Page 77 of Property of Crypt Keeper

One. Two. Three.

Pain lanced into my neck and shoulder as my wolf howled. My eyes burned and my vision blurred.

Sedatives.

My wolf roared as I ripped one free. Too late, though. I tried to grab the next one, but my limbs grew heavier and my movements slower. Stumbling, I dropped to one knee.

Silver restraint nets shot from hidden launchers in the walls. They wrapped around me like a web. The more I tried to fight, the more trapped I became until I could barely move.

The world tilted. The stranger stepped closer. I’m not sure how it clicked together in my head, but that’s when it dawned on me, he wasn’t saying “cat,” he was saying “Kat.”

Rafael. It had to be. The man who trained Katalina. The man connected to Zara. The man tied to all of this.

As the sedative coursed through my bloodstream, everything began to dim.

The wolf inside me fought. Raged. Screamed. But the drugs kept surging. The darkness closed in. And my final thought wasn’t for myself.

Wasn’t fear.

Wasn’t pain.

It was Katalina.

Then Zara.

And the terrifying realization that neither of them was safe before everything went black.

19

KATALINA

Over the years, I had survived assassination attempts. Petty demon wars. Ancient monsters. A Romanian coven that had once tried to poison me over a card game.

Yet somehow… I was losing a battle against a five-year-old.

“You’re doing it wrong,” the little tyrant insisted.

Dumbfounded, I looked down at the sandwich in my hand. Then at Zara. Then back at the sandwich. “I fail to see how one can make a sandwich incorrectly.”

Zara sighed. Actually sighed. Like the child was five and already disappointed in me.

“You put the cheese on before the meat.”

“…And?” My nails strummed the countertop in the surprisingly high-tech kitchen the clubhouse had set up.

She stared.

I stared back.

The silence stretched. Finally, Zara shook her head. “Crypt was right.”

My eyes narrowed. “What did Crypt say?”

“That you don’t know how to ‘people.’”

The little monster. I pointed the knife at her. “Your Crypt is developing a dangerous habit of talking about me.”

Darkly mischievous for a small child, she grinned. “He likes you.”