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I woke to Reece and Nick. Kissing me, taking turns doing it, one kissing while the other removed clothing. Trust them to try it now, when we'd almost certainty get caught, but when I was caught between a hard place and another hard place, suddenly it was hard to say 'no'. Suddenly I wasn't sure I cared if people did notice.

"Shh." Reece grinned as I opened my mouth. "Stay quiet. We're celebrating ...morning."

I kissed him instead, as Nick stripped off the last of his clothing, the smell of dampness coming from both of them. They must have showered while I'd slept. Reece lifted me up into his lap, my back against his chest, guiding himself into me with a low groan against my shoulder. When Nick tugged my head down for his lap, grinning, I knew exactly how we were playing this today, and quite happily played along.

It kept me quiet. They had a harder time, I felt them grab for pillows, muffled groans and moans as I let Nick muffle me, body being moved by Reece only adding to what I was doing to Nick. I wasn't exactly an expert at this, not still, but I was getting better apparently- it wasn't long before he was tipped over the edge and had to shift back, chuckling softly, his breathing hard. Reece was just moments after me, his hands grasping my hips hard, our skin slapping together in his haste, my chest and head flopped across the bed as I came. Nick just watching. And he didn't look too bothered. If anything it almost started him up all over again.

Reece's arms pulled me up against him, face pressed into my shoulder, the heat flooded inside of me as he muffled his moan in my back.

We showered together, somehow avoiding starting it all over again, though I was more than happy with the idea. Funny how we dealt with things like grief and loss differently. If anything, it made Nick even more determined to get me somehow, somewhere, and even less bothered by Reece joining in. That was if he'd ever been bothered by the idea. It had been his idea. I shaved Nick as Reece dared to uncover the mirror, shaving himself, while I kept my back to the mirror. I didn't want to look.

Toothbrushes, toothpaste, also great things, and we laughed and teased each other for the few precious minutes we had alone. Then Vi knocked. Tried to get in. Clearly she was ready to get started.

I dressed quickly, Nick and Reece less fussed, only pulling their boxers and pants on before letting her in.

"I ha-" She cut off as she inhaled, long and deep, raising an eyebrow. Yep. Any werewolf who'd smell those sheets and what was now all over them could guess what the three of us had been up to. Vi's eyes went over Reece, who looked a bit sheepish suddenly, and Nick, who just stared back. Then to me. "Did they make you?"

I shook my head, slowly, and when I saw that anger starting to build back up in her face added, "No. Come on. Let's order breakfast." I went past, dragging Nick with me, Reece and Vi following. She didn't speak as we shut the door.

We ordered, Antonio raising his head from the bed he'd made on one of the couches, yawning. Then he flopped back down and shut his eyes. It wasn't even five thirty yet and Vi was up and about.

"I have been thinking." She continued when we'd ordered. "About this creature. It may not have been here just now. So why do we wait for ghosts to tell us what people write about?"

"I don't know what you mean." I went for the kettle and turned it on, fixing us coffee as she paced up and down. "Did you sleep?"

"Yes." She dismissed that last question with a wave of her hand. "Does this country not have indigenous people?" Vi asked. I blinked at her. "If you can not get Jamie to talk then talk to the people who have lived here for thousands of years. Yes? They have stories about many things. Maybe this is one of them."

She was right. Holy crap. This was something I was interested in, even, why hadn't I even thought of this? "So, we could look..."

"Already done." Vi shook her head. "We have been looking while you rested."

Pav came out, yawning, her hair damp and tied back. She looked much more fatigued than Vi did, less interested in action at five in the morning, but one glance at her wife and she smiled a faint smile as she dropped onto the couch and pushed a small flat object onto it. A computer tablet. "There's a book store nearby in Miami we could see." Pav glanced at the information on her tablet, sliding it around so easily, making me wonder suddenly why I kept usually carrying around a laptop. Those things looked far easier. Touch and go. "We should go."

"Why that one?" I blinked as she glanced up, to Vi, who grinned.

"It is run by a family who are native american in origin. The youngest girl was in collage last year and is now looking for a job. This was her paper." Vi held up the tablet and showed me. Crypto-zoology- connections between culture. I didn't ask how Vi got her hands on this information or how much sleep she'd gotten last night. I didn't want to ask. "So we go."

"Not now." Nick glanced over her shoulder. "Why are we awake if it's not open till ten?"

Vi didn't answer. She got up and started to face, fiddling with her tablet thing. Because she couldn't sleep, I had to assume was the answer, so none of us did.

Breakfast came. Pancakes and toast. It wasn't enough and, seeing as the buffet was open at six, the four of us went downstairs as Daniella and Antonio slept in. Pav had crawled back into bed, muttering something about having to call Elena and fill her in, looking like she was really just finding an excuse to go back to sleep.

