by Lexi Blake
A small hand came into mine. “Are you okay?”
My real father’s soul was still here, living inside this precious child. I looked down at him, giving him a reassuring smile. “I’m okay. That man reminded me of someone.”
“Not someone good.”
And he could read me like a book. “Nope. Someone who was mean to me. It’s okay. He was mean to everyone.”
I looked back out the window and he was tucked inside the truck. I hadn’t caught a glimpse of his face at all.
“Look, the next nearest motel is twenty miles away,” Gray was saying. “What exactly are we supposed to do?”
The gracious gentleman behind the counter shrugged. “There’s lots of camping sites.”
“Camping is fun,” Lee said, giving my hand a squeeze. He had a Batman backpack across his back that held a plethora of amusements, from his tablet to his phone with a direct line to his mom. I hoped it had one other thing.
“Do you have a pencil and some paper in there?” I asked.
For some reason I couldn’t let it go. I needed to write down that plate number and run it through to find a name. Then I could rest easy because I would know that wasn’t my stepfather. The last time Gray had checked, John Atwood had been up in Canada, far from me.
“I think so.” He dropped my hand and tugged his backpack off. Behind us Gray was still arguing with the owner and Trent was trying to explain to someone on the other end of the phone that we hadn’t brought camping equipment with us.
I looked back up and I stopped, my whole being focused on the mud flaps of the big dually. Though he was stopped at the edge of the parking lot about to move onto the highway, I could make out the silver woman with an hourglass figure and no need for a bra because apparently her massive boobs came with antigravity. My stepfather had mud flap girls on all his trucks. He’d told me he did it because the women around him needed to be reminded what a real woman should be like—pretty and decorative and willing to get dirty because that was her job.
I hated that man.
“Here you go,” Lee said.
I looked down and he was holding up a pencil and a notebook.
But the truck was gone, flying down the highway now. I hadn’t gotten the numbers I needed.
My gut turned. “Do you have a sign-in book? Can you tell me who’s in room twelve?”
I had to know. It was eating me up inside.
The owner shook his head. “Yeah, I have a sign-in book. I don’t like computers, but as you’re not guests of this establishment, you won’t be seeing my book. My customers like privacy, you see.”
I wasn’t going to let this go. “I’ll take the room. I’ll take both of them.”
Lee’s face lit up as he rezipped his backpack. “Cool. I’ve never been in a motel before. Can we get ice in one of those bucket things? I saw it on a movie.”
Because his fathers would never stay in a dingy motel. Lee had always had the best of everything, and while that was good, it could also be suffocating at times.
I pulled out my wallet, ready to deal with anything I had to in order to get a look at that register. “I’ve got cash if you need it.”
“Kelsey, we can’t stay here,” Liv argued. “We can’t fit in two rooms. And this place feels like bad mojo, if you know what I mean.”
I did. She meant bad things had happened here and likely would continue to. According to Liv, some places are cursed with bad energy. Unless the owner didn’t mind Liv walking around spreading sage smoke and drawing wards, she wouldn’t stay here. But I didn’t care at that moment. All I wanted was to be able to look at that book and see who else had signed it. “It’ll be fine. We’ll take them both.”
Gray and Trent had stopped what they were doing, both looking at me like they knew something was going on, but they couldn’t decide if they should shut it down or help me out. I moved to the reception desk, flashing some cash.
The owner had come off his stool, turning away from the TV screen that was playing old episodes of some sitcom. He stared at me as though he couldn’t figure me out. His head finally shook. “Nah, I think your kind is going to be trouble. I don’t think it would be worth the money. You should leave this town. There’s people here won’t like your kind staying around.”
“Our kind?” Liv asked.
Trent’s eyes had narrowed. “He knows. He’s not one of us, but he knows.”
“That you ain’t right?” the man asked, his gaze focused on me. “Yeah, I know that for sure. We keep things nice and quiet around here, if you know what I mean. They don’t bother us and we don’t bother them.”
“You’re talking about Lupus Solum.” I hadn’t expected them to work with the locals, but I supposed it made sense. When Marcus and I were in Venice, I’d been surprised to discover whole communities of people who knew he was a vampire.
