At that, grumbles of affront mingled with a few chuckles.
“Forgive me if I don’t flee in terror,” the woman said, sounding amused. “I figure a dozen armed fighters can take out one rando in a tablecloth and the woman cowering at his feet, but perhaps I’m mistaken. If so, my apologies.”
Cowering.
Their intruder couldn’t have pushed Edie’s buttons more effectively, not even if the entire group had watched her nightmare play out live.
Max tried to stop her from scrambling to her feet, but he was hampered by the knife he held in one hand, his need to watch their unwelcome guests, and his unwillingness to hurt her. In the end, she no longer lay at his feet or remained hidden behind him. She stood at his side. As she should have from the beginning, no matter the danger.
There were, in fact, a dozen armed people ringed around the sofa, scruffy but surprisingly clean. All genders, different heights and builds and skin colors. None of them had guns, but they held their baseball bats, knives, and tire irons with the comfortable ease of long practice.
Shit.
Yeah, the two of them were goners. Unless she could sweet-talk the gang leaders and emphasize how little threat she and Max posed, but how?
When he tried to guide her behind him again, she resisted.
“Human—” he began under his breath, his tone vicious andfurious, the word choice a deliberate reminder of his relative invulnerability compared to her species’ fragility.
“Ah, there she is.” The woman—a waifish redhead with pale skin, a pixie cut, and tattoo sleeves—smiled at Edie, and it would have been charming enough to prompt a smile in return. If, that is, the redhead weren’t armed with an axe. “So glad you could join the party.”
“Stop playing with your food, Belinda,” said a handsome Black man with a shaved head. “It’s beneath you.”
Edie cringed. Were they feral werewolves, or…?
“That was a metaphor,” a thin white guy with a luxuriant mustache and a ponytail cheerfully told them. “We’re just humans. We’re totally not going to eat you or anything, so don’t worry. Ugh. Gross.”
“Doug,” the redhead chided, shaking her head. “Discretion. Please.”
“But we might hurt or kill you,” Doug hurried to add, waving his tire iron. “It depends.”
Before Edie could ask him what, precisely, their continued survival depended upon, the Black man cleared his throat, drawing the room’s attention back to him.
“As Belinda was about to tell you, outsiders aren’t welcome here,” he informed her and Max. “You’ve not only intruded upon our territory, but—”
“That’s our napping couch!” Doug announced. “Austin gets really cranky without his daily nap.”
The Black man pinched his forehead. “Doug. We’ve discussed this.”
“But youdo.” Tucking his tire iron beneath his arm, the thinman peered down at the sofa’s uncovered cushions. “I had no idea those were slipcovers. Amazing.”
Well, there was an opening. A weird one, but so be it.
“The covers are machine washable,” Edie volunteered. “The fabric is stain resistant, so they’ll probably look good as new after one cycle if you presoak them.”
“Huh.” Doug looked intrigued.
“Also,” she added quickly, before Austin or Belinda regained their threat-making mojo, “we’re so sorry to have intruded. We had no idea this was your territory or your, uh”—she stifled a hysterical giggle—“napping couch. We just needed someplace to dry off and get warm before we moved on. We promise we won’t go anywhere else in the mall, and we won’t tell anyone we saw you here.”
When Max’s continued attempts to yank her behind him failed, he heaved a silent sigh and spoke. “She’s telling the truth. We don’t know what you’re doing here. We don’tcarewhat you’re doing here. If you’d just let us—”
“We’re counterfeiters!” Doug interjected. “The best on the East Coast!”
Everyone in the room turned to stare at him. Belinda resumed shaking her head while Austin appeared to be trying to set the other man on fire with his mind.
Max’s body had gone taut at her side as he braced for battle, and her frantic pulse echoed in her skull. Now that they’d unwillingly learned about the gang’s activities, there was no way they’d be allowed to leave freely. Unless…
Okay. Last-ditch-effort time. Building empathy sometimes worked in these sorts of situations, right?
