Page 35 of Monsters of Mayhem

“There’s better ways to keep a woman safe than locking her in a tower,” Eunice pointed out. “That’s quite the entrance. If any shingles are pulled off of my roof, you’re going to be responsible for them.”

“Laney!” I said, pulling myself away from Ryder and rushing to Laney’s arms.

I looked from her to Ryder. “Do you know they’re supernatural?”

She nodded “Yeah. I know,” she said. "It’s crazy. It’s like Game of Thrones meets Charmed meets Virgin River or something.”

“That’s quite the analogy,” I said.

“You said I watch too much TV,” she said, “but it really helped me to understand all this was true and all this was possible.”

“It’s a nice reunion,” Ratchet said, tapping his foot, “but if we don’t get her out of here, we’re still in the same danger.”

“I’m not running anywhere,” I said. “I’m just not some woman to be hidden away and kept safe. I want to help solve the problem. I want to find the monsters who are doing this and threatening my life and threatening everything about us.”

“It’s too dangerous,” Ryder said.

“I don’t care what you think,” I said.

“Quite the statement,” Laney said. “Didn’t you have relationship coaching where like you’re supposed to care about what your partner thinks.”

“We’re not in a relationship,” Ryder said.

“He’s not my partner,” I said.

Eunice rolled her eyes, but I didn’t care. I was going to stand my ground.

Laney’s phone rang.

She answered it. “No, no I can’t talk right now,” she said, “but yeah, I’m on the West Coast. I’ll call you in a bit.”

She hung up the phone, looking sheepishly around the room.

“Boyfriends,” she shrugged, smiling to herself.

I smiled at her. This was the guy Magnus I knew she was so into. I wanted to ask her every little question about him. I wanted to have life be normal again where she talked to me about her exploits with all the different men she was dating. Somehow, I had a feeling this one was different. This guy seemed to mean a lot to her and she really cared about him.

“So, what’s the plan?” Eunice said, looking at Ryder with her hands on her hips.

“What do you mean what’s the plan,” Ryder said. “The plan was to rescue Caroline.”

“She doesn’t really look like she needs rescuing to us,” said Lady Albright. “We’d like to help. If there’s a monster infiltration on the planet and you’re afraid of one particular group of monsters that are going to destroy earth, we need to be a part of it.

I looked around at the group. Eunice, four witches I’d just met, Ratchet, Laney, a hellhound and Ryder.

“I’m worried about Laney being here,” I said.

“You’re fucking kidding me,” Laney said. “What are you going to do, kick me to the curb when all the excitement is about to happen?”

“No, it’s just, you know, you’re human,” I said. “Trust me, I was attacked by demons and hellhounds. This isn’t for the faint of heart.”

“Who said I’m faint of heart?” Laney asked. “You can’t exclude me just because I’m human. Since when was that a bad thing to be?”

She screamed as Bale came bursting into the room. He ran up to her and started licking her and moving around her, sniffing at all parts of her.

“What the fuck is this?”

“Bale is my hellhound,” I said.

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