Page 75 of Property of Crypt Keeper

My wolf immediately growled. Stay. Protect. Home.

Absolutely not. I wasn’t acknowledging that. Not today. Not ever.

Fifteen minutes later, Mako and I were gearing up. Dexter and Thing One were already waiting outside in the truck.

Katalina stood nearby with her arms crossed. Unhappy. Which was putting it mildly.

“Be careful,” the words were directed at me.

I smiled slightly. “You worried about me?”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh, please. Don’t flatter yourself.”

“Sure, sweetheart,” I teased.

Her eyes narrowed. “Gideon,” she warned.

The room immediately went silent, and I groaned.

Mako barked out a laugh.

Zeus nearly choked on his drink.

“What did she just call you?” Bronx asked, staring at me like I had sprouted a dick on my forehead.

“Oh, this is good,” Zeus wheezed.

“Gideon?” Killswitch repeated. “I thought your name was Dallas.”

I pointed at Katalina. “Don’t fucking call me that.” Then I pointed at everyone else. “And shut the hell up.”

That only made them laugh harder. Fuckers. Every damn one of them.

Katalina looked entirely too pleased with herself, so I stepped closer to her. I didn’t stop until the toes of my boots touched hers. Then I leaned down so that when I quietly spoke, she could hear me but others couldn’t.

“You’re going to pay for that when I get back. You’re going to feel my hand against your ass,” I warned her.

Her pupils dilated, and the normally icy blue of her eyes went midnight. “Promises, promises,” she tauntingly whispered.

The flood tunnels were exactly the kind of place horror movies started. Dark. Silent. Wet.

The concrete and brick walls disappeared into shadow, while stale air drifted through the maze-like corridors.

Mako walked beside me, flashlight sweeping ahead. Roaches scattered as the light disturbed them. The sound of our wading boots sloshing through the sometimes knee-high water seemed to echo and distort as we moved.

“I fucking hate roaches,” Thing One grumbled.

“Guess we know there’s good oxygen down here,” Mako muttered as the roaches skittered off.

None of us spoke much. Something felt… off. The farther we went, the worse it became. Eventually, Mako lowered his flashlight, and his gaze scanned past Thing One, then Dexter, and then locked on mine.

“You guys got a bad feeling?” he quietly asked.

“Yeah,” I replied.

That was putting it mildly. The wolf beneath my skin had gone from hair-raising to rigid. Alert. Predatory.

“I’m picking up really weird vibes,” Dexter announced as he stared down into the darkness ahead.