“Sean O’Sean,” I said.

“Meow,” Corb breathed out.

I giggled, feeling the effects of the drinks I’d pounded down on an empty stomach. “Oh, right, so you can’t even say anything about him when I say his name first? I saw him last when he and the other guy, Douche Canoe, who I assume is O’Sean senior, set the spell on everyone.”

Corb meowed again and I patted his thigh. “Maybe you should just let me talk.”

The story spilled out effortlessly until I got to the pink eye part.

“Wait,” he said. “You’re sure about the color?”

Apparently that didn’t interfere with whatever spell he had on him. “Yes. Pink. I made fun of him.”

“Of course you did.” He laughed softly, the rumble of it a very nice sound through the fogginess of the booze. He’d obviously put more than I’d realized into the drink.

“Are you trying to get me drunk?” I tipped my head back to look up at him. He winked down at me. Winked. Flirty, cute, too-young-for-me bastard.

Not Crash. That thought floated through me. He was not Crash.

“No, I’m trying to make sure you sleep tonight.” He shifted his seat on the couch, which meant that I slid further sideways so we were kind of smushed together. Not that I minded. He was warm and a part of me knew that he would always try to protect me. A quality more men should have, in my humble opinion. He took the mug from my hands as I leaned my head against his shoulder, breathing him in. Yes, he did smell as good as he looked. The urge to bury my nose against his skin and just breathe him in was way too strong. I settled for a little sniff.

“He put Suzy under a spell, putting her to sleep, and I had to fake being under the same spell.” I snickered. “I can fake it well, just ask Himself. Wait, no, he thinks it was all real.” Oh, I hadn’t meant to let that slip, but Corb’s only reaction was to chuckle.

As nice as this all was, a part of me was trying to point out that he was acting super cozy with me. Like . . . something was off with Corb. The same way things were off with Suzy. And, in a different way, with Sarge.

“Keep going,” he said.

“O’Sean realized I was the one who’d ducked up Hattie’s ceremony.” I yawned and closed my eyes. “He started to make a spell, and I yelled for Robert—”

“Who is Robert?” There it was again, that hint of jealousy. Interesting.

I smiled. “Robert is my friend. He’s a skeleton. He bit Sarge’s ear off at my interview.”

Corb probably thought I was crazy, or maybe he thought I was making it up. I didn’t care in that moment, not one bit.

“Anyhoo. Robert attacked him for me, distracting him, but he got blasted so I put his finger bone in Centennial Park when we got back.” I could feel myself slipping deeper under the spell of the alcohol, plus the exhaustion that had been a constant state for me since I’d moved back to Savannah. “Sean O’Sean was going to fling a spell at me, but I cut through it with a knife and it blasted us both backward. Me into the drink, him into the back wall of the tunnel.” I wrapped an arm around Corb’s middle.

“What happened to him?”

“Broken neck. He’s dead.”

And with that, having made my confession, I fell sound asleep.

12

Sleep is something not to be taken lightly, especially if you are over forty. So many things can disrupt it. Aching muscles and joints. The need to pee. Bad dreams. Hot flashes. Dry mouth. A raging werewolf.

That last one I really wouldn’t recommend.

“What the actual duck is going on here?” Sarge roared, snapping me out of my deep, relaxing, alcohol-induced sleep. I jerked to one side, my hands going for my knives, which of course I didn’t have on me. But score one for me and my training! My roll took me out of bed and onto the floor, away from danger.

Floor. Where the hell was I? I stared at the floor, recognized that I was still in Corb’s loft. Only this was not my room. I peeked up over the edge of the king-sized bed—Corb’s—to see that he still lay on the other side of the mattress, the sheets pooled around his waist. Shirtless, no less.

“Morning, Sarge.” Corb ran a hand over his head. “Can I help you?”

Sarge’s eyes glittered with a sharp amber that all but screamed wolf as he glared at Corb. “I came to talk to you, and I find this ducking traitor in your bed.”

Sarge shot me a look that had me sitting up and then wobbling to my feet, muscles protesting despite the Advil from the night before, but I knew better than to show any weakness to a mean dog like him. Seriously, what the hell had gotten into him? Then again, it fit with the others. No matter how much I liked this mushy side of Corb, none of them were acting like themselves.

I stumbled around the edge of the bed, struggling to stay upright. “Listen, I know a cranky-ass dog when I see one. Don’t make me swat you with a newspaper!”

