The moon shrank in the sky night after night over the next three days. The group was getting antsy. The house was opened up and cleaned, the chores all assigned and taken care of, the lawn mowed. There was nothing to do but sit around and wait for the new moon when they’d all be able to finally leave.

It was on the fourth afternoon that it rained and had them all penned in the living room. It was just cool enough for a small fire in the hearth, as long as they kept the windows open. Jean Luc was stretching from a run he’d just taken, Tre and Caroline were playing cards, Celia was reading on her Kindle, Martine was sharpening a blade in the corner, and Thea and Jack were stretched out on a couch apiece.

They’d slept in the same twin bed each night since she came back, and there’d been plenty of tangling and melting and kissing since then. But they’d yet to take anything further. Jack was still wary of her shoulder injury and Thea was a slow-moving person anyways.

“So,” Thea broke the silence, tossing her long, coltish legs over the back of the couch. “How did this demon asshole lure us all so effectively? How did he know the maps would work?”

“What do you mean?” Martine asked from across the room. Celia looked up from the top of her Kindle and Jean Luc repositioned himself to hear better.

“I mean that it wasn’t like the demon sent me that map in the mail and piqued my interest. That map was my grandfather’s grandfather’s. Almost two centuries old. Why start the wild goose chase that long ago? Why run the risk that the map gets destroyed or that it ends up in the hands of an heir that just doesn’t give a crap about it, locks it in a drawer and forgets?”

“Is that how you got your copy?” Jack asked. “Interesting.”

“What about you?” Thea replied. “Still going with the whole won-it-in-a-poker-game bullshit?”

“Nawl.” He drawled, a little grin on his face, just for her. “Though I’ve won plenty of treasure maps in that exact scenario. But that particular map my dad gave me when I was a kid. Told me to keep it safe. It was what got me interested in treasure hunting in the first place. Had it stolen from me once. Took me two years and three times around the world to track it down again.” He pointed at his eyebrow. “The man who stole it gave me this, matter of fact.”

“Huh. You cared about it that much? So maybe that answers it then? He knew that if they were family heirlooms, then the heirs would treat them with care and reverence?” Thea guessed.

“Makes sense to me,” Jean Luc said, switching his stretch. “It was one of the only things my mother left to me and—to me when she died.” He assumed that most of the group knew that he and Hugo had been raised by his mother’s brother, who’d died just after he’d been drafted in the NFL. There was no reason to go into detail about how Jean Luc was the last living member of his family.

The remaining members of the group, Celia, Caroline, Tre and Martine all glanced at one another. That theory didn’t exactly make sense to them.

“Well,” Celia cleared her throat, deciding to come clean. “I didn’t inherit mine. I, uh, found it in a library book in the reference section of the library a few years ago.” She blushed a deep red and Jean Luc found himself tipping his head to one side as he studied her.

“Why does that embarrass you?” he asked her, which made her blush even deeper.

“I don’t know. It’s just that if you all inherited yours, then that makes me the odd man out. It’s like it’s a room filled with actual seventh souls and then there’s me. The nerd who read an old cartography reference guide and found the map. By accident.”

“You’re not the only seventh soul faker, Celia,” Tre assured her. He took a deep breath. “Might not be a surprise to anybody, considering my line of work, but I stole my copy.”

He ignored Caroline’s big, shocked eyes on the side of his face. She dropped her hands lower in her surprise and Tre looked away, pushing her hands back up so that he couldn’t see the cards in her hands. He might be a thief but he wasn’t a cheater.

“Really?” Thea sat up and studied him. “How?”

“Worked a big job in Vienna a few years ago. Cracked this digitally coded vault at some big shot’s house. He wasn’t a good guy, if that makes any of this land differently for all your moral compasses.” Tre shrugged. “Everything there he’d stolen from other people. Me and the group I was with, all of us chose different stuff. I chose the map.” And a few briefcases of gold bars, but he didn’t feel the need to mention that.

“I’m not a seventh soul either,” Caroline said, her voice quieter than usual, her eyes on the ground. “At least not by blood. It came down the line in my husband’s family.”

Tre thought he saw something there, something worth asking about, but Martine cut in, and his attention turned to her.

“And I’m obviously not officially a seventh soul either. I tracked that map for a long time before I came to possess it.”

