Page 17

Leaning in, he planted a soft kiss at the corner of my mouth, made all the more special since it followed his brutal hammering. “You are, and will forever be, a marvel to me,” he whispered.

When he said things like that my heart scrunched in a good but achy way—as though, maybe this was love but I didn’t think I deserved it.

“Oh-kay.” Zee planted his feet and cocked a hip. His wings sizzled, framing him in all his spicy, incubus glory, even in tights and a baggy top. “Let’s get this Santa-slaying show on the road. But first, imma need a new spork.” He poofed behind the counter, and clattered through the cutlery containers.

Victor dealt with cleanup, then neatly tucked himself away, and if I hadn’t already been coming down off a sex high, seeing him tuck himself away and jerk that zip up would have been enough to get me fired up again. Mercy, why did he have to be so naturally gorgeous?

“Demon, do you not recall the need for us to be quiet?”

“Meh. If you two fucking didn’t attract psycho-Santa, I think I’m good.” He flicked a wrist and launched a spinning knife toward Victor.

Victor snatched the blade from the air and side-eyed Zee. “Really?”

“Oops.” Zee grinned.

“Nice reflexes,” I told Victor, as Zee poofed back to my side and handed me a similarly long, deadly looking carving knife.

“Let’s recap, fam,” Zee said. “I’m the bait⁠—”

“I’m the bait,” I corrected.

“Ugh, I thought you’d forgotten that with all the sex.”

“Nope.”

“Fine. Whatever. You’re the bait . . .” His gaze shifted over my shoulder and fixed on something behind me. “Was that there before?”

“What . . .” I turned and immediately spotted the gnome by the entrance to the restaurant. The little guy stood there in his red boots and blue raincoat, looking demure. “Maybe?” It seemed like something we’d have seen on our way in.

“Fancy Fangs, you go poke it.”

Victor arched an eyebrow and folded his arms. “Why me?”

“Because nobody likes vampires.”

“I’ll do it.” I started heading over toward it. It was just a gnome. Nobody needed to be afraid of a two-foot-high yard ornament. We’d fought and beaten much worse. What was the worst thing the little guy could do?

I stopped with a stride’s length left between me and the gnome. “Uh, hey there?”

The gnome predictably didn’t move. Its smile was off-putting, but it hadn’t changed or twitched. I gave his round belly a poke with my shoe. The gnome rocked, but it was clearly just one of those weird human things they liked to decorate their homes with—like me with cat trinkets. There was nothing supernatural about it.

I looked over my shoulder. Zee and Victor stood side by side, watching curiously. “I think it’s just a gnome.”

Something heavy leaped onto my leg.

I looked down and met the gnome’s flat, soulless eyes peering back at me. Its arms hugged my shin.

Panic clamored in my head.

The gnome was on me!

This was fine.

I didn’t need to lose it.

“Ugh, guys?”

I lifted my leg and gave it a shake. The gnome stayed glued. Had its grin gotten bigger?