Page 20

ORION

“Good girl,” I said. “I’ll see you soon, Eve.”

The line went dead with a sharp click, and I chuckled to myself. She’d hung up so fast I barely got the words out. It’s just too easy.

“Are you done?” Ragnar growled from the passenger seat. He looked like someone kicked his favorite puppy and took a shit on his doorstep.

I smirked, leaning back in my seat with deliberate ease. “What’s the matter, brother? You sound like you’re having a tough day.”

“Fuck off,” he muttered, adjusting the cuffs of his jacket.

“Come on, things are finally starting to get interesting. You should be thanking me really. She’s making this miserable little life of ours exciting for a change.”

“You’re just as fucking nuts as she is.”

“Compliments will get you nowhere,” I replied, grinning as I tossed him a sidelong glance. His glare could’ve melted steel. “She’s not the apocalypse, Ragnar. And here I thought I was the dramatic one?”

He didn’t answer, and I didn’t push. Xander had warned me Ragnar would be on edge, but this was a whole new level.

Usually, he was content to brood in silence, but this fixation on Eve wasn’t normal—not even for him.

I knew what his problem was. We all lost something that day.

Family, friends, our home. The rest of us learned to live with it, but he clung to his grief like it was a weapon.

And now, for some reason, he’d decided to swing it in Eve’s direction.

I leaned back against the seat again, my fingers drumming against the steering wheel, considering how I might best get under his skin and peel back those many layers.

“You know, it’s okay if you have a crush on her. It’s not something to be embarrassed about. You see, when a boy likes a girl—”

“If you quit thinking with your cock for two seconds,” he snapped, “you’d see exactly what I see. She’s not the innocent little girl you think she is, Orion. My magic can sense it.”

I couldn’t help it—I laughed. Ragnar had never been this much of a comedian before. Eve was already bringing out the best in him.

“Since when have I been a fan of innocence? Come on, listen to yourself. You’re grasping at straws.”

I turned off the highway as the suburbs around Knoxville faded into dense trees and empty roads. The dirt track stretched ahead, the worn path cutting through the quiet woods before we reached our destination.

The second I parked the truck, Ragnar was out the door like he couldn’t wait to get away from me.

The Last Round looked like it had been built to withstand an apocalypse—and maybe it had.

The weathered wood siding sagged in places, streaked with grime that no one had bothered to scrub off in years.

The parking lot was little more than a patch of cracked asphalt, littered with broken glass and crushed beer cans, while a row of rusted pickup trucks stood like sentinels.

The junkyard next door didn’t help the ambiance; its chain-link fence rattled as a pair of hounds barked furiously at us.

“Come on, Ragnar,” I teased, quickening my pace to catch up with him. “Just one little smile. I know you have it in you somewhere.”

His glare could’ve curdled milk, but it only made me grin wider.

Ragnar’s perpetual bad mood was like a barbed shield, but it couldn’t touch me—not today.

Eve had surprised me last night. The fact that she’d gone toe-to-toe with Ragnar without so much as blinking.

She hadn’t run. She’d stood her ground, and fuck…

the sight of her, stomping her foot and trying to boss around three grown-ass Titans, was enough to make me rock hard.

But it wasn’t just her fiery temper and steady nature.

There was something deeper in her—a pure soul buried beneath all that doubt and pain.

Eve was good. She was kind, and I wasn’t going to let that kindness tarnish.

My magic was practically itching beneath my skin, begging me to get back to her, as I skipped towards the bar.

The interior wasn’t much of an improvement over the exterior.

The Last Round was a dive bar in every sense of the word.

The smell hit me first—an overwhelming mix of stale beer and gunpowder.

A row of mismatched bar stools lined the counter, their vinyl seats cracked and duct-taped together.

Hunter memorabilia covered the walls, faded newspaper clippings, and battered road signs hanging alongside mounted antlers and old weapons.

A cracked dartboard hung crookedly in one corner, its surface riddled with holes, and the floor beneath it was stained a deep shade of red.

But despite its rough edges, there was an undeniable charm to the place. It wasn’t welcoming, exactly, but it wasn’t entirely hostile either. It was a haven for those who thought they knew what kind of monsters lurked in the shadows.

The room buzzed with low conversation that hushed immediately when Ragnar and I walked in. Heads turned, eyes darting our way, and I caught more than one wary glance in our direction.

“Relax,” I said, clapping a hand on Ragnar’s tense shoulder. “They’re just hunters. They’re not going to bite.” He looked like he was ready to set the entire room ablaze, but I didn’t mind the attention. If anything, I thrived on it.

“Fuck no,” a voice barked from behind the bar. I turned, grinning as I spotted Sol glaring at me with his weathered eyes narrowed. “Get out of my bar.”

“Come on, old man,” I said, spreading my arms wide in mock innocence. “That’s no way to welcome a paying customer.”

Sol didn’t miss a beat. He grabbed an empty beer bottle from the counter and hurled it with surprising accuracy. I ducked easily, grinning wider as the bottle smashed against the wall behind me.

“Go fuck yourself, Orion. You’re not welcome here.”

“We covered this, old man. It was a misunderstanding—”

“Unless you’re here to pay me for the damage those rats of yours caused in my cellar,” Sol said, pointing a gnarled finger at me, “you can take your bullshit pranks and fuck right off.”

“Oh, Sol,” I said, leaning casually against the sticky wooden bar. “You’re not still upset about that, are you? How was I supposed to know the Pied Piper legend was real?”

“Just get the hell out of my bar,” he growled. Sol’s glare didn’t waver. His baseball cap was pulled low over his lined face and his canvas jacket strained against the steadily growing beer belly.

Despite the look he was giving me, I knew Sol wouldn’t actually toss us out.

He’d been playing this game for over twenty years now, and I could see through the act as easily as I dodged his bottle.

