In perfect unison, Ricky and Felix visibly blanched.
“You wouldn’t,” Ricky whispered.
“She loved those gnomes,” Felix added, horror creeping into his tone.
Thorne’s smile was all teeth. “Try me.”
Grumbling like chastised schoolboys, the two hulking werewolves slouched toward the bar. Cassian hesitated a moment longer, his gaze flicking once to Lucien, then to Thorne, before finally stowing his blade and stomping over to his brothers.
“I’m sorry,” I said to Lucien, “I shouldn’t have texted you like that. Not without explaining my situation.”
He gave a single nod, his jaw still tight enough to crack his back molars. Clearly, there was some exceptionally bad blood between the two families. Thorne had given me a little backstory, but maybe I needed to know more.
“Right,” Thorne said, her voice echoing through the bar. All eyes turned to her. “I think we need to get some things in order here. One, we’re all here to help Isadora. She has a stalker. A vampire-hating, loft-trashing, emotionally unstable reject who very clearly needs to be dealt with. I vote with violence.”
“Hear, hear!” Felix barked.
“Shush!” Thorne snapped at him. “I’m talking right now. You three agreed to help. Which means, like it or not, you’ll need to cooperate with Lucien, who also wants to help.”
The three brothers erupted into a boisterous argument. I caught a few words like “self-important,” “downright cocky,” and “arrogant bastard” before Thorne stomped her foot and pointed a sharp, black-manicured nail at the trio.
“Garden. Gnomes,” was all she said.
Two words. That’s all it took. Ricky, Felix, and Cassian all sneered, but stopped arguing. After a moment, Ricky mumbled, “Fine. We’ll work with the bloodsucker.”
“I’m a bloodsucker too,” I reminded them sweetly. “I’m just nicer and much prettier.”
“Damn straight you are,” Felix agreed, grinning.
Lucien stole another step forward, his face a thundercloud. He lifted a hand and pointed his finger at Felix. I could only imagine the impolite response brewing on the tip of his wicked tongue.
Before he spoke and said something to throw this tentative truce out the window, I gripped his arm and forcibly lowered it.
“Please, Lucien.”
His gaze flicked down to me—still furious, still burning—but he didn’t argue.
“Thorne is my friend,” I added, voice calm but unwavering. “And I don’t want to see anyone hurt.”
His frown didn’t ease. But when I placed my hand over his, and once again whispered, “Please,” something shifted.
His shoulders relaxed a fraction. Just enough.
“Fine,” he growled. “But if any of them so much as harm a hair on your head?—”
“They’re here to help,” I reminded him. “Not harm. You all have the same goal.” I glanced over my shoulder at Thorne’s brothers. “Right?”
Cassian lifted his left hand and proclaimed, “We’ll be on our best behavior. Scout’s honor.”
“None of you were ever scouts,” Thorne said. “And it’s the right hand, idiot.”
“Still counts,” he said, shrugging.
I rolled my eyes and turned back to my bar. “Someone pour me something potent. I need it more than all five of you combined.”
Chapter
Twenty
