Chapter 4 #2
“But what if they do?” Simon, a cat shifter who usually changed into a house cat and hid when things got dicey, muttered. “What if they record something? Or realize we’re supes? Or trick us into revealing ourselves?”
He was huddled in the corner with his dragon shifter mate, Ogden.
The dragon usually had a flirtatious smile and a personality as bright as the colors he wore, but I didn’t doubt for a minute he would kill without a second thought to protect his mate.
And right now, he looked seconds away from razing the town to the ground to make sure Simon felt safe.
Simon was also the chief security guard at my motel.
He should have clocked in at the Tarbeck already, but I’d given him permission to come to the debriefing.
He needed to hear this information, especially since the chances of him interacting with the three suspected hunters were greater than most people who’d gathered here.
When I’d first hired him, more than a few people had asked why I would choose a man known as the local scaredy-cat to be my security guard.
And, yeah, I could see how people might think him a strange choice.
But, other than an incident a few months ago where he lost his shit on the inflatable tube man, he did okay.
Simon didn’t know I knew he was the one who shredded the tube man.
Parker had called me when it happened and described, in vivid detail, how a black house cat stalked and destroyed the tube man.
He’d seen it all unfold from his second-floor apartment down the street and, apparently, it’d been one of the strangest things he’d ever seen.
Of course, he had thought the animal’s relentless determination was a sign it had a brain disease like rabies.
Parker had been ready to go out and trap the cat and haul him off to the veterinary clinic in Aspen Bay.
But luckily, I’d talked him out of going after Simon.
That would have been a disaster. What if Simon had shifted in front of him to get away?
Or started talking while he was in his cat form?
The last thing we needed was for Parker to see under the Eternal Magic’s glamour, shielding humans from magic. Where would I get my morning coffee if he left town?
Okay. Fine. My coffee supply wasn’t my major worry. And everyone in Willow Lake probably knew that wasn’t my primary concern when it came to Parker. But whatever. It didn’t change the fact that Parker couldn’t find out about supes. He just couldn’t.
What was I talking about?
Oh, right. Simon.
When Simon told me about the tube man being destroyed the next morning, the poor guy was shaking like Jello in an earthquake and could hardly talk. I figured he’d already punished himself enough, so he didn’t need me shitting on him too. I had let the incident slide.
Besides, the thing had been annoying, always flapping around.
“Simon’s right. We all know what happened to the Sasquatch family up by Rock Creek,” someone said from the back of the room. “They had to abandon their home to escape all the cryptid chasers.”
“Same thing happened to a mermaid pod on the coast,” someone else added.
“And the?—”
“Enough,” Van said firmly, holding up his hands to silence everyone. The flames of his hellhound flashed brighter in his eyes, like they always did when he got riled up. “We’ve all heard the stories. But that doesn’t mean it’ll happen here. We have resources.”
People muttered but didn’t look relieved.
“Do we have pictures of them?” Ogden asked.
In the last few minutes, Simon had shifted to his cat form and was cowering in his mate’s arms. He was shedding black fur all over Ogden’s bright green shirt and pastel yellow pants.
Was it a fear response? I didn’t think I shed that much in my minotaur form.
Although, I couldn’t remember ever cuddling with anyone when I was shifted.
I didn’t cuddle with anyone when I was in my human form either, so there was that.
“I’ll get a picture and text it to anyone who wants it.” Van sighed and rubbed his forehead.
“Good.” The dragon nodded decisively. “I can get rid of them.”
“They’ve done nothing wrong…” Van reminded us. “We don’t know for sure if they are hunters…”
Had anyone else noticed the silent yet dangling at the end of both his sentences?
“So, no one is getting rid of anyone. Do you hear me?” Van cast his fiery gaze around the room until people started nodding.
When his eyes landed on me, he beckoned me forward.
I didn’t move from my spot by the pool table.
“But it wouldn’t hurt to know a bit more about them. Levi? Can you describe them?”
“Well, there are three of them…” I snapped my mouth closed when the three people in question strolled into the pub.
All heads pivoted toward the door.
The hunters walked in like they didn’t have a care in the world, eyeing the pub with open curiosity.
Finley appeared eager. The other two… They moved with what I’d call a predatory grace, not exactly like a wolf shifter, but similar.
Their gazes swung around the room, and I was sure they were cataloguing everyone’s faces, the exits, and what was close at hand that could double as a weapon.
A ripple of unease fluttered through the crowd of supes, like everyone was suddenly wishing they could shift like Simon had done. A supe always felt stronger and safer in their shifted form. Unfortunately, in this case, that would be the exact wrong thing to do.
A petite older woman dressed in black followed behind them. She hadn’t been with the trio who’d booked into my motel. I frowned. Where had she come from? She squinted suspiciously at everyone in the pub as her gaze swept the room.
The door opened one more time.
Parker was here.
