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“Mine too.” I gave him a small shove, keeping my own strength reined in, for now. But later . . . later I’d unleash.

Victor stepped back . . . and bumped into Zee, standing motionless just inside the doorway, facing into the room.

“Uh, Zee . . .” I trailed off as my gaze took in the room. In the soft glow from the hallway lights, the broken furniture made jagged mounds on the floor. Everything had been smashed. Not even the bed had survived. It lay in a pile of jagged splinters.

“Wow, I thought my room was a mess,” Zee muttered. “You get pissed your tea wasn’t the right temperature or summink, your lordship?”

Victor peeled from my arms, took a step into the darkness of his room, and dropped to his knees. “My furniture!”

CHAPTER 3

Victor tore the band from his hair and paced, his long raven-black locks fanning out behind him at every turn.

He muttered under his breath, over and over, mostly about murder and vengeance.

Zee and I stood back, surveying the damage. As soon as I’d turned the light on, it had become very clear that something preternatural had destroyed Victor’s room. All his treasured pieces of furniture had been smashed and mangled. Some so badly they’d turned to dust. Like a category five tornado had torn through his room, and his room alone, without making a sound or disturbing anyone outside. Or triggering the wards. Which was impossible.

Nothing with bad intentions got inside the hotel. Our wards kept bad guys outside the grounds.

“I must know the secret to his hair routine, so glossy…” Zee whispered. “Also, I think Daddy Fangs is angry.”

“He’s very angry.”

“It’s just furniture, though. Half of it’s from Ikea.”

“I can hear you, demon.” Victor’s shoes clipped the carpet at precise beats. He held his hands clasped behind his back, keeping himself restrained, but his hair fanned, whipping at every turn. “You are correct. It is mere furniture, but that’s not the point. The point is, this is my space, and these are my belongings, arranged and displayed in a precise way. It is not the lost monetary value of the furniture that has me seeing red, but the value of its ownership and its deliberate placement in my life. My life here, with you. This room is mine to control. Every chair, every desk, every carefully tucked sheet corner and fluffed pillow was exactly how I had placed it. It is not the loss of the item, but the loss of my control over it.” As he spoke, his steps came down harder, faster. His fangs flashed, eyes burning.

He wasn’t just angry. Victor was incandescent with rage.

Zee shrank back.

Whoever had done this had violated Victor’s space and usurped his control. That was not okay.

“We’ll figure it out,” I said, stepping forward. Debris crunched under my shoe.

Victor stopped pacing. His head snapped right, his glare fixed on me. Ninety-nine percent of the time, Victor was perfectly restrained. But the poised persona was a mask for the killer inside. We all wore masks. Zee hid behind his jokes and sass. Mine was . . . well, the less said about me the better. Victor’s mask was as precise and controlled as the suits he wore . . . until it wasn’t.

Behind me, Zee’s power crackled, coming up in my defense.

I raised my hand a little, signaling for Zee to back down. Instinct had him wanting to protect me, but it wasn’t necessary. If anything, I should have been protecting them. Besides, the wards would kick in if Victor lunged.

Something was clearly going on in my hotel, right under my nose, and I hadn’t noticed. What kind of hotel manager was I if I couldn’t protect the people under my roof?

“We’ll find who did this, and we’ll make them pay.” My own growl rumbled out at that last part.

Victor tilted his head. He’d caught my tone and its meaning. His body relaxed, shoulders loosening and movements softening.

I cleared my throat. “I obviously meant we’ll find out who did this and hand them over to the relevant authorities . . . for them to deal with. Not us. We won’t deal with it . . . like that. We don’t do that.”

“Hello.” Zee waggled his fingers. “We do murder all the time, Kitten.”

I coughed again. “What? No we don’t. Sometimes murder happens. But not uh . . . premeditated or anything. Because that’d be wrong.”

“Indeed,” Victor growled. He ran his hand over his hair, smoothing each strand back under his flawless control. “Then we should begin to solve this mystery before the perpetrator strikes again.”

Zee used his boot to toe through a pile of sawdust and splinters. “You think they will?”

“This was targeted,” I said. That much was obvious and clear. Nobody was going to pick Victor Reynard’s room to trash when there were countless other rooms with guests who wouldn’t hold a grudge for generations.