Cass and I exited my Jeep and stalked over to meet my lawyer. Croft was one of a handful of vampires in the world who could withstand sunlight. I didn’t know the details of the whole thing or how it worked, but I knew if you had it, you were super powerful. My eyes flicked to the top of the hill and the gigantic, pretentious, werewolf mansion that sat there.
“Did you get the plans?” I asked Croft.
He nodded. “Deed to the land with boundary lines, signed April 5th, 1915.”
A sudden crunch of gravel had me spinning. An enormous yellow bulldozer trundled down the lane. At the wheel was none other than my sexual conquest.
Motherfucker.
A black pickup truck full of young, ripped werewolves trailed behind him.
“How many hours did my grandmother prepay you?” I asked in a low voice. I was on a budget until my next bounty job. Being a freelancer was a hit or miss.
Croft waved a hand. “Your grandmother gave me something far more valuable than money. I’ll work for you whenever you need me, no charge—assuming I’m available.”
My eyebrows rose. “For how long?”
He shrugged in that cool, collected way vampires had. “Let’s say a century.”
Whoa. What had Gran given him? Now wasn’t the time to ask, and Croft wasn’t exactly chatty under normal circumstances, so I refrained from it. I’d only met him a handful of times. I was twenty-four, and witches lived a little longer than humans—to about a hundred and twenty-five, on average—so he’d just offered to be my lawyer for the entirety of my life.
The bulldozer reached us and my eyes flicked to Cass. “Will you station yourself on the roof? Start breathing fire if he comes near the house?”
“You know I’ve got your back.” He winked; tiny, blue, leathery bat wings erupted from his back as he flew onto the roof. Cass was more colorful than a gumball machine. He couldn’t technically breathe fire, but he could throw it.
The alpha threw the bulldozer into park and exited, standing tall and wearing the same clothes from last night. So he hadn’t showered either. Something about that pleased me, to know my scent was still all over him. Immediately, memories of the night before flashed in my mind, and I shoved them away—hard. There’d be no more of that; that was for damn sure.
“I’ll make this quick,” he offered, holding a sheaf of papers that looked similar to ours. Brock! That was his name. Brock the Cock.
I stepped forward and craned my neck to look up at him. “No, I’ll make this easy. My Gran owned this land, says so right here, and now I’ve inherited it as her rightful heir. This is my lawyer, Mr. Croft, and he’ll be happy to discuss this in his office downtown. But right now, you’re trespassing.” I crossed my arms for full effect.
Brock’s eyes glittered, and his jaw twitched, veins bulging along his temples. A few of his boys snickered behind him.
He stepped closer to me, trying to intimidate me no doubt. Except, I remembered how gently he’d sucked my nipples last night, so I wasn’t cowed at his masculine display.
‘Ewww,’ Cass interrupted my thoughts.
‘Privacy,’ I warned.
‘Gladly.’
The alpha slammed a paper onto the hood of Croft’s Mercedes, and pointed to the boundary line, which was different from the one we had. Then he pointed out of the clearing and deeper into the woods, closer to the road but farther from his mansion. I noticed the date was the same on each map.
“Thatis your property. Your snake of a grandmother knew it, but she built her cabin here because she didn’t want to cut down any trees.” He scoffed as if that were ridiculous, but witches like Gran were particularly connected to nature. She’d drawn her power from it.
I put my hand on the butt of my gun. “Call my dead Gran a snake again, and see what happens.”
This time, even my vampire lawyer coughed into his hand to hide a snicker.
Brock sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose as if I’d given him a headache. “I’m willing to be reasonable. I’ll demolish this house and pay for a nice trailer over there on your land.”
I reeled back, disgusted. “A trailer?My grandfather built this house with his own bare hands. I kissed my first elf right there on that porch. You’ll demolish nothing!”
Brock waggled his jaw. “Fine. I’ll have an exact replica built for you. Over there. Away. From. My. Land.” Fur rippled down his arms, and Croft stepped closer as if to protect me in the event the alpha snapped.
I met Croft’s eyes. “I can handle him.”
Then I looked at the greatest sexcapade of my life: “Unless you want to go to jail, you’re not touching that house. I’m not leaving it, so you can’t bulldoze it unless you kill me first. And let me remind you, as a supernatural, killing a human bounty hunter will get you life in prison on the island.”
