“You think you might not go back?” He blinked rapidly. “That . . . would be an interesting turn of events. You’d be free agents, for lack of a better word. That could be good and bad. It would mean you wouldn’t be tied to the council like the Hollows Group is, but that might also open you up to shadier people.”

I thought about Crash, who was supposed to be one of the bad guys. Maybe he was a dick for messing around with all these women at once, but that didn’t make him bad, just a dick. What kind of shady was he talking about?

I sighed. “So you think it’s a bad idea?”

“Actually, I think it is a great idea. But I have one question.” He cleared his throat. “Could I be on the team? Just as an advisor, of course. I think I could bring insights to the team, and guidance when dealing with different personalities—”

I waved a hand, cutting him off. “I wouldn’t do this without you.” A smile spread over my lips and then I looked at Suzy. “What about you? Want to start our own club? Keep the money for ourselves?”

She picked up a piece of toast and bumped it into mine. “Done. Girl power, all the way.”

Feish’s face fell, but I was ready for her. That’s what I got for sitting on the throne for the last hour, praying for the end to come. I’d had time to think about how this would go down.

“You’d have to be our secret, Feish. You can be in, but Crash can’t know,” I said softly.

Her eyes lit up and she threw her arms around my neck, almost strangling me. “We are friends.”

“Of course we are.” I patted her back.

“We’ll need a name,” Suzy said. “Charlie’s Angels?”

“I think that’s taken,” I mumbled around my last bite of toast. My guts were feeling better, even if my backside was still miserable.

“Avengers?”

“Also taken.” I laughed softly.

“Gran’s Girls,” Gran whispered. “Eric can be an honorary girl.”

I burst out laughing but was rudely interrupted by a sudden banging on the back door. Eric and Feish jumped, lifting their hands as if they were ready to karate chop the would-be invader.

I spun in my seat to see Gran float-running toward the back door, her fingers wiggling like mad as if she could still cast a spell. “I said to stay off my property, Matilda!” she yelled. I pushed out of my seat and hurried after her. Because neither Feish nor Suzy could see Gran. Only Eric could.

They might be able to hear her at times, or get the occasional glimpse, but they didn’t see her the way I did.

“Damn it, who is Matilda and why is she banging on the door?” Like I didn’t have enough problems on my desk. I skidded to a stop at the back of the house as the pace and volume of the banging picked up, and whipped the door open.

“Matilda!” Gran pointed a finger at a woman standing on the doorstep in nothing but a partially shredded nightgown. Blood seeped from wounds all over her body, including a slash that circumnavigated her neck.

I put a hand to my own neck. “Another ghost.”

“WHAT?” Suzy whisper-shouted in my ear, making me jump. “What do you mean another ghost?”

“Her grandmother lives here still,” Feish sniffed, which was a rather wet sound. Maybe she was getting a cold.

“You mean it’s haunted?” Suzy was quiet for a breath and then pumped both fists into the air. “YES! I mean, that is so awesome! This team is going to kick some serious ass!”

I ignored her as I stared at the ghost who kept looking over her shoulder, which made her head roll precariously close to the edge of falling right off. Matilda pushed on Gran, who pushed her right back.

“No. You may not come in. You won’t bring that darkness into my home!” Gran stomped her foot and Matilda stumbled back, one hand clutching at her neck, the other wrapping around her middle. Tears slid down her pale cheeks, and her dark brown hair hung in messy ringlets. As if she’d had her coif done the day before and slept in it. Only I knew from the style of her nightgown she’d been dead for longer than a day. More likely she’d been dead for a couple hundred years.

Another stomp from Gran, and Matilda floated down the back steps and to the back of the house next door, sliding through the solid brick wall as if it were nothing. Gran sighed. “She is a mess, that one.”

My eyebrows shot up. “And this is because?”

“Well, besides the fact that she was murdered? She clings to something that she cannot speak of because of the—” Gran drew her thumb across her throat as she made a ‘ggggkkkk.’ “—terrible business next door. My gardens always kept it from seeping over to us.”

I had no doubt it was a terrible business. The Sorrel-Weed House was known for its hauntings, which had made it a serious draw for tourists, thrill seekers, and true believers hoping to catch a glimpse of ghosts and demons. “Is she going to be a problem?”

