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T his was…this was fucked up. We were about to get in a magic fight with a bunch of goth fairies and none of us had the ability to fight back. We had weird feelings we didn’t understand, the ability to talk to animals, and then Lucian.

I didn’t want to risk him, but I didn’t know what else we were supposed to do. I felt like I should hug him before we did this, but he wasn’t into that. He might be sneaking over to me in his sleep, but he wasn’t aware he was even doing that. I wasn’t going to hug him because I wanted to. I’d only do that if he got to the point he asked me for it when he was awake.

“They are right up ahead. They hid when they sensed me, but I saw where they hid. I don’t know how they knew I was watching because Saffron didn’t tell us much about their magic, but?—”

“Bring us the vampire! We deserve justice!” someone yelled.

What the fuck?

“I really hope you didn’t drink a fairy while you were scouting,” Liam said.

“He wouldn’t. Aside from when he first bit you because he didn’t know what was going on, Lucian seems to have exceptional control. If I was a vampire and I got woken up with a kick to the kidneys, I’d probably bite you and he didn’t,” Khalid pointed out.

“I think this is me,” I said. “Saffron said she could feel I was kin, so the Unseelie should, too. Let me find out what this is about.”

“If they so much as look at you funny, I will start drinking fairies,” Lucian said.

“Don’t. Saffron said the Unseelie aren’t evil and something happened. They probably need our help and we need theirs.”

“I don’t know who I am, and I don’t want to eat anyone, but I can make a shiv out of ChapStick and a lime. If they start getting shifty, I’m going to start stabbing fairies,” Liam said.

“How about we just let her talk to them first?” Khalid suggested. “I’ll go with her.”

Khalid and I stepped out, and I set my eyes on the Unseelie. Yeah, they were all goth, but they all had dark hair and dark eyes where Saffron and the rest of the Seelie had light-colored hair and eyes. They looked pissed.

“We know Vlad is with you and one of ours is missing,” one of them spat.

“Lucian isn’t Vlad. Not only that, he’s not interested in recreating anything about his original life,” I said.

“He’s probably lying. As soon as he’s reported in our quadrant, a fairy goes missing.”

“Listen, I already know I’m Anubis. I have jackal senses. Lucian was only away from us long enough to scout out protections on the crystal and I didn’t smell anyone else on him when he got back. If he kidnapped a fairy, I would have scented them on him. And I’m Anubis. I’m still figuring out everything I’m feeling, but if someone was dead, I get the feeling I would just know. Their soul would come to me.”

“No one else would have a reason to hurt us unless they were here for the crystal and we were throwing magic at them. There was a team yesterday who were clever and managed to get it without being hit. They would have no reason to come back and hurt someone and it would cut their time getting to the next quadrant.”

They didn’t know. We headed to this quadrant. Ivar and his team probably would have headed in this direction, too, because it was the best route. Radames could have come this way, too. The Unseelie might not be aware of anything that went down in other quadrants.

“Something is out there, and it probably made its way to this quadrant. I could feel it and it felt evil. Shortly after, a girl found us, and she had the shit beaten out of her. Lola said her teammates did it, but we met them. Ivar already knows that he’s Thor and Lucian was able to scent one is the original bear shifter. The other, I don’t know.

“They said they didn’t hurt her and were looking for her. They don’t have any wounds on their hands, but we don’t know enough about our healing. Khalid feels souls and I feel something and we aren’t getting anything bad off of them, but someone really hurt Lola and everyone in that quadrant was sensing something evil out there.”

“Probably that Vlad the fucking Impaler is back,” a man snarled.

I sighed. Lucian was clearly doing strange things in his sleep, but Lola and the missing fairy wasn’t him. I couldn’t see Lola taking his blood if he had.

“Has he used his mind tricks on you yet?” a woman asked.

“You can’t look vampires in the eye. You’ll believe whatever they want you to think if they can ensnare you.”

Fuck me. I got that this looked terrible , but I still didn’t think any of this was Lucian.

“You’re forgetting something,” Khalid said. “Lucian doesn’t know any of that. None of us do. Obviously, he can be in the sun, but as far as any of us know, he doesn’t have a reflection anymore, has to be invited inside, and is going to have a terrible time if someone throws holy water on him.

“The first day after we hopped in that pool, he just thought he was starving. We didn’t know he was a vampire until Liam tried to hit him. He fought back and bit him. He hasn’t had time to figure out how to mind control anyone and I’ve been around him long enough to know he’d find it offensive when he finds out he has that ability.”

That much was true. Lucian valued his mind most, and he found people who didn’t use theirs to its most potential offensive. It would take something pretty extreme to get him to use that ability and only if he could use it to help someone.

“I get what you are saying, but someone got hurt and someone is missing in both quadrants he was in and he’s a known violent offender.”

“Vlad was,” I pointed out. “Lucian has his abilities, but Lucian isn’t Vlad. Lola wasn’t bitten, she was beaten. Lucian didn’t even want to attack her when she was standing in front of him covered in blood. He offered her his as soon as he found out it would heal her. I’m not sure where your missing fairy is, but Khalid is right. He’d know if someone died. We can help you look, but you can’t attack Lucian without proof.”

“That’s fair. If we find her with bite marks, we will kill him. If you help us find my sister, we won’t fight you for the crystal.”

“I’m agreeing because I know Lucian had nothing to do with this,” I said.

I mean, a lot of it didn’t look good on paper, but I could feel Lucian didn’t hurt people like that.