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Zee vanished his wings so they didn’t get hung up on bushes, then stopped dead in his tracks. “Are there frogs out here?”

I tensed. The forest suddenly seemed more dangerous.

“It’s is unlikely you’ll encounter a frog,” Victor assured.

“Thank fuck.” Zee strode on and we kept up.

“Why is he afraid of frogs?” Victor leaned into me, asking under his breath.

“You aren’t?”

“No?” he replied, but his tone suggested he wasn’t sure whether he should be.

We traipsed some way through the undergrowth, but it was slow going. After finally reaching a clearing, we stopped behind Zee who scanned the clouds. “This is taking too long. Imma take a look from above.”

“There’s no moon tonight,” Victor said. “You should be fine. But do not linger. Some of the guards are war hardened and will attack demons on sight.”

“Baby, I’m as fast and silent as lightning.” Zee’s wings popped out, flared, and he shot into the night sky.

After watching him vanish above our heads, Victor remarked, “It is an odd experience, being called baby.”

We crouched, hidden in the brush. “Better than Fancy Fangs?” I whispered.

“Curiously, I’m rather fond of the names,” he said quietly, and in the shadows, I could just make out his smile. “But please do not reveal that to him, or he’ll stop.”

My heart flip-flopped and I had an almost irresistible urge to crush him in a bear hug. Which of course, I would not do. As this was Victor, a health and safety form would need to be filled out and submitted first. “Oh my stars, Reyzee is adorable.”

Victor’s eyebrows arched. “Reyzee?” he whispered back.

“Just a thing the internet came up with.”

“Ah. The fanfictions?”

“You’ve read them?”

“I may have enjoyed one or two. I’d have changed several plot points, and most are little more than pornography, but there are commendable efforts.”

Why was Zee never around when Victor admitted to important things, like reading their spicy fanfiction?

A sudden crack shattered the quiet woods.

I instinctively ducked. “Hunters?”

Victor’s mercury eyes scanned the gloom through the trees. “Unlikely, in these woods.”

If Zee wasn’t back in fifteen seconds, screw stealth, I was going after him.

A flap from above, like the flick of sheets, and Zee gracefully landed in the clearing. Thankfully, unharmed.

“Did you hear the shot?” I asked, straightening alongside Victor.

“Yeah, no idea what that’s about. The chapel is—” He turned, arm outstretched to indicate which way we should head, but as we all peered through the redwood trunks, a man sprinted between them. He crashed through the brush, then quickly vanished among the trees. He’d carried a rifle, but that wasn’t the weirdest thing about him.

“You saw that, right?” Zee asked. “A guy just ran by with his junk out?”

“Indeed,” Victor confirmed.

I had wondered if I’d dreamed the naked man too.