We only wore the masks on the trip into the dining room. The masks itched, they were annoying, but we at least could take them off to eat.

The buffet wasn't what they usually were in a hotel. There was a lot of bread, a lot of stuff like that, but I noticed less fresh fruit and vegetables, a lot of egg based dishes, stored meat stuff, as if we were in some kind of war. I remembered hearing about rations in wartime being a bit like this. There was those things, fruit, fresh meat, dairy, sort of, but we had to pay extra to access them and even then they were rationed out. Apparently, while we had free access down here, we were still only allowed to come here once a day. So we made the most of it- eating what we could out of the unrationed stuff and enjoying the things that were limited.

This had to be due to the illness too. Less farmers, less workers in the workforce, not because of a war. Or maybe they were being over-careful. I hadn't noticed the same limitations in New York state just yet but I texted Elena anyway- warning her that they better start weeding and expanding that vegetable garden I made for them, if food started to get rationed. Human sized meals were not good enough for mutts. Chickens too. How we'd protect the chickens from ourselves, while we were changed, that was going to be an issue. Screw foxes and wild dogs. But chickens had eggs and meat and we might need them if we couldn't buy as much food as we needed.

Vi started to bug Reece and Nick again about what she'd smelt in our room, hassling them until she was certain I hadn't been forced into it, the protective side coming right back out. Then she got onto them about birth control, as if I wasn't expected to think about it, reminding them both how easily I got pregnant. Like we needed a reminder there. I loved all my kids, loved them all the time, and missed them... but I knew if I had more, I might just go crazy. Or Elena might go crazy.

I remembered then, with a shock, that she might have been impregnated. I'd been so distracted that ...it'd slipped my mind. It was probably too early to tell still but I put a note in my phone to call her that night. Make sure she was okay. I got a text message back within seconds of sending it. Elena was awake, she agreed we needed to buy up big and had sent Clayton to do it, and told me under no circumstances to get involved in the rescue of my twins. It was clear, straight to the point, an order from my Alpha that I could not refuse under any circumstances. She already had Karl and Hope working on it and had told Savannah and Adam they could do something else. They didn't have to do what we told them to do. It pissed me off.

Pav was awake again when we got upstairs half an hour later. Everyone was. And... they weren't alone. Two familiar people were in the suite's living room now, Vi's stress rising further as she saw them standing near her mate, Karl and Hope waiting impatiently for us. I didn't ask how they'd gotten in.

"Elena let us know you're here." Karl spoke up. "You have information?"

"Maybe." Vi met his gaze. She crossed her arms, inhaling slowly, the mistrust increasing as she caught his scent. "Who are you?"

"Pack. Karl." I said, softly, as he scowled at her. Hadn't they met before? Maybe it didn't matter.

"We've been ordered to share." Karl glanced at Antonio who nodded a fraction and stepped forward. "Savannah and Adam were told to keep doing what they were originally doing. Elena had them working on something else. This is our job."

"It's all right. Karl is pack, as Anne said, and Hope is trustworthy." He met Vi's eyes who sighed, heading into the bedroom, bringing back her folder of papers and the tablet laptop she had.

"You broke into their house again last night?" I asked as we sat down around the table, all of us, leaning against Nick's legs.

"No. Her house was quarantined." Hope replied softly. She was restless, glancing around, and while Karl's eyes were on the papers, I could see him watching her. "That thing. Does it hang around you?"

"You know about it?"

"She's a chaos half-demon. She knows when something's happened." Karl replied calmly. "This address is Rose's house."

I blinked as he traced the underlined address for the bank account. "It..."

"There's evidence to suggest she took them. This just adds to it. How did you get this information?" Karl ignored me as he met Vi's eyes. "It's extensive." He ignored my shock. Rose? Was this ...her husband? I wasn't sure. With Demetruis dead, seriously and completely dead, this did mean that my children were the heirs. But her husband was supposed to be sick.

"We have a young werewolf who works in IT. He is very good with computers." Vi replied. "He has been working on this for some time."

"And the cure?" Hope spoke up, her eyes on Pav, who blinked. "When are you giving it to us?"

"They have a cure?" Karl's head shot up and he fixed us with a look, smooth, calm, but there was an edge of mistrust. "How?"

Vi explained it as Pav got up to get what she had left. Elena must not have shared this part. When she offered it, Karl frowned, and said that he'd only accept it if Antonio was the only one with them. In other words, he didn't trust anyone. Antonio was about as close to trustworthy as anyone here, in his mind, which wasn't all that shocking really... we trusted pack. Karl only trusted a select few of the pack even now.

