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“Not really.”

“Can’t choose our blood, but we can choose our friends.” He winked, stabbed my last piece of pancake, and shoved it between his lips. “Hmm, sho good.”

The bar door flung open and a butch woman skidded inside, soaked through, with soggy leaves stuck to her leather biker gear and dripping hair. “Murder! There’s been a murder!”

Silence once again fell over the bar, and just like when we’d entered, all stares turned to us.

Oh dear.

“Uh . . .” Zee froze, then very slowly lowered his fork.

The grin I’d been sporting turned wooden the more I tried to convey the idea that everything was fine and we could all get along if nobody overreacted. “We uh . . . we just got here.”

“Newcomers!” someone at the back growled.

Eep. “We don’t murder people.” I winced. “Much.”

“Kitten, why you gotta be so honest? Now they’re going to think we did it.” Zee stood and stepped out from behind the table, drawing all gazes to him. “Okay, folks. Everyone calm the fuck down. Lady, you can’t just run into places and shout murder like it’s fuckin’ daytime drama TV. Where’s the body, huh?”

Right on cue, another man with a matching jacket stomped in out of the rain, carrying the unfortunate dead person over his shoulder. He knelt, and unceremoniously flopped the body onto the floorboards.

“That was not us,” Zee said. “Never seen him before.”

Four nasty claw marks in his belly were his likely cause of death.

Growls simmered throughout the bar.

“Yup, time to go.” Zee reached over the table to grab my hand.

“We can’t run,” I muttered, leaving his hand outstretched as I stood. “We’ll look guilty.”

“Oh great, so at least we’ll have the moral high ground while they rip out our insides. Read the room, Adam.”

That last part Zee growled too.

Admittedly, the room was looking pretty hostile. All the folks dressed in matching jackets had gotten to their feet and were closing in.

“Guys.” I raised my hands. “Let’s talk about th⁠—”

One of them lunged. I know, because Zee’s blast of sparks signaled he’d poofed from beside me to in front of my would-be attacker. I couldn’t see much of what was going on, just Zee’s back and his arm swinging, about to land what would probably have been a devastating punch. But someone grunted, then Zee was gone—swung around, off his feet, and slammed into the bar. The big guy who had hold of him locked a hand around his neck, but instead of Zee looking worried, he grinned. “Fuck yeah. Hit me, big fella. Give me an excuse to hit back harder.”

Oh no. This was not going to end well.

Someone lunged at me from the right. I ducked backwards, avoiding their grabby hands, letting them stumble on. “C’mon, everyone. Can’t we all be nice?”

“Get ’im!”

Zee dodged a fist to the face. That fist smacked into the bar countertop next to him instead. “Oh baby, such a tease.”

“Zee, de-escalate! De-escalate!”

“Escalate? Fuck yeah!”

“No!” A chair flew over my head and smashed against the wall behind me. “Don’t taunt the big angry people!”

“Where’s the fun in that?” He poofed right out from under the big guy’s grip and reappeared behind him, then hopped onto his back, an arm around his neck. The big guy straightened and whirled, grabbing at the seven-foot demon on his back. “Dance, Hodor!”

Oh no.