My heart hiccupped in my chest before it started racing. The same thing happened every time I saw him. He was gorgeous, from his ginger hair to his beautiful blue eyes. He also had an amazing smile, and his body…
Well, let’s just say I’d had dreams about his body. So many dreams.
He was exactly my type except for one big, glaring flaw: He was human. He was unaware supes existed, and I knew from bitter experience it was better that way. Humans didn’t belong with supes. Humans couldn’t be trusted with the truth.
Of course, if I said that to anyone in Willow Lake, they’d point to the few local humans who’d mated with supes as examples of how I was wrong. Exceptions happened. That didn’t make all humans trustworthy.
Although, it didn’t matter about Parker being human, anyway. Not to me. Because I wasn’t looking to get closer to him, or anyone else, for that matter. That led to heartache, and I’d had enough heartache to last a lifetime, thank you very much.
The only thing that did matter was making sure Parker didn’t discover the truth. He was dangerously close to finding out about supes—so dangerously close that I’d approached Jake and Gage about making the Willow Lake Pub members only.
Okay, what I really meant was supes only, and everyone knew it. But the assholes had refused. Of course, they’d reasoned that Parker would just become more suspicious if they banned him from the pub.
Why couldn’t they see barring humans was the best way of ensuring Parker or any others wouldn’t see or hear anything he—uh, I mean they —shouldn’t?
Gage had been around for almost two millennia; he should know how terrible things became when humans, any human, found out about supes.
Even the ones who looked like perfection and sex all rolled up together could betray a supe in an instant.
But tonight, I wanted to ban Parker from the bar for a totally different reason. It was way too fucking risky for him to be here right now with the hunters. I wanted to scoop him up and carry him far away. Away from the hunters. Away from imminent death .
It was either that or shift and skewer the hunters with my horns. I’d be good with either. Perhaps both.
Parker frowned as he trudged into the room. As I waited for him to approach the pool table like he always did, I plotted what I’d say to convince him to go home. But instead of coming over, he followed the paranormal investigators and the old woman to a table.
He didn’t look my way. What the hell was going on? Was he friends with hunters?
No. Parker wasn’t like that, was he?
I squeezed the pool cue until my knuckles turned white. The hair on the back of my neck quivered. I desperately hoped a partial shift wasn’t rolling over me. I hadn’t lost control like that since I’d gone through puberty, which was a long, long, long time ago.
The gathered supes, as if finally realizing they were gawking at the new arrivals, jumped into motion and began loud, animated conversations. Yeah. We weren’t acting suspicious at all.
Parker furrowed his brow, as if aware something out of the ordinary was happening.
He glanced around and when his gaze finally caught mine, a little smile curled over his lips.
Oh, what his smile did to me. I hated it.
I loved it. I didn’t know what to do about it.
He nodded in greeting. I lifted my hand to beckon him over, away from the strangers, but he’d already turned away.
He continued to the table where the hunters sat.
The young woman—Tamara? Terry? Tammy…? Yeah, Tammy, that was it—who’d been so surly earlier, had shed her wariness and was all smiles now.
Gage’s magic must ha ve worked to hide our supernatural energy, because she didn’t seem the least bit suspicious.
Her cheeks were flushed as she waved her arms. Finley was nodding at her with an affable smile on his face.
And Kyle, the one I hadn’t met when they checked in, was fiddling with some piece of equipment I didn’t recognize, so all I could see was the top of his head.
His buzz cut left little more than a shadow of light brown hair over his scalp.
I knew not everyone with that haircut was in the military, but I still wondered if he had ties to the human army.
He bit his bottom lip as he concentrated on what he was doing, seemingly unaware of everything happening around him, but I doubted that was the case.
He held his head in a way that made me suspect he was listening to more than he let on.
Why were they so happy? Had they gone out again after I stopped following them? Had they seen the town kids? Van had been sure he’d warned the teens in time, but what if he hadn’t? Were these three here to celebrate some discovery they thought they’d made?
I glanced at Van for a sign we needed to apprehend them before they spread the news about their discovery. The hellhound leaned against the bar, looking relaxed. Our gazes caught, and he nodded toward Parker’s table.
Shit.
Was he seriously telling me to go over and talk to them? Me? Approaching an entire table full of humans? And snoopy ones at that?
Normally, I was okay with humans. I’d had many years to figure out how to interact with them. That didn’t mean I trusted the bastards, though. Years ago, I’d hired a mage to tattoo a rune into my skin to hide my magic from their kind.
And being so close to hunters dredged up memories that made me want to hide like Simon usually did. If I was a cat shifter like him, I probably would. But a minotaur didn’t exactly blend into the background.
I shuddered and closed my eyes to stave off the sudden nausea roiling through me. I sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly. I was safe. The pub was full of supes. They wouldn’t let anything happen to me.
I also wouldn’t let hunters destroy my life. Not again.
Pep talk over, I gritted my teeth and prepared to face the enemy.