It’ll stiffen if you pump it, like this,” Zee said, clearly instructing Victor on something important.

“Guys?”

Victor emerged, wiping his hands on a towel, and Zee followed, carrying some kind of tub. “Hair cream,” Zee explained. “If he’s going to look like a vampire, he has to fix his hair.”

“I am a vampire.”

“Up there.” I nodded at the camera.

They both fell quiet, and stared up at the little box. It wasn’t hidden, so it wasn’t for secret spying, but somehow that didn’t ease my concern.

“The fuck?!” Zee folded his arms. “I am not doing freebies.”

A camera in a private hotel room definitely wasn’t right. “I’m going to go ask the concierge to explain.”

Victor’s narrowed eyes suggested he felt the same creeping sense of unease as me. Zee scooped out a glob of hair cream. “You gotta rub it, so it stiffens. Then you can style it easier.”

“Put that in my hair and it will be the last thing you ever do,” Victor said, eerily calm. Which was how we knew he meant it.

Zee scraped the cream off his fingers. “Oh-kay then.”

“Would you like me to accompany you downstairs?” Victor asked, turning to me.

“No, it’ll be fine. I’m sure it’s just some misunderstanding. You guys unpack. I’ll be right back.”

After leaving the room, I jogged back down the grand staircase. The lobby was even busier than before, and filled with all manner of costume-wearing people. I fought a path to the front desk, passing a message board that read: Drinks and nibbles start at eight p.m. in the bar. Zee would definitely want free snacks.

Larimer wasn’t at the front desk.

Ding! I chimed the bell, and while waiting, I admired the many different costumes on display. Some guests clearly took dressing up more seriously than others. There were plenty of cliché vampires sporting plastic fangs, and lots of pretend weapons—although some of them had been so well made they looked real.

A man waiting by the front entrance caught my eye, mostly because he wore sunglasses indoors. Slicked-back gelled hair accentuated a stern but youngish face. He leaned against the wall, possibly watching the crowd, although it was difficult to tell without seeing his eyes. He gave off security vibes, but wore a puffy winter jacket as though about to head outside.

He pushed off the wall and left through the main door, letting in a blast of cold air that upset the capes and skirts of everyone loitering in the reception. My instincts said vampire. I’d been around a few lately . . . killed some, and eaten one. I was getting pretty good at spotting them.

Just because he’d left when he’d seen me looking . . . that didn’t mean anything, right? Not all vampires were self-centered sociopathic megalomaniacs. Just most of them.

“How may I help?”

I yelped, spooked by Larimer’s sudden appearance behind the desk. “Oh, hey, yes. So uhm . . . It’s probably nothing, I guess, or some silly misunderstanding, but uhm . . . there’s a camera in our room.” Hopefully my nervous laugh said it was no big deal.

Larimer glared. “You do not like the room?”

“Oh, no, it’s not . . . the room is lovely, it’s just . . . there’s a camera uhm . . . above the bed?”

He blinked once. “We’re fully booked. If you don’t like the room, you’ll have to stay elsewhere.”

The room was lovely, and I really didn’t want to have to head out into the cold and search for somewhere else to stay. “Uh . . . so . . . does every room in this hotel have a camera?”

“Yes.”

Wow. “Is that legal?”

“Legal?” A smile cracked Larimer’s stoic mask. “Oh yes, it’s very legal. Why?”

“Uhm . . . no reason, I guess.” We could just cover the camera with something. Victor would know what to do. The luxurious room with its five-star perks was worth a little bit of weirdness.

“Was there anything else?” Larimer asked.

“Uhm, no, I guess not.” I stole a lollipop for Zee and smiled innocently at Larimer.

He glared back. “Very good. Don’t forget there’s free drinks and nibbles in the bar at eight p.m.”

“Okay, thank you.” So, cameras in rooms was a normal thing. Why were they there? Security? Or something else? We’d just cover ours. It would be fine. Starting back up the stairs, I couldn’t shake the feeling that the Stephanie Hotel was weird—and I knew weird. Weird was my middle name. Well, it would be if I had one.

Maybe I was just tired. We’d been on the road too long. A shower, some clean clothes, then drinks and nibbles would set us all straight.

Everything was going to be just fine.

You know where I’m going with this, right?

Yeah.

Everything. Was not. Fine.

The crazy mini-series continues in SOS HOTEL 9: Icy Reception. Grab it here.

OUTRAGEOUS OREO FACTS BY ZEE

Proven facts about the best cookie on the planet brought to you by the BEST demon on the planet.

Oreos are a natural frog deterrent. Put an Oreo by every window and the frogs won’t get in. Bonus, you can eat them whenever you fancy (eat the Oreos, not the frogs).

Every year, 15,000 Oreos turn into butterflies and cross the Atlantic in search of their ancestral hunting grounds. I didn’t believe it either, but it’s a fucking thing. Look it up.

If you eat an Oreo before you go to sleep, you are guaranteed to dream of me. Win-win!

An Oreo was the first cookie to go to the moon. If you squint at the full moon, you can still see it up there.

Oreos cure sadness, depression, and cancer. Probably.

You can survive for three months in the wild with a single Oreo.

Oreos solved world peace. Frogs fucked it up again.

~ Your bestie, Zee

ABOUT THE (REAL) AUTHOR

Rainbow Award winner and international best-selling author, Ariana Nash writes LGBTQ+ fantasy and contemporary novels full of morally challenging characters, heart-pounding action, stunning betrayal, and steamy love between two (or more) men.

Sometimes, when the mood strikes, she even writes dark comedy.

Adam Vex is a pen name created especially for the SOS HOTEL series.

Whatever you enjoy, you’re sure to find an Ariana Nash book to love. Visit her website at www.ariananashbooks.com

Sign up to her newsletter and get a free ebook here: https://www.subscribepage.com/silk-steel