"This book store you spoke of opens at ten." He replied. "This is Hope's area, investigating the paranormal. Do you intend on us all going and scaring them or a few?"

"We will go see this house." Vi replied. She tapped the address. "This shop is left to Anne. I have been thinking. The sooner we take these babies out of the way the better. Those babies must be taken out of this state before the borders close."

"Not without us. We know that area and I doubt you know how to use a boat." He glanced back at Hope, who was standing near the covered window, her focus gone. She looked incredibly distracted. "Hope. Focus."

"Sorry. That thing keeps ...the memory of it." She looked almost enthralled, I realised, not afraid. Like the memory she could apparently sense was turning her on rather than scaring her, like us. She met Karl's eyes and tried to calm down. "You could rent that boat again if you don't give him that look you gave him last time."

"He was flirting with you." He narrowed his eyes when she shrugged her shoulders. "They weren't there when we broke in two nights ago. This old woman returned yesterday and security has increased. Not impossible but... we don't just want to barge in. There were some..." He hesitated, as his eyes met mine, wrinkling his nose somewhat. "Some signs that there might be infants inside. The smell in the bins was impossible to miss."

This was coming from a man who had a human nose still. I froze, Nick's hand coming to stroke my hair, as he added, "It may not be what we think. We'll watch the house from the boat during the day, get an idea of what kind of security she's got in place around her, and decide if action, if any, is done. You can't come and you-" He fixed his eyes on Vi who had open her mouth, still looking angry, "-have to work with Elena's orders. She agrees. She could have you tied up and shipped home in a box if she wanted"

"I have to come." I knew I'd been ordered not to but the idea that they'd go in, snatch them, attack the people who took the children? It drove me crazy.

"Elena forbids it. Nick's coming. You're staying here with Reece." Karl cut me off.

"I'm sorry, sweetie, he's right. Elena has forbidden you from doing anything with the twins." Antonio leaned over, stroking over my shoulder. "We're going. Nick and myself. She's worried that the creature is drawn to you and if it is..."

"I put them at risk."

Antonio nodded, regret there as my face fell. "We're not going in to do battle, if we do go in, we're just going in to get them safely out of the way. Right?"

"Yes." Vi answered. Karl didn't say anything, just nodded a fraction. "But if there is a fight, we need to be sure there is no additional problems."

Such as me. Or a monster. Or my hysterical habit of loosing control when I was really upset. If one of the babies got hurt, if Nick got hurt, if anyone got hurt... I wasn't entirely confidant that I would hold onto my control as well as I had been.

"We've sworn to protect each other." Daniella spoke up from where she stood against the wall, arms crossed. "This includes our children. I'll protect them as if they were mine. No one harms them."

I knew that. I shut my eyes, nodded, and felt Nick relax.

"Anne, you're not forbidden from following up on this creature. In fact, you should use this time." Antonio said, softly, still nearby. "Elena hasn't said no to you about that. Has she?"

"No." I admitted.

Antonio squeezed my shoulder. "Then go get that information. Find out what's been chasing you around. Let us deal with this battle while you get information on the next."

"Pav told us about your trip to this store. And about this girl Vi wants to talk to." Hope came across. "That a girl there is interested in paranormal things and mythology. Talk to her about it. Say you're researching a sighting for an article but give nothing else away. People into this usually are eager to talk to willing ears- usually people just mock them. I'll call Jamie from the boat and try and pry information."

"No." Karl spoke up, giving Hope a look. "You're staying here. Guarding this place. When they return with information, you can go over it."

Hope frowned, opening her mouth to argue, but he didn't look back. It was more or less an order and I saw the rage there, under her usually controled face, saw her get ready to blast him. Vi cut her off before anything was said.

"Come. We cure you now. Then we go." Vi stood up. No waiting. She was too restless to discuss it anymore. "Reece and Anne can leave. Daniella, you can drive? Drive them."

"The store doesn't open for another few hours, Vi." I muttered. Vi scowled, eyes going to the clock, her frustration showing. She wanted to get moving now. She wanted answers now.

"Fine. Then watch a movie. We cure Karl and Hope and we leave. If we get twins, we may not contact you until we have them safely at Antonio's house. You understand?"

"So you won't even contact us?" I blinked. My eyes went to Nick above me, his head hovering, his mouth opening.

"No. We go, we do not call. Phones stay here. We vanish. We make contact again at six tomorrow morning. This is, if Karl agrees." She shot him a look, daring him to argue, but he just gave her an impassive look. "This way there is no distraction. You pretend we are still here. Hotel may be watching us."

I pursed my lips at the idea. I hated it. I hated it even more when no one else seemed shocked, upset or angry. "What if someone gets hurt?" What if Nick got hurt? I shut my eyes. Tried to not panic. What if the twins were hurt? What if...