They were isolated out here, and it might make sense for humans and supernaturals to work together from time to time.
“I don’t know nothing about that but the family takes care of its own and they make sure nothing gets to us as long as we all behave and keep our mouths shut,” the owner said. “You don’t look like you’re going to keep your mouth shut, and those men of yours are definitely trouble. So I won’t rent a room to you.”
Desperation threatened to take over. My she-wolf was twitching and it took every ounce of restraint I could muster to not simply take what I wanted. “Okay, we don’t have to stay. I’ll give you the money in exchange for showing me the registry or giving me the name of the man in room twelve.”
“He’s leaving today,” the owner said. “And he ain’t your business.”
Trent was suddenly at my side. I saw Gray pull Lee closer to him on the other side of the room, obviously drawing him away from the potential line of fire. Casey was trying to put himself in front of Liv and Meredith, but Liv wasn’t having it.
Trent put a hand on my shoulder. “It’s okay, sweetheart. Take a deep breath. We’re going to work this out.”
I did as he asked. I couldn’t simply force the man to give me what I wanted, and I’d likely already fucked up because he knew how interested I was in the man in number twelve. There would be no element of surprise there. I needed to back away. Trent’s presence helped to soothe me. This was why I needed him so badly.
I caught the sight of Gray watching us and saw the realization dawn on his face. He went grim as though he hadn’t expected to witness the way Trent’s wolf could soothe my own. I glanced around because Lee wasn’t at Gray’s side anymore.
The bell behind me jingled and I turned to see a diminutive figure walk in. He couldn’t have been more than five feet tall. The umbrella he carried was just a bit smaller than him. In the middle of a tiny town, he wore a three-piece suit, trench coat, and perfectly polished loafers. He was bald, but his face still held a smack of youth.
“I apologize for being tardy. Oh, it’s terrible that I wasn’t here to greet you all properly. I am a horrible servant. Albert will likely send me straight back to the kitchens where I belong. Mistress, I know I am unworthy of it, but please, please accept my humblest apologies.” He started to bow and I was almost certain if we’d been alone he might have prostrated himself.
“It’s cool,” I said because it seemed to be me he was addressing. “I wasn’t expecting you at all so I wasn’t disappointed.”
His eyes widened and I realized there was something wrong with him. When I stared directly at him and concentrated, I could see the faintest hint of a glow around him. A glamour. He was using a glamour. “Not expect me? But the master told me to come and make sure everything runs smoothly on this mission…I mean on this lovely vacation of yours. I got here and realized that this establishment will never do. It is unclean and not at all a proper place for you, mistress. I have found other accommodations. Please forgive me for not being here to greet you. I have failed. Failed.”
He was super high-strung, and I realized I would have to manage him or he would end up p
unishing himself. His hands were fists at his sides, one wrapped tightly around the umbrella as if he were trying to stop from hitting himself with it.
Yep, he was some kind of a demon, almost certainly a halfling, and he had some serious issues.
“We’re good, man.”
“Edward, mistress. My working name is Edward, and I’m here to take you all out to our new campsite. I apologize profusely for not being able to find real estate to purchase and upgrade and make right for you all, but there is nothing acceptable around here. I would have purchased land and built to suit our needs, but I was only assigned this job yesterday and human real estate practices are difficult.” He clapped a hand over his mouth.
It was time to get out of here before we gave up way too much. I looked back and Lee was standing by Gray again. Thank god. I reached out and he jogged forward to take my hand.
Edward nearly had a heart attack. “Master Lee. I was not informed that you would be joining us. Oh. Oh. I need to speak with my kitchen staff.”
“It’s cool, Eddie. I’ll eat whatever,” Lee promised him.
He wouldn’t. He was incredibly picky, but I was happy he was smart enough to know that we all had to calm the demon butler down. It would have been nice if Quinn had told us he was sending one along, but we had to make do.
I led us all out to the parking lot, my mind racing. Had that been my stepdad? It was crazy. He wouldn’t be here. It was far too much of a coincidence.