“How’d you know it existed in the first place?” Thea asked.

“This particular demon has a very particular style. You’re right when you said that it was strange, Thea, how long he prefers to lure his victims. And all I can say is that centuries wouldn’t feel nearly as long to him. And he likes to play with his food.”

“But there’s so much room for error!” Thea insisted. “I almost didn’t come, myself. There was bad weather headed our way and a field to be turned over and the roof had to be re-shingled. I almost talked myself out of it.”

“Sure,” Martine said. “But you didn’t talk yourself out of it. You came. And so did you and you and you,” Martine gestured to each person in turn. “All I can say is that the map doesn’t act like any old map. There’s a magnetism to it. A magic of sorts. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that this group ended up here. Each map made its way to who it was supposed to.”

Those words set a strange mood for everyone.

“Hold on,” Thea tried again, wanting answers. “You still didn’t answer the question about how you found the map. If it didn’t come through your family then you must have stolen it or found it like everyone else did.”

Martine shifted. Of course it was Thea that was going to bring this issue to light. She was smart and skeptical, and though she expected Thea didn’t quite realize it yet, very protective of the group.

“The map I have never had an original owner. Nor was it meant for me.”

“Meaning…”

“I knew the demon was creating a new trap. His old one had resolved centuries before and he would be growing hungry. I tracked him and followed the signs and before that map made its way to an innocent, I intercepted it.”

“But,” Tre spoke up now, leaning forward. “You just told us that the maps were centuries old.”

Martine sighed. So the cat was out of the bag, as they say. “Right. I’m not, exactly, mortal. Like I said, I’m a demon hunter. That’s not a profession, it’s a kind of being.”

The room was completely quiet and still for a solid ten seconds before Thea flopped backwards, the Kindle slipped out of Celia’s hands, and Tre went ahead and set his hand of cards down. Everyone else remained frozen.

“You’re not human?” Thea asked incredulously.

“No.”

“So, then what are you?”

She sighed. They deserved an explanation, but it was all so complicated. “I’m like a human in many ways…”

“But you’re also a hawk,” Jack cut in dryly.

“Yes, I’m also a shifter. And I have the power to create shifters as well. You three, being mortal, will never have the power to create.”

“What’s your lifespan?” Tre asked, leaning fully forward now.

“Much longer than yours, but delicate. I can be killed. I age. And in many ways, my life force is tied up with the particular demon which I am hunting. When he is killed, I’ll start to die. There will be no more need for my immortality.”

There was an even longer silence now.

“We’re gonna go to the bar,” Jack decided unilaterally. “I really think that’s what we all need right about now. An outing. And a drink for those of us who want one. Celia, you know any good watering holes around here?”

She looked surprised for a second, opening and closing her mouth. “Ah, there’s Doc’s. It’s just on the other side of 68 but it’s really just a dive bar.”

“Is there pool? Beer? A juke box?”

“Far as I know.”

“Alright,” Jack decided. He was still laying down and he didn’t do much more than just cross one ankle over the other, but he was suddenly at the helm of the group, guiding them much the way that Thea had the other night when she prepared dinner. “Let’s see. It’s four o’clock now? Good. Everybody do what you have to do, kill an hour, and then we’re heading out.”

“Fun!” Caroline seemed back to her happy self as she hopped up. “I’m gonna go change. Oh!” She turned back around to Tre. “Gin.” She set her cards down so he could see them and practically skipped away to her room.

Tre just shook his head after her. The woman was a trip.

Jean Luc rose and stepped into the back hallway, toward his bedroom. If they were going out, which he did not want to do, he needed to go take a shower. Away from the group, he was pulling his sweaty T-shirt off over his head when he felt a thump against his stomach and an ‘oof!’

He ripped the shirt off his head and looked down to see Celia in a little pile at his feet. “Oh shit,” he murmured, crouching down next to her. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t see you.”

“No,” she said, shaking her head, her piercing catching the light and her hair flopping to one side. “That was my fault. I was reading and walking at the same time.”

She wasn’t looking at him; her eyes were pasted to the ground and it wasn’t until she rubbed her cheek over her shoulder that Jean Luc realized that she must have face-planted right into his sweaty stomach.

