Page 41 of Taming the Beasts (Crooked Point #3)

Tuesday

Zoey

“Emma, ex out of it,” I hissed.

She looked down at the livestream and started hitting random things. “I don’t know how!”

“Give it to me.” I put my hand out, but Otto swiped it before I could grab it.

Damn him and his werecat reflexes!

“Who the hell are you?” Otto asked as he stared at the screen.

“King. Who are you?”

Otto laughed. “King? Really? What kind of name is that?”

“My legal one,” King said firmly.

Really? I’d kind of thought he’d made it up.

“Sure,” Otto said. “And why are you talking to Emma?”

“She was the one livestreaming with me. And if you could please give her the phone back, we were just getting started.”

Emma shook her head. She looked truly horrified.

Otto sighed. “I knew your stupid name sounded familiar.” He turned to look at me. “Were the two of you camming?”

“Just Emma,” I said.

“She made me do it,” Emma said at the same time .

Emma, be cool! I’m the one that’s going to get in major shit for this!

“Oh, is Zoey there?” King asked. “If so, I’m happy to continue this with her...”

“In your dreams, asshole. That’s my girlfriend.”

“Zoey’s never mentioned having a boyfriend before.”

I groaned. “Because I never got a chance because I stopped camming! Just like I said I would, Otto. But we needed to talk to King about the coin and Kebe.”

“So Zoey is there?” King asked. “And wait, did you say Kebe? Was that who you think is the super powerful vampire?”

Well, crap. I’d been so flustered I’d forgotten to keep that under wraps. “Yes.” I sighed.

“Fascinating,” King said. “I should have known. She just has such a majestic quality about her, doesn’t she? Truly beautiful to her core. A true gem.”

Ew. No.

“Not really,” Otto said.

King stared at him. “Oh, I see. You must be one of the werecats Kebe told me about. You wouldn’t be able to see something beautiful if it was staring you dead in the face.”

Whoa. Excuse me? Where the hell had that come from? And what the hell... I was beautiful! King had just insulted me too.

“Why the hell would you ever cam with this asshole?” Otto asked.

Because he was filthy rich and paid me well. Plus he had important information. Although I trusted him a little less now. His praise for Kebe was way off base. But he just didn’t know her .

“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “It’s in the past. What matters is that King thinks that Kebe actually is a vampire. Just a really powerful one.” It’s what we’d all originally thought. Some things didn’t add up. But maybe King was right and her powers had evolved over the years.

“But you were adamant that she isn’t,” Otto said.

“I’m not sure what other supernatural creature she could possibly be,” King interjected. “What you described certainly sounds like a vampire to me. And you won’t really have to worry about her being an issue. Just use that coin on her to cure her. Then she won’t be any trouble to you at all.”

Emma, Otto, and I all looked at each other.

I mean...it wasn’t a terrible plan.

Otto asked King a few questions that we’d already asked.

It really seemed like King knew what he was talking about. At least when it came to this. Not his rudeness about werecats and praise for Kebe.

Otto squinted at the screen. “You seem familiar, man,” he said. “Have we met before?”

“No,” King said. “I never forget a face.”

“Huh. I swear we’ve met before.”

I stared at Otto. That would be a really weird coincidence.

“But I do need to get going,” King said. “I have a meeting and I’m already running late. Good luck with your vampire problem.” He exed out of the private session.

And then we were all on the livestream .

Crap. I grabbed my phone and quickly exed out of it. I waited for Otto to reprimand me for going behind his back and talking to King. But he didn’t.

He ran his fingers through his hair and shook his head. “I really think I’ve met that guy before. It was something I couldn’t quite place.”

“Do you know where he lives?” Emma asked me.

I shook my head. “No idea.”

“He said something that seemed familiar to me,” Emma said. “Once a villain, always a villain. Callum has said something similar to me a few times.”

“What?”

“Once a snake, always a snake. I’ve never heard anyone use it before. And Callum is really old.”

I shrugged. “I mean, they’re different sayings.”

“But similar though. It was just weird.”

Otto and Emma both seemed lost in thought about King.

I definitely thought it was strange how much he seemed to dislike werecats.

But I was really more concerned with the fact that King had confirmed that the coin would work and that Kebe was actually a vampire.

“We need to go tell the rest of the guys what we just learned. I kind of love the idea of just using the cure on Kebe.”

“But we don’t know how to activate the coin,” Otto said.

Damn it. I knew we’d forgotten to ask King something. “Well, she wants to use it apparently. So let’s just be real chill and tell her to use it on herself.”

