I locked eyes with the blond bombshell one last time. “Good luck on teaching him how to pleasure a woman. You know what they say about teaching stupid dogs new tricks. Impossible.”

His mouth dropped open and she glared at me. “Maybe all he needed was someone worth pleasuring. Maybe a little brown church mouse wasn’t all that fun to play with.”

Oh, she did not go there. I spun on a heel and faced her. “Do I look like a little brown church mouse to you?”

She stood up on the bed, buck naked, and put her hands on her hips. “I think you wouldn’t know what fun was if it snuck up and bit you on the ass. Roger is better off with me. As is the money, because I’ll at least do something interesting with it.”

Gobsmacked was the only word I had to identify the emotions running through me. A small part of me wanted to strangle her.

Okay, a large part.

The rest was just confused, and that part won out this time. “Our whole life together was a lie, wasn’t it?”

Roger shook his head, but I saw it in his eyes a split second before he lowered them. The truth. I was just a stepping-stone for him.

I snorted softly. “You two have fun. I’m taking you for everything you’ve got and then some. Rog.”

I turned again and headed down the stairs, making myself not hurry. Forcing my feet to go at a sedate pace. I refused to run from the two of them.

But maybe if I’d hurried, I would have made it out before the bad guys found me.

Okay, I was assuming they were bad guys. But really, good guys don’t burst into a house wielding large weapons.

Nor do they normally look like bulls from the waist down.

I swallowed hard. Here we go again.

CHAPTER 9

“I think you have the wrong house!” Roger yelled from the top of the stairs. “We gave at the office.”

I twisted around to glare at him, wondering what I’d ever seen in him. Spineless twit. No wonder he couldn’t even manage a cash register.

“You the Drakaina?” a deep voice asked.

The question turned me back to face the things in the lower foyer. Men from the waist up, bulls from the waist down, which included hairy legs, cloven hooves, and oversized bull bits. Each of them had a strap across his chest with an emblem engraved in gold. One that looked suspiciously like Achilles’s chiseled jaw.

“What’s a Drakaina?” Barbie whispered, and the Bull Boy at the front pointed his sword at her.

“Back away, puny human. The Drakaina is a dangerous beast full of poison.”

“Actually, poison is not quite right. Venom would be correct if you’re referring to my fangs.” I took a breath and backed up a step.

Bull Boy raised an eyebrow at me. “You the Drakaina?”

I shrugged as a niggling fear began to gnaw at the base of my neck. Achilles had sent his goons after me. I went with coy. “Maybe.”

“What do you mean, maybe?” He pointed his sword at me.

“She’s a human, not some draco thing,” Roger said, though his words wavered at the end. “Right, Alena?”

Bull Boy grinned up at me. “That’s her. Alena. Boss said it was her name.”

He took a step, his large hooves tromping onto the bottom stair. The wood groaned and I lifted an eyebrow. “I don’t think that was a good idea.”

“Drakaina, we’re taking you to Achilles.”

I glared at him. “What is it with all the men in my life trying to make me do what they want?”

Barbie snickered. “Because you haven’t learned yet to make them do what you want them to. Idiot.”

I didn’t want to think she had a point. But maybe she did.

Bull Boy let out a snort, leaned forward to step up . . . and went straight through the stairs, the old wood busting out underneath him with a monstrous screech of breaking lumber and rusted nails letting loose all at once. His hands flung up as he went down, and he bellowed as the house seemingly swallowed him whole. The remaining six Bull Boys stared at the hole, their hooves shuffling on the wooden floor. Their furry legs twitched as they backed away from the pitch-black hole.

“You’d better leave. I can’t guarantee the rest of you will make it out alive.” I took a step forward. They backed up farther, their eyes trained on my every move.

They were afraid of me.

A wild urge gripped me, a power like I’d never known. Not magic, but the realization that just by existing, I frightened them. Gathering myself, I leapt the rest of the way down the stairs and over the hole the lead bull had opened up in the floor. I landed in a crouch on the main floor. Achilles’s goons scattered to one side, the clatter of the hooves filling the air.

“Holy shit, she is a supernatural,” Roger breathed.

The bulls snorted, shaking their heads and holding their weapons out in front of them, though they were far less certain without their leader. Like a real herd of bovines, they weren’t about to step away from the group and face me on their own. I grabbed the front door, opened it, and moved to step through. Hanging beside me on the wall key ring was a set of keys with the name Barbie in bright-pink crystals. I scooped them up along with my set of keys from Vanilla and Honey. No way was Colleen getting her hands on these.

“Alena, you can’t leave us here with these things!” Roger yelled. I glanced up at him, the dark sheet he held to his waist highlighting how pale his skin was.

Barbie glared at me. “Don’t you dare touch my baby!”