“You evil pile of sticks,” the male boomed, and half the glasses near him shattered.
Interesting.
“Who are you calling a pile of sticks, you dead tree?” she boomed back.
They rushed each other and fell through the floor at a wave from a male in a long robe. Mormo? When had he arrived?
“They need couples counseling in the worst way,” a sprite near the now vanished couple said.
A few others nearby nodded.
Kraft finished his drink, his thirst quenched. A low meow and a scratch across his belly reminded him he wasn’t alone.
He watched as a bowl of milk slid down the bar and stopped in front of him without spilling a drop. The kitten climbed up his body, using him as a scratching post.
“Ow. Here, damn it.” Kraft pulled the clingy thing away and placed Shadow by the milk.
The little kitten drank a lot more than something of that size should be able to ingest, including the second and third bowls that arrived.
“What the hell are you, cat?”
Shadow looked at him then turned back to his meal, ignoring Kraft as if unimportant.
“Bastard.” He turned at the sight of Mormo, standing a few people down from him at the bar, arguing with some dark-haired, divine-looking fuck in a toga. Not Norse, but maybe belonging to a Greek or Roman pantheon.
“I donotowe you a drink,” Mormo snapped. “Stop following me around.”
“Sweet cheeks, I hate to break it to you, but we need to talk. And yes, you do have a stellar personality and just the nicest ass, but we’ve got problems.”
Kraft grinned, entertained. He would have settled in to watch Mormo’s head explode—if the color of his eyes and scent of his anger was anything to go by—but a commotion from behind him stole his attention.
“Grab him,” Khent yelled.
Kraft saw the lycan they’d been questioning for a week slung over the back of a great big, shifted direwolf, this one larger than a typical lycan in shifted form. “Berserker?” he yelled to Khent, who nodded.
Khent’s dead crow flew after the escaping lycans, but the giant one turned and ate the bird in one bite before running again.
“You’ll die for that,” Khent pledged, getting ready to work some death magic, Kraft could tell.
“Khent,no,” Hecate ordered.
“Stay here, cat.” Kraft ran after the lycans down a hall that emptied of people and just kept going. Had to be part of Hecate’s weird border magic, since she was a guardian of crossroads after all.
The berserker looked over its shoulder at Kraft, its blue eyes brilliant in a face covered in ash-gray fur speckled with black. It seemed to recognized Kraft, or at least, the wolf part of him knew something strange centered around that lycan carrying their prisoner. Unfortunately, the pair were sucked away, and Kraft somehow came to a standstill in front of Hecate back in the bar.
He wavered, trying to find his footing. “What the fuck?”
“Watch your tone, nachzehrer,” Mormo warned, flipped off the toga-wearing god next to him—who winked at Kraft before disappearing—and turned with Kraft to face Hecate. “My lady, I do believe our lycan prisoner has left the building.”
“I know.” She sighed. “And I was just getting to like her.”
“Wait. Her?” Kraft scowled. “The lycan I played with was male.”
“Yes, he was. But that’s not who we were after.” Hecate drummed her fingers on the bar. “Now Kraft, tell me about Orion and Kaia. Exactly what’s going on upstairs?”
“I’d rather talk about the lycans.”
Mormo frowned. “Mistress? What’s this about Kaia?”
