The first indication that something was amiss: light drifted through my window, not hindered by thick blankets of fog.

The second indication that something was amiss: the lack of the comforting warmth of the large Demigod who had given me the best sex of my life.

The third indication that something was amiss, which didn’t materialize until after I’d propped myself onto my elbows and looked around my empty bedroom in bewilderment: a small square piece of white paper had been left on my pillow.

With a falling brow, I sat up and grabbed the note. Written in a surprisingly delicate scrawl was: Goodbye. I’ll miss you.

My heart sank.

I knew at once he was telling me goodbye forever, like he’d told his mother last night. He’d been serious about trying to protect me, and to him that meant pushing me away.

A strange hollowness ached in my middle, followed by a tug to hurry up out of the room and go…

I didn’t know where I wanted to go. Just…out.

Out there….

Out there somewhere…

I frowned in confusion, processing. The memory of stroking his soul came back to me. It had been so easy to get into that protected cavern and find the treasure of his person. I hadn’t forced my way in, I’d seeped in. The difference had been in the approach.

Or maybe the difference had been in his openness. He hadn’t put up his usual blockade, and when he’d used his magic, it hadn’t torn me apart like it usually would.

Now, he and his mother were out of my life.

I sat in the stillness of the room, deciding how I felt. Deciding what I wanted to do.

He’d left me in peace—in the safety of anonymity. He’d pushed me out of his controlling sphere, and out of danger. He’d given me back the life I’d lived before him, but with a bunch of money to make things easier.

He’d set me free.

He’d also given me unbelievable sex, filled with passion and yearning. Filled with respect and mutual pleasure. He’d been better than his sexy magic felt, something I hadn’t thought possible. It would be hard to let go of that.

It would be hard to let go of him.

Really, I should be thankful he’d relieved me of the need to extricate myself from the situation. The man was bad news. He’d had his people barge into my house in the middle of the night and knock us around, for goodness’s sake. Maybe we were on equal footing in bed, but in life he’d always been in charge and three steps ahead. Bria was right—I needed to steer clear from that sort of nonsense.

Besides, Kieran was a product of Valens. That guy was whack. He’d imprisoned his love in life and in death. He’d made shrines for her while basically torturing her. That was so far from normal it was in a league of its own. Kieran wasn’t just protecting me from Valens by pushing me away, he was protecting me from himself and his crazy heritage.

He’s trying to protect me…

I dragged my teeth across my bottom lip and stared out the window.

That’s what it always came down to. He was trying to protect me.

I’d never been in any danger from Kieran Drusus or any of his people. He’d inherited some of his father’s traits, but he was no Valens. He’d healed Mordecai without expecting anything in return. He’d hoped for something, sure, but he’d left me free of obligation. His men were training Mordecai and Daisy on his orders, and he also paid for our groceries and ensured someone made us dinner every night. He’d bought me extremely expensive clothes and hadn’t even mentioned the fact that I’d stolen them from his house. He was training me. Leaving me with a year’s salary plus a large bonus…

The first thing he’d ever done for me was give a sick kid a blanket.

He had a lot of faults, that was clear, but I believed in my soul that he was a legitimately good person. He tried to do his best, even if he sometimes fell short.

So maybe I should cry?

Anger rose up out of nowhere.

Silly rabbit. Crying in these situations isn’t your speed. Ignoring manipulative buttheads and doing as you please is more your style. Do you, girl.

I clutched the note in a fist, ripped the covers away, and swung my feet over the side of the bed.

I would do me. I would catch the sonuvabitch who’d been trapping souls, I’d learn how to wield my magic as a weapon, and then I would wreak havoc in the magical world to protect the guy who was trying to protect me.

I strutted to the door, almost forgetting I was butt-naked. I quickly shrugged into some ill-fitting sweats and resumed my strut. When I opened the door, I caught Daisy coming out of her room, wiping the sleep from her eyes. The square of white on her door caught our attention at the same time.

I stepped closer, my skin crawling. “What in the holy fuck?”

Daisy read the note, not signed. Thank God it wasn’t written in Kieran’s scrawl, or someone else would need to do the protecting while I rained hell on him.