"There's enough of us to deal with it." Antonio replied. "Reece, Daniella and Hope stays with you. The rest of us go. Anne, relax. We're not new at this."

Of course they weren't. I tried to breathe out, slowly, tried to remember that these people... the people I loved most in the world... were all more or less experienced in combat. In stealth. In conflict. Werewolves, in other words, hunters.

"If something goes wrong-" I tried.

"We will contact Elena. Of course we will. Same goes for you four here." Antonio glanced up. Karl and Hope were already heading for the bedroom. Neither cared about my anxiety or my fears. They had jobs to do and I had to do my job. Antonio squeezed my waist before he rose up. "Something goes wrong, we contact the Alpha. Follow her orders."

He headed after them and I let Nick stroke my hair, Reece flipping the TV on, trying to focus. Nick seemed to be back into 'focus' mode after last night's scare, ready for action, everyone else seemingly coping with this plan. It drove me nuts. It put too many people at risk.

And I was still stunned. Rose? Even now, even at this point, I wasn't convinced it was her. Okay, so I'd learnt that people weren't always good just because they looked it, but at the same time … I still couldn't believe it.

"Nick?"

Nick leaned down, gazing over my head, his knees squeezing my shoulders. "Yeah?"

"Don't get hurt." I muttered. He kissed my head, stroking my shoulders. "Seriously."

"Not a chance. Dad would kill me and then I'd miss out on telling you Reece's first name. I'll tell you it when I get back. You'll love it." He grinned, a grin with only a hint of the tenseness underneath, his eyes fixed in mine. "You too. Don't get hurt."

"I'm information gathering, not hunting." I muttered.

"She won't get hurt." Reece spoke up. He and Nick shared a look, that trust between them obvious, and Nick relaxed against my back. "Seriously. You two. You'll be separated for less than a day and you're already freaking out. Watch the TV and calm down."

I tried to do just that as I saw the 'cure' begin in both Hope and Karl, side by side, Antonio staying near them as Vi left the room. She flopped next to Pav, wrapping her arms around her, nuzzling into her.

"I love you, woman." She muttered, stroking Pav's tense arms. Vi spoke in Russian, gently, softly, Pav's face going pink as she grinned and shut her eyes. I was suddenly glad I didn't understand Russian.

Nick glowered at her and looked at me, muttering something in Italian, but he cut off as Antonio called, "I can hear you, Nicky."

Nick grinned sheepishly at me. "I said... never mind. I'll tell you later."

"I think I get the gist of it." I muttered and he grinned. Winked. Whatever it was, it'd sound like fun. When we weren't freaking out quietly.

We watched the TV as they waited for Hope and Karl to come out the other end of the treatment. Even with TV, even with the 'regular programming', there was at least one advertisement that was a public service announcement. Educating us on hygiene, on proper mask wearing, on the number to call if we got infected and what to do. This hotel was one of the contacts for people standard and thinking they were sick. Maybe they'd thrown us in here just in case we'd catch it from the airplane staff, I wasn't sure, but I knew we weren't going to get sick.

Hope recovered first, Karl not far behind her, and he was still sweating when he got Antonio, Nick, Pav and Vi to get ready to go. Still shaking. Karl didn't want to waste time. I couldn't say I blamed him, to be honest, but it was still a shock. We said our goodbyes, Nick and I taking longer than Vi liked, and I watched her drag him out the door, his olive hand waving as Reece shut the door, the glint of the gold ring the last thing I saw.

It took another half hour for the desk downstairs to get us a hired car, only when their doctor confirmed that none of us were in the middle of a fever, and when Daniella had the keys she had us heading downstairs without a chance to blink. Hope stayed in the room, looking tired, muttering something about needing a nap while she could grab the chance. They'd probably been watching all night.

The girl at the counter half lay across it, glasses falling off her face, eyes shut as she snored gently against a book. She must have at least been partly native American, her skin that beautiful warm tone, hair a dark brown-black, but I wondered if there was a trace of something else there as well. I wasn't sure what. I felt bad suddenly, pausing at the door, almost tempted to ...not wake her. She looked like she was in her early twenties, if that, looked like she'd been up all night. Reece glanced in, snorted, and pushed the door open.

She sat up, panicking for a moment, glasses falling as she blinked at us. "Uh. Hello. Um." She stood up, smiling, trying to wipe the drool off her mouth as discreetly as possible. "Can I help you?"

"I'm a freelance reporter. This is my friend, my photographer," I added, glancing at Reece, who winked at her, "Who'll sit in the car if he bothers you. We heard you were interested in paranormal things and we... I mean, my friend is... were trying to find out if it was interesting enough to look into more."

