There, I’d said it out loud. Notice I didn’t mention the prayer I’d muttered at the gate, or the additional training that Gran had arranged for me over the years I’d lived with her. I had to have some ammo for later.

“Like the skeleton,” Sarge said.

“Yes! You saw him?”

He raised a hand to the left side of his head. “He bit my ear off. I saw him just fine. But Louis is right, they don’t have names.”

“Well, maybe they’d be nicer if you gave them a name.”

He brushed his hand over his intact ear. Of course, there was no missing ear there now. It had grown back, I guess. Half-men were known for their superior healing abilities. “So why are you here peppering me with questions instead of Eammon? Isn’t he supposed to be my Obi-wan Kenobi?”

He winked. “More like your Yoda if we’re basing it off looks and age. And normally, yes, he would be here. But . . . as you saw, my trainee about shot me last night, so Eammon and I are going to switch trainees for a few days. Which means you’ve got me to go shopping with.” He turned his arm over as if checking a watch that didn’t exist, and even went the extra mile and tapped his bare wrist. “Speaking of, we need to get going. The market is only open for select hours each week.”

I shoved the last of the toast in my mouth, cheeks puffed out with too much food. His eyebrows stayed up as I spoke around the partially chewed toast. “Two minutes.” He might be hot, but I knew I had no chance with him, so I didn’t really care what he thought of me. And I loved perfectly toasted toast. I hurried back to my room to gather up the money I had. I left the thousand bucks that was my first week’s wages.

I’d have to give most of it to Corb for staying here. And eating his food. And making his date run off before he could get any. I grinned. This day was looking up. I was about to go on a shopping date with what I could only say was a very handsome werewolf.

Back in the main room, Sarge stood with his hands tucked into the pockets of a pair of jeans. He’d found a white T-shirt that I was sure was one of Corb’s and a pair of boots to go with the clothes.

He crooked his finger at me. “Let’s go get you stuff.”

Stuff.

Equipment. Right. If only I knew what all I was going to need.

Go with the flow. Don’t freak out. Change is good.

I hurried after him down the stairs, his long legs easily outstripping mine. “Sarge, what is it we do exactly? What am I being trained for, because I’m pretty sure it’s not a new kind of ghost tour?”

He held the door at the bottom of the stairs, and I stepped into the humid air that could only be springtime in Savannah. I drew in a big breath, feeling a rush of fondness for this place I’d loved so much as a kid. The smell of a heck-a-lot of flowers coated the air in sweetness that some people might find cloying. I loved it.

I shook my head. “Sarge? The job, what does it entail? Because the shadow world is a lot more than ghost tours.” How much would he tell me? Did I trust him? The answer to that was not really.

I was not some high-school girl ready to trust a big strapping man with flashy white teeth and pretty eyes. More likely I’d end up kicking him at some point in the day while I enunciated a big word for him just to see if he knew what it meant.

I could be mean like that when cranky and sore.

“Well, it’s kind of like an odd jobs company. We do a little of this, and a little of that. Get paid on a job-to-job basis. That can be good, it can be bad. If you get a good reputation, more jobs will come your way with bigger paydays attached to them. Get a crappy reputation, and not so much.” He pointed at a big motorcycle propped up against the curb. No helmets on it that I could see.

“Safety first, I guess?” I couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of my voice.

He grunted. “I don’t break if I fall. And the cops won’t bother us. They know me.”

But I would break. I had a moment there on the sidewalk where a rush of panic bit at me, reminding me that I was not twenty. I wasn’t even thirty. I’d been out of this world a long time, and it could be dangerous.

One of Gran’s friends had been a cop back in the day. He’d done a little work with me. Taught me a few things about clearing spaces, guns, basic safety around bad guys. Or, in my case, the shadow world. Officer Jonathan would have a fit if he saw me riding without a helmet.

Sarge sat first, and I snapped myself out of it and scrambled up behind him, feeling every bit as self-conscious as one does when pressing her rapidly overheating lady parts against the backside of a very hot guy who is easily ten years her junior.

He leaned the bike so that he was taking the balance and I got my feet up on the footrests.

“You better hang on!” he said as he started the engine. It rumbled up through my butt and along my spine in a not unpleasant way. I reached around his very tight waist and locked my fingers together, my nose pressed against his back. I turned my face to the side and found myself looking up at the windows of Corb’s loft.

