Page 16

CHAPTER 16

T racking humans was easy. Especially for an orc. So Khill shouldn’t have any trouble following Justine’s scent, even if she was miles away.

And he couldn’t find a fucking trace of her anywhere .

Which meant that someone had masked her scent. A human wouldn’t know how to do that. There was only one possible explanation for this.

A monster had taken his wife.

They’d checked her apartment, the entire grounds of the Spellman Mansion, her favorite coffee shop, and a few other local spots she frequented. The cameras in her clinic showed she’d left there at least an hour earlier. But outside the clinic, there was no trace of her.

He shoved his hands through his hair in frustration as Riordan teleported them back to Khill’s place. “Where the hell could she be? Why would anyone take her?”

Riordan rubbed the back of his neck. “Does she have any enemies?”

See, this was where he wanted to say that everyone adored his wife as much as he did. But… “Well…yeah. We take dogs from people all the time. Lots of people hate us both. Van Gogh’s old owner especially hated her.”

And his wife wasn’t especially pleasant to pet owners she deemed stupid at the clinic, either. Like the lady who’d tried to put her cat on a vegan diet. Justine had ripped that woman a new asshole and told her that if it was up to her, she’d never be allowed to even pet a cat again, let alone own one.

“Did any of them hate her enough to hurt her?”

He blew out a harsh breath. “I mean, probably. But I don’t see any of them going to the effort. These are mostly assholes who can’t be bothered to take care of their pets, let alone kidnap a woman.”

Riordan thought about that for a moment before saying, “On the horrible TV shows Roxie makes me watch, in cases like this, it’s often an ex. Would her ex do anything to her?”

Fuck! Why hadn’t he thought of that? This whole experience was teaching Khill that he was total shit in a crisis, and he hated it. “The guy’s obsessed with her. He was cheating, so she dumped him, but he was sending her flowers and music, trying to get her back.”

Riordan cracked his knuckles. “Let’s go pay this jackass a visit. I don’t know where he lives, so think about that, and I’ll teleport us there.”

Man, Riordan was on fire with the great ideas today. Khill laid a hand on his friend’s shoulder and braced himself for yet another teleportation (which was a super weird, super tingly—and not in a good way—feeling). “Go.”

That’s all it took. One thought, and half a blurry, discombobulating second later, and boom . There they were, right at the little fucker’s doorstep.

Khill lifted his foot to kick the door in, but Riordan stopped him. “Maybe we try knocking first?”

“If it was Roxie, would you try knocking first?”

Riordan stood back and lifted his hands in supplication. “Good point,” he muttered. “Carry on.”

The door exploded into a thousand shards with one kick. They just really didn’t make doors like they used to.

Jake was sprawled on his couch, wearing nothing but a sad bathrobe (suspiciously untied), in the middle of the day, watching what looked to be—Khill did a double take—porn.

Porn of a dude in a kangaroo suit, with his dick out, spanking someone in a panda suit.

Jesus Christ.

Riordan let out a low whistle. “That’s…weird. And sad. And embarrassing. Not necessarily in that order.”

Jake leapt off the couch, threw his hands in the air like a perp on Blue Bloods , eyes going comically wide when they landed on the two hulking monsters that’d just appeared out of nowhere in his living room. “Who the fuck are you?” he screeched. “Why are you in my house?”

Khill was still having trouble finding the right words. Hell, any words if he was being honest with himself. So, he stopped trying. He stalked forward, grabbed Jake by the throat, lifted him a foot off the ground, and slammed him back against the wall. “Where the fuck is Justine?” he snarled.

Jake made an annoying gurgling noise.

“Uh, I don’t think he can talk with your hand that tight around his throat. Might want to let up a little,” Riordan pointed out.

Begrudgingly, Khill loosened his grip. But only by a little. He repeated his question.

The worthless little fucker’s eyes were the size of dinner plates. “I-I don’t k-k-now. She’s n-n-not here.”

