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Zee frowned, stepped into his pants, and tugged them on. “Your face says your mouth is talking bullshit.”

I instinctively grinned. “It’s fine. Everything is fine.”

“Adam, you know you can talk to me, right? I know there’s a lot you can’t say, and you probably think I’m just good for sex—which I am—but I’m not just here for cock. You can tell me anything, you know? Talk to me?”

“Uh-huh.” Not about my curse, I couldn’t. I threw on the change of clothes Reynard had left out. The dress shirt was too lean, and the length of pants collected around my ankles, but the clothes would do until we got back to the hotel.

I headed for the door, hoping to escape Zee’s questions. I’d cursed myself once. I could do it again. I’d look into it when we got back.

Zee’s fingers snagged my wrist. “Adam?”

“I can’t, Zee.” I looked at his hand, looped around my wrist. I wanted to tell him everything. That’s what made this worse. It would be easier to tell him. “I just . . . I can’t.” Raising my gaze, I found the questions all over his face. Sometime soon, he’d ask, and he wouldn’t stop asking. Then he’d try and put the pieces together—he was too curious not too. And that day would be our last day together. “Please, don’t ask.”

“Okay.” He let go, and backed off a single step, wings drooping. “I won’t.”

We left the hot, damp air of the bathroom. Reynard was engrossed in his phone, and didn’t appear to have heard or suspected anything x-rated had been happening in his bathroom.

A tiny jab of guilt poked at my insides, when I considered that we hadn’t invited him. Was he even into that? He’d seemed sort of into it in Razorsedge’s red room. But that had been then, with me. Not with Zee. Still, I knew he liked Zee, so perhaps he might like to get a bit more personal with both of us one day?

By the stars, it was getting complicated.

I settled opposite Reynard. Zee draped himself in the seat across from us. He grinned, exuding smug confidence.

But Reynard wasn’t scowling. There, this was fine.

Not awkward at all.

Nobody needed to know we’d enjoyed some vigorous personal time.

Reynard’s teacup clacked. He looked up, spearing those intense eyes into me. “Now you are both thoroughly reacquainted, what do we intend to do about Sebastien?”

Oh, then he had heard.

Heat flushed my face.

He leaned back, legs and arms crossed, poised and stern, and clearly not in any way interested in also becoming thoroughly acquainted with either of us.

“I think I know what to do about Sebastien,” I said, equally as businesslike, so I didn’t have to think about how I’d told Zodiac to go deeper, and Reynard had heard. “As Zee is cursed with beauty, he’ll be the perfect distraction.”

“Fuck yes! My time has come.” He preened, flicked his hair, and flashed a photoshoot grin. “Who am I distracting?”

I looked at them both—at Reynard’s keenly interested, arched eyebrow, and Zee’s cocky grin.

It was time Sebastien learned what the San Francisco vampires and Gideon Cain had already discovered: Provoke the SOS Hotel management, and we’d bite back.

CHAPTER 13

We returned to the hotel as dawn painted the San Francisco sky red. Zee went to his room to prepare, and Reynard did whatever Reynard does when he disappears. I switched out my clothes for my more typical, casual sweater and slacks, and sauntered down to the bar, where I was met with Tom Collins’s scowl.

“It’s about time you showed up,” he grouched.

That didn’t sound good. “I was only away for a day. What happened?”

He took a deep, foreboding breath. “The gift that keeps on giving, Sebastien, decided to make a scene in my bar.” He gestured at Zee’s dancing pole, now bent in half. Then he adjusted his hand to encompass our new cabinet, reduced to a pile of splinters. “I’d have shoved the shotgun up his ass if I didn’t think he’d enjoy it.”

Sebastien had been at the hotel? I huffed and sat on a stool. “Whiskey.”

Tom fixed my drink, grumbling about how he should have been informed if I wasn’t going to be around to settle managerial things. He slammed the glass of whiskey onto the bartop and folded his arms over his dapper burgundy silk vest. I couldn’t tell if he was genuinely angry or if this was his default ragey mode. He claimed he didn’t experience emotions, but the sharp way he’d moved when making my drink suggested he was definitely put out by being left to deal with Sebastien alone.