Page 14 of Taming the Beasts (Crooked Point #3)

Friday

Zoey

It wasn’t weird for me to walk down Main Street and feel everyone’s eyes on me.

But I knew today they were staring at my mismatched outfit, not my hot bod.

Yet, I still felt more confident than I did in my most revealing workout gear.

I guess the attention of five men could do that to a girl.

Well, four men. Titan was too busy trying to prove I was a thief

I beat Emma home. Kebe’s suitcase was by the door where we’d left it and there was no sign of her downstairs. She must have still been sleeping.

I shivered. Was Kebe messing with my thermostat?

That was not proper house guest etiquette.

And somehow it was so fitting for her. I walked over to adjust the temperature back up, but it hadn’t been changed.

Huh. Emma had asked last night if my thermostat was broken. Maybe I could ask Ace to check it out.

I made myself a cup of coffee to warm up. I made one for Emma too and walked back into the living room just as Emma walked in.

“Just what I needed,” Emma said and grabbed one of the mugs as she sat down on the couch.

We had a lot to talk about. But I needed to get the most important thing off my chest. “I know we have a lot of research to do,” I said. “But I think we need to loop the guys into it today. As soon as possible, really.”

“Oh, thank God,” Emma said. “I was thinking the exact same thing. We can just tell them everything we know so far and figure out the next steps together.”

“Exactly. Kebe just messed with my head last night. We can’t keep this from our boyfriends any longer. Sorry, your fiancé,” I said with a smile and patted her shoulder.

She winced.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she quickly said and blew on her coffee. “Mmm, this smells amazing.”

I did make amazing coffee, but she wasn’t distracting me that easily.

I stared at the thick sweater she was wearing.

It was like she was trying too hard to hide something.

No one wore something so itchy unless they had to.

“Did you hurt yourself?” Emma was kind of a klutz. It wouldn’t be unheard of.

Emma shook her head, her eyes focused on her coffee instead of me.

I stared at her. If she hadn’t hurt herself, it meant someone else had. “Show me your shoulder.”

“What?” She laughed. “No. It’s freezing in here, I’m not stripping.” She grabbed a blanket and put it over her shoulders for extra warmth. “Brrr.”

“You’re being weird.”

“Ha. No. You’re weird.”

Maybe she’d tell me what happened if I was honest with her. “Titan knows I took something from the bank, even though the other guys dismissed it. He got really angry last night. He almost shifted right in front of me. It really freaked me out. ”

Emma pressed her lips together.

“It’s not why I want to tell them about the coin though. I just want to do the right thing. And I know none of them would hurt me on purpose. But when they change, they can’t control it. You know?”

Emma slowly nodded. “Yeah. I know.” She didn’t offer any more information.

I stared at her shoulder. “I’m guessing Callum bit you again?”

“Only because I wanted him to,” she said. “I like when he does it.”

I really didn’t understand why. But I did understand liking something you shouldn’t. I pictured how hard Titan was when he was growling at me. I wanted to kiss him just as badly as I wanted to run. “It seems like maybe he bit you a little harder than usual though,” I said.

She slowly nodded. “I’m not scared of Callum. But…I worry he’s out of control when his eyes change color. It makes my heart race faster. Which makes my blood pump faster. And it just freaks me out. Just a little,” she clarified.

“I get it.” Really, I did. Probably better than anyone else could. Something about the danger of being with my boyfriends made the whole thing so much more exciting. I was used to men losing control around me being a good thing. And it was such a fine line with my boyfriends.

“But that’s not why I want to give the cure to Callum. I trust him. I do. But he’s been searching for the cure for so long.”

“I trust the guys too.” They protected me from each other.

Otto had stepped in just at the right time.

Emma and I both had close calls though. Callum bit her too hard and Titan almost shifted in front of me.

And even though we’d never admit it out loud, I was scared for her. And I knew she was scared for me.

Our guys needed this cure.

Not just for our safety, but because they all wanted it. They’d searched the whole world for it. I pictured Otto’s tortured face when he told me how they got cursed to begin with.

They weren’t monsters. And they all deserved to be happy.

“I can’t wait to see their faces when we tell them,” I said.

Emma smiled. “Me too. It’s going to be so strange when we don’t have to worry about vampires and werecats. Quite the adjustment. And some other adjustments too, I guess.” She scrunched her mouth to the side.

