Page 13 of Taming the Beasts

I didn’t think that’s what she’d been about to say. But I didn’t know her that well.

She sighed and slumped down onto the couch. “I think I just need some sleep.”

“Okay. Well, maybe you can let me hang on to the coin for safe keeping?” I put my hand out. I really didn’t want it. But I didn’t trust Kebe. And I knew that Zoey didn’t really trust her either. All I wanted to do was go back to Callum’s place. I should have been with him celebrating our engagement. Not robbing a bank and withholding a cure from him. Seriously, what the fuck was I doing?

“It’s safe with me,” Kebe said. “I promise.”

There was just one problem with that. I didn’t know her. Not really. Zoey and I had been drunk when we came up with the plan to pull a bank job. Kebe was never supposed to be invited. And maybe I’d trust her a little more if she’d stop flirting with my fiancé. I smiled.Fiancé.I couldn’t believe that I was engaged to Callum!

But that was exactly why I couldn’t leave the cure with Kebe. Callum had been searching for it for centuries. I wasn’t letting it slip out of my fingers. “I’d really like to hold on to it,” I said. “And that way I can do some research tonight too.” I kept my hand out, waiting for her to give me the coin.

She didn’t budge.

My phone buzzed. I pulled it out and clicked on the text from Zoey: “The guys want me to move in tonight. After the game. They won’t let me out of their sight. I don’t know what to do. I don’t trust Kebe alone with that coin.”

I glanced at Kebe and then quickly texted Zoey back. “Me either. I’ll keep watch.”

“Thank you so much!”

I put my phone down on the coffee table and sat down next to Kebe. I wished I could go back in time and take the coin when Zoey first offered it to me. I could have called Callum right away to come to the bank. And all of us could be figuring out how to use the coin. Together.

Wait.“Kebe, you said you knew how to use the coin, right?”

“Hm?”

“You said you knew how to activate it. What do we have to do?”

“We have a lot more research to do before it comes to that, I think.”

“But how does it work?”

She yawned. “Do you mind if we just talk in the morning?” She stood up. “I’msotired. Pulling bank jobs is exhausting.” She made an exaggerated show of yawning.

“I really think we should research the coin together and…”

“But I’m about to crash. We’ll do it tomorrow, I promise.”

I didn’t like that she kept making promises to me. The more they piled on, the less I believed them.

“Night!” She practically sprinted up the stairs. A spurt of energy not usually exhibited by someone who claimed to besotired.

I folded my arms across my chest. Zoey and I had almost called off the bank job tonight. She’d just come clean about her camming to all the guys. And Callum had just proposed to me. We didn’t want to do anything that would jeopardize anything. We’d wanted to just talkto all the guys about the possible cure. But Kebe had convinced us to go through with stealing it instead.

And then she immediately had second thoughts?

She was up to something. I moved to one of the chairs so I’d have a better view of the staircase.

I tried to think over everything that had happened. Kebe wanted us to retrieve the coin, even though she’d been adamant that Callum shouldn’t change back to being a human. And then once we got the coin, she immediately started acting weird. Talking about bad auras. She’d convinced Zoey to let her hold on to the coin. And then there was the fact that she’d just shown up in town out of the blue a couple of days ago.

I narrowed my eyes at the staircase. She’d been spying on us from the staircase while we talked about the bank job. She’d finagled her way into the plan. And she ultimately got the coin in her possession.

Was it possible that she was only in town for the cure?

It didn’t make any sense. There was no reason for her to know about it. Or to care about it. She wasn’t the one dating a vampire or werecat.

But still my mind kept coming back to the same conclusion. What if she’d bumped into me on Main Street on purpose? And talked about needing a place to stay to get close to us. To use us to get access to the coin.

I swallowed hard and picked up my phone. I wanted to call Callum. But he wasn’t suspicious of Kebe at all. He’d hit it off with her immediately. And I couldn’t talk to him about any of this until I was on the same page as Zoey.