“That’s not what I’m doing, I’m just saying I was distracted by you and Elias having yet another snarky encounter—that’s on me. I should have been more alert. Weallshould have been. Instead, Hattie yanked out a small paperback and got lost in the story, and Anabel started having a meltdown like—”
“Hey, I warned you we weren’t safe, but you wouldn’t listen,” ranted Anabel, walking out of the shadows of the tunnel … with a crow on her head and Wynter at her side.
Relief slammed into Cain, making him draw in a sharp breath. Then he frowned. She was covered in blood spatter, brain matter, and all manner of things. She should have looked a mess; should have seemed sheepish and awkward when she laid eyes on him. But no, she somehow managed to look regal as a queen.
“Hate motherfucking mages,” spat Xavier.
“I hate them more when they’re smart.” Delilah looked from Cain to Azazel. “Bastards came in four vehicles and took off in different directions to confuse anyone who might follow. Hattie here flew around until she spotted a van that had crashed into a tree and then she led us to it. Wynter had already taken care of shit by then.”
Wynter gave Cain a half smile … like she hadn’t just been kidnapped and evidently engaged in a battle of some sort. There were no cuts on her, no bruises, not a single injury. His creature settled slightly, but it wouldn’t be happy until she was in their den.
Azazel cleared his throat, staring at her. “I think you have bone fragment in your hair.”
Utterly dignified, Wynter swiped blood-soaked bangs away from her face. “It is highly possible.” She went to walk past them.
Cain slid into her path. “What happened, Wynter? Who took you? And where the fuck are they?”
“Mages from Aeon came for me,” she said. “They’re probably dead by now.”
“Probably dead? Why probably?”
She went to answer, but then the crow plucked brain matter from her shoulder and spat it on the ground. She offered the bird a smile of thanks and then both of them went to town on the bits of gore, dumping them on the ground.
“Long story,” Delilah answered on Wynter’s behalf. “She set them on fire.”
Azazel blinked. “That wasn’t a long story at all.”
“It was more that Wynter set the van on fire while the mages were inside it,” Anabel explained. “So, yeah, they’re most likely goners at this point. The screamingwasdying down as we left the scene.”
“I still say we should have waited for them to take their last breaths,” said Xavier.
Wynter rolled her eyes. “Only because you wanted to reanimate their bodies.”
“And that would have been so terrible?” he asked.
“No,” replied Wynter. “But you would have made them chase Anabel at some point. You always reachthat point.”
“She likes to feel death’s breath on her neck.”
Anabel whirled on him. “I don’tliketo feel it, I just do. It’s a curse.”
“It’s a fucking delusion,” he said.
She gasped. “You said you believed me.”
“I lied. That’s what I do.”
Wynter loved her crew. She did. And one of the things she loved most about them was that they could so quickly move on from an ‘incident.’ There was no clinging to panic. No insistence on dwelling on whatcouldhave happened. No letting such things get them down or spoil their day.
Another thing she loved? They were sneaky as hell.
Take now, for example. Oh, the little disputes they were having were genuine enough. But they were having them here and now for one reason only—to distract the two Ancients who no doubt had the kind of questions hovering on the tip of their tongue that Wynter wouldn’t want to answer.
It was working.
Cain and Azazel were staring at the four oddly, as if her being covered in blood and gore was now a secondary matter. Yeah, she really did adore her crew.
Needing a shower in a major way, she proposed they all head home and began to walk. It looked like Cain might resume his line of questioning, but then Hattie shifted and—promptly back to acting like a frail old lady who could use a little help keeping steady as she walked—asked him if anal fisting was truly a thing because she just didn’t see how an entire hand could fit upanyone’s asshole. She wanted to know if he’d done it, if he’d been on the receiving end of it, if he’d tried ‘back door fun’ of any kind.