Except there was a stray wolf out there in the forest and my stepfather hunted wolves.
I couldn’t deal with it now. I would come back later and get that plate number. Hell, I would grab a couple of bags of chips and a six-pack and stake the place out.
Edward was already on the phone. He held it to his ear as we stepped back out into the parking lot. “Yes, we need peanut butter cups and as much Dr Pepper as you can find. It’s his natural food source. And chicken nuggets. No. We can’t simply make them ourselves. They’re far too healthy for a young boy to find appealing. You must get frozen ones.”
We were going to have to have a talk about the fact that unlike wolves, humans can’t simply eat anything they like and not expect to have a heart attack down the line.
Liv jogged to catch up. “Did he say camping? Because I am an urban witch.”
“I think it sounds like fun,” Meredith said with a big smile. “And I’m completely prepared to treat everything from poison ivy to snake bites. Not that there are many out right now, but I was trained on how to handle it. It’s exciting to get out into the real world. Sometimes I think Harvard med was every bit as insulated and oppressive as Adam’s house in London. There are days I’m glad he died horribly in the war. All of the days, actually.”
“Great, Meredith here can hang out in the tent and I’ll find a Four Seasons,” Liv said.
We made it to the massive SUV that had been waiting for us at the airport. It was still small for Gray, who was holding the door open for our nervous new friend.
“I just talked to Dev.” Trent was shoving his phone in his pocket as he walked out of the motel. “He confirmed he sent Eddie and a couple of servants to set things up for us. He forgot to let us in on that tidbit of information because he and Albert were busy planning Myrddin’s meeting.”
Eddie held his hand up. “Oh, I cannot tell you how happy I am to be here, mistress. I couldn’t handle all the stress of being responsible for the great magician.”
Something played around in my head. “Everyone else calls him a wizard. But they called him a magician when they announced him last night.”
Edward nodded. “It’s semantics, mistress. One of his titles is High Magician of the Sword. But he would call himself a wizard. Now, let’s get to our lovely campsite. I’ve made sure we have all the proper permits. Oh, I think you will love your rooms. I’ve been trained on how to care for a Hunter such as yourself. I know you need a soothing environment.”
“This should be interesting.” Trent winked as he opened the door to the SUV and moved the seats aside for our passengers.
Casey rushed forward and helped Meredith in. Liv did not look amused.
“I will text Master Sloane the directions to the campsite and I will be there waiting for you,” Edward promised. “The brownies will have a spread laid out for your luncheon and I will prepare dinner myself. I studied in France, you see.”
I wondered how the great culinary schools of Paris had enjoyed having a demon chef in their midst. And how he planned to get out to the site since I didn’t see a car around. “Do you need a ride?”
“Not at all, mistress,” he said with a nod. “I’m fully capable of teleportation. I’ll be there very quickly so I can ensure that everything runs smoothly from here on out and you have no desire to change butlers. This is a test, you see. If you and the masters are satisfied, I might be allowed to run my own household someday. It is an exciting time for me.”
“Well, don’t worry about it. I’ll leave a great review on Yelp,” I promised.
His head shook in the negative. “Oh no, mistress. We do not use such a thing. Ours is called Gulp and we call it that because it’s what we do when informed we have a new rating. If it’s under four stars, we lose a body part.”
“What?”
He smiled brightly. “Sorry, just demon humor, mistress. Albert says it is one of my weaknesses. If I hadn’t been sold at auction, I would have tried to become a stand-up comedian. You have no idea how in demand they are on the Hell plane. See you soon.”
He vanished in a puff of smoke.
“Be careful around him,” Gray said, opening the driver’s side door.
“Eddie’s cool,” Lee assured him.
But Gray had been burned before. His servant, Syl, had betrayed him to his father. It struck me that Gray had been betrayed by a whole lot of people. It made him cranky.
“All right. Let’s get you in the way back with Casey and Meredith.” I went to open the door, but Lee put a hand on my arm.
“I got this for you. I pulled out the last two weeks. Do you think that’s enough?” Lee held a couple of pieces of paper in his hand. They were jagged, as if he’d ripped them from a book in a hurry.
