10. Kase

Everything is good here. I just got a job for a hit on a troll today, so that should be interesting. Have a good day.

You too, angel. Thanks for checking in. Avoid the troll’s blood if you can. It smells terrible.

Ilove you.

I sighed as I erased the last part and sent the message. Evangeline wasn’t ready to hear that I loved her. It had been a week since we had dinner with her, and she was still keeping us at arm’s length. We promised to stay away, and it has been challenging to keep that promise. I keep reminding myself that catching a glimpse of her won’t be worth it if she catches me. Jett keeps reassuring us that she’s fine, and it feels like she’s starting to come around, but I’m not so sure about that.

My phone beeped, and I checked to see Rylan messaged the chat.

Let us know how it goes and that you’ve gotten home safely.

Minutes later, Rylan padded down the hallway in a pair of pajama pants sporting morning wood.

“Bro, put that thing away,” I complained as I finished adding cream and sugar to my coffee and sat at the table.

“Stop looking,” he replied.

“Kinda hard to miss,” I retorted.

“Keep complimenting my dick, and I’ll start to think you want it.”

I snorted into my coffee before taking a sip. “Only in your dreams, pal,” I replied.

“Where’s Jett?” he asked as he poured a cup of coffee, joined me at the table, and looked at the map covering it.

I shuddered as he took a sip of his black coffee. I didn’t understand how he could drink it like that. “I assumed he was still asleep.”

“His room is empty,” Rylan replied.

I shrugged. “Maybe he ran out for something.”

“He better not have gone near Evangeline or I’ll kick his ass.”

“You and I know he wouldn’t risk everything by doing that,” I assured him. My phone beeped again, and my heart skipped a beat, hoping it was Evangeline. It wasn’t, and as I read the text message from Lucifer, I felt uneasy.

Be available at 4 PM for a video chat.

“What do you think that’s about?” I asked Rylan after he read the message on his phone.

“I’m not sure, but it can’t be anything good,” he replied. “He never video chats.”

“Then we’d better make sure that we have something good to tell him, other than Jett isn’t stuck in his hound form anymore.” While Lucifer will be happy to hear that, it won’t be enough to appease him.

“We’ve already eliminated two clubs this week,” Rylan stated. “Tonight, let’s hit this one,” he said, pointing to a spot marked on the map.

“And if we hit all the clubs within the zone and don’t find him?”

“We extend the radius and keep looking. Zabiza has to be somewhere. His influence in the city is growing, and that must come from somewhere. There is an epicenter; we just haven’t found it yet, but we will.”

If only hunting down Zabiza had been as easy as tracking Evangeline once we had her scent. Unfortunately, as Zabiza’s influence grew, so did the number of people who carried his scent, making it hard to trace back to the source.

The apartment door opened, and Jett came in carrying a paper bag. I sniffed the air and then wrinkled my nose. It was hard to smell what was in the bag over the stench of his sweat.

“Dude, you reek,” I complained.

“What was that?” he asked, setting the bag on the table and removing his earbuds.

“You fucking smell,” I stated. I reached for the bag, and once it was under my nose, I detected the smell of egg and bacon. I pulled a sandwich out and sniffed it. Ugh! “This one’s yours,” I told Rylan as I tossed it to him. “It has ketchup.” I’ll never understand his taste buds. Black coffee and ketchup on his eggs. It was like the man hated himself.

“Where were you?” Rylan asked Jett as he caught his sandwich, opened it, and took a big bite. A glob of ketchup dripped onto his chin, and he swiped it off with his finger and popped the finger into his mouth. Fucking gross.

“I had a lot of pent-up energy, so I went for a run to burn some of it off and stopped for breakfast on the way back. You’re welcome,” Jett replied.

“I’ll thank you when you take a fucking shower,” Rylan replied.

“What he said,” I agreed as I opened my sandwich, which wasn’t tainted with ketchup, and took a bite.

“Your run didn’t take you by Evangeline, did it?” Rylan asked.

“Of course not. Smelling her would not have helped my problem,” Jett replied. “What’s up with Luce wanting a video chat?”

“We were just talking about that,” I replied. “We don’t know.” I moaned as I took another bite of my sandwich, and the bacon melted in my mouth.

Jett sat beside me, and as he plopped into the chair, his smell wafted over to me, making me gag and ruining the moment I was having with my breakfast.

“Seriously, Jett. Go take a fucking shower,” I ordered. “You smell like a wet dog that took a bath in a vat of sweat. I wouldn’t be surprised if you left a trail of dead grass in your wake as you ran.”

Jett laughed at my disgust as he left the kitchen to clean up, more for our sake than his. He didn’t care that he stunk.

When he returned, Rylan and I were discussing how to approach the next club. “Not that one,” Jett said as he sat.

“Why not?” Rylan asked.

“Because I used my run to scope out the remaining clubs, and this one,” he said, pointing to one further away, “has a stronger and fresher scent than the others.”

I looked at the map and roughly calculated the distance he must have run to go by each of the remaining clubs on the map. No wonder he smelled so fucking terrible. “How fucking long were you running?” I asked.

“A while,” he replied. “Like I said, I’ve got a lot of pent-up energy to work out. This mate bond is fucking torture when I can’t be near her but can feel everything Evangeline feels. And by everything, I mean everything.”

