Page 93 of Fang Fatale

“I guess we’re doing this.”

I can't help smiling back.

“I don't think either of us has been pretending for a while.”

Movement catches my eye.

Across the yard, Theo's bald head disappears behind a tree with all the subtlety of a lighthouse.

A second later, Trent reaches around the trunk, grabs him by the back of his jacket, and silently drags him out of sight.

Birdie follows my gaze.

“They’re spying on us.”

“They’re terrible at it.”

She laughs and shakes her head.

For the first time in entirely too long, I don’t feel like a monster.

I feel like a man who has finally found something worth fighting for.

Leland is still out there.

Tomorrow will almost certainly be difficult.

But for the first time since this whole mess began…

Neither of us will be facing it alone.

CHAPTER 14

ALARIC

Iused to think my fangs were my best feature, but I am coming around to the view that it’s actually my patience. The old Alaric would have kicked in Leland Brooks’ ribcage and called it a day. Possibly before noon. But tonight I allow myself the luxury of restraint, which is what the situation demands, and perhaps Birdie has rubbed off on me. I hope not too much. The last thing I need is to care what she thinks of my process.

I leave her in the care of Dandy the Witch and her coven, in a warm kitchen that’s all spoon-carved counters and vials of suspiciously fizzing something. The forest outside presses close to the windows, and I get the distinct sense it’s trying to listen in. Birdie watches me go, arms crossed over her chest—not frightened anymore, just taut with a worry she won’t put into words. She bites her lip once, quick and sharp, before catching my sleeve.

"Be careful."

Three little words. They shouldn't matter nearly as much as they do.

"I always am."

She gives me a look that says she finds that statement wildly optimistic.

I smile despite myself and make myself scarce anyway. Better not to give her another reason to fret.

Thistlebrook is a shabbier twin to Blackthorn Bay, except instead of crammed cryptid bars it has an open harbor and a strict closing time; the buildings are salt-caked and a little desperate, and the locals look at me like I’m expiration-date milk. Even in a hat and a perfectly drab trench coat, I stand out. If Birdie were here she’d call it "main character syndrome." She's probably right. I walk the docks a few times and let the wind rearrange my hair, then loiter outside the Crab & Quiver until the bar lights go up.

Leland is exactly where a man with a price on his head should not be: the center of the loudest table, half his crew around him and the rest at the bar making predatory eyes at anything with legs. He wears a suit that cost more than most people’s cars and knows it, and he’s nursing a hand of cards with an air of counterfeit ease—the kind that only comes from never having actually needed to be at ease. I watch him from the balcony, just inside the steam-cloud windows.

It’s a bit like watching old family movies—except in mine, everyone’s a bastard and no one gets out alive.

I’m not in a hurry. Predators rarely are.

Instead, I pick off the easy marks.