Tallah appeared in the doorway, her cane bracing her weight, her face downcast. “I know what you’re thinking. I meant to put the shutters down for the day last night. I really did. I just got tired.”

“It’s all right.” Even though it wasn’t. “I just, well, we’ll talk about it later.”

“I like him, by the way.” The older female looked up at the ceiling as more of the heavy footfalls reverberated down. “He’s very handsome. Where did he come from?”

The gates of Dhunhd, Mae thought. To torture me.

“Tinder,” she muttered.

“You met him in a ring of fire?”

“Something like that.” Mae rubbed her aching head and then focused on the elderly female. “You look tired—”

“I am sorry that the spell did not work.” Tallah switched her cane to the other side. “And as for being tired, after a certain age, one gets exhausted with one’s failures in life. It’s not just about sleep, my dear.”

“You haven’t failed me.”

“I thought the summoning spell would work.”

“I know you did, and I’m grateful we tried.”

As Tallah put her hand on the doorjamb to steady herself, Mae went over. “How about a proper nap downstairs. I’ll keep an eye on things up here.”

“You’ll have that male stay with us, then? He’s very strong. And so handsome, too.”

Mae made a noise in the back of her throat. Which was what happened when you swallowed two f-bombs with a sonofabitch chaser.

“We’re strong enough on our own, you and I,” she said as she took the female’s arm. “Come on, let’s get you to your bed. You have a rest while I figure out everything.”

Tallah refused to budge. “What was in my yard?”

“Just a coyote.”

“It didn’t sound like a coyote.”

“Would you like me to bring you down some warm milk?” Mae asked in a pleasant way while steering Tallah toward the basement door.

“To be honest, I’m too tired to drink anything,” Tallah said with defeat. “I am so glad you’re here. I trust you to take care of things.”

Well, at least that’s one vote of confidence, Mae thought.

About ten miles away in the ’burbs, in a nice little house that had been recently renovated, Nate was sitting at a round kitchen table alone.

Okay, he wasn’t completely alone. He had a Thomas’ plain bagel (toasted, lightly) with cream cheese spread on it (not too much) and a mug of Dunkin’ Donuts coffee (homemade in the coffee machine, not the K-cups unit, with sugar). As he sipped his java and wolfed back his carbs, the heel of his right foot bounced under his chair like it was on a countdown to liftoff—and had lost all patience with how long the rocket boosters were taking to warm up.

The tip-tip-tip-tip drove him nuts, so he slapped his thigh. Then pushed down on it to hold his leg in place.

Checking the time on his phone, he looked to the sliding glass door on the far side of the table. The shutters were down still because Murhder and Sarah took no chances with sunlight. Even though it was now well past sunset, the house was still locked up tight—which was forcing him to do some mental gymnastics on the implications of him sneaking out through the garage. He knew the code to the alarm, but he wasn’t sure if there was a secondary alert system on.

Wait, everything chimed down in the cellar, didn’t it? Like, any time a window or a door was opened.

He glanced to the basement door. His parents were still down there, getting showered and dressed. So they might hear the sounds. Or get a notice on their phone. With the way the Black Dagger Brother Vishous set up these security systems, it would be stupid to think there weren’t multiple redundancies when it came to tracking the breach of any contact.

He checked the time again. There wasn’t any spelled-out rule prohibiting him from leaving before the shutters were up. Plus the sun had gone down about an hour and thirty-three minutes ago.

And twenty-seven seconds. Twenty-eight. Twenty-nine—

The sound of heavy footfalls coming up the stairs had Nate putting his phone away like he’d been caught looking at pictures of Emily Ratajkowski. And as the cellar door opened wide, he got back with the bagel program, chewing like he hadn’t been planning anything stupid.

Just another normal night, in the middle of a string of normal nights, where he had a simple First Meal and went off to work at the construction site.

NBD.

“Look at you, up early,” his dad said.

“Dad” was, at least on an eyeball level, a total misnomer. The Black Dagger Brother Murhder was the polar opposite of a doughy, bad-joking, Lee-jeans-wearing, reading-glasses-sporting Zeek Braverman type. Yeah, nope. Murhder was six feet, ten million inches tall, and, dressed in his black leathers and tight-fitting black fighting shirt, with his holsters of weapons dripping off one hand, and his black-and-red hair cut short, he looked like something that belonged in a video game.

On the wrong side of the good guys.

“So how’d you sleep?” Murhder put his holsters aside and then swung by the kitchen table, laying a huge hand on Nate’s shoulder.

“Good.” Chew. Chew. Sip. “I’mjustgoingtofinishthisandheadintowork.”

“I’m glad that job’s going well.” His dad opened the cupboard over the K-cups machine and got out a mug with a snooty Englishman on it and the word “WANKER” underneath the etching. “And you’re doing a service to the race. The young males and females who’ll live there need the shelter.”

Nate tried to plug into the conversation. “I don’t get it, though. They’re going to be by themselves?”

Images of human frat houses made him wonder whether all that new furniture they were moving in was going to last long.

“No, there’ll be social workers on-site.” Murhder put the mug in the machine and fired up things with a pod of Green Mountain Breakfast Blend. “Safe Place doesn’t allow males past their transitions under its roof—which, considering it’s a domestic violence resource for females and their young, makes total sense. But there are families that need to be kept together and kids just starting out on their own. So Luchas House is going to be good for the race.”

“Mmm.” Chew. Chew.

There was a wheezing sound as the coffee finished coming out. Then the tinking of a spoon as his dad stirred in his sugar. Finally . . .

“Ahhhhhhh.”

Funny how this was now normal, this ritual of the pair of them with their coffee. Nate had gotten used to it all so fast. This was . . . home. And Murhder and Sarah were his family.

And sometimes he felt so lucky he cried alone in his room, holding a pillow to his face so no one could hear him.

Except that was not what was on his mind tonight.

“You okay, son?”

Nate looked up, all ready with an I’m-fine. But the way those eyes were staring at him? What he was selling was not going to be bought—and there was no way he was going to go into the truth. He was so busy denying it to himself, he couldn’t imagine saying the words out loud.

But he did have something to talk about.

“Did you . . .” He cleared his throat. “Ah, did you ask Shuli to protect me?”