“I’m really, really sorry either way. I got you all sweaty.” The words made him blush and he was grateful for the dim lighting of the hallway.

“That’s okay,” she told him. “I don’t mind.” And that made both of them blush. “I was gonna take a shower anyways.” More blushing. “Oooookay. Yeah. I’m gonna go get ready now.”

She slipped past him into her bedroom. He hadn’t realized that they had the two rooms next to one another. He went straight for the bathroom and showered up quickly, wrapped a towel around his waist and ducked out of the bathroom just in time to catch Celia’s bedroom door open. She stepped out, nothing but a towel wrapped around her and earbuds in her ears.

They both nodded at one another and averted their eyes as she darted into the bathroom.

Jean Luc closed his door behind him and let out a long breath that he wasn’t totally sure why he’d been holding.

Back in the living room, Tre and Jack looked at one another with raised eyebrows. Something had gotten the third member of their trio’s heart racing. Huh.

 

***

 

Doc’s was, indeed, a real dive.

“Hope you’ve all had your tetanus shots,” Celia muttered under her breath as they walked in one after the other.

There were torn vinyl booths, dim lighting, the simultaneous aroma of lemon cleaner and sweat, a scarred-up wooden bar, and the requisite barfly locals in various stages of drunkenness scattered around the bar.

Caroline was on cloud nine. Whenever she and Peter went out, which admittedly hadn’t been for a year or two, they always found themselves at some swanky new Boston bar with sexy lighting and blue suede bar stools. There they’d order neon-colored mixed drinks that took eight minutes to make and cost $17.50 apiece.

She’d dressed up, picturing something like that, and so she wore dark skinny jeans, sky-high heels, and a drapey black top that accentuated the curve of her breasts; her hair was brushed to a high polish and she wore huge silver earrings. Oh, and her smile was about a thousand watts. Red lipstick and white teeth, she lit up the damn bar as she walked in and flounced directly up to catch the bartender’s eye.

“One Budweiser, please,” she ordered with something close to joy. “Oh, what does everyone else want?” She turned back to her group of friends, who all just stared at her, just like everyone else in the bar. The bartender, in their same general age range and not too terrible to look at, leaned across the bar and said something to her that had her spinning around, answering with a laugh and a smile.

“Somebody oughta keep an eye on her,” Jack said and Tre immediately stepped forward, sighing.

Jean Luc headed to the bar as well and Celia watched him go. She wondered if it was so that he could foot the bill, the way he’d insisted on doing with all their groceries.

Jack thought the bar was aptly named, because to his thinking, this was just exactly what the doctor ordered. They could do with a little group bonding, not to mention something to take their mind off all the waiting.

Martine snagged them a table amongst the many empty places to sit and Jack sat along beside her. His eyes followed Thea as she strolled, hands in her pockets, toward the pool tables, which were all currently occupied.

She watched for a minute before she headed back. Jack watched almost every head in the bar swivel to watch her go.

He knew the feeling.

The group assembled at the table, Jean Luc and Tre carrying multiple beers in each hand. They passed them out one by one.

“You’re not drinking?” Celia asked Jean Luc, determined to get past the embarrassment of basically motorboating his sweaty pecks in the hallway earlier. That had simultaneously been the hottest and most humiliating moment of her life. She considered herself a little sad for considering an accidental hallway bump to have been some of the hottest action she’d ever gotten in her life. But come on, the guy was an Adonis. His muscles had muscles. She didn’t think anyone would blame her for playing the firm, warm feel of him on repeat for the last hour.

“No,” he told her. “Never have.”

“Really?” Tre asked, leaning in, and Celia could have kissed him. All she wanted was more information about Jean Luc without having to be the one steering the conversation. “I thought you professional athletes usually partied pretty hard.”

“Some of them do,” Jean Luc shrugged. “But me and my bro—” he cut himself off and cleared his throat. “I grew up without very much money and I still don’t like spending very much on myself. And it takes a LOT of beer to get me drunk.”             

Tre and Celia laughed until Caroline tugged Tre’s sleeve and he turned to talk with her. Celia kept her eyes on Jean Luc. “Come on, these Buds were a dollar each. Money can’t be the only reason.”

