Page 39 of Taming the Beasts

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 watchingme. Who the hell is watching me?”

Fair.