"Who told you I liked it?" She didn't seem suspicious, just surprised, even a little confused. It was like no one in her world knew. "I guess if you can describe it I could try and help."

I opened my mouth. I tried, words failing, that horrible cold creeping sense of dread coming back. Reece glanced at me and took over.

"Big black thing. It had glowing eyes." With his Australian accent, and that silly grin on his face, I saw it. Reece was not convincing. He might have been afraid of it too but right now, he was behaving like a big blonde teenager.

"A dementor?" She muttered, raising an eyebrow, hesitating. Maybe she thought we'd come to make fun of her paper. "You're making fun of me."

"No. This was a real sighting. This person said that they were almost killed by it and there was a nurse there to confirm that. So either they were killed by a hallucination from a movie or … that's why we're interested. Either way, it's an article that'll sell." I spoke up as her eyes came back to me. I'd have to describe it. I sighed, swallowed, Reece's arm brushing against mine. And I described it exactly as I'd seen it. Reece was more helpful now. When I mentioned owls I saw a spark of something come into her eyes. There was a sudden flash of energy there, a grin, and she was sliding on some glasses and heading for a bookshelf. "I think I can think of something. Hang on."

We followed her, this eager girl who looked like she'd only just reached twenty, as she started to pull books off the shelf. This was not easy, she was tiny, probably barely over five feet. Reece ended up lowering books to her as she pointed. It was kind of amusing to see. "So you heard about a creature that's got a face like that? I heard a few alien sightings like this. But most people don't think to ask us. They focus on aliens, aliens, aliens, but myths usually have lots of things that sound like aliens. All these sci fi movies make people forget. Can I meet who saw it?"

When I shook her head, the girl actually looked disappointed.

"It's just a story I have to follow up." I replied. "My friend's got the flu. Not that sickness-" I added, quickly, as alarm flashed across her face, "-just the flu. Hope. She's a ..."

"She's a paranormal writer. Oh my god. You know Hope Adams? I read all her stuff." She gawked at us, freezing, books nearly tipping out of her hands onto her head. Reece caught them as she blinked sheepishly up. It was like she'd forgotten she was even getting books out. "Um. Sorry. Okay. So no wonder why you're thinking differently. That woman is incredible. So here." She pushed a book into my arms. "You can have this for free. I wrote it."

I blinked at the book. It was clearly self-published, cheap cover, that ring binding, titled 'Paranormal Mythology- a collection of stories from our history.' Reece took it as she continued to wander around the room, sliding books out, a small mountain of them starting to gather in one of her thin arms.

"It depends on the tribe. There were some cultures that spoke about creatures like that. In popular culture too. Mostly though, it was seen as the true form of a skin walker. You'd be amazed how many alien reports describe it like that too."

"A what?" And how many, I suddenly wondered. How long had this thing been around before we'd noticed it?

"A creature that'd take form of another animal. Throw skin over shoulders and then they'd be it. Coyotes, owls, cougars, things like that. All cultures had something like it. You're Australian." She glanced up at me, pushed the glasses up her forehead. "You had the Yowies and another creature- I'll have to look up the name." She dropped the mountain of books on the desk, energised by this, heading for a shelf of books all over again. The girl loved her job, that was clear, and she spoke as she started to thumb through the books. "So you had those. And we had skin walkers. The original story is more or less forgotten now. They were these creatures that came and stole the body of our people, then at some point the story changed and it was us. Our magic men and women using it to travel. Like at some point it stopped being 'them' and became 'us'. Here." She grinned a triumphant grin as she got the book she'd wanted. "It's called a Yara-ma-yha-who. Eats and throws you up over and over till you're turned into one. It's a bit different, I guess, instead of becoming human it tries to make you one of it. Sucks blood like a vampire."

She seemed to realise she'd been the only one talking and flushed as she met our eyes. "Sorry. This is all I've done at collage. Look this stuff up. Write about it. I love to connect different myths like this."

"Me too." I admitted and she grinned.

"Isn't it cool? So ..."

"My little sister can get obsessed." A cool voice came from behind us. "I hope it was helpful."

"I was just-" She looked sheepish, shaking her head, tugging the glasses off again. "Answering questions. This is my brother, Alan. He owns the store with me."

"Usually we give you these." Alan smiled, a cool dismissive smile, as he held up the flyers. "I was getting some out of boxes for you." He handed them to us- generic 'Native American mythology' type books, nothing like what she'd been saying. "It's generally more accurate than what my baby sister says. She'll be a great writer one day with stuff like this. Lots of novels."

