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“Hi. I’m Adam.”

“Adam is my ke-ach,” Zee said, using a word I was unfamiliar with. I’d ask him later. “Fuckin’ touch him and die,” he added with a careless laugh. “Adam, this is Kat. We hunted suckers in our previous lives. He looks as soft as a marshmallow but will cut a bitch.”

Kat giggled. “I fuckin’ will! Come in, drinks are on me.” Kat’s pale arm looped around my shoulders and I was hauled deeper into the dining area. “We need to catch up. Adam, tell me everything. Like how you met, how you managed to convince Lycian to go domestic⁠—”

“Oh, I don’t—I didn’t⁠—”

“You’re his ke-ach, aren’t you. Look at you. I could eat you right up.” Kat smiled, revealing rows of sharp demon teeth. Kat’s tail flicked, and while the studded tail bling mixed in with the fluff looked decorative, I suspected one whip from that tail could take a man’s head off.

I glanced behind, trying to convey help with my eyes. Zee leaned in and whispered, “Ke-ach is life mate. You got this.”

I was Zee’s . . . life mate?

My heart melted and a weird little lump of emotion clogged my throat. Kat’s slap on the back while he thrust a pink drink into my hand cleared it. “So tell me, why are you two in Miami?”

“Got on the wrong side of a gang turf war, made a drug lord angry, probably gonna do some killing later.” Zee swiped a drink from a nearby table. “You know, the fuckin’ usual.”

He said it so casually, even I wondered if he was joking.

Kat laughed. “Still the party animal. Did you end Sebastien?”

Zee’s grin turned predatory. “Seb got his card punched.”

“Then we shall celebrate!” Kat twirled and led us through the dining area, toward a cozy corner surrounded by lush plants that gave us some screening from the public.

It was likely Kat had served with Seb in the demon armies. Zee and Kat clearly had history, maybe even a bond forged in battle. If Zee trusted him, so did I.

We chatted some more, mostly about how Seb had messed up in San Francisco and about how the Razorsedge family were doing. Kat had started The Peach Pit with a human partner right after the veil had sealed five years ago, but instead of taking advantage of Kat like most humans, they’d worked together. A true partnership. Kat’s business partner—maybe life partner too—had died two years ago. Killed. Wrong place, wrong time. Even if Kat hadn’t been intimately involved with his human partner, it was clear talking about the man’s death remained painful.

The story of how Kat had come to be here wasn’t all that different to how Zee and I had hooked up.

“So, you know anything about this guy, Skrinde?” Zee asked, after a few more rounds of drinks and free table snacks, which he had unashamedly devoured.

Kat’s demeanor chilled. “Skrinde, fuck. You weren’t joking about the drug lord, huh?” His flighty smile fluttered and died. “Yeah, the Lost Ones here know Skrinde. Asshole troll, thinks he’s king of the Strip.” Kat sobered and leaned forward in his chair. “If you’re going up against Skrinde, you’re going to need an army.”

“I got one,” Zee said, smiling at me. “Where’s his base of operations?” he asked Kat, slipping into soldiering speak.

“Multimillion-dollar mansion on Pointe Drive. Makes Mar-a-Lago look like a fuckin’ summer house. Security up the tits. Rumor is he’s got a fuckin’ Minigun at the entrance gate. You can’t get in there, babe.”

Zee smirked, and in his purple suit, shades tucked into his jacket pocket, he looked every inch the badass I knew him to be. “You’d be surprised what we can do. Hey, you got a phone we can borrow?”

“Sure, use mine.” He took a fake-diamond-encrusted phone from his pocket and handed it to Zee, then looked up as someone called his name. “I’ll be right back. Eat, drink, enjoy yourselves.”

Zee handed the phone to me. The diamonds looked real up close.

“You’d better fill Agent Fae in before shit gets more real, Kitten.”

“Right.” Where did I even start to explain everything that had happened since my brother showed up.

I dialed Leomaris’s number and listened to it ring. Oh hey, so there’s this thing, I could say. I have a brother. Surprise! And he wants to eat everyone. In fact, you’ve probably already met him.

An automated voice picked up and asked me to leave a message after the tone. All thoughts vacated the building. “Erm, hey . . . so, we’re in Miami and uhm . . .” Zee frowned, suggesting I get to the point. “We’re uh . . . I guess we’re not really on vacation, exactly.”

Zee rolled his eyes. “Tell them your name.”

“Oh yeah, it’s Adam. And Zee is here, you probably just heard him. Victor is back at the apartment a mafia boss put us up in, I guess.” Zee blinked. I felt like maybe I was doing this wrong? Or I’d started at the wrong part of the conversation. “You know what, let me start again. So, there was a troll, who we thought we saved but⁠—”

“Oh, sweet baby Gareth, you are so bad at this. Gimme the phone.”