“He’s full of shit,” she said, clearly knowing who’d left the creeptastic note.

“If you keep swearing, I’m going to punch you in the face for each infraction.”

Her sleepy eyes blinked at me. “Okay.”

I pointed aggressively at the note. “Who wrote that, and do I need to go on a killing spree?”

She rolled her eyes. “Ew. No. Zorn wrote it, obviously.” She trudged down the hall toward the kitchen. “For some reason, he thinks that after just one day of training I should know when a stealthy intruder at the top of his game lets himself into my house with a key he probably got from your possessive boss and enters my room. He probably went through my shit, too, trying to find something that would press my buttons. I would’ve.”

“So…” I shifted as Mordecai sat up from his bed and rubbed his eyes. I pointed at the note again. “He did stare at you while you were sleeping? Because that is incredibly messed up, Daisy.”

She shrugged. “He was probably trying to see if I would feel his presence. But dude, I’ve only gotten one lesson from him. And he’s a master at stealth, like I said. Obviously I wasn’t going to wake up. Come on.”

“So then…” I put my hands on my hips, really unclear as to how she was so blasé about the note. “Which is the part that’s full of shit?”

“He won’t try to kill me yet. Give me a break. If anything, my not waking up is his failure as a teacher. He needs to try harder.” She continued into the kitchen, leaving me standing there with my mouth open.

Mordecai met me at the door and read the object of our discussion. A tremor moved through his body and a strange look sparkled in his light eyes—a mixture of rage, wariness, and aggression. Intense aggression, like an alpha animal sensing danger in its territory.

The shifter was blossoming in Mordecai. The guys were right. He’d need to learn to change into his animal soon. Very soon.

“Who did this?” His deep, threatening voice was only slightly ruined by the crack halfway through. Puberty was a dickhead.

“Zorn. Apparently, it’s a training exercise.” I shook my head and continued down the hall. “He forgets, though. He was in my house uninvited, not hers. And that motherfucker will answer for it.”

“Yes, he will.”

My small hairs stood on end and I grinned. Zorn was shortsighted. He was focusing solely on one individual in the household, clearly forgetting that we were a family. A unit. You fucked with one of us, you fucked with all of us. And we were crazy.

“Leave it alone for now,” I said, stalling near the kitchen. “I want to see how this plays out.”

Daisy stood at the kitchen sink eating a leftover piece of watermelon. The juice dribbled down her chin and into the kitchen sink. I probably should’ve encouraged her to sit at the table like a normal human being, but then I’d also have to encourage her to clean up after herself… Too much effort.

“What’re your plans for today?” I asked, feeling a wave of anticipation about my own plan. I grabbed a Pop Tart and sat down at the table, breathing through my nerves. Working up my courage. This time, I’d be defying two Demigods. Talk about crazy.

“Zorn will probably try to kidnap me or something,” Daisy said, opening the cabinet at her knees with sticky fingers and throwing the rind in the compost bin. I thinned my lips at the thought of the mess on the handle. “He thinks shock value is the only thing that’ll get through to me. I’ll go with it until I’m good enough to get one over on him.”

“Or maybe he’s setting you up to think that.”

She grabbed another piece of watermelon out of the tub. Mordecai sauntered in wearing faded sweats with holes in the knees and a shirt that was barely holding together. He had other clothes, but he wore his favorite things into the ground.

“I thought of that,” she said. “And I’ll definitely look out for it. But I really think he latched on to one element of me, and disregarded the rest. Like I’m some ape with a one-track mind.”

“That’s sexist,” Mordecai said, eating a muffin as he leaned his butt against the counter.

“No, no.” I pointed at him. “No. You lean over the sink like your sister or you lean over the table. The floor is way harder to clean than wiping off a surface.”

“Or get a plate, idiot,” Daisy said, smacking him with a dish towel.

“Then I’d have to wash it, idiot.” Mordecai crossed to the table.

“What’s sexist about it?” Daisy bent over as more juice dribbled down her chin. “I didn’t say anything about guys.”