I saw it, hurt flash across her face, resentment, and anger. Whatever she was doing, she did not plan on turning it into novels. Then her eyes met us. Whatever friendliness had faded. "So our number and email is on there. You can call-"

"Come with us." Reece spoke up. She blinked at him and he grinned, a breathtaking grin. "Seriously." I elbowed him and he blinked, shaking his head, glancing to me. "I mean... have you got your own phone number?"

"Number's on our flyer. Do you want to buy the books?" The man replied, fixing him with that look.

Alan took over as the girl faded into the background a little. We did buy them. All of them. The ones she'd piled up for us, even as she flushed, looking embarrassed, muttering something about how we didn't have to get them all, but Reece insisted. And the ones Alan brought out. Reece hoisted them all easily over his shoulder, two cloth bags worth, and even this Alan guy couldn't look disappointed. We may have looked like weirdos- buying almost all his paranormal stuff- but we'd also given him a nice little sale.

"Sorry. Opening hours are over. We're trying to keep the disease out of our family. You can come back another day or email." I noticed that the offer to call had suddenly been retracted. In other words, we were being asked to leave. Nicely.

"Right, okay. Thanks." I pulled him out of the tiny shop. I saw him turn on her, looking angry, the two of them starting to argue. And ...his shoes. Converse. Suddenly, I knew why he looked familiar. Why he'd seemed like I'd known him before. It was because I had seen him before. Was it crazy to identify a person based off their shoes and ankles? Probably. I backed up, pulling Reece with me, the two of us making our way down the street slowly.

"What was her name?" Reece asked beside me as we walked away, his head back at the shop.

"Don't know. I've seen him. I think." I tried to think. Maybe I was going nuts. One man who was Native American and wearing shoes I'd hallucinated about and suddenly I thought I knew him. "Her name's probably on that book. Okay. So, we ...saw one of those?"

"I don't know. She got so easily distracted." He looked more amused than annoyed, pausing, glancing back. The girl and her older brother were heading for a car. Reece's brilliant grin came back as he stepped in their direction. "Here." He dumped the bags at me, rummaged through them in a hurry, pulling her cheaper self-published book out. "Selene? That's cute. I should ask her out."

"Reece..."

"Hey, we might be here for weeks if there's no planes. Can't hurt. Hold on." Before I could stop him, he was gone, jogging over.

Daniella appeared then, the car pulling up, and she wound down the window. Watching Reece. Daniella scowled as the girl blushed deep pink. "He's up to no good again?"

I shrugged. "What's new?" I opened the door, somehow, and put the heavy bags into the back seat. "We got some information before her brother shooed us out. He doesn't believe in that damn paranormal stuff like she does, I think."

"Smart man." She muttered. "Looks like he's about ready to hit Reece."

I glanced back and saw Daniella wasn't wrong. The man was towering over Reece, even though he was several inches shorter, as the girl's face only burnt deeper red. Reece just grinned at them both. CAD- Charming Australian Dundee- was back. I saw him give her something, his crocodile tooth necklace, Reece really having fun with this, the threatening brother apparently just adding to the challenge. It looked like it was about to turn nasty, just as I was tempted to go over, then Reece turned and jogged back over to us. He didn't even look at Daniella as he jumped into the back seat with the books.

"Any luck?"

"Nope. I'll try later. Her real name's Beth, according to her brother. I like Selene better." He shrugged, leaned back, head on his arms as he grinned. "Hunting is fun."

I rolled my eyes and got into the front seat beside Daniella as we took off.

Hope was waiting when we got back. She groaned softly at the amount of books Reece had got, shaking her head, and was more interested in what the girl had said rather than what she'd sold us. Hope made notes as she sat there and then she stood up. "Give me a few hours to go over these notes and these books." She replied as she stood up and retreated into the small bedroom.

I was pacing up and down within a few minutes, eyes on the water, as if I expected to see the boat they'd hired. Waiting? Waiting was a torturous thing. Hunting, investigating, talking, these things gave me something to do. Even the triplets provided great distraction.

Now I had free time and I had no clue what to do with it.

Reece was sitting on the couch with the book Selene, or Beth...or whatever she called herself... had given us. Signed copy, apparently, and I felt a bit bad for her. Writing books probably wasn't the easiest thing to do. But writing a book on a topic only a few people were interested in? Probably even harder to do.

I flopped beside him, curling up, Reece's arm coming over my shoulder as he read.

"You okay?" He glanced sideways at me.

"Bored."

Reece nodded and went back to the book, lowering it so I could see too, yawning as he read. "Think it's a skinwalker?"

"I don't know. I hadn't heard of it before." I replied, shutting my eyes, remembering those shoes. That man. "So what if it is? Do we go to a native american person and ask them how they dealt with it? They'd probably laugh in our faces."