Oh, how I loved that kid. He’d gotten what I needed from the registry. I took the papers from him and put a hand on his head, ruffling his hair with great affection. “You are the best little thief. But I’m still limiting the soda. No matter what Eddie says.”
He groaned but hopped inside. I walked around to the passenger side and prayed I was wrong.
Twenty minutes later I stared at the tent that was somehow supposed to house all of us, plus like a staff of four or five. The tent wasn’t precisely tiny, but it also wasn’t big enough to house all the Dr Pepper Eddie had apparently bought on the way to transporting himself through the woods.
“I don’t get it.” Meredith Kyle looked at the tent, her hands on her hips. “Should we have brought sleeping bags?”
Casey scratched his head as he walked around the thing. “It looks like we should have brought more tents. This thing maybe can sleep four. Are we doing that wolf thing where we all pile in like puppies? Not that I’m against it. You know body heat is a thing.”
“You’re a vampire,” Liv pointed out. “You don’t have any body heat. This is interesting. Our butler knows a trick or two. He’s damn good.”
Gray set down two of our suitcases and frowned. “I would have packed way lighter if I’d known we were in a tent. And it’s time to tell me what’s up with those pages the kid snuck your way. He’s good. I barely noticed him stealing the pages from the registry. By the way, who the hell keeps a registry these days? Didn’t we bring Casey along to hack into shit? Apparently we don’t need him here.”
“Hey, I also offer sarcasm,” Casey snarked. “But I will admit, I haven’t seen a bunch of cell towers out here. I don’t know if I can get a signal in the woods. What do I do if I can’t check my email?”
“You can tell Henri you could
n’t do any of the million things he needs you to do in a day because you didn’t get the emails,” Liv pointed out.
“Awesome, then I can get him to do all the things I need him to do.” Meredith was holding her bag. Her light brown hair was up in a high ponytail and she looked far too young to be a doctor. “I don’t need the Internet to do my study on the brownies. There’s not a lot of medical information on best care practices for Fae creatures. I’m totally specializing in the Fae. So many fascinating differences.”
I hoped Meredith was good at self-care because Liv was looking like she was going to take a companion down.
“You want to tell me what you’re looking for? Why did you want to get a look at that register?” Gray asked under his breath as our other love triangle watched each other warily. Well, Liv and Casey gave each other longing glances while Meredith chattered on about the dietary habits of brownies. “I saw the kid duck behind the counter while that asshole was busy watching you and Eddie. Lee’s got fast hands.”
I glanced around and Lee was currently following Trent, who was stalking through the woods, stopping every now and then to breathe deeply. Something was bugging him. I could tell from the way his shoulders were up around his ears. I was certain if he’d been in wolf form, his fur would have been standing straight up. He moved further out and disappeared beyond the tree line. “I saw someone who might be trouble.”
“Someone we know?” Gray asked.
I’d glanced at the names on the list. Number twelve had been rented out by a man named Greg Smith. Not one of my father’s many known aliases, but he did like plain Jane names. He almost always went by Jones or Johnson or Smith. Something nondescript. “I’m not sure. I could have been seeing things. Coming out to a place like this reminds me of some bad shit.”
He moved in front of me so I couldn’t not look into his eyes. “Kelsey, did you see your father?”
“Stepfather, please. I’m not sure. Maybe.”
Gray was the only one who knew the extent of damage my stepfather had done to me. He was the only one I’d told the story of that last night I’d seen my dad. John Atwood had taken me up to Arkansas, into the foothills of the Ozarks for a hunt. It was what my stepfather did. He killed wolves because a rabid werewolf had slaughtered his family. There was no arguing with my stepfather. When he wanted to hunt, he would often take one of my older brothers with him. Jamie and Nate had learned to hunt, too, but he usually left me behind. A part of me had been excited that he was finally going to teach me. What I hadn’t known was he’d intended to use me as bait. I’m fairly certain he intended to kill me that night. Or at least to let me die there. It had been the first time my she-wolf had come out, and he’d been the one who’d nearly died. I hadn’t seen him again.