“You always call me an ape,” he said, “because you don’t think men have evolved beyond them.”

“You are an ape.”

“See? It’s sexist. You don’t call women apes.”

“Fine. Would you prefer I called you a cu—”

“Don’t you do it,” I yelled. “No swearing.”

Daisy narrowed her eyes at Mordecai. “I only didn’t finish that sentence because I believe, in my bones, that she would punch me in the face.”

“All right, all right,” I said putting up my hand. The note crinkled between my thumb and palm, reminding me of what was on it.

The ache in my middle intensified and I dropped my hand again, swallowing the lump in my throat.

The door burst open and I jerked around to look. Mordecai pushed up from the table, half-standing. Daisy barely flinched. I couldn’t remember if that was normal or not.

Bria winked at me before shutting the door and strolling in, her heavy boots thudding on the floor and her camo backpack hanging from her shoulder. “Yes, I will just walk right in, thanks for offering,” she said, then frowned at me. “Why aren’t you ready? Let’s get going.”

I braced, confused. “Where?”

“What do you mean where? The government building. Didn’t you say you needed to check that place out?”

“Yeah, but… Didn’t Kieran tell you that he pulled me off the case? He wants me out of the picture now.”

“Yes,” Bria said patiently, and sat at the table. “He did tell me that.” She frowned harder. “You weren’t actually thinking of listening to him, were you? Because if so, I seriously misjudged your personality.”

“Wait, wait, wait.” Daisy hurried to the last chair and sat. “We have to start at the beginning. There are issues we need to discuss regarding that stalking S.O.B.”

“We were supposed to do this in a private family talk,” Mordecai mumbled, and a different sort of anticipation jiggled my stomach. They were going to bring up what had happened between me and Kieran.

I hated when they were disappointed. It always cut right through me.

“Don’t mind me,” Bria said, crossing her arms over her chest and leaning back. “I’m just a fly on the wall.”

“Lexi, honestly, what were you thinking?” Daisy demanded. She leveled a finger at me. “And don’t say it was just the one time, and you had to get it out of your system, and blah-bidy-blah. I know about his dad’s house. That excuse won’t work this time.”

“This time?” Bria beamed in pride. “I knew you were my kinda girl, Lexi. Except, if you were ever to love and leave a guy, the entitled Demigod would be that guy. Remember what I said about the train? You need to get off that train. I know I just said it yesterday, but clearly it bears repeating…”

“I know, but—”

“He has been manipulating you since he met you. He’s been aiming to get this one exact thing,” Mordecai said. “He stalked you, remember? Decent guys don’t stalk people.”

“No, but he was stalking me because of my magic—”

“And he was crude about the nasty business.” Daisy’s eyebrows lowered. “Nice guys aren’t crude.”

I barely stopped myself from saying that the crude language had been extremely sexy, and while Kieran was respectful of me, no one could call him nice. He was a powerful sort of dangerous. Crude worked very well for him.

“You finished the job he hired you for,” Mordecai said, “so you have no reason to stay on. If you do, he’ll probably just try to use you again.”

“That’s what Demigods do,” Bria murmured.

Mordecai nodded, validated. “I think you should sever the connection, Lexi. You helped his mom, and now you should get on with your life. He can’t ask any more from you.”

“But we’ll still bring down the guy that is trapping souls, right?” Bria asked. “Because that should be our thing. He doesn’t need to play any part in that. I mean…except if we get caught. Then we’ll throw him under the bus and skedaddle.”

“Right.” Daisy nodded, as though expressly ignoring the order of a Demigod wasn’t a big deal.

I remembered the last time I had angered Kieran. The intensity with which he’d ripped me through the closet door, and then—

My core tightened and my face heated. I rubbed my hand over my face. I definitely hadn’t gotten him out of my system. The opposite. I wanted him more now than I ever had.

“We can find a way to earn a living,” Mordecai was saying, cutting into my reverie. “We made do before him, and we’ll make do now. We have the bonus for completing the job early, and you have some nice clothes, so we have time to get situated.”

“He said he’d pay me for a year,” I said. “He didn’t expect me to find his mom’s skin so quickly.”