"Probably, yeah." Reece agreed. He folded the book and glanced at me. "What you mean earlier, when you said you'd seen him before?"

"Remember? I saw a bunch of people in Forestwatch when it caught fire. It was just a spell." I shut my eyes.

"Yeah but then you saw it again. So it wasn't a spell. What did you see exactly?" He was more curious than really interested, prodding my side, and I repeated it for him. Bunch of people with a hose. Putting the fire out. Then one of them saw it and then they saw me awake and... then I was awake. Outside. "I know that thing wasn't apart of it. But the rest? Come on, Reece, we'd have noticed if half a dozen men and women were tramping through Forestwatch."

He hesitated and then nodded slowly. "Yeah, guess you're right."

"It was probably my brain trying to ...cope with it. I don't know." I didn't know. "You think Rose is bad?"

Reece shrugged. "Never met the bird. If she has your babies, she's not good. Not to me."

"But she's lost everything, Reece. All her kids. Her grandkids. I ..." I couldn't hate her. I hesitated and he squeezed my shoulder.

"Yeah. I know that much. You worry about this caring thing. I'll do the angry thing with Nick. Daniella, something on your mind?" His head twisted back to where Daniella was standing. I wondered when she'd gotten there.

"When did you two start fucking?" She snapped. Her eyes were fixed on us, inhaling slowly, and I felt white sheets thrown at us. The sheets we'd been on this morning. "I was going to change your sheets for you. House keeping aren't doing it."

I froze, Reece's eyes narrowing, as he stared at her.

"Thought you said it's not my business who you fuck. Same goes for you. Keep out of my life."

"Cheating on Nick ..."

Reece made my head turn forward, his arm tightening around my shoulders again, trying to get me to ignore her.

"It's fucking wrong." She snapped. We heard her leave, heard her slam the door as she stormed into the hallway, Reece's arm staying firm around my shoulders till she was gone.

"Not her business." Reece reminded me softly. "Relax. You and I know the truth and so does Nick."

I groaned softly, shutting my eyes, wishing ...I didn't know. I knew it'd become obvious as people got their noses back. Daniella's reaction wasn't expected though. Pulling Reece's arm off, I stood up, taking the sheet myself and carefully pulling the bag over it, before going into our room and changing the sheets myself. Reece came in after a while and helped.

The day passed by slowly, far too slowly, Daniella returning after a while. She glared at us and went to sit in the bedroom, Hope coming out, looking much more refreshed. She muttered something about falling asleep and seemed to agree that it was probably that, if the girl thought so, but she wasn't sure. The owls were a hint.

"There were supernaturals called skin walkers." Hope said, as she accepted the coffee from me, yawning a huge yawn. "Thanks for this. The thing is, they were nothing like what you saw. The old records of them had them as regular people. Like werewolves, except that they just shifted into cougars instead. I didn't even know about the old myths till this book went into it a bit more detail. I underlined bits with a pencil, hope you don't mind. The skin-walkers died out decades ago. They were all Native American and ...well, you don't have to be American to know how the white invasion went for them." She dropped one of the books in front of us. Reece and I read, Daniella flipping through the room service menu, her eyes on anything except us.

Hope continued, "Some tribes thought they could steal your body by looking you in the eyes." When I twitched, the memory of it attacking only when I'd made eye contact, she breathed in slowly. "I see. That's when it attacked you."

"How much can you see?"

"When it comes to what you two saw? Everything." Hope's lips twitched, though again I wasn't sure whether it was a grimace or an attempt to hide that smile she'd had earlier. Chaos demon. It was like she was attracted to this stuff. "So it's not your regular supernatural. It has no body. The skin-walkers we have records of were always human shaped between their animal forms. That was when I remembered what you, and she, had said about the 'first' ones."

"That they stopped being separate from the tribes. That they became apart of the tribes. It makes me wonder if they weren't originally from here at all." Hope said softly. She pushed another book where she'd outlined something more or less to this extent. "Not from outer space, though I don't know, but not from America. So maybe they came from somewhere else and merged with the people here. Joined them. The first supernaturals in America. The interesting thing is that several of these early accounts also mention that they could make you sick." Sick? My ears perked up then, Hope's lips twitching as she caught my head swing up a fraction. "Exactly. These stories never said it was this devastating though. If it had been, the legend would have never faded like this, and I doubt they would have ever forgotten it. But it's interesting timing. I'd love to meet this girl. Ask her more questions. I read her paper and she's surprisingly accurate about us, even if she makes some pretty obvious mistakes, so she might know more."

"I can set up a meeting." Reece piped up. He held up his hand, grinned a triumphant grin, his phone there. "I may have slipped her my number. She took thirty minutes to contact me."

Daniella muttered something and went for the bedroom. His eyes followed her, smile fading a moment, only to meet my expression.

