Page 36

“Oh.” So he could leave at any time. But he hadn’t. I smiled back at him. “I see.”

“Don’t look so smug. If I left, this place would be in the ground within a week. Who do you think is holding it all together? You? Ha. Have you looked in a mirror lately? You’re a mess.”

I had looked in a mirror, and he wasn’t wrong. Being human was a lot harder than it looked. “Thanks, I guess . . . For staying.”

“The pay’s good, since I take what I like from the profits, and the entertainment keeps things interesting,” he admitted, then shrugged. “Where else am I going to go?”

Yeah, but he also secretly liked us. I could tell by his sneer. “In Agatha’s lab, there were others like you—Djinn, I mean. Victor went back there to burn it all down. It may be worth chatting to him about what he found.”

Tom stopped polishing the glass and gently set it down on the glossy bartop. “I know what I am, and if I ever want to go back to that life, Lord Reynard has shown me a way. But right now, I’m keeping an eye on the three most pathetic hoteliers on the west coast . . . because someone has to.”

Victor had helped him already? Of course he had. The ex-vampire torturer had a chaotic good streak.

“For what it’s worth, I’m glad you’re watching out for us,” I said.

“You won’t be when you see the consultancy fee.”

I snorted, and Tom laughed along, even though we both knew he wasn’t joking.

To everyone’s surprise, when Victor reached out to propose a truce, Daisy agreed to meet in the hotel bar to discuss terms. We figured she’d heard surrender, but it didn’t matter—whatever got her through the door was worth it. It probably helped that she knew I was powerless, and that the wards would prevent any harm from coming to her under my roof. In some weird twist of fate, or my own wishful thinking, I’d become the harmless human I’d been pretending to be for years.

And my trap was set.

Humans didn’t have giant claws, they couldn’t breathe fire, and they didn’t have wingspans bigger than a basketball court, but they had some similarities to dragons—such as being manipulative.

The packed hotel kept us busy until the next evening, when Daisy’s motorcade pulled up outside.

The bar had become the heart of the hotel again, and was full of folks enjoying drinks, music, and each other’s company. A few glanced our way as I led Daisy toward the bar where Victor waited, but most didn’t pay us much attention. Probably because Zee was on stage.

He’d noticed our arrival, but kept dancing around his pole as though our plan—now in motion—wasn’t about to change our lives, and maybe the lives of all vampires too. If the plan panned out, Daisy wouldn’t be leaving the SOS Hotel alive.

Victor bowed his head. “My queen.”

“Hm, yes.” She eyed Victor with disdain, and then the rest of the bar and its people as though we were bugs beneath her shiny pink shoes. “It’s so . . . quaint.” After hopping onto a stool, she laid her eyes on the dapper Tom Collins. “The foul-mouthed barman.” Her legs swung under the stool. “I must be special, if the gang is all here.”

The jukebox clunked, the lights dimmed, and Zee began to sing the opening bars of “Rebel Yell” while strutting his stuff in his stunning blood-red pantsuit—no shirt, just a black tie— instantly ensuring everyone looked at him, and not us.

“What can I get you?” Tom Collins asked.

“Milk,” Daisy said.

“Milk?” he recoiled.

“Yes.”

“Just milk? Shall I spice it up with some⁠—”

“Are you deaf, barkeep? I said milk! I want a glass of milk!”

Tom Collins’s eyes narrowed to deadly slits. He flung the dishcloth over his shoulder and opened his mouth⁠—

“Get the queen her milk,” Victor verbally stepped in before Tom Collins could launch into a tirade about underage brats in his bar that would see all the vampires swarm into the hotel like rats.

Tom huffed, and turned his back on us to find some milk. Hopefully, he’d still be able to whip up something deadly to vampires.

“Thank you.” Daisy smoothed her hair back and flicked her ponytail, and caught Reynard staring. “Who are you again? I forget. All my underlings look alike.”

“Lord Reynard, my queen.”