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He grabbed his phone from the trunk and glared at the screen. One bar. No missed calls from Eryn. Good. He needed to clean up.
Fuck. He couldn’t send a clean-up crew for the wyvern corpses. Not when he couldn’t guarantee they wouldn’t be added to the body count. They were far enough from active trails that they wouldn’t be found easily.
Except by whoever had trained them. Hopefully, that asshole would realize there was someone fighting back. Poke the bear, and… hopefully fucking finish this.
Good thing he’d brought a clean-up kit this time. He wiped down himself and his gear, put on a fresh shirt, and drove back home.
Didn’t stop until searing hot water streamed over him in the short damn shower. Plumber. As soon as the decorator was done.
The wound on his back was already healing, but it stung under the surface where his body worked to mend itself. Luckily, wyvern blood washed off easily. Not like some demons with their viscous, oily blood that caked into every orifice.
Until the wound finished healing, he bandaged himself up. He carefully slipped on a thick hoodie to better cushion the bandages from discovery. It was tempting to crack open a beer and rehash the mind-fuck that fight had been, but Eryn would be done soon. He didn’t want her to have to wait for him to drive all the way in, so he headed back to the car.
He popped open the trunk and tossed in fresh towels. The vest was trashed, but it had done the job. He snapped a pic and sent it off to Quinn, adding, “Think you can make me a new one?”
By the time he was back on the road, his phone rang. He answered over Bluetooth. “Hey, Quinn.”
“The wyvern?”
“Astrid called you already?”
“Yeah. We’ve all been working on it. Sunshine’s coming over in the morning to pick up Skye, then Ryan and I will drive up to join you. The others will join us as soon as they can. Wvyern. Huh. Did you get it?”
“Two of them, now dead. I don’t know if there are more, but I’ll explore more later.”
“Holy shit, Vann. Two of them? They could have killed you.”
“Hence the vest. And, honestly, it wasn’t as tough a fight as the last time I saw one. Juveniles, so that was in my favor, and last time was before the boost from Deandra. You still have the stuff to make me a new vest, right?”
“I stocked up when I made Archer’s. I’ll bring up the supplies. We should beef all of ours up if we’re taking on wyverns.”
“Good call. Maybe something to block a swipe at the neck. I’m not fond of pauldrons and the loss of range of motion, but those claws hurt like hell.”
“Are you in the car? Where are you headed after an exciting evening?”
“I was with Eryn when she got called in on the emergency, which is how I learned about the wyverns. Well, her sister told me. Something isn’t making sense. She was cagey about it.”
“Cagey?”
“Actually, yeah, and Eryn was a little weird about the attack, now that I think about it. I don’t know. Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but I think they know more than they’re letting on.”
“You’ve got good instincts. Go with it.”
He sped up as he hit the main road. A few headlights here and there, but town was quiet. He needed to move fast, before the big news outlets picked it up, and they had to dodge news vans and conspiracy theorists trying to solve the mystery.
“Vann?”
“Yeah?”
“You said ‘Eryn’ awfully adorably. Are you getting attached?” He shouldn’t have told her about Eryn.
“Hell no. Honestly, I think she’s more anti-relationship than I am, which adds to the weird.”
“Why is that weird? Some people don’t do commitment.”
“I don’t know; it’s hard to describe. It seems like she’s got a reason for it that she doesn’t like. Probably just wishful thinking, but it seems like she wants to be the settling-down type, but something’s stopping her.”
“You’re the settling-down type.”
