Chapter 31

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

CAT

I knew I needed to go back to classes and routine, but I couldn't find a single fuck to give when I woke up with Tor on one side and Misery on the other. If I had to get up early to go to classes I knew I'd never pass, there'd be less time for making up with my men. And less time for sex so good it rearranged the stars in the sky, and that was a tragedy.

Yeah, I wasn't hurrying to return to classes, no matter how many messages or visits I got from well-meaning professors. Professor Poppy had checked up on me almost every day, almost as insistent as Wil and Phil. I'd go back soon. Not yet, but soon.

I frowned as I looked at the wardrobe I only bothered to fill with clothes this morning, struggling to find something I wanted to wear. The red dress was too flashy for a coffee shop meet up. I'd worn all my T-shirts in the past three weeks, and I didn't have the inclination or energy to go down to the laundry room; it would have been great to send them off to the laundry service if Professor Lancashire hadn't been the one overseeing it. Now he was dead.

In the end, I grabbed jeans I'd only worn three times, 1 and a silvery halter neck that wasn't my usual style but was better than the red dress. Besides, if any of my gods wanted to ravage me in the coffee shop bathroom, this gave easy boobage access.

My fanciful ideas of ravishing came crashing to a halt when I picked up my phone to check the group chat—I'd added Honey in last night—and saw I'd left the recording of Virgil open.

I swallowed hard, guilt a sick pool in my stomach. What was I doing, going out with friends like everything was normal when Nightmare had kidnapped my brother? He'd barely spoken more than ten words the whole two-minute call, staring vacantly through the screen, through me. I needed to get him out of there now, but the second I asked Justin Merchant to trace this video, it would self-destruct just like the photo. I needed to be smarter. I just didn't know how to do that yet.

I closed the video and opened my phonebook instead of the chat, dialling Misery's number. This was one thing I could do, one person I could check on. He'd left pretty quickly after we woke up, the look in his eyes both soft and hesitant. Any progress we made healing our wounds would be slow, and that was okay with me. I had plenty of wounds myself. I had to physically shake my head to dislodge the image of Byron sinking to the ground with a hole in his chest.

It took me a moment to realise the call had never connected. I frowned at the screen and tried Tor next, nerves weaving through me when this call didn't connect either. I remembered trying to call him in my car, remembered how he'd never answered. Nightmare had really cut me off.

I swallowed, a sick taste in the back of my throat as I called Honey.

"I know, I know, I'm late," she huffed, a lack of animation in her voice. Byron's death had done that to her. Nightmare had done that to her, by Misery's hand. I was too relieved the call had connected to throw up at that thought for once.

"No, I'm running late, too," I replied, trying for normalcy. "I'm wearing a hideous tinfoil top, just so you're aware."

"I'm wearing the carcass of Big Bird," she said, trying for humour. We both failed, but the attempt was there. "If anyone asks, we invented fashion and they're just too stupid to understand true art."

"I love the way you think," I said, swallowing my unease as I grabbed my handbag, threw it over my arm, and headed for the door. I paused in front of my bedside table, noticing the book I'd bought from the bookshop all those weeks ago. The one I abandoned in my car when Nightmare's fog surrounded me, chasing me into the arms of my death gods. I'd never got that book back, or the coffee and cakes I left in my car. Presumably, Edgar Doyle the mechanic pocketed them for himself. Maybe he was a mechanic by day, werewolf romance enthusiast by night. And yet… there it sat on my little table.

"See you in five?" Honey asked, sounding nervous. It was the first time we'd actively socialised with friends who weren't Byron, who hadn't grown up with his grumpy humour and cutting sarcasm, who didn't miss him so much they couldn't breathe without a spike of pain.

"See you in five," I agreed in a whisper, ending the call as I approached the little table. My heart quickened, dread tingling between my shoulder blades. Had Nightmare left the book as a taunt? The back of my neck burned with a shiver as I reached for it.

Nothing bad happened when I turned it over in my hands. No curse snapped around me, no magic snaring me in its cruel grasp, ripping my life from me. In my head, I heard the thumping heartbeat of Nightmare's magic killing Mason, Orwell, Rone, and Milani. I opened the cover, turning to the title page and—

This is the first of many romance books. Take note of the sexy bits, beautiful, we're going to recreate them.

Tor

I deflated all at once, a smile tugging at my lips when the panic fled, immediately followed by a rush of heat. I would never read a sex scene the same way again. Oh god, what if there was something really kinky in this book?

"As if last night wasn't kinky," I muttered, setting the book back on my nightstand and hiking my bag up my shoulder, heading for the door.

It was a good distraction—the sex, my gods, even this coffee date with my friends. They were distractions, but there was no escaping the fact Byron was dead and Virgil was next.

Or if Nightmare found out I was trying to rescue him, disobeying her orders, I guess I would be next.