He looked at her for a minute, his gray-blue eyes into her midnight blue ones. “Yeah, I’m a big guy, you know? I’d never want to make anyone feel uncomfortable, or feel like I was out of control.”

Celia’s brow furrowed, like she didn’t understand, but really it was the only facial expression she could quickly force her face into that wasn’t ohgoodgodyouareadorable.

Okay. So her little dumb crush on him was being annoyingly persistent. Who cared. Old news. She was just going to have to move on.

“Pool?” Thea asked Jack across the table.

“You gonna hustle me, Ace?”

“Probably.” She cocked her head to one side and tipped her chair back on its back two legs, taking a swig of beer. “Although something tells me you’re not easily hustled.”

He shrugged, swiped his beer off the table and stood up. “Care to find out?”

They made a good match, Martine had to admit to herself as she watched the two of them go. Tall and capable. Tough. But he was a tumble weed and she had deep roots. Martine wondered vaguely if Thea would learn to tumble or Jack would learn to grow roots.

***

 

An hour or so later, apparently word had made its way around town that the famous Jean Luc LaTour and a host of his good-looking friends were posted up at Doc’s. There was barely room to walk to the bathroom. In fact, two of their chairs had gotten swiped from their table just so all the crowd around them could sit.

Jack and Thea had finally gotten access to one of the pool tables and they had barely taken a turn apiece, they were laughing so hard.

“I thought you’d be good at pool!” Thea said, leaning on her pool cue and laughing so hard she squeaked at Jack’s complete whiff. He wasn’t even holding the cue correctly.

“Why the hell you’d think that?” he asked, grinning back at her, pushing his cap up off his head and making himself look about ten years younger.

“I don’t know. You’ve got the whole rambling man, cowboy, drawling thing going on. I thought you’d be good at pool!”

“Well, you’ve got the whole Western woman, shit-kicking, take no prisoners thing going on. I thought you’d be good at pool.”

The truth was, they were equally, genuinely terrible and getting a huge kick out of it. “Darts,” Thea gasped. “I’m good at darts.”

“Then go play some!” grumbled one of the regulars from where he was perched on a bar stool waiting for the pool table to open up. He was enjoying watching Thea bend over the table quite a bit, but it was very clear that the blond man with the scar on his eyebrow had a claim on her. Something that made the man grumpy.

Thea, still laughing, shrugged and went to hang her pool cue up on the wall. She’d kind of anticipated some kind of Color of Money Tom Cruise sexily teaches her how to play kind of thing. Instead they’d both laughed and looked like fools. Oh well. When she turned back, Jack was there, crowding her in, still laughing and hanging up his own pool cue. On a whim, because it felt good, because it had tied him up in knots to see her laugh like that, and because every man in that bar was looking for an opportunity to talk to her, Jack took Thea by the chin. Gently. Just guiding her with his fingertip, really. They were still laughing when they started the kiss. But they were not laughing when he backed her up against the pool cues, gripped one of them like he was going to snap its neck.

“Oh for the love of—” the grumpy man growled at their backs. “You folks mind if I choose my damn cue?”

Thea broke the kiss off and without looking back, tugged Jack toward their table. They both let out long, low breaths when they got there. Jack sat her down in a free chair with a light squeeze to her good shoulder. “Beer? Beer? Beer?” he asked Caroline, Celia, and Martine who also sat at the table.

He got three nods and a fourth from Thea. He shook his head as he walked away from the table of good-looking women. He swore every single male eye in the joint was pointed toward that table. Except for Tre and Jean Luc. Who were standing shoulder to shoulder talking to a curvy blonde woman and a girl with long, brown hair.

He clapped them on the shoulders as he passed and introduced himself to the women, more out of habit than anything.

“Our boys made some friends,” Martine said as she watched them.

Celia snapped her head to look and then immediately snapped back to face front. “He made a friend pretty quickly at the grocery store the other day, too.”

“Pays to be famous,” Thea said, watching Celia closely.

Caroline craned her head to see better. “Do you think they want to have sex with them?”

Thea and Martine laughed. “Who with who?” Thea asked.

“What?” Caroline shook her head, realizing that her question could have been taken in a lot of different iterations. “Oh. The men. With the women. Tre and Jean Luc. Not Jack. Obviously Jack wants to have sex with you.”

