Page 164 of My Monster’s Keeper

I shudder.

“Just keep that in mind.”

We fall silent. Hartley walks into the office and dumps a huge platter of cookies on the table.

“Have we got all the ringleaders? Do we know why they did all this?”

“They were all mid-level Shadows and Fae. They were sick of being at the bottom of the pile. When they came here, they were stronger than humans, and it was easy to just take over this world.”

“Do we know what the damage was?”

Diablos opens up his tablet. “We think roughly three thousand humans in the last forty years. But if they’d have succeeded, it would have entered the millions.”

I close my eyes. “That won’t happen again.”

“No. They won’t be the last to try to take over. Humanity is still young, weak. We are all that stands between them and annihilation.”

I glance over my shoulder and find Puppy staring at me. My skin crawls but in a good way.

“Have you come to rescue me or steal me?”

“Both,” he growls.

“I’m sorry. I have to go.”

“It’s okay, we’re done. I owe Hartley some ‘us’ time, and also, you five are on vacation. Go see a beach, get some sun, tan. Whatever.”

“Is our house done yet?”

Diablos mutters and pulls out a set of keys and throws them at me. “It’s the house you wanted.”

“Thanks, Boss.”

He wrinkles his nose. “None of that, or I’ll be forced to curtsy.”

“What’s a curtsy?” Puppy asks suspiciously.

“Get the fuck out of my house already,” Diablos growls.

I laugh as I lead Puppy out the front of the home Diablos is renting. Stix, Frost, and Wilder are leaning on a huge black SUV. A present from our adoring boss.

Stix is learning to drive so he can be less anxious.

I climb into the car and wait while they arrange themselves inside.

“Where are we going?” Stix asks me softly, his hands flexing on the steering wheel.

“Home. Let’s go explore our new house, and then we can go anywhere we want. Has anyone been to a beach before?”

Chapter 45

Epilogue - Becky

“Poppet, I’m not sure what’s so attractive about a body of water with decomposing things in it and rocks pulverized to grit.”

I peer out at the beach and bite my bottom lip so I don’t laugh at Stix. The sand is white; the water is turquoise with hardly a ripple. Humans flock from all over the world to come to places like this.

Wilder catches me watching him and forces a very unbelieving smile.