Page 53 of Taming the Beasts

Friday

Zoey

“I’m confused,” Callum said. “You want us to believe Kebe when it comes to the coin being the cure? But you also want us to not trust her because you think she’s evil?”

“Exactly,” I said. “I know how weird that sounds, but I think the coin is the cure because ofKing. Not Kebe. Yeah, Kebe happened to agree with him. Whatever. But Kebe is bad news.”

“Maybe King is bad news too,” Titan said.

“Don’t be jealous,” I said.

He shook his head. “I’m not jealous, doll.”

We were getting so off topic here. “This is the cure for you guys,” I said and lifted the coin in the air. “We just need to figure out how to use it. I thought you’d be more excited.”

All the guys just looked at each other.

They didn’t seem excited at all.

“Even if it is the cure for werecats, it’s not the cure for me,” Callum said. “My curse has nothing to do with ancient Egypt.”

“And our cure won’t have to do with Anubis,” Bennett said. “That’s the god of the dead. Our curse would have to do with cats. So…Baset or Sekhmet.”

“Then why do you even have this if you don’t think it could help?”

“We found that years ago, before we knew what we were looking for.”

“Wait.” I stared at him. “Years ago?”

Bennett nodded. “Right?” He turned to look at the other guys.

“Yeah, it was one of the first things we stole,” Otto said.

I shook my head. “No, it couldn’t have been years ago. Kebe said it was only just stolen from a museum recently. Her father is friends with the curator from the museum you stole it from.”

Titan frowned. “And we definitely didn’t steal that from a museum.”

“Where did you steal it from?”

“Some guy’s house.”

“More like a mansion,” Huxley said. “It was a nice place. I remember it pretty well. Actually, a little of the bank design was inspired from that mansion.”

I opened my mouth and closed it again. “Well, Kebe is definitely full of shit then. I’m pretty sure she only came to town because of this coin. And she used Emma and I to get access to it. We were ready to call the heist off last night because I’d just come clean to you guys about camming and Emma had just gotten engaged…”

“You’re engaged?” Bennett asked and looked over at her.

I couldn’t read the expression on his face. Was he upset about that? They had dated. Maybe he’d thought more about their future than I realized.

“Oh. Um. Yes,” she said.

Callum put his arm around her.

I cleared my throat. “But despite all that, Kebe convinced us it was a good idea to go through with the plan. And as soon as she got the coin, she tried to skip town with it.”

“Kebe isn’t a common thief,” Callum said. It was a sick burn on my boyfriends. And also completely untrue when it came to Kebe.

Emma looked up at him. “She refused to give the coin back, packed her suitcase, and left while I was sleeping. Luckily she came back.”