“Free country,” Thea said, shrugging. And she meant it. Though if she really thought Jack was about to use those particular freedoms to have sex with one of those high school graduates, his dick was about to have a very frank conversation with the toe of her boot.

“I think that they probably do,” Caroline said, answering her own question. “They’re very pretty girls.” She turned back to the group. “I’ve always liked trying to figure out stuff like that. In bars and restaurants. Trying to figure out exactly who wants who and who’s mad at who and who used to date, that kind of thing.”

“Sounds fun,” Celia said, looking around the bar to give it a shot herself, purposefully away from where the men in their group stood talking to those girls. “Though when I’m in bars and restaurants I’m generally talking with somebody.”

“Oh.” A light in Caroline’s eyes just sort of flickered out. “Right. Well, my hu— Peter is a really social guy, always meeting new people. So, when we go places he’s usually talking with them, I guess.”

Celia and Thea’s eyes connected for a second. They both got the same vision of adorable, vivacious Caroline sitting alone and lonely in a bar while her husband talked to other women. There was something off about the way she talked about her husband. She usually spoke with such unbridled joy. And then whenever this Peter guy came up, she just kind of extinguished.

They all had lives back home that had nothing to do with the one they were living here, Thea reminded herself. She shouldn’t judge Caroline’s marriage based on what she was observing here. She wouldn’t want anyone to judge her life at the homestead by her willingness to be here. Suddenly loneliness completely swamped her. She missed her big white house.

She missed her two horses. She missed the chickens. She missed the daybreak over the distant mountains. She missed falling into her woodsmoke-smelling bed at the end of the night. And more than anything, she missed her grandfather. What the hell would Chet Redgrave have really thought of all of this? She was sure he hadn’t had any idea of the goose chase he’d sent her on. And what, specifically, would he have thought of Jack Warren? It made her ache with sadness that she’d never find out.

Thea rose and pulled her phone from her pocket. She stepped out the front of the bar and called Ray at home. They spoke for a few minutes and he gave her a full update.

“I can’t thank you enough, Ray.”

“Thea, that’s enough now.” He’d told her it was alright damn near twenty times.

“But all this extra time that you didn’t account for. You’re gonna be stretched so thin at home and—”

“We’ve been through that, Thea. I’ll hire on some help if I need to. Your dime. As it is, I’m enjoying being busy. And it’s good for Loretta to miss me a little. You take your time. Have yourself an adventure.”

She hadn’t explained to Ray why she’d needed the extra time, but she’d gotten the distinct impression when they’d talked before that he thought she’d met someone. That a man was the reason she wasn’t hurrying back home. And wasn’t it?

She said her goodbyes and clicked off the call.

“Everything alright?”

Thea turned and there was Jack, leaning against the brick of the bar, his dingy hat tipped back on his head and one of his tennis shoes cocked up on the wall behind him. His jeans were worn enough to be almost paper thin and his shoulders stretched his T-shirt to the limit. The slice across his eyebrow winked silver in the fading light of the day.

Yes, she was woman enough to admit it to herself. It was definitely a man that was keeping her from returning home.

Thea walked straight up to Jack and took two handfuls of his shirt, yanked him down and to her.

They instantly creased into one another, flattening and pressing and holding. They swayed there, completely uncaring about the audience of smokers in the parking lot, or the cars flipping on their headlights on 68.

Jack’s tongue swept into her mouth and Thea knew it was searching for its mate. She gave it to him. He grunted as he tipped her head back and slow-slid his lips against hers. He made everything so soft and blurry. She was very aware that this man was a master at taking and giving at the same damn time.

“When we get home,” she panted as he dropped his forehead to hers and his green eyes stared into her blue ones. Apparently she didn’t have to finish her sentence.

“Yeah,” he nodded. “Hell, yeah.”

“We’re gonna need condoms,” she told him, knowing that she hadn’t thought to bring any with her.

“Lots of them,” he replied. His mouth landed on the pulse point in her neck and he nipped his way up one side and down the other. “Gotta pick some up in town before we head back.” He paused; he couldn’t not make sure that she knew. “The boys are gonna know, sweetheart. What we’re up to.”