I knew she was probably thinking of everything that Kebe had said last night. And I didn’t want to think about any other adjustments. My fear of losing my boyfriends had already made me put this plan on hold. I just needed to believe that they all liked me enough to keep dating me.

“They’re going to be so happy,” I said firmly.

Emma took a deep breath. “So should we tell them tonight? Or maybe we can go to the bank at lunch?”

“Let’s do it at lunch. There’s no point in delaying it.”

“Good. I’ll figure out a way to convince Callum to come with me to the bank before lunch. And in the meantime, how do we find out more information about this coin? I don’t really trust anything Kebe says about it. Did you talk to Huxley about her? To see if they knew each other?”

I shook my head. “I didn’t get a chance. He was asleep when I went there last night, and he was in a hurry this morning. I think the best thing we can do is talk to King today.”

“I really want to figure out what’s going on with Kebe though. She was so adamant about Callum not changing, then so down with the heist, and then suddenly so weird about using the cure again.”

“Definitely lots of mixed signals.”

“And what was all that about bad auras in the vault?”

I shrugged. “No clue. But speaking of bad auras…” I laughed.

“Well, not really bad auras. I have no idea what Kebe was talking about. But Otto said all the guys have felt something shift in the air. They have like a sixth cat sense about these things. At first I thought maybe he could sense that the cure was close. But he made it sound like the shift in the air was more sinister.”

“Well that doesn’t sound good at all.” She pressed her lips together and looked down at her coffee.

“What are you thinking?” I asked.

“I’m wondering how recently they felt this sinister shift in the air? Because you know what’s come to town recently. Kebe.”

I’d thought about that too. I didn’t trust Kebe either. But she didn’t exactly seem sinister. Or dangerous. “She’s just weird about artifacts and a little bit of a flight risk. She hardly seems sinister.”

“But she disappeared last night.”

“She came back though,” I said .

Emma shook her head. “I mean when she disappeared on the cameras.”

“Grudge said it was a glitch.” But yeah...something strange was definitely going on.

“She also has no understanding of girl code.”

“That’s still not sinister. It just means she’s kind of a bitch.”

Emma laughed. “Yeah. Maybe. But I swear it seems like she already knew everything about that coin. She’s lying about something, I know it.”

“You’re right. She is lying about something. But I’ve been thinking the sinister thing might be one of my clients…”

“King?”

I shook my head. My phone started buzzing. I answered Grudge’s call and put it on speaker.

“She’s talking about Elias,” Grudge said.

Emma stared at me. “Who’s Elias?”

“One of Zoey’s clients. He had the biggest crush on Zoey. And then he turned into a vampire the other day and went on a killing spree and now he’s in the wind.”

“I’m sorry…what?” Emma looked horrified.

“He had a crush on me?” I asked.

“Everyone has a crush on you, hot stuff,” Grudge said.

I laughed.

“I’m sorry, can we go back to the important part of that?” Emma asked. “One of your clients turned into a vampire?”

“Yeah, but it’s just a random coincidence. Even saying it out loud is silly. It’s not like he knows where I live or anything. He’s not coming here.” At least, I hoped he wasn’t .

“There is no such thing as a coincidence,” Emma said. “Callum was drawn to this town because of your boyfriends. It seems like supernatural creatures have a way of finding other supernatural creatures.”

I pressed my lips together. “Shit, you’re right. King warned me about that. About supernatural creatures being drawn to each other.”

“This is crazy,” Emma said. “Callum’s been all over the world and he says he’s never run into another vampire. But there are obviously more out there if this Elias person is one. And then there’s whoever changed him...”

I shuddered. I didn’t really want to think about there being tons of vampires. We had enough supernatural creatures in Crooked Point. “Grudge, have you found out any info about Elias’ location?”

“Nothing,” he said. “I’ve been too busy watching our girl. Wait. Fuck. Where did she go?”

There was a squeak on the stairs.

I turned to see Kebe spying on us. Again. Seriously…what the fuck?

“What the hell, Kebe,” Emma said. “Why do you keep spying on us?”

“You guys were just talking about watching me . Who the hell is watching me?”

Fair.

“Hey,” Grudge said through my phone. “Nice to officially meet you. I’m Grudge.”

“Who?” Kebe mouthed silently at me.

But Grudge saw through the cameras in my house because he added: “I’m one of Zoey’s clients. Well, really just a friend.”

“So you watch her naked?” Kebe asked .

“Not usually. Although I’m happy to watch you naked if you’d like.”

Grudge!