I didn’t have time for pleasantries. I was a ball of barely restrained fury at finding such chaos on my property. I briefly swept the VIP area around me. Achilles sat with Leonidas, drinking beers and eating popcorn.

Tory sat alone, near the edge of the small group.

Callie was on her feet watching me steadily. She wore tight white jeans, a dark plain tee and a red hoodie. And she was wringing her hands uncertainly before her stomach. She looked like she’d been crying recently, judging by her red-rimmed eyes. Not in the past few minutes, but as if she’d had a rough night or long day. Not knowing what else to do, I tossed the Candy Skull on the grass between us. “Problem solved,” I said in a gruff voice. There. Nice and considerate.

Maybe that would make her not sad anymore. She didn’t even look at it.

Feeling uneasy under her gaze and angry at the fighting, I turned my attention to the wars on either side of this VIP area. The death and destruction was illuminated by the setting sun. Falco – still weak from giving birth – hadn’t been able to put a stop to this madness herself. And my friends had just… watched.

Drinking beer. Eating popcorn.

Sensing our area was safe from immediate danger, I glanced about fifty yards to my left, past the small white treehouse sitting like a tranquil haven in the grass.

Tides of wolves fought in tight units – Ghosts and Paws striking like surgical scalpels. But they fought other wolves, so it wasn’t as efficiently ruthless as usual. Still, many died before them. Survivors of skirmishes fled to rejoin a new hasty gathering of their fellow wolves before turning back to the fight – safety in numbers. There had to be almost eight hundred wolves still fighting, not even counting the torn bodies of naked people strewn across the fields and bushes…

Ruining my lawn.

Like empty red cups after a kegger party. That’s how I saw them.

Whomever I let survive was going to clean this mess up. Or Dean was going to be impossible.

I spotted two shaggy black wolves with crimson eyes – Paradise and Lost – each leading their own Paws of five werewolves that shared their body type. The Kansas City breed looked very different than the stocky St. Louis timber wolves. They were taller, longer, narrower at the waist, but more barrel-chested. Their necks stretched higher and their snouts were more elongated. They had wavy, silky hair that formed thick manes around their throats and down their broad chests. Basically, the two breeds were equally lethal, but different in aesthetics and functionality.

The KC Crew were nimbler and faster, but didn’t look as powerful in a direct charge.

They could jump further, but they couldn’t shake their prey as violently.

Weight-wise, I didn’t think they were any bigger than Gunnar’s wolves, but the Kansas City breed almost made my hair stand up on edge. They just looked… more demonic.

Like Hellhounds. Especially Paradise and Lost with their crimson eyes, but that had something to do with their bond to Roland, the vampire ex-Shepherd.

But why were there so many Kansas City wolves here?

I spotted Drake and Cowan – at least wolves that matched the description Gunnar had given me before leaving for his honeymoon – each leading their own Paws, and I realized that the four clusters – Paradise, Lost, Drake, and Cowan – actually formed one Ghost, working together as if they’d done it their whole lives. I let out a breath of relief, glad to find that Paradise and Lost hadn’t been fighting Gunnar’s wolves while he was on his honeymoon. After a few minutes, the wolves slowly separated into two distinct packs, glaring at each other over…

My fucking lawn.

At least this let me clearly see the battle lines, better able to discern enemy from ally. The enemy was larger, but not twice as large or anything, and it looked like Gunnar had lost a quarter of his pack so far. But that loss had been mitigated by about a hundred Kansas City wolves.

A giant black wolf with a white spot on his chest – for ease of reference with so many wolves running around, I dubbed him Spot – stood in front of the enemy pack. The Midwest King, I guessed. He was bigger, much bigger than the others. Then again, Spot was the only one in Alpha form, standing on two legs. At a quick glance, he seemed shorter than Gunnar, but wider in the shoulders and chest, believe it or not. And the mangy mutt was… staring right at me.

Luckily for him, he broke eye contact after a few seconds and then snarled at his pack. “Ten minutes!” he roared. His wolves took a few more steps back before gathering to nurse their wounds. He didn’t look at me again. The St. Louis and Kansas City wolves also rested.

Well, wasn’t this just professional of everyone. Why hadn’t I ever faced an enemy like this?

But more importantly, why was this happening on…

My lawn?

