Page 58 of Shifter Marked and Claimed

I rolled my eyes at her.

“You don’t need to snark at me. Remember, if something grabs you, it’s not just you that you’re endangering. It’s me, too, because I’m not letting something take you.”

She sighed. “I know.”

She opened the door carefully and quickly pulled the box inside.

“See? Like a champ,” she said with pride.

“Good job. Did they give us anything good this time?”

“I mean, it’s food, so that’s good. But no sweets. No chips. Just veggies and meat and stuff to make our own whole grain bread.”

I made a face and went back to reading about minotaur. Or minotaurs. Whatever.

They were one of the many species mentioned in Ashlyn’s books and far from the scariest since she’d put a yellow star by it. The scary ones got the red stars. The really bad ones got purple. There’d been only one green star in the books I’d read, and it had a special note by it.

Furies were a human’s friend only if that human hadn’t committed any acts of wickedness. I found it ironic that a creature created to send people to hell was the only “good” creature in the books so far. However, having met Megan and experiencing her brutal honesty, even briefly, I could see why Ashlyn considered her good.

“Get this,” I said. “Minotaur go into a mating frenzy. They can mate for up to three days straight.”

“Uh, that sounds awful. I’m not sure whether that’s in the good-to-know category or wish-I-didn’t-know.”

“Good-to-know,” I said firmly. “Stay away from horny minotaur.”

She snorted and put her fingers on each side of her head, pointing straight up.

“Horny. Get it?” she asked.

“This isolation isn’t making your jokes any better.”

She laughed and continued putting away the groceries from our weekly food delivery.

Glad she had something to do, I went back to Ashlyn’s journals. They were packed with information and rules we needed to survive this place. Like the one about never making eye contact.

Half the creatures used eye contact as a way to manipulate human thoughts in order to get a person to do what they wanted. In the case of Zoe’s run in with an incubus, she had endured a hot-and-heavy and very unwanted make out session with him. The experience had terrified both of us.

We’d left New York to get away from lives as sex-slaves, and that was the last thing we wanted to accidentally tumble into here. So, I soaked up every bit of information I could on all the creatures. Weaknesses. Strengths. Interests.

The last one sounded dumb until I realized that knowing if a creature was interested in mating with human, eating human energy, or playing with human emotions made a big difference in their star ratings. And knowing a creature liked games of chance or eating oats soaked in milk and honey potentially gave me bargaining power if it was ever needed.

“Mr. Hot Pants is out again,” Zoe said. “Did Eliana text you yet?”

Eliana, a reluctant succubus around our age, was our sole contact at the moment. While she was nice enough and we trusted her, she warned us not to. One of Ashlyn’s journals had marked her kind with a yellow star, but Ashlyn had hand written a note that Eliana was green worthy. Green meant she was good enough to invite inside the house, which we’d done. Her visit had been the highlight of our week. Real people time. I kind of wished she would text.

“You know she didn’t,” I said, answering Zoe’s question without looking up. “And get away from the window.”

“We should invite her over again. She’s nice.”

“She is,” I agreed. “But she also reminded us that even a nice succubus is dangerous. Unless you want to find yourself making out with her, it’d be better if we listened to her warning.”

“I can’t decide if he walks like he has a stick up his ass or with a prowl.”

“Stop looking out the window.”

“And miss an opportunity to entertain you? Are you sure?”

I heaved a sigh, hating that I was just as curious as she was about the guy. Up until a week ago, the house next door had been empty as far as we knew. Then, a sudden burst of yelling had brought him to our attention.

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