Page 5 of Property of Crypt Keeper

Not tonight.

My gaze slid toward the door—as if I could see through the trees to the unassuming shack that was nestled there. Where there was a reinforced door we used when the moon got up to its monthly greedy bullshit. The lockup. The chains. The warded steel.

My brothers at first thought I was crazy. They didn’t understand why I chose to lock myself away every full moon. I made them promise to leave after I was secured. If I had any say, they would never see it. But I did it for a reason.

“Dex,” Boomslang said, shifting gears. “You got anything else on how you did that? Getting the kid out. Disappearing.”

Dexter’s mouth tightened. He looked like he wished he could crawl out of his own skin. “No, Prez. I told you. I don’t… I don’t know.”

His eyes flicked to Lily like he was afraid the answer was written on her face. My gut told me there was something he knew that he either didn’t want to discuss… or was afraid to.

Lily hugged her knees to her chest, making her appear smaller than she was, and stared down at the floorboards. It was like if she didn’t make eye contact with any of us, we couldn’t see the cracks in her. Little did she know, we all had our demons.

Lyra’s hand went to Lily’s ankle, a quiet touch. An anchor.

Mako watched it, and I saw his jaw clench.

Boomslang didn’t press. He was good at reading men. And Dexter looked like a man standing on a fault line.

“Fine,” Boomslang muttered, his voice hard. “We’ll circle back. For now, we lock down the best we can. No solos. Two-man minimum. We keep eyes on the perimeter, and we don’t,” his gaze swept the room, landing briefly on each of us, “we don’t assume the devil’s done with us just because we cut off one head.”

A low chuckle came from somewhere near the pool table. Widowmaker. Mean, dark humor. The kind you used so your nerves didn’t eat you alive. We were all good at that.

“Devil never travels alone,” he drawled.

My wolf agreed. So did my brothers.

Restless, I pushed off the bar. The need to shift was making my skin itch.

Mako’s head tilted, tracking me immediately. Not because he didn’t trust me, but because he did. With me being the SAA, if I moved, it usually meant something.

Then, I gave a little shake of my head. It’s nothing. I nodded once toward the door. Mako’s eyes narrowed like he already knew what I was about to do.

Unfortunately, Boomslang caught it too. “Crypt,” he warned.

I stopped but didn’t turn all the way around. “Need air.”

“Ha! You need a fucking babysitter,” Zeus called, half joking, half not.

With a cocked brow, I flashed him an amused look. “I’m not the one who gets lost.”

“That was one damn time,” Zeus grumbled. A few low laughs broke the tension, quick and rough. Then they died as fast as they came.

Boomslang’s voice softened just enough to be real. “No. Solos. Besides, we’re about to start the food.”

“I’ll be in the bayou,” I reasoned. “Close. I’ll be back in time to eat.”

His stare held mine for a beat, weighing it. Then, as if he could sense the deep restlessness within me, he reluctantly nodded once. “One hour.”

“Sixty minutes,” I agreed with a mocking salute.

Mako’s gaze pinned me as I walked past the couch. His eyes were red-rimmed. He’d been dealing with too much too fast—mate bond, war, blood, Lyra’s change. He looked like a man balancing on the edge of a knife blade.

He stood up and followed me toward the door, where we paused.

“We need to keep an eye on him,” he murmured quietly, like the words were casual. Like they weren’t an order. “Something feels off.”

I let my gaze slide to Dexter, where he hovered near Lily.