Sol wouldn’t admit it—hell, he probably didn’t even fully realize it—but we terrified the guy.

He didn’t know the full story, but he’d pieced together enough over the years.

He knew we didn’t age. He knew we weren’t entirely human.

And unlike most hunters who clung to the notion of fighting demons in the name of God, Sol had the good sense to keep his questions to himself.

It was equal parts admirable and tragic, really. The man had spent his entire life fighting a war he barely understood, carving out a reputation as one of the best human hunters in the business.

I almost felt bad for the geezer.

“Everyone’s touchy today, huh?” I said, letting my grin take on a sharper edge. “We just have a few quick questions, then we’ll be out of your hair. Or what’s left of it anyway.”

“Get to the fucking point, Orion,” Ragnar grumbled beside me, his fingers tapping impatiently against the bar. His mood had gone from bad to worse, and Sol’s hostility wasn’t helping as he wiped down the counter with a dirty rag.

I sighed dramatically, leaning back onto a stool and spreading my arms wide. “Fine, fine. You’re no fun, you know that?”

Sol’s glare didn’t waver. “What do you want?”

“First of all, you’re welcome,” I said, my grin sliding back into place. “That arachnid problem you had? Taken care of.”

Sol huffed. “What do you want, a gold star?”

“A tip would be nice,” I shot back smoothly, unbothered. “Anything weird going on lately? Demons acting strange? Hunters going missing?”

The rag stilled mid-motion, Sol’s lips tightening. “You’re lucky you’re useful, you cocky little shit.”

I leaned forward, propping my chin on my hand, and let my grin widen. “What can I say? It’s part of my charm.”

“Charm, my ass,” Sol grumbled. He leaned forward, bracing both hands on the bar as his eyes locked onto mine.

“There’s been chatter around Lewisburg. Hunters have been going missing.

Activity’s been spiking. Lower-level demons, mostly, which is what makes it strange.

Andy went to check it out a week ago and haven’t seen him since. ”

The mention of Lewisburg sent a chill creeping up my spine. The tiny little town was barely a stone’s throw away from Alton Creek. What were the odds?

“Interesting,” I said, keeping my tone casual even as my pulse ticked up. “Anything else?”

“There’s something off about it,” he admitted. “Not just the activity itself, but the patterns. Feels eerily similar to how things were twenty-five years ago, right before all this shit kicked off the last time. Can’t explain it, but… I’ve got that same itch I did back then.”

I shot a glance at Ragnar. He rolled his eyes, but the tightness in his jaw said everything he wasn’t.

“Twenty-five years ago,” I echoed, forcing a grin that felt hollow even to me. “You’re suggesting another apocalypse?”

“I’m not saying shit. I’m saying you’d better keep your eyes open.

You boys think you’ve got it all figured out, but whatever’s out there?

It’s bigger than you—than all of us. I’ve not seen signs this concerning in decades,” Sol’s expression darkened further, the lines on his face deepening.

“That’s all I’ve got. Now get the hell out of my bar before I change my mind. ”

“Always a pleasure, Sol,” I said, pushing off the bar and tossing him a wink. I turned to Ragnar, my voice light. “Ready to go, Grumps?”

Ragnar didn’t bother responding, which only made my grin widen. We made it halfway to the door before Sol’s voice stopped us.

I turned back, raising an eyebrow. “Something else you’d like to throw at me, old man?”

His stern expression wavered, the weight of his words pressing the air flat around us. “Just watch your backs, alright? We’ve lost good men to this fight already.”

“Noted,” I said with an exaggerated salute, dipping out the door before he decided to take me up on the offer of target practice.

The moment we stepped outside, Ragnar’s silence shattered like glass.

“Three fucking demons in a five-mile radius,” he growled. “And a pyro-chick keeping secrets. I fucking told you so.”

I sighed, letting the door swing shut behind me as I fished the keys out of my pocket.

“You don’t see it?” Ragnar snapped, rounding on me. “You don’t find it just a little fucking convenient? That she’s the goddamn epicenter of every single thing that’s gone wrong in the last forty-eight hours?”

“Convenient?” I echoed, tossing him a look of disbelief as I unlocked the car. “You sound like a conspiracy theorist, Ragnar. Got any red strings you wanna tack up on the cabin walls while you’re at it?”

“She’s fucking dangerous! You’re acting like a fucking idiot treating her like she’s innocent and ignoring the fact that she’s a walking red flag!”

I wanted to dismiss him. To roll my eyes and move on. But something about the way he said it—it stuck like a splinter.

“If she’s so dangerous, where’s your proof? What’s she done, Ragnar? Besides barely survive?”

Ragnar opened the car door with enough force to make the hinges crack. “This isn’t a fucking joke, Orion.”

“And I’m not treating it like one,” I shot back, rounding the car to the driver’s side. “But you know what I don’t do? I don’t project my fucking problems onto perfectly lovely women who’ve done nothing wrong .”

“Lovely?” Ragnar spat, his voice dripping with contempt. “That’s what we’re calling her now?”

I groaned, sliding into the driver’s seat. “Save us all this pent-up bullshit and get over yourself already.”

Ragnar growled, the kind of sound that would’ve made a lesser man shit himself. I, however, was not a lesser man.

I cocked an eyebrow at him, begging him to continue but he locked his jaw and yanked the door shut. That man needed to learn how to close a door without breaking it.

“Testy,” I teased, starting the engine as he slammed the passenger door shut. “You should really work on that temper. It’s not very endearing.”

Ragnar didn’t respond, his stormy silence doing all the talking for him. I couldn’t help but chuckle, the tension between us as thick as the Tennessee air.

Fuck, this was going to be a long drive home—but with every mile, I got closer to her. And that was the only thing that mattered.