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I stopped.

Zee bumped into my back. “Oof.”

“Demon, there is an alligator approaching⁠—”

Zee chuckled. “The fuck—I thought you were gonna say something is gonna eat us. Alligator? Pfft. You have no idea what we’ve had to deal with, and your ancient ass is worried about a cute, fluffy⁠—”

Zee and Victor vanished in a thrash and splash of water.

Gone.

Both of them.

Suddenly alone, I stared at the rippling black water that had just eaten my demon and vampire.

“Guys?!”

CHAPTER 5

Fortunately, I didn’t have to figure out how best to fight an alligator—if that’s what had taken them⁠—

Zee shot from the water like a bullet from a gun and clung to a nearby tree, wings flapping, whipping up a chaotic storm of twigs, slime, and whatever else lurked in the swamp.

Behind him, Victor wrestled some kind of hideous, long-tailed, big-clawed, scaly-skinned, reptilian-eyed . . . wait a second . . .

“Hey!” I stomped forward. “Hey, you!”

The alligator—if that’s what it was—stopped thrashing and glared its cold eyes at me while keeping Victor’s arm firmly lodged between its teeth.

“He’s my vampire,” I told my distant—very distant, waaay back several million years—kinda cousin. “Bad alligator. Drop Victor.”

The alligator stared some more. It’s vertical black slits getting narrower.

“Adam, if I may continue wrestling for my freedom, as my arm is exceedingly painful trapped between its jaws.”

I stomped the rest of the way and pointed a stern finger at the alligator. “Bad. Drop. Now.”

With its cold glare locked on mine, the alligator dropped its lower jaw. Victor jerked backward, holding up his arm, and blood dribbled down his pale skin, soaking his torn shirt.

“It is very rude to eat people without their permission,” I scolded, reptile to reptile. “Don’t give me those sad eyes, mister.”

“Those are fuckin’ murder eyes, Kitten,” Zee said from his perch in the tree.

“Go on now.” I shooed the alligator away. “And tell your friends out there to leave us alone, or there’ll be real trouble—you know the trouble I mean.”

The alligator whipped its head around in a huff, thrashed its tail, and disappeared under the water.

“Victor, are you alright?” I waded over and winced at the mincemeat his arm had become. “Oh dear, that looks bad.”

“It will heal, but I should keep it out of the water.” He blinked through wet, algae-strewn bangs. “Where by the grace of the vampire queen are we, and why is Zodiac in a tree?”

Zee cleared his throat. “There was a uh . . .” He twirled a finger in his hair and his tail coiled around his leg. “Another one up here. I scared it off.” He vanished his wings, clambered down the tree, and shivered as he sank back into the water with us. “Ick. The water is hugging my balls. And I am not wearing the right heels for this soupy shit.”

“I’m so sorry, guys. I didn’t realize that was an alligator. But don’t worry, he won’t bother us again.”

Zee narrowed his eyes. “You speak fuckin’ alligator?”

“Kinda . . .” I shrugged. “It’s more about tone of voice. And I’m sort of at the top of the reptile food chain, I guess.”