Emma shrugged. “I mean...that could work.”

“Unless we’re still wrong about Kebe and the coin and she uses it for something bad,” Otto said .

“We still need to tell the guys,” I said.

Otto nodded and pulled out his phone. He hit Bennett’s name and lifted it to his ear. “It went straight to voicemail. Give me a minute.” He went through his friends, one after the next. He even tried calling Callum. But every call went to voicemail. “They’ve probably already confronted her.”

“I thought they were waiting until tonight?”

“They moved everything up because Callum was meeting up with Kebe for house hunting this afternoon anyway.”

“What house were they looking at?”

“Zoey...”

“I know,” Emma said and pulled out her phone. “Callum and I linked our calendars. I have the address right here.” She walked toward the doors.

“You guys, we’re supposed to be long gone by now,” Otto said.

“But we aren’t.” I hurried after Emma. “So we might as well help.”

Otto groaned as he followed us outside. He stepped in front of me, blocking my path. “No. Get in the car.”

I shook my head.

“Zoey.”

“I’m not getting in that car when we have valuable information and need to tell them.”

“Zoey...”

“Otto, I love you, but you need to get out of my way. I have four more boyfriends I need to protect.”

He raised his eyebrow at me. “I don’t think they need you to protect them.”

“Well I do.”

“It’s our job to protect you . ”

“And that’s very sweet of you. But it doesn’t mean I can’t do the same for you.”

“How about this,” Otto said. “You two stay here and I go update the guys on what we found out?” Otto turned his head. “Shit, where did Emma go?”

Emma had kept walking when Otto had stopped me. I saw her turning onto Main Street. She looked over her shoulder and saw us staring. And then she started sprinting.

“This way,” I said and started running after her.

Otto cursed under his breath but followed us.

Emma had a great lead, which was perfect. It meant she got to the house before Otto had a chance to stop her.

I saw Ace open the door.

The two of them started talking, but I was too far away to hear them.

But then Ace turned toward me and Otto. He shook his head.

I didn’t want Otto to be in trouble. But this was important! We finally reached the front door.

“Otto, what the hell, man?” Ace said. “You said you could handle this on your own. I offered to come.”

“We have important information about Kebe,” I said, ignoring his questions.

Ace sighed. “That’s what Emma was saying. I guess you guys can come in. Everything is pretty calm, actually.”

Really? I was surprised to hear that.

Ace pushed the door the rest of the way open and gestured for us to come inside.

“Oh, yeah,” Kebe said as she held up a golden necklace. “This definitely has a green aura. I’m not sure what it does, but it’s good for sure.” She handed it back to Huxley and Huxley smiled at her.

This all seemed so much worse than what I’d expected to walk into.

Callum was seated on the other side of her, smiling. “And what about that one?” he asked and pointed to an ankh made of pure gold. The coffee table in front of them was covered in artifacts. Some of which I remembered from the vault.

“Oh, yes. Another good one.” Kebe lifted her hands and hovered them over the coffee table. “I think all of these have a green aura. They must all do something wonderful.”

Kebe had said a lot of the stuff in the vault had a gray aura. So what was all this bullshit about green auras now?

Just like that I was suspicious all over again.

“What are you two doing here?” Bennett asked. He didn’t seem to be quite as enthralled by the discussion about the artifacts.

“I...um...” I suddenly felt very unsure. But I had to tell them. “Emma was talking to King...”

Emma cleared her throat.

“Fine, we were talking to King...”

Titan folded his arms across his chest.

But I kept going. “And he was talking about how he really thinks Kebe is a super powerful vampire. That has developed quicker speed. And adapted to eating normal food.”

“Zoey, I told you all that already,” Kebe said. “I don’t know why none of you believe me.” She laughed. “But it wasn’t all skills I developed. I had the help of some artifacts. ”

“Wait, what?” I asked.

“The guys confronted me and they’re just too sweet to lie to.” She patted Huxley’s thigh.

I frowned.

She gestured toward the table. “I used one artifact to teleport a few times. And I used another to tolerate food a little better. And another to make my makeup permanent. And another to...”

“I’m sorry,” Emma said. “But can we go back to the teleport thing?”

Kebe nodded. “Sure. What’s up?”

“If you used an artifact to teleport...where did you go?”

Exactly what I was wondering.

“Not to Egypt, that’s for sure. I spent way too much time there in my youth. And it’s just not the same now, you know?”

“That doesn’t answer the question,” I said.

“Doesn’t it? You’re accusing me of murder. And I’m telling you that you’re wrong.”

“How about you tell us where the heck you went?”