“Do I look like I give a shit?” Thea asked, swaying when his hand found its way under her shirt to the small of her back. With one hand skimming over the curve of her voluptuous ass and one knee pressing between her legs, she wondered if she was supposed to feel this way. Like she was slowly lifting off from earth.

“Do you have any idea what I’m gonna do to you?” he asked into her ear.

“Tell me.”

“No, seriously, I was asking for ideas. I’m kind of a make-it-up-as-I-go-along type of guy.”

She laughed and rolled her eyes at him. Somehow his humor intensified her desire for him instead of lessening it. “I know what I’m gonna do to you.”

The laughter immediately dissolved in his eyes. “What’s that?”

“I’m gonna make you forget your name,” she told him, leaning forward and wiggling against him.

His mouth was back on her neck when a voice interrupted them.

“Lovebirds!” It was Martine, five steps away. “You good for another round? We’re thinking we’re gonna leave in half an hour.”

They pulled away from one another, knowing that if they didn’t cool down now, they were gonna end up doing it in the dirt at the back of the bar. Which would have been fine by Thea but Jack had other ideas.

They joined the group back at the table and Thea let herself be pulled down into Jack’s lap. She passed the time by smashing her ass against his cock, giving a little wiggle here and there. “I know what you’re doing,” he whispered in her ear.

“Good,” she told him.

When the group was good and loose, and commending Jack on his idea to go out and cut loose for the night, they decided to quit while they were ahead. It was only a twenty-minute walk from the house and they’d hoofed it there, not wanting to drive two cars. They were over half the way back when Thea stopped midstep to swing back in the direction of town.

“Oh, shit!” It was gonna be a fifteen-minute walk back. “Jack, we forgot to stop at the drugstore.”

His mouth dropped flat open. How in God’s name could he have forgotten to buy condoms when he had Thea Redgrave ripe for the taking? How much of a fool was he? He could have kicked himself. Fine. It was fine. He’d go back himself and run the rest of the way home. Meet her there. “I’ll go back.”

The group had stopped to see what was holding them up. “Drugstore’s gonna be closed, Jack,” said Celia. “It’s past eight.”

Jack and Thea looked at one another in horror. They’d gotten real worked up at the bar and were really gonna need to bang this thing out. Immediately.

“What’d you need?” Celia asked. “We might already have it at the house— oh.”

The look on Jack and Thea’s faces answered her question perfectly, without words, and she found herself completely embarrassed for having asked. Yeah. She was pretty sure there weren’t any condoms at the lake house.

Martine, sympathetic to the sexual concerns of mortals, but not quite as wrapped up in it as they were, looked around at the darkening forest. “We should keep moving.” She didn’t need to remind them that it was just a few days ago that Arturo had attempted to take Jack.

Tre cleared his throat. “Let’s keep going. Jack, I’ve, ah, I’ve got you covered at home. So to speak.”

The group chuckled and kept walking. Caroline eyed Tre with unguarded interest. She’d thought of him as such an obvious nerd! But he’d brought condoms on this trip with him. Maybe he had some woman-charming powers that she’d yet to see? Or maybe he just really liked to be prepared. Like a boy scout.

Meanwhile, Celia took a long, meaningful look at Thea. She watched her whisper something to Jack that made them both smile hungrily. She watched shameless lust cross her face. She watched the confident lope of her walk. There was no hint of color or embarrassment on her face. Just gorgeous pale skin and freckles like always. She’d had no issue with the group knowing that she and Jack were gonna have sex when they headed back to the house.

The thought was positively revolutionary for Celia. Her siblings had teased one another about sex so much, and her parents had been so wildly strict and zero tolerance about it, that Celia knew she didn’t have the healthiest level of confidence when it came to sex. She faced forward as she walked, looking away from Thea. She consciously pushed her shoulders back a bit; a little confidence wouldn’t kill her, she decided.

When they got back to the house, most of the group settled in the living room. It was still early after all. But Tre disappeared from the room for a minute and came back with a box of unopened condoms in his hand. “Mazel,” he said as he tossed them across the room.

Thea reached forward and snagged them from the air before Jack could. The pair of them basically raced up the stairs, shouldering each other out of the way like they were kids.

“Considerate of them to go upstairs,” Martine said thoughtfully, and even as she said it, the chandelier above them shook, dust sifting down from the ceiling.