"You might want to make sure her brother doesn't come." I muttered. Hope blinked. "He wasn't exactly supportive of her interests. Kept acting like it was a story. But she knew you. I think she's a fan."

"That's how most humans see it. There's always the few humans that seem to see more in the world than others. Your Selene might be one of them. Sensitive humans." Hope smiled somewhat. "Mention that I'd like to meet her. I suppose I can handle a fan for a few hours. If we don't do something tonight we're going to go crazy."

"I'm staying here." Daniella called from the bedroom. "Or I'll go crazy."

"I suppose one of us should stay here." Hope glanced at her. She frowned somewhat, tilted her head, and then shook it as if shaking a fly free. "In case Elena calls."

"Exactly. I need a nap." Daniella shut the door before anyone could answer. I heard the lock going.

Reece frowned now, openly, his eyes fixed on the door. Then he met my eyes and he tried to smile. "So, we go out for dinner? Are places even open?"

"Curfew is at nine." Hope replied. "Some places stayed open. I'll book us a table. You contact this girl and let her know."

Reece nodded and headed for our room as Hope flipped through her phone for a place to eat. I relaxed back, shoved a cookie into my mouth, and focused on that. On action. On what we might have figured out without Jamie's help. I still didn't know why Jamie was forbidden from talking about it though. That part made no sense. Was it a ghost issue? Something that wasn't alive anymore? Hope had said they'd died out a long time ago. Supernaturals haunting us, now that was a problem I didn't know how to handle.

"Success." Reece called. "She's meeting us outside here at six. Seems excited."

"I'll get us a taxi and table nearby. On the water." Hope called back, lifting her phone, and got to work.

Elena texted me while we waited for the afternoon to drag by. Reece and I spent half of it eating much to Hope's bemusement, taking out our need for activity by chewing on things, or watching Crocodile dundee. This amused her, particularly when Reece had to read out the male lines, his accent matching his exactly. He didn't exactly speak like that, not those words, but his accent? Perfect copy. I had the city version- more Americanised- but I had traces of it.

"Jamie been told to tell us to stop digging." I muttered.

"Elena hasn't ordered it?" Reece glanced at my phone.

"Looks like she's just passing a message along." I grinned. In other words- it wasn't an order. It was a suggestion. "It'd be rude of us to cancel this meeting when Selene is such a fan of Hope."

"I agree." Reece grinned. He glanced at Hope, who'd fallen asleep again, adding, "No need to worry her about it then." He lay down, head in my lap, eyes going back to the movie. Reece's smile faded as he watched the landscape.

"You homesick?"

Reece nodded, reaching up for my hand, pulling it into his hair. The gesture was pretty clear. I stroked his scalp, gently, kissing my palm. "A little. I have to go back soon."

"Why?" I watched the movie, watched them in some gunfight in the bush, aware that I too sort of missed it. The area I'd come from had been wetter than this place in the movie but it was never far from any place in Australia- that dry land, that grey toned bush, the sun.

"I got to go back and kill the assholes who killed my parents." He said it so casually, so calmly, but the trace of any charming side of Reece was gone. "Clayton thinks I'm nearly ready."

My heart froze at that. A different kind of fear came. I thought I might have known about this, some time ago, but … as much as I understood the need for revenge, the need to hunt, I didn't want Reece to die. The idea scared me. "You going alone?"

"Maybe." He leaned up, tugging my head down, Reece's eyes going over Hope for a moment before he kissed me. Hard. "We've got to right wrongs. You got your chance, now it's my turn."

I knew. I tried to smile, tried to accept it, Reece's eyes fixed in mine. "Yeah. I know. I just don't like the idea of you getting hurt."

Reece held up his hand with the two fingers cut down and shrugged. "I don't plan on getting killed, you know, that's why I've let Clayton beat me up. Last time I tried to take on mutts this happened." He stared at where his fingers had been once. "Scared me enough to realise I can't do things on my own all the time. We need pack. We're made for it. So if you want to come..."

"Of course I want to come." I snapped and he nodded. "If I can."

"If you can." Reece agreed. His head went back to the movie. "If Nick and Elena are okay with it."

That decided we went back to the movie, watching it, the hours going past far too slowly. Finally it was time to get ready. Smart casual, apparently, which basically meant we wore black. Black was easy. I wondered if the rest were still on the boat, still watching the house, wished I could ...not check in. Just know. Have an idea where they were. Hope was the only one of us who had something colorful and she let me a blue scarf, probably so we didn't look too out of place in the autumn evening.

We headed downstairs after Hope made sure Daniella didn't want to come, she was still very stubborn about this, and made our way outside to wait for the girl from the bookstore.