Page 20 of Were-Geeks Save a Kitten

“What?”

“That there was so much stupidity here.” Her gaze included the spiral notebooks and Kit.

Yordan swallowed the last of his worm. “You people in the home office have no idea.”

Kit had started on his own gummy worm, and the thing was like chewing warm tar. But it tasted great, which was a contradiction, but somehow made sense.

“That’s exactly why you’ve been promoted,” he said as he headed out the door.

Yordan shot him a look of pure hatred, and Kit had the gall to laugh. “Welcome to my world,” he quipped, then he abruptly sobered as he pointed to Pee. “Stupid we may be, but you need to keep these bets in absolute confidence.”

She nodded. She wasn’t there yet, but eventually, she’d find out his bet, and damn it, he shuddered to think how her opinion of him would plummet. But he hadn’t the time to be discreet.

Thankfully, she understood. Meanwhile, he jerked his head toward the helicopter pad. “It should already have our gear,” he said to Yordan. They were halfway down the hall when his scattered thoughts popped up a new horror. “Run back and keep that door open,” he said to Pee. “Last thing I want is to lose the bedroom again!”

She was gone before he finished speaking. He turned his attention to updating Yordan as they walked. It helped that whatever fairy magic was in those gummy worms was slipping through his body like ten hours of sleep followed by a massage and a nap. Hell, he hadn’t felt this good in years.

“Where did he get those worms?” he asked, a renewed strength filling his voice and his step.

“There’s a downside,” Yordan warned.

Wasn’t there always? “What?”

“When it runs out, it’ll hit you like a ton of bricks.”

“Great.”

“Tell me what’s in Torch Lake, besides the usual?”

“You ever meet Marsha?” She was named after the famous Brady Bunch kid because she’d spent her puppy year caught between two obsessive wolves who had eventually killed each other. Not every werewolf was stable, and she’d gotten the attention of two bad ones.

“The weirdly smart one?”

Kit chuckled. Marsha saw patterns others missed and usually tried to point them out. When she’d first started training, she’d come up with the strangest conspiracy theory bullshit based on random evidence. Most of the time, her ideas had been totally wrong, but as she’d matured, she’d honed that skill. She’d learned to do research—and not the ten minutes on Google kind. And she’d gotten a ton of experience. Her last alpha had warned Kit to never ignore her. Never take her on blind faith either, but take her concerns seriously.

So what had he done? He’d ignored her. Or rather, he’d put her concerns on his list. Way, way, way down at the bottom of the list.

“Marsha told me that her missions were getting more dangerous. Always worse than expected. Always a bit weirder too, and the issue was accelerating.”

Yordan nodded. “That’s probably because of the black hole of death in Wisconsin. It should be easing off now.”

“That’s what I said.”

Yordan frowned. “But you took her off combat and set her on a training run to Torch Lake just to prove her wrong?”

Kit nodded, pleased that Yordan understood what he wasn’t saying. Torch Lake had a lake monster created by a camp counselor and immortalized into song by a folk singer. It was also on a nexus of energy lines, which meant that every few years, the Torch Lake monster manifested. All that energy going into scaring little kids created exactly what they feared.

It wasn’t a big deal. In fact, it was the perfect training ground for new recruits. Entice the serpent creature out of the water, then kill it. Everyone came out covered in slime, but victorious.

“Why is this bad?” Yordan pressed. “What did she bet?”

“It wasn’t a bet. It was a curse phrased as a bet.”

They’d made it to the helipad in record time. Their gear was just being tossed in the back, and they both pulled on helmets and strapped in like the pros they were. And if Kit snuck a peek at Yordan’s ripple of muscles, broad shoulders, and tight ass, then who was to blame him? He couldn’t be all panic all the time.

Two minutes later, they were in the air. Kit had started flying helicopters when he was a boy in Scotland. Putting this one into the air was a sweet joy, even if the thing was a little rickety and desperately needed a few dozen replacement parts. That was why it was the only one available. The others were already deployed.

Meanwhile, Yordan brought him back to business. “What was the curse?”