No longer distracted by the sounds of the fighting wolves, entirely different roars to my right made me turn to study the other battle, also about fifty yards away. Dragons tore up the earth and shrubbery where they fought. I saw a few in the woods, knocking down small trees but I didn’t notice any fires. Others were in the sky, slamming into each other with machete-sized claws and teeth, or blasting each other with a rainbow of different streams of magic. Blue jets of ice, red gouts of flame, even a green blast of acid that smoked on contact. Dragon skin was tough, though, so most of these blasts injured their opponents, but weren’t enough to bring them down on their own. Hence the fangs, horns, and claws.

But in combination, it was doing serious damage to…

My fucking lawn!

I didn’t see Raego in the chaos of battle and my scowl deepened.

“I leave everyone unsupervised and I come back to this? Who’s responsible? Give me an update.” No one around me spoke, simply staring at me in stunned silence. I didn’t have time for this. I was done with all the infighting between factions. All the drama. The hurt feelings. The egos. I had some serious shit on my plate with my brief roommate from Hell – Mordred – breaking loose, Matthias kidnapping my Knight, and Anubis… well, he probably wouldn’t be pleased by my quitting the job without giving the standard two-weeks’ notice. His Guide to Hell had done walked out because the benefits sucked.

I realized no one had yet answered. “NOW!” I roared, slamming my black spear into the ground beside me. The red ruby crackled with arcs of crimson electricity, and everyone flinched in fear. I hadn’t even realized I’d taken it out of my satchel. I also realized that no one seemed to have noticed B’s departure. I sure hadn’t. I glanced down to see that at least the black fog had dissipated, making me look less, well, like I had just stepped out of Hell to clean up a mess.

Leonidas seemed to be pretending I couldn’t see him, hunkered low in his chair. Achilles watched me from over his shoulder, looking very cautious. He slowly lifted a bottle of beer. “You’re home…” he said in the same tone a teenager would use when his parents unexpectedly returned home early from their vacation during the middle of his out-of-control house party.

My brow drew lower, the crimson sparks popping louder. Leonidas sank further in his chair.

“We, um, brought your chair out in… memory. In honor. Carl and Talon made it sound like you wouldn’t be back…” My face didn’t change. He jerked his head tensely. “Um, we didn’t do this. And… Gunnar should be here any minute! I had some guys waiting to pick him up at the airstrip.” Seeing my face still hadn’t changed, he blurted out, “Someone get this man a beer!”

No one moved.

A week, I thought, processing the worthwhile tidbits from Achilles’ nervous blabbing. A week since the wedding. Not months or weeks – just a few days – in Hell. It had felt a lot longer. I let out a breath of relief. Not that things were great, but at least it hadn’t been a year or something.

I sensed Callie slowly approaching me as if I was a wild, unbroken horse. I realized I was still standing beside Grimm, who looked very… intense, reflecting my mood. I placed a palm on his mane, patting his feathers soothingly. His muscles relaxed under my touch and he neighed.

Dragons continued fighting in the background, but they didn’t seem concerned with our VIP lawn party, so I let them continue as I stared at Callie, suddenly recalling – in entirely too vivid detail – the… gift Pandora had shown me outside her hot tub. My cheeks blushed.

“How are you, Nate?” she asked, but didn’t wait for an answer. “Talon and Carl were… quite distraught when they arrived yesterday morning,” she said carefully, studying my leather coat, my lack of shirt, the black blood covering my bare chest.

“Passing fair,” I said roughly. “Since when was it my turn to host the Olympics?” I asked, pointing at the two wars on my lawn. “I thought I was everyone’s best enemy, not a public park.”

She abruptly stepped closer, eyes flashing with rage but… also relief? “Since when is going to the Fae the same as going to Hell?” she hissed, loud enough for only me to hear. Grimm snickered and she snapped her finger. “Quiet, you!” she shouted at my Alicorn in a voice loud enough for Dean to hear from inside the mansion. Grimm’s mouth snapped shut with a click, and he disappeared. I frowned in surprise before turning back to Callie. She had her arms folded, and I could tell that she was about ready to lose her faint grip on control. She was angry. And happy. Angrily happy. It became perfectly clear, and I wondered how I hadn’t seen it. She had thought she would never see me again. Someone had told her where I really went. Carl or Talon.

I let out a breath. Then another. “Later. Please, Callie. Later.”

She continued to glare at me for a few tense moments, and then finally nodded. “Later.”

We both paused, faint smiles flickering over our cheeks as we remembered that word from our last conversation inside Chateau Falco.