“You need to work on the garden,” Gran said. “Anyone who lives here needs to keep it healthy. The protection spells I wove around the house are tied to the roots of the plants, and from there to the souls within this house. She and the others will keep out if the garden is maintained. All those idiots wanting to buy the house trampled my flowers and herbs, and that did damage to the spells.”

A sigh slid out of me as I thought of all those hot summer hours I’d spent in the garden with my gran. She’d loved it and I’d loved her enough to make the process bearable. But I could already imagine the plants dying off in rapid succession. A green thumb was not a skill I’d ever been able to cultivate. Yes, pun intended.

I backed up and bumped into Suzy. Eric and Feish stood right behind her.

“Was that really a ghost from next door?” Suzy breathed. “I’ve heard that there is some seriously bad mojo flowing through those walls. Never been inside of it, though.”

Feish sniffed again. “Very bad. Even Boss thought maybe too bad for buying this house.”

Her lips clamped shut as if she’d said something she shouldn’t have. Interesting.

“Yes.” I looked at Suzy first. “That was a ghost. Gran ran her off. But I have to keep up the garden here if it’s going to protect us from the monsters from next door.”

Eric cleared his throat. “I could help with that. I like gardening.”

I touched his elbow. “You sure? It’s hot out there.”

He smiled. “I’m a bigfoot. I like nature and it responds to me. I’ll do some baking when it gets too hot to garden.”

Was he for real? No man was this good. Of course, then it hit me he wasn’t real. He was a damn bigfoot. Downright mythical.

“Thank you, Eric.” I gave him a quick hug and he blushed.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve been a part of something,” he said. “This is nice. Like a family.”

Suzy nodded, and so did Feish. Gran stood off to the side watching us with serious eyes. I clapped my hands together.

“So, since we’re all so wide awake, we should get my stuff from Corb’s. There’s not a lot of it.”

Suzy looked around the house with new eyes. “You think there’s room for a third? I’ve always wanted to live in a haunted house. And I’ll help with the garden too.”

I’d opened my mouth to say no until she mentioned the garden. Any help there would be good.

“If there is room,” Eric said, “I could stay too. We are probably all safer together.”

He wasn’t wrong. The more eyes on this place, the better. Especially considering we’d been shot at out in the bush.

“Agreed,” I said. “We can keep an eye out for anyone coming and going. Work together.”

I looked at the river maid on my left. “What do you think, Feish? You good with more roommates?”

She pursed those big floppy lips of hers. “Maybe till Boss gets back. When he’s back, then he decides.”

Back. Which meant he was gone for how long? What had he said the day of the auction?

Up to two months.

Two months in a place like that orgy pit?

Probably. Yeah, I didn’t like how that felt on my heart. I was not falling for him, not by any twinkling of the imagination. But I’d thought . . .

I don’t know what I’d thought. That he was different, maybe. That I was important to him?

That he liked me. UGH. I was an idiot. He was a fae king. I was human. This was for the best, it really was. I just had to keep telling myself that.

Suzy and I walked back to Corb’s loft to get Suzy’s car, Eric already hard at work in Gran’s garden as we left, chatting with Gran and getting her advice on how to best remove certain weeds.

Suzy left me at Corb’s, took her car, and headed to her place to pack up the room she rented. Which was probably pretty empty considering all the bags in the back of her car.

I let myself into the building, peeled off my boots to carry them in one hand to keep the noise down, and crept up the stairs. Corb would be sleeping now. I was sure of it. Cowardly of me to grab my stuff and run? Maybe. But if he’d yelled at Suzy for five minutes, then I could expect him to yell at me for ten. Especially given the way he’d been treating me. My phone had been shut off, I needed to remind him of that. I’d run out of minutes and hadn’t had the opportunity to add more.

Not that I was afraid, I just didn’t have the energy to duke it out with him. What I could use was a hot soak in a tub, a full-body massage, and half a bottle of Advil.

Too bad there were only two tablets left in the bottle in the bathroom.

Back in my room, I stuffed my clothing into the one duffel bag I’d brought with me from Seattle. The rest of my stuff—what little there was—I’d put into a storage unit there. But I didn’t have the money to get it all shipped to Savannah, not if I wanted to pour every penny toward the house, and the more time that passed, the less I cared. I really didn’t have much to my name. I mean, I had the money from Eric and the bounty I’d completed. I touched the leather bag on my hip, where I’d stowed all that money.