Bria raised her hand. “Um, can we say rock star? Because Lexi found that skin incredibly quickly. She could get a job in any investigative firm featuring dead people.”

“She has priors,” Daisy said.

Bria furrowed her brow. “Who doesn’t?”

“Before you say anything—when you get back to the topic at hand—I’m totally going to accept his offer. Don’t even try to talk me out of it.”

“Ew.” Daisy gave me a teenager’s disgusted look, which threw in not-so-subtle shades of you’re an idiot. “Like we’d try to talk you out of some rich guy’s free money.”

“So that settles it.” Mordecai slapped his hands on the table. “We’ll live cheaply, like we have been, and use most of the money from the stalker to get a business going for you, like we were originally planning. We can save the rest. Daisy and I can get jobs when we’re sixteen to pay the Six to continue our training.”

Bria leaned forward on the table, her mouth open, looking at Mordecai like he was an insect under a microscope. “Are you for real?”

His brow lowered. “What? That seems like a sensible plan.”

“That is an extremely sensible plan, and if my skin weren’t crawling, I’d be incredibly impressed that you’re so practical at fifteen.”

“Yeah. I know. It can get annoying.” Daisy rolled her eyes again.

“Well…” I flicked the note onto the table and another wave of butterflies fluttered through my belly. It was time to get going. I couldn’t stall any longer. “Severing the connection has been taken care of. He has locked that down.”

Bria dropped two fingers onto the note and slid it closer.

“I got hit, then quit.” I leaned back. “What he wrote on the note is what he said to his mother when she left my bedroom. To him, it’s over. He doesn’t want me near the job, he doesn’t want me going after the spirit trapper, and he doesn’t want me in his life at all. He’ll pay me, but that’s it. You guys got your wish.”

My throat burned and my chest felt tight. The weird new feeling in my middle started aching. I swallowed down the emotion, but before I could say anything else, Daisy slammed her hand down on the table.

“That’s bullshit! No way. Am I right, Mordecai? He can’t just”—she swung her hand over the table—“waltz in here, mess with her mind, and then take off. That’s fucked up.” She put her finger in the air and looked at me with raised eyebrows. “I know the new rule is no swearing—”

“That’s always been the rule—”

“—but this warrants it. He stalks you, gets his mom freed, gets some punani, and then he walks?” She stood from the table and paced the kitchen floor, acting the part of the scorned woman on my behalf. “He needs his dick cut off, that’s what he needs.”

A smile emerged on Bria’s face as she watched Daisy. “This kid is my spirit animal.”

“I thought you wanted this,” I said to Daisy. “He’s severing the connection.”

“No.” She rounded on me. “He is playing you like a chump. No guy should get away with emotional sabotage. Am I right, Mordecai?”

Mordecai watched Daisy for a second. “Well…he shouldn’t, but at the same time, this means he won’t bother us. It actually works out. We can egg his car like we were planning that one time, and maybe try to get something of his so we can burn it on his lawn. Other than that, it’s probably a good thing.”

“Yup.” Daisy pointed at him righteously. “Burn his motherfucking shit. Burn it. No one messes with my girl and gets away with it.”

Bria leaned against the table, looking at Mordecai again. “I half take it back. I might like you after all.”

“Okay, okay.” I put up my hands. “All right. Let’s tone it down.” I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose. “Bria, let’s go find that girl in the government building. We’ll talk about this later.” I leveled a finger at Daisy and then Mordecai. “Do not throw eggs—because they’re expensive and we might be buying our food again soon—and don’t burn his shit. Okay? Chill.”

Daisy crossed her arms over her chest, her expression sullen. “What about throwing rocks? Rocks are free.”

“Daisy…” I lifted my eyebrows in warning. Bria’s smile burned brighter.

Daisy looked away. “Fine,” she muttered.

After a nod from Mordecai indicating he understood, too, I stood. “Come on, Bria.”

“Sure, yeah.” She didn’t get up.

I scowled down at her.

She looked pointedly at my clothes, her smile still going strong. “Did you want to get dressed first? In a pair of pants that actually fit?”