Page 7 of Stubborn as a Shadow

Teague nodded. “Yeah. I don’t know if I would have lasted at the SC if I’d been on a different team.”

“He’s the only demon at the SC, isn’t he?”

“As far as I know, yeah,” Teague said.

Having a demon handpick team members made it a hell of a lot easier for me to accept them. He could see their deepest desires, and if he could trust someone after that, I figured I couldtoo. Unfortunately, I doubted the SC would be impressed if I told them I’d only work with people Gage vetted.

No, if I went back, I’d have to decide to trust my team based on my own intuition. And that felt a lot like guessing. The mere idea of basing my safety on a hunch made me queasy.

As a shadow jumper, I always had a plan. I needed to know where the shadows were going to be. I needed to anticipate how they’d move. I needed to know as much as possible about any place or situation, so I could act accordingly. Not knowing things made me anxious.

But I’d never admit that to anyone, not even Gage. Although I suspected he knew.

Teague leaned closer and dropped his voice. “You not happy here?”

I resisted the urge to squirm. Happy was so fucking arbitrary, wasn’t it? “The people here mean well…”

They sought me out, invited me places, and sat down beside me to talk to me. It didn’t matter if I scowled. Even when I ignored them, they didn’t take the hint and leave. They were always justthere, stopping me from sinking into the shadows.Everywhere I went in this damn town, it was the same thing. It was like living under a spotlight, which was the last place a shadow jumper wanted to be.

“That they do, I guess.” Teague laughed. “It’s a strange place.”

And, as if my words summoned one of those well-meaning people, Jeremy was walking over to our table now.

I groaned. Teague laughed again.

Jeremy had recently discovered magic. He was the worst at observing personal boundaries, but the others weren’t much better. He plopped down at my table without asking, and his little entourage was right at his heels.

Who raised these people? A horde of toddlers? Where were their manners?

Okay, it might be hypocritical for a shadow jumper who specialized in eavesdropping to talk about manners, but come on!

I scowled.

No one noticed. Or if they did, they ignored it. The group included Jeremy’s mate Adrian, his fire mage friend Ash, and Ash’s hellhound mate Dillon. More would be on their way over here any minute now, I just knew it.

I looked around for Paws, the uber powerful, supernatural cat, expecting him to hop on the table and start issuing snarky demands. He was usually right in the middle of groups like this.

“Are you sure there aren’t any history books on supes at the library?” Jeremy asked. He hadn’t been raised as a supe, so he used that as an excuse to ask a lot of impertinent questions. This one at least seemed more reasonable than some of the shit he came up with. “Parker was asking.”

I called bullshit on that. There was no way Parker would ask Jeremy about supes. Parker, a human who’d recently mated the local minotaur, wouldn’t go to another almost-human for answers. He’d go to his mate, Levi.

“Have you tried Supenet? I’m sure there are posts on Wizipedia,” Dillon suggested.

“Wizipedia?” Jeremy repeated slowly. “Are you sure you didn’t mean?—”

“It’s the supes’ answer to an online encyclopedia,” Ash explained quickly, before Jeremy could finish asking his question. It made me wonder what Ash knew. He understood better than most of us how Jeremy’s mind worked.

“So, wiz as in wizard? I didn’t think wizards existed.”

“They don’t.” Ash shrugged. “But apparently the other magic-related names the program developer had shortlisted were already taken.”

“Wizipedia. Of all the things they could have come up with, they chose wizipedia?” Jeremy snickered and shook his head. “Okay, can we all agree it’s a hilarious name? What do they have for a logo? Please tell me it’s of Calvin peeing.”

“Huh?” Adrian said, summing up everyone’s reaction.

“You know, like those stickers you see on pickup trucks? It looks like a little kid is pissing on things. Pissing? Whizzing… Get it?”

“Uh… no,” Dillon said. I could tell he wasn’t sure where the conversation had veered off course, but I wasn’t surprised. Things like that happened a lot around Jeremy. “It’s a magic wand.”