Page 3 of Shifter Situations

I rubbed my middle finger across my forehead, making my question more direct. “Who is the person that is not in this room?”

Novak groaned in aggravation as an English accent remarked, “No alcohol for you.”

“Why?” the vampire whined.

“Because you have a gig tonight,” Vaughn reminded him, handing me the beer I’d agreed to.

Stone chuckled darkly. “You’ve already found a strip club to hire you?”

“Ha. Ha.” Novak laughed humorlessly before snarking, “The demon has jokes? Who knew?”

“No.” Vaughn sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“He compelled a club owner to let him DJ tonight. If Novak can keep his head on straight, then it should open up some big doors for him.”

The fae glared at the vampire. “But I can’t babysit him. I’m starting a new job on Monday, and I’m touring the facility in the morning.”

“Not it,” Palmer and Stone shouted at once.

“Godsdamnit,” I grumbled. “Why can’t you stay out of trouble for one fucking night?”

“Trouble calls to me, Wolf,” he admitted with a shrug.

Novak wrapped his arm around my shoulders, wistfully stating, “It’s my only true vice. I can never say no.”

I shoved him away from me, snorting at how right he was.

We were all violent and deadly, too strong to not be watched by our respective leaders. That’s why we were the apprentices, after all. So they could keep us close, observing us to make sure we were using our potential to its fullest while not abusing it.

It made me wonder who was here, in Nashville, that could keep us all contained and controlled.

“Trouble calls to us all, Vamp. Let’s avoid it tonight.”

1

Sloane

Tuesday, June 2nd

Early Evening

“This is fucking bad, Barbie,” Briggs confessed, rubbing both of his tattooed hands over his face.

I snorted, giving up all pretenses of trying to be lady-like in any way. Prying his hands away so that I could see his forest green eyes, I shook my head at him.

“It’s not so bad. There’s video footage of all of us here, and we can make it look like we didn’t leave, so they can’t pin anything on Novak.”

“You told them we were here, not in the Underworld.”

I didn’t understand why they were stressing out. Those shifters hadn’t been sent on pack business, and they certainly weren’t cops. The static in their minds started to tug at my memories, but I couldn’t quite grasp them.

“I told them we were home. I didn’t say which one. They weren’t real officers, Briggs. We could have lied through our teeth, and there would be nothing that they could do about it.”

“Yeah, but—”

“Do you know how many homes are in my name?” I questioned, dropping my hands from his face to study Novak and Vaughn as well.

“Just because they assumed I meant here when I said home doesn’t mean anything. Whatever you’re worried about, we’ll take care of it. I’ll take care of it.”