Epilogue
Whoever invented Mondays should’ve been dragged kicking and screaming across the Veil, then tossed into a pack of hangry werewolves as an ‘all-you-can-eat human BBQ.’ Or better yet, dipped in cursed honey and staked out over an ant hill of demonic fire ants while spectral bees stung them repeatedly until the clock rolled over into the second Monday of the week known as Tuesday.
I scowled at my coffee like it had personally betrayed me—too weak, and too bitter, just like my will to live at ass o’clock on a Monday morning. Angel, annoyingly bright-eyed for someone who’d spent half the night ensuring I didn’t sleep, smirked at me from the driver’s seat.
“You’re cute when you’re homicidally un-awake,” he said.
“I’m always homicidal,” I grumbled. “It’s why I work with people who are already dead. Mondays just give me focus. And shitty coffee makes me want to turn Dexter.”
“Sorry. I forgot to restock my fridge since I’ve been at your place half the week. I was more focused on getting you home to rest.” He flicked the turn signal like a responsible, well-adjusted morning person. Disgusting.
“Ha. If that’s what you call rest…”
“I made you cake but used up everything I had left in the apartment, and Instacart doesn’t deliver across the Veil.”
“Assholes. What if Dracula needs coffee? I call discrimination.”
“I’m sure Victor will be happy to hear you support equal rights for vampires, and I’ll get you a better coffee from the cafeteria at work,” Angel promised, reaching over to squeeze my thigh. His thumb brushed the inside seam of my jeans.
“Hands off, Mr.-Keep-Me-Awake-Fucking-My-Brains-Out-All-Night. You had plenty last night and owe me good coffee before you get more feels. I’m beginning to think fate made a mistake with us.”
“Why?” he asked, not sounding concerned at all.
“You’re a morning person!”
“Serving in the military will do that to a guy.”
I grumbled my irritation into my bitter, unsweetened coffee, which tasted like sadness and despair.
“Yes, love, I’ll get you good coffee and a donut,” Angel said, making me sputter as he pulled into the parking garage.
“Don’t say stuff like that.”
“Like what?” Angel asked innocently as he parked and opened his door, pulling my stuff out of the backseat as I debated all my life choices and how they’d brought me to this moment.
Wade appeared at my door a second later, nearly giving me a heart attack. I opened the door and blinked at him, confused, but also thankful he didn’t have hellhounds trailing him.
“Trade,” Wade said as he held out a cup of coffee and a bag.
“Huh?” I said, but took the coffee. The sweet scent of caramel and chocolate hit my nose and I sighed, in heaven as I sipped it. “Marry me,” I said to Wade.
He snorted and shook the bag. “Courtesy of your boyfriend, not me,” he said. “I’d have let you stay home and sleep rather than offer donuts and coffee before bad news.”
I grabbed the bag from him as I got out of the car. Oh, a cream filled donut. Yum.
“What bad news?” I asked as I took a bite large enough to devour half the donut, sugar and cinnamon coating my fingers. The soft, sweet, pastry lit a thousand joy molecules in my brain and made me maybe want to keep Angel a little longer.
“We are on TFW next week, which means we have less than a week to train you on gear and give you an overview with active drills before we are on the streets, across the Veil, keeping supes in line,” Angel answered.
I glared at him. “I need more than coffee and a donut to handle this.”
“You’ll have hellhounds and your team as backup,” Wade said.
“Are there hellcats?”
“Only in comic books,” Angel said.
“Or when you piss off Angel,” Wade added as we all walked toward the building. “Don’t feel bad. You’re not the only one in for a week of field training otherwise known as hazing.”
Hazing, eh? This was going to suck. “Yeah? Who else?” I sipped my coffee and let them hold doors as we headed inside, scanned in, and took the elevator down.
“Our friendly, neighborhood practitioner,” Angel said.
The door to the locker rooms opened and Ezra blazed by us as we exited the car, his irritation clouding around him in nearly visible waves.
“Uh…” I said, but he hit the button the second we were out of the elevator and the door closed.
Blue-hair appeared in the doorway of the locker room; half undressed. “He told me to change, then ran. How am I supposed to know what to wear?”
Angel sighed. Wade groaned.
“Pants are probably a good start,” I told him as I finished my donut.
“Says the guy who unlocked an otherworld prison while showing his vampire duckie undies to everyone,” Blue-hair said.
“But yeah, I guess. I can start with pants.” He paused and offered me a hand, which I eyed suspiciously, since last time he’d gotten close, he’d kissed me.
“Call me Remi. I think we’re going to be good friends. ”
“Over my dead body,” Angel said.
Remi winked at him. “Challenge accepted.”