His mouth thinned, and his eyes glittered with nothing short of hatred. “I’d like to see you try.”

I pointed a finger at him. “You want me to stuff my fingers in your nose again? This time I’ll yank hard enough to tear you a new nostril!”

Sarge growled at me and I glared in response. What in the world was his problem? Corb swung his legs out of the bed and stood up. “Go easy, man. It’s been a rough night. Meow”—he shook his head—“damn it.”

I grinned, my mean streak showing up. “I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of that. Sarge, what do you say when you try to talk about what happened to the mentors and the trainees?”

“What do you mean?” he growled.

Both of my eyebrows shot up. “I mean when you and the trainees got knocked out by Douche Canoe and Sean O’Sean? Also, that is a terrible name, his parents had to know he was going to get teased.”

Sarge stared hard at me, his current hatred forgotten for just a moment. “How do you know oink oink oink?” His eyes bugged out and I fell forward on the bed, belly laughing.

Jaysus, my life was complete. I’d heard a werewolf oink like pig and I could die happy now. Which might be sooner than I’d planned given the way my life was going. Someone had shot me, and I currently had two enemies: a werewolf and some powerhouse mage named O’Sean.

I stuffed my face against the blankets, unable to keep back the peals of laughter that would no doubt wake poor Suzy. I couldn’t stop them, I really couldn’t. When I lifted my head up, I thought I’d be alone in the room, but Corb was still there watching me.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered around a last giggle. “I really am, but that was too much. And he deserved it considering what a prick he was yesterday.”

Corb shook his head. “It’s dangerous not being able to warn you of anything. I tried writing names and information down last night. Same effect.”

My eyes widened. “You wrote meow, meow, meow?”

His lips might have twitched, but if they did, it was gone very quickly. Speaking of being gone, I did a quick glance around the room for Kinkly. She’d said she would come back after talking to Karissa, but she hadn’t. Which meant I was off the hook for missing last night. Crap, I needed all the guard duty I could get now that I was unemployed. Of course, the sleep was good too—and probably necessary, to be perfectly honest.

I blew out a breath. “What is going on with Sarge? Why does he hate me? Honestly, it’s like he’s a different person now.”

“He doesn’t hate you.” Corb grabbed a pair of pants and yanked them on, his movements jerky. “He’s angry with me, and you’re just getting the spillover because you’re here. But yes, he is more intense than usual, even for him.”

“What’s he angry about?” I asked, not really expecting an answer.

“Nothing to do with work,” Corb muttered. “That would be easier.” He came around the side of the bed and touched my arm. “You feeling okay?”

I shrugged. “Fresh as a daisy. But don’t change the subject. I’m the one getting my ass handed to me because he’s mad at you? That makes no sense.”

He bent and kissed me on the forehead, a rather tender move that set off more warning bells. “You don’t have to leave if you don’t want to. You aren’t disrupting my life. I . . . like having you here.”

Well, that was . . . unexpected. “Thanks.”

“That wasn’t really an answer,” he pointed out.

I smiled and shrugged. “What can I say? I’m a woman of mystery and full of plot twists you’ll probably never see coming.”

His smile was way too bright, and it struck something in my chest that was a little too close to my heart. “Good. I’ll see if I can straighten things out with the other mentors for you and Suzy. But don’t hold your breath. Everyone is out of sorts since meow-meow showed up. Stay low until we have a direction, okay?”

I gave him a jaunty salute, and he patted my cheek of all things before turning and heading out into the main part of the loft. Yeah, something was going on with him too. I crept down the hall to my bedroom and let myself in. Suzy was sleeping fitfully, perhaps fighting an unseen opponent. “No, don’t!” She flung her hands out as if to stop something.

I touched her shoulder and shook her gently. “Suze, it’s just a dream.”

She jerked upright and grabbed at my arm, her eyes wide and not really seeing me. “He had me.”

“He’s gone now.” I pulled her into a hug and she leaned against me, not crying but shuddering from the residual effects of her nightmare.

A solid minute slid by, then another, as the shaking in her body eased. “I need to forget about this for a little while,” she said. “Just pretend like we’re normal, like we didn’t get spelled, and we didn’t see two dead bodies last night.”

“Can we also pretend I didn’t get shot?” I suggested. That was weighing heavily on me. Part of me wanted to believe it was an accident, some hunter off in the woods with an accidental discharge. But of course it wasn’t.