“Where are Carl and Talon?” I asked in a gentler tone, changing the topic for… well, later.

She hesitated, as if clearing her own head and debating whether or not I needed to know the answer right now with everything else going on around us. “Inside, watching over Alex.”

I had taken a step closer and was gripping her shoulder with one hand, my spear flaring brighter in the other. “Is Alex okay?” I whispered.

She blanched at me, frightened at the sudden movement, the red light, and whatever she saw on my face. She nodded jerkily. “He’s… fine. Distant, but fine,” she whispered.

I let out a breath and released her shoulder. “Oh. Okay. You just… the way you said it…” I added. Then I just stopped talking. If she didn’t know about Pandora’s… lesson with Alex, I wasn’t going to bring it up. If I thought about that conversation too much – what Pandora had shown me – I might just end up letting everyone duke it out while I scooped up Callie, carried her inside my mansion and slammed the door shut, telling Falco to put up the do not disturb sign.

Indefinitely.

“Why is everyone just watching?” I jerked my chin at Achilles who was trying to hide the fact that he was now exchanging gold coins with Leonidas. Betting? I thought incredulously.

This was all so… gruesomely callous. My friends watching as blood was spilled all over…

My lawn!

Callie grimaced. “We were told by all parties to not get involved. All parties,” she enunciated. I grunted to show her what I thought of that. “I don’t know what their deal is,” she jerked her chin at the dragons before turning to the wolves, “But Drake and Cowan showed up first, to fight this Midwest King. The Midwest King showed up to fight Gunnar, for some reason believing he was back in town. The two packs were very confused for a few moments. Then Paradise and Lost arrived as if the world was about to end, but seeing the two packs gathered, they looked even more confused. Especially when this guy,” she pointed her finger, “showed up out of nowhere with a pack from Kansas City that have been in hiding for almost a year.”

I followed her finger to see a rangy, shaggy, gray wolf standing near – but still a respectful distance apart from – Paradise, Lost, Drake, and Cowan. He was a big bastard. I blinked. Instead of saying anything, I forced a nod, letting her know I was following along. She continued.

“Everyone seemed ready to turn on another until this newest arrival casually trotted up to Paradise and Lost, all alone and in front of everyone, and bowed. I couldn’t tell who was more surprised. Paradise and Lost, the Midwest King, or Drake and Cowan. As easy as that, everyone teamed up against the Midwest King – who was still waiting for his grand duel against Gunnar.” She shrugged. “Things escalated.” Then it started to rain, her dry tone said.

I shook my head in disbelief, but I was pretty sure I knew at least a small part of what was going on – even though I didn’t understand a lick of the why. Callie frowned at me, silently noting the calculating look on my face.

I lifted my hand. “That’s White Fang. The trickster. The puppet master,” I said, pointing at the big shaggy gray wolf. The one who had led the Kansas City wolves here. I was pretty sure he had somehow led everyone here. Probably telling them all exactly what they wanted to hear in order to get them all in the same place at the same time.

She was shaking her head. “No, I heard his name is Jessie. I’m sure of it.”

Everything stopped, my mind going blank for a moment or two.

My smile evaporated. I slowly turned to face her, unable to speak for a few moments.

“I’ll be right back. I think I’m going to go kill him,” I finally said without any emotion in my voice. Then I hesitated, thinking about it harder. “Or kiss him,” I amended. I wasn’t quite sure what I felt like doing at the sudden revelation.

Deciding I would figure out that little detail on the way, I stepped forward, ready to—

The gates to Chateau Falco suddenly opened and everyone turned to look. Two massive wolves, both in their Fae forms, which was so much scarier than a simple Alpha, stepped forward. One was white, and one was black. I folded my arms as a smile slowly crept over my face. “Let them clean up their own mess,” I decided. Gunnar and Ashley swept the armies of wolves before them with a silent, considering look.

I heard Achilles pleading with Leonidas to take his bet, but I didn’t bother to look. I simply tucked my spear into my satchel, approached my leather throne, scooped up a tub of popcorn, and sat down. I ate a few bites, watching the spectacle before us, considering taking Achilles’ bet. I felt Callie’s hand touch mine as she reached inside my tub of popcorn.

She didn’t immediately move it, so I slowly followed that arm up.

To find her sitting on the arm of my leather chair, inches away, smiling at me with a guilty shrug. The setting sun illuminated her hair with vibrant pinks and oranges, like neon highlights, making her look deliciously savage.

I decided I could get used to that.