Page 73 of Death and Donuts

“Any progress in finding the vampire?” Mr. Hunter asked, looking at Shepard.

“Unfortunately, no. I have men out, night and day, searching. Adriel's scent is familiar to some of them, and it’s helped pick up a trail here and there, but they always end abruptly.”

“If he’s a cat, he can jump and climb,” Vena said. “Are they looking on top of buildings, too?”

“And the sewers,” I said after swallowing my bite of food. “Cross mentioned he went down one yesterday.”

“You saw him yesterday?” Vena said with an edge in her voice.

“Yeah. He used himself as a distraction to get me alone so one of his minions could tell me I needed to meet up with Cross' ex.” It was simpler to say she was his ex in front of the Hunters than to admit she was an evil vampire after all the rings. After all, I wasn’t sure how much Shepard and Cross wanted to share about them.

“His ex? The same one who’d sent your look-alike to our house as a gift to Cross?”

“I guess.” I’d forgotten about that.

“Ew. Why does she want to meet up with you?”

“She wants to use Everly as bait to force Cross to give her what she wants,” Shepard said.

“His ring?” Mr. Hunter asked, proving why the Hunters were so successful at tracking down information.

“Yes,” Shepard said after a moment. “It seems Adriel is working for her.”

“Damn,” Vena breathed.

My phone buzzed with a message. Thinking it might be Cross, I checked it and found a text and video from the number on the note.

Amberly: Stop searching for answers you don’t need. The only solution is to meet with Orphia.

The video was dark when it started, but then a hand moved away from the lens.

A woman wearing white pants and a flowy top lay on a bed. Her hands and ankles were bound, and a black ball gag covered her mouth as she struggled against the two men pinning her.

I couldn’t see their faces, which were buried against her neck. But I knew them. The black leather clothes. The sparkling collar. The cat ears.

Her muffled screams silenced the conversation at the table.

“Ev?” Vena said.

I watched Pet lift his head and turned to look at the camera. His lips were red, smeared with blood. Master lifted his head and grabbed Pet’s face, kissing him passionately over the woman whose screams turned into a moan.

Shepard took the phone from me.

“Everly,” Vena said, waving a hand at me. “What was it?”

“A message from Cross' ex,” I said shakily. “It said to stop looking for answers we don’t need and to meet with her. The fae woman from the market won’t be calling you back with information.”

“What?”

Vena grabbed the phone from Shepard and swore under her breath as she watched.

Shepard dialed his phone and stood abruptly to move a few steps from the table.

“We have a problem,” Shepard said. “No. Focus, Effora. The vampire we’re looking for has taken one of yours.” He paused, listening to whatever the fae queen had to say. “I’ll send you the video, and you can decide for yourself if you’re still neutral.”

He hung up the phone just as Vena finished the video.

“This just proves we’re moving in the right direction,” she said. “My scrying stone is working. I can locate all the black cats within a three-city block radius of where I’m scrying. It’s not ideal, but it’s something. Anchor and I can go out and keep looking.”

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