Page 92 of Moody as a Minotaur

He spun the coin into the air, and it landed on the floor. “Tails. Damn it.”

“Good,” Carter said. “I might win this game if I’m playing Levi.”

“Hey, asshole, I’m not that bad.”

Carter and Parker laughed.

Part way through the second game—where, yes, Parker was playing Carter, not me—Van came in. He cast his gaze around the room, and seeing us, came over. Henever did that, which meant that every supe in the room now had eyes on us.

The tempo of my pulse quickened.

“Hey, Van,” I greeted him.

“You both doing okay?” he asked. “Everything good?”

“Uh, yeah? Is something going on?”

I wasn’t sure how I felt about him checking up on us. It’d been a long time since I’d had someone looking out for me. My mother was my family, but we rarely spoke. She didn’t even know about Parker yet. I’d tell her eventually, but I wasn’t ready for her to descend on Willow Lake yet, which I was sure she would do once she found out I had a mate. There was time for that later. Much later.

But I guess Willow Lake was like a family, too—one that was with you by choice. And there was that word again. Choice. Some days, that felt stronger than any other connection I’d had in my life.

Van nodded and waited for Gage, Nelson, and Hayden to join us before he spoke again. Everyone else listened from where they were seated.

“We’ve had an update on the hunters,” Van said.

I swallowed hard. Parker wrapped his arm around my lower back and looped his thumb into my belt.

“The hunters have cleared out,” he said. “There’s no sign of Tammy. The professor’s class has been canceled, which has pissed off both the university and the students, since everyone thinks he’s ghosted them. The people that Fin and the other supes identified as the hunter group are missing too. Their apartments are empty.”

Hayden swore. “So, we lost them.”

“The SC made a mistake. They didn’t send in teams quickly enough,” Gage agreed.

“Do you think they disbanded?” Parker asked.

Van’s gaze flitted to Gage, Hayden, Nelson, and then to me before returning to Parker. “Probably not. They probably relocated. It’s impossible to know how far they’ve gone.”

“So, it isn’t safe.” Parker pressed against me.

“It is as safe as it ever was,” Van said with a sigh. “They haven’t come back, and from what Levi overheard, we don’t think Tammy suspects there are any supes here. She planned to use the lie to convince you two to join their ranks, but that’s it. There’s no reason for the hunters to return to Willow Lake. The professor and Kyle are the only hunters who figured out Levi was a supe, and they are both in SC custody.”

Even as I sought to reassure Parker, my skin itched with the need to move, retreat, and regroup. But that would be the wrong thing to do. If we were on our own, the two of us against the world, we’d be vulnerable. We were both safer in Willow Lake than anywhere else. Particularly since the Eternal Magic herself seemed to have a soft spot for the place.

“Van’s right,” Gage said. “And without that amulet, they can’t identify other supes. Not easily, anyway.”

Parker flattened his lips in a firm line like he was biting back more questions. After all, he knew as well as I did that no one had answers. It was frustrating as fuck, but there wasn’t much we could do about that.

“Do we know why they came to Willow Lake? Did something draw them here?” Levi asked.

“I’ve talked to the SC team in charge of the case. From what that professor and Kyle revealed during interrogation,” Gage said, “it was chance that brought them. Parker had talked to Edith about something weird happening here. She talked to Fin, because she wanted Fin to borrow some of their equipment. So then he approached Tammy.”

“Oh, God. I’m so sorry.” Parker wiped his hand over his face. “If I hadn’t said anything to Nana…”

“It isn’t your fault. Hunters hunt. It’s what they do,” Hayden said. The wolf shifter’s hand twitched at his side, and I knew he was itching to wrap it around the back of Parker’s neck like he did with the rest of his pack members. It was what he did to calm us. As alpha of our pack, to which Parker was now a member whether he realized that or not, Hayden would always want to help, soothe, and protect him.

“If anyone dropped the ball, it’s the SC,” Gage said. “A hunter group should never have grown to that size without them knowing about it. If they’d grown any larger, they’d have rolled over the region like a swarm of locusts. But this exposed them before they had their army in place. We’ve slowed them down for the moment.”

That was a sobering thought.