Khill gave him another shove back against the wall. Not too hard. Just enough to crack the drywall a bit. He was displaying amazing control, in his opinion. “I can see that, you pathetic motherfucker. What did you do to her?”

He clawed at Khill’s hand and twisted in his grip, but couldn’t break free. It was a little surprising that he even tried. He was hopelessly outclassed in size, strength, sheer desperation, and rage. “It was only o-o-one time! I only cheated once!”

Riordan made a disgusted noise. “She’s so far out of your league it’s not even funny. You shouldn’t have even been looking at other women. What the fuck were you thinking, you glue sniffer?”

His wild gaze flew to Riordan. “I wasn’t, ok? I screwed up!”

Jake flinched when a frustrated growl tore its way out of Khill’s throat. “I don’t give a fuck about that. Where is she now ?”

“How would I know? I haven’t seen her since she threw soup on me and told me I didn’t know where her clit was!”

Riordan snickered. “Nice.”

Khill let out another growl, this one fueled by rage rather than frustration. “Do. Not. Talk. About. My. Wife’s. Clit,” he ground out, punctuating each word by slamming Jake back against the wall.

Then he had to shift back a little to avoid splatter from the urine that was now leaking down Jake’s leg. Why did that keep happening? Why was some pathetic weakling always trying to piss on him while he was asking them questions?

“Wife?” the pisser whispered, horrified. “She married you ?”

“You’re goddamned right she did! So, all the flowers and stupid songs about fate you sent her didn’t mean shit .”

That’s when the expression in his eyes shifted from terror to confusion. “Flowers? Songs? I-I don’t know w-what you’re talking about.”

“Liar!” Khill snarled.

Riordan cleared his throat. “I don’t think so, man,” he interrupted. “I used to reap souls, remember? The damned always try to lie there way out of hell. I can smell it a mile away. And this guy might be a sniveling little loser, but he’s not lying. Not about the flowers and songs, anyway.”

Khill looked Jake squarely in the eye again. “You didn’t try to get her back with flowers and songs?”

He shook his head furiously. Well, tried to, anyway. But Khill’s grip was still too tight to allow for much movement, so it was more like he just kind of negatively vibrated there for a second or two.

“Did you even apologize to her?” Riordan asked.

More negative vibrating.

“What a useless little turd,” he muttered.

“You really don’t know where she is now?” Khill asked again.

“No, sir,” the useless little turd wheezed out.

Khill released his grip. Jake dropped to the floor like a sack of wet shit, landing in a puddle of his own piss. He turned to Riordan, who said, “Not gonna lie. I was hoping it was him. I’ve been itching to throw someone into one of the feral hog dimensions.”

Khill had been hoping for the same thing, honestly. He wasn’t opposed to tossing this cheating loser into another dimension, but something told him Justine wouldn’t like that. He groaned and raked his hands through his hair again. “Who the hell would’ve taken her?”

Riordan rubbed his furrowed brow. “You know, you said someone sent her songs about fate?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Well, I thought I caught a whiff of a werewolf on the grounds at the mansion. No one’s more into fate than those guys. Did she know any werewolves?”

Khill frowned. “I smelled that, too, but didn’t think much of it because after a Monster Match, it always smells like…” He trailed off, memories crashing through his brain like a bullet train. “Holy shit. There was a fucking werewolf who followed her out of the Monster Match the night we went to Vegas!”

Riordan grimaced. “It’s fucking hard to track a werewolf. Do you know anything about the guy?”

That’s when Khill did something he hadn’t done since he woke up to an empty bed that morning.

He smiled.

Only it wasn’t a happy smile. It was a feral, unhinged smile that made Jake whimper from his spot on the floor. “We don’t have to track him. I know exactly who will have all the details about that motherfucker.”

He laid a hand on Riordan’s shoulder and thought about their next destination, readying himself for yet another teleportation. As they were disappearing into the veil, Khill heard Jake mutter, “I gotta get out of this fucking town.”

Khill snorted. “Good plan, asshole. You should get right on that.”