Corb was standing there in shorts and not much else. Yup, he could give Sarge a run for his money. I kissed my fingers and wiggled them at Corb as Sarge’s bike rolled forward. I leaned my cheek against his back and hung on as tightly as I could as we rode away, and just about every dirty fantasy I could think up rolled through my less than virginal mind.

Yes, it was going to be a good day. That’s what I thought.

Except that’s not what the fates of Savannah had in store for me.

7

The store that Sarge took me to was not really a store so much as a bazaar down on the waterfront along the river. River Street was loaded with tourist shops, and it was not where I’d expected to go.

Not that there was a proper entryway to said bazaar. I’ll get to that in a minute.

He parked the bike on the water side of the street and popped the keys into the front pocket of his jeans as he stepped off the bike.

I sat there looking around as casually as I could, then slowly slid off. My knees hurt from being cramped up even for that short ride and I fought to keep them from dropping me onto the cobblestones.

“You okay?” Sarge held out a hand as I stood there with my knees fighting me. Finally, the blood flow got going and I reached out and took his offered hand.

“Yup, fine. But you can hold my hand if you want.”

He blinked down at my fingers that he was currently holding. I thought he’d fling my hand away—Himself had done that more than once—and I was secretly pleased when he lifted my hand and tucked it into the crook of his arm. “Southern charm is not dead after all,” I said.

Sarge flashed me a grin. “No, it just takes a wolf to remember how old he is and that ladies like to be treated as such.”

Wait, what? How old was he? He looked younger than me.

“What?”

He leaned close. “Do half-men age like the rest of the world? I think you know the answer to that.”

My gran’s book had said not so much. A 1-10 ratio. My jaw dropped. Depending on when he was turned, he could easily be the oldest mentor of the group.

He laughed as he led me across the road to the storefronts teeming with tourists. Candy and toys, clothing, mugs, and everything in between. There was no shortage of kitschy stuff. I barely saw it as I let my mind drift along the fact that Sarge could easily be over a hundred. Again, depending on when he was turned into a werewolf.

I tried to slow him down, the questions burning on the tip of my tongue. But the direction we were going distracted me completely. “Really, this is where we need to buy stuff?”

With a flex of his bicep, he tightened his hold on me. “It’s a trick of the eye, just stay with me.”

A set of stairs led up from the waterfront—straight up. I grimaced and tried not to think about the stairs even while I was trying desperately not to huff my way up them, one hand still locked against his arm, which made it all that much harder. Near the top, he was almost dragging me up each step, and I’ll be honest, I let him.

At the top of what were too many, and too big of stairs, even with his help, my legs shook like crazy jelly once more. Sarge didn’t seem to notice as he dragged me along to a storefront that I was not terribly shocked to see.

Madame Trebon’s Tarot Readings. Tarot card readings in Savannah are like casinos in Vegas. One on every corner.

Sarge let himself in and a soft chime went off. An older-than-me woman stepped through a set of beads hanging in a doorway leading out of the main room. Her long gray hair was braided to one side and hung over her shoulder. Crisp blue eyes stared not at Sarge, but at me.

“Who did you bring in now, wolf? I just saw Eammon and a new one that won’t last a week if I’m seeing things right. Poor lad.”

Sarge grimaced and muttered under his breath before he tipped his head to me. “This is Breena. Breena, this is Annie.”

He took my hand and showed me off to her, even sending me into a short twirl. I grimaced as I fumbled through the turn but managed to stay on my feet.

I couldn’t resist flipping my free hand out and backhanding him in the abs. “Knock that off. I’m not yours to be showing off. Or Eammon’s, for that matter.”

Annie let out a laugh that turned into a full-blown cackle. “Oh, Sarge, you’re in trouble, pup. This one has teeth.”

She took a few steps forward. I had to give her credit; she was dressed the part of a classic tarot reader in a flowing, deep burgundy dress that covered whatever shape she had underneath. Thin and gauzy, the material floated around her as she moved. Her clothes were likely far more comfortable than anyone else’s in the growing heat.

April it might be, but that meant nothing in the South. I had acclimated to Seattle weather, and now Savannah’s early spring felt like summer to me.

Annie tipped her head to one side, a silent request that I recognized as she motioned for me to move to her table pressed up along the wall. I barely glanced at it, then back to her as she spoke. “I do a single pull for every trainee that comes through for the Hollows. Once you get your gear, you come on back up, and we’ll do that for you. See if we can figure out your path.”