Page 72 of Starry with a Chance of Nightshade

“Yes, exactly,” said Stratton as he stood fully. “A curfew may need to be put in place at the university. A warning may need to be issued city-wide as well. For people to avoid being out alone after dark. To stick to well-lit areas. I don’t want to cause panic, but I don’t want to find another body either.”

“I really wish everyone in town knew about us,” he said, meaning supernaturals.

Stratton nodded. “I know. It would make life easier. But we don’t live in a world where we’re free to be who we are. We live intheirworld, Brett, and we have to play by human rules to a point.”

“This from a guy who hasn’t actually lived his whole life in this world,” said Brett in a low tone that was light.

Stratton nodded. “I have. Just not in this realm.”

“I seriously have no idea how that works,” added Brett.

“It confuses me too on most days,” said Stratton.

Brett patted his shoulder. “Now might be a good time to put a call into those Nightshade bosses of yours.”

Stratton stared out at the darkened woods. “I think a call to my cousin Drest is the first I should make. You don’t want the Nightshade Clan officially involved in Grimm Cove matters. They’ll take over. Once they do that, getting power away from them won’t be easy. And if they take over, their personal prejudices will shine through.”

“Such as?” he asked.

Stratton locked gazes with him. “Everything non-Fae is less than. Many look down their noses at shifters. They see you as pets who can talk.”

Brett let out a long breath. “No offense, Stratton, but your family kind of sound like dicks.”

Stratton grinned. “I’m not blood-related to them all, but I am to many of them. And you’re not wrong. There are a chunk of us who don’t see things that way. Nightshade can’t come in on this investigation unless they’re officially invited. Just like the feds. I can’t tell you what to do, but if it were me, I’d use every resource at my disposal that wasn’t them. They’d be the last people I’d give permission to run around a town full of supernaturals unchecked. And trust when I say, when they are invited, there are no rules beyond what they say goes. If you stand in their way, a member of the hunter’s guild can and will be sent to eliminate the obstacle.”

Brett lifted a brow. “I’m starting to understand why you’re so casual about death. You were apparently raised by sociopaths.”

“Oh yeah, one hundred percent,” said Stratton, only partially kidding. “If you’re all right with it, I can head out to a spot with cell reception and reach out to my cousin. He can assist in a non-official capacity. He’ll have easier access to information than me right now since I’m on hiatus. I can return to active duty if we need me to, but that also means I have to go where they tell me, and if they tell me Grimm Cove isn’t where they want me, I have to obey.”

“Yeah, total dicks,” said Brett as he shook his head. “Head out and call your cousin, and can you do me a favor? Can you check on my wife and the kids?”

“Of course,” said Stratton. “I’m surprised you haven’t mentally linked with Jeffrey already and forced him to do it.”

As members of the same pack of wolf-shifters, Brett and Jeffrey could communicate that way with relative ease. “I swore to Poppy that I’d stop sending pack mates to her that way,” he said.

“Okay, but I don’t see why that would stop you,” Stratton offered.

“She might have sort of cast a spell blocking me from doing it for seventy-two hours because she was fed up with having random pack members following her around all the time,” replied Brett. “And she might have had her grandmother and Marcy help with it.”

Stratton didn’t want to laugh, especially since they were at a crime scene where something tragic had occurred, but it was hard not to.

Brett was the pack’s head enforcer, feared by everyone who had ever incurred his wrath, yet his wife wasn’t the least bit afraid of him. She called the shots in that relationship.

ChapterTwenty-Five

Stratton

Stratton pulledto a stop outside of Demon Grounds and put his truck in park. The sign said “Closed” and the lights were lowered, but not off. That was how Yolanda normally left the business at night. He’d known on his way over that it wouldn’t be open, that it closed around seven, and that Astria wouldn’t be there; still he came on the off chance he was wrong.

On the passenger seat was a bouquet of white lilies. Luckily, the flower shop had been open still when he’d driven past it on the way to the Proctor House. He had no way of knowing what, if any, flowers Astria might like. When he’d hurried into the shop, desperate for anything that might show how sorry he was for missing their date, he’d been drawn straight to the white lilies. He wasn’t a flower guy himself. But for some reason, they made him think of Astria. He just hoped she’d be willing to accept them for the apology they were.

From the flower shop, he’d gone directly to the Proctor House, putting a call in to Drest on the way. He’d left his cousin a voicemail about what was going on in Grimm Cove. Hopefully he’d be able to divert some Nightshade resources without needing to have them officially brought in. If nothing else, Drest would come if creatures really were here. He was too desperate to find Rachael not to.

When Stratton had gotten to the Proctor House, Thomas, Poppy’s ex-husband, was there on the porch, talking with them all even with the late hour. Brett wouldn’t be thrilled about that, or about what Stratton had overheard.

Since there was now a murder in Grimm Cove that was related to the ones in Mill Hollow that he and Brett were already helping with, leaving town right now wasn’t really an option for Brett. Tucker and Pepper were due back at Yale in a few days to start their sophomore year of school. The plan had been that Brett would drive Poppy and the kids in the car the twins shared, they’d leave the kids and the car at Yale, and then he and Poppy would spend a few days together in the city before flying home.

That wasn’t going to happen now. Not with bodies dropping left and right.

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