“So you can feel when she’s turned on?” I asked.

“Yep. Fucking inconvenient when I can’t do anything about it,” Jett growled.

“Does that mean you can feel when she comes?” Rylan asked.

“Yes,” Jett said, exasperated.

“Damn, that fucking sucks,” I chuckled.

“Serves you right,” Rylan snorted.

“Thanks for your sympathy; it’s too much, really,” Jett replied dryly. “Can we get back to Zabiza, or would you like to continue making jokes at my expense?”

“The second one,” I replied.

“Jokes,” Rylan said at the same time.

“Assholes,” Jett muttered. He dug into the bag for his sandwich and took an aggressive bite while pouting.

“Ok, ok,” I said. “We should give him a break. He did bring breakfast, after all.”

“I suppose he’s earned himself a couple of teasing-free hours,” Rylan agreed. “So we’re checking out Club Bamboo instead?”

Jett nodded. “The scent was strongest there.”

“Works for me,” Rylan replied. “We’ll go in separately so we don’t attract too much attention. Kase, you’ll go in first, scout the club, and see if Zabiza is there. If he is, we’ll devise a plan to capture him before he can escape. While he may not expect us, as soon as he spots one of us, he’ll pick up and move shop again, and we’ll be back to square one.”

“I really want to bag this guy so we can focus on Evangeline,” I said.

“You and me both,” Jett grumbled.

We spent the rest of the day reviewing different scenarios and trying to plan for every possible outcome. We huddled around the laptop just before four o’clock to await Lucifer’s call. The second the clock hit four, the call came through.

“Hello, hounds,” Lucifer greeted when we answered. “Jett, it’s good to see you’ve regained control of your hound. I would have hated to recycle you. You’ve got so much potential within you.”

“It’s good to be back, Sir,” Jett replied. “Thank you for giving me the time I needed to get myself right again.”

“Can I assume this means you’ve sorted out your problems concerning your mate?” Lucifer asked.

I exchanged looks with my pack. “Things are still a little complicated there,” I admitted.

Lucifer chuckled. “I’ll let you in on a secret, boys. When it comes to a woman, it’s always complicated.”

“I heard that,” Lilith shouted in the background.

“I didn’t whisper,” Lucifer hollered back.

He rolled his eyes at us, and a smirk flitted across my face. Whenever I got frustrated with the situation with Evangeline, I should remember that even Lucifer had women problems.

“Now, on to the reason for this conversation,” Lucifer said. “How is the hunt for Zabiza going?”

“We’re narrowing down his base of operation,” Rylan reported. “We’re checking out a club tonight that has a lot of potential. With any luck, we’ll drag him back to hell tonight.”

“I don’t call you my best pack because of luck,” Lucifer responded. “And I don’t care what you do with him. I just want him off the streets. Rumors continue to pour in about the army he is amassing. There is only one reason why a demon would build an army: to try and take my throne. I’d rather not have to deal with that nonsense. Kill him. Drag him to hell. I don’t care; I just want you to handle him. I shouldn’t have to remind you what will happen if you fail.”

“No, Sir,” Rylan replied. “We’re handling it. We won’t let you down.”

“You’d better not,” he replied ominously. “I expect to hear more progress at our next check-in, or I will assign another pack to the case and recall your pack to hell for training.”

I smothered my groan. “Training” was code for getting the shit kicked out of us for an undecided amount of time. Usually, until Lucifer grows bored with it. We wouldn’t be able to return to the Earth realm until permitted, which meant we wouldn’t have any contact with Evangeline. We couldn’t let that happen.

“Understood,” Rylan replied.

“Good,” Lucifer replied. “Until next time, then. Good luck with your mate.” Lucifer ended the call, and I exchanged looks with my pack.

The stakes just got even higher, and we could lose everything if we failed.

As if to remind us what we were at risk of losing, our phones beeped, and I saw Evangeline messaged the group chat.

I’m home. Mission accomplished, but you weren’t kidding about the troll blood. I will need about ten showers to wash the stench off of me.

We chuckled at her message. “I tried to warn her,” I said as I typed out a response.

Lemon juice helps. Congrats on bagging another mark.

Her guild had kept her rather busy the past week, and she seemed to enjoy the work.

Right, let me just pull out my tub of lemon juice. Oh, wait...

I laughed as I pulled up Instacart and ordered several gallons worth to be delivered to her.

“What are you doing?” Jett asked.

“Ordering lemon juice for her,” I replied. “I think I’ll also have DoorDash bring her dinner, too. I doubt she’ll want to cook after all of the showers she will have to take.”

“That’s a good idea,” Rylan commented. “Order from the restaurant we took her to last week. She loved the food there.”

I nodded and placed the order. “Done,” I announced.

She might not let us come near her right now, but that didn’t mean we couldn’t still take care of our mate. We just had to get a little more creative.

“Ok, I’m going to nap while she’s busy. With the way she smells, I doubt she’ll be feeling horny any time soon,” Jett said.

I laughed as he went to his room.

“Poor guy,” Rylan laughed.

I felt bad for Jett, but I was also a little envious. It might be frustrating, but at least he had a solid connection with her.