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We’d all been left with the promise that the demon would come back for blood.
It had taken a lot of fae and a lot of spells to hide me, with Uma keeping the delicate balance in place, but all I needed was for one wrong person to catch wind of where I was, and I was fucked.
And by extension, Kinley would be fucked, too.
I refused to do that to her.
The front door opened, and the night air spilled in. The sun had set while we talked, and it was almost completely dark out.
Dagger walked in, the darkness clinging to his clothes before he shrugged out of his jacket.
“It’s getting colder out there. I think winter will be here early this year.”
I watched him as he walked to the fireplace and outstretched his hands, warming up after he’d been out all day.
“Everything good over here?”
“Fine,” I said. “Where’s Cal?”
“Sulking in a bar in the city. He’s pissed you outbid him.”
I snorted. “He’s an idiot.”
“Yeah, but you better keep an eye on him. He’s going to be more trouble than he’s worth if you look for too much shit with him.”
“I can handle him,” I said with a wave of my hand. “What did you find?”
“I followed up on Inigo’s’ death,” Dagger said. “Something didn’t sit right with me. I went to find Lennox, you know, the bear that lives down at the creek?”
“Yeah, I know him,” I said.
There wasn’t a shifter in my territory that I didn’t know—they were all part of my pack—and I liked to keep tabs on the humans when I could, too. It was a hell of an operation to run, but I had to know where everyone was if I wanted to stay safe.
“Well, he and Inigo were close, you know that.”
“Yeah, I know.” I bristled at the thought.
Inigo had been one of mine, but his loyalty had been questionable. He hadn’t always kept his mouth shut about my business, which was why I’d started pushing him out. The problem was that the more I’d pushed him out of the group of shifters I usually held close, the more he’d buddied up to outsiders, pissing me off. I was pretty sure he’d done it on purpose.
“It took a while to get Lennox to open up to me. The bear shifter is a pain in the ass, and he doesn’t think he needs to answer to me.”
“I hope you showed him otherwise.”
“Turns out a rabbit killed the panther,” Dagger said.
Uma’s eyes snapped to mine, her eyebrows raised, and I stared at Dagger.
“What?!”
“Yeah, the story Cal was talking about was actually true. The rabbit…” He nodded down the hallway in the direction of Kinley’s room.
“Fuck,” I said. I stood and walked to the window, scratching my beard. “What if she’s here to get to me?” I looked over my shoulder at Dagger and Uma.
“How?” Dagger asked.
I frowned slightly, my mind spinning. “The demon…” I didn’t know how else to say it.
“The demon isn’t the reason Kinley is here,” Uma said.
