Page 14 of The Hive Queen

He’s a grizzled, older man, with a shaved head and salt-and-pepper beard that only partially hides the ugly, red scars that pucker one side of his face. His eyes are pretty, though, with thick, sooty lashes that mimic eyeliner and make his pale-blue eyes startlingly bright.

I’ve always liked Trent. He reminds me of soldiers I’ve fought beside in wars.

“Thanks,” I wheeze.

He frowns down at me, the motion portrayed in a rustle of whiskers. “You get a lot of those?”

I straighten and rub at the pain in my chest. “A lot of what?”

He adjusts the straps of a black canvas bag on his lap. “Panic attacks before a mission.”

“Not a panic attack, asshole.” The ache in my chest eases, and I drop my hand to rest on the shotgun on the seat next to me. “Dreams. And they’re a recent development.”

I get them almost every time I close my eyes lately. Nightmares of dying. Sometimes Darius is in them, like my mind doesn’t think watching him have his heart cut out was enough and wants to come up with even more horrifying ways to make him die.

“My therapist says that what we suppress while awake comes out in our dreams,” Savannah says from her place on the bench across from me. “You gotta exorcize that shit before it gets you at the worst possible time.”

Trent smirks. “You see a therapist?”

“Yeah, it’s your wife.” She lifts two fingers and licks between them. “She exorcisesallmy demons.”

Trent chuckles. “That she does, my friend. Elizabeth has a way with her words that hits just right.”

I block out their good-natured banter.

If Pen ever caught any of us talking about her like that, she’d kick our asses. Only Flint gets a pass, and pretty boy hasn’t been up to much teasing lately.

I pull out my tablet to go over the layout of the house we’re hitting tonight. There can be no room for error when stealing from danguri demons. They’re possessive monsters who eat people alive and add what bones remain to their hoard.

The one we’re going to steal from tonight is a top-class hoarder, which means we have to bring our A-game.

“Hey.” A booted foot taps against mine. “You sure you’re up for this?”

I glance up at Savannah. She’s a flat-chested, muscular woman with swarthy skin that helps mask the dozens of spells tattooed all over her body. She keeps her black hair cropped close to her scalp, and her brown eyes are so dark I can’t make out the separation between pupil and iris. It makes her hard to read when she’s not actively emoting, but I can see her concern well enough. She doesn’t trust that I can cover their asses.

“He’s fine.” Trent grips my shoulder. “Marc could do this job in his sleep.”

“I’m not turning my nose up at the extra firepower,” Savannah says, “but the man looks like he hasn’t rested in months.”

The usual third man in their game was put out of commission a few weeks ago on a wendigo case they ran, and I had jumped at the chance to get out of Clearhelm for a bit and fill his space.

It’s not that I don’t want to be around the others, it’s just that there are too many memories tangled up in my head that include Darius. Like every time I pass the restaurant with his favorite steak, or the high-end clothing stores he always wanted me to go into.

The nights are even worse. I can’t sleep unless I’m exhausted, and I’ve run out of repairs to do around the cabin. There’s only so much silence I can handle. I need something to occupy the empty space in my mind, and since there weren’t any exciting cases to run at home, I outsourced my distraction.

Savannah leans across the van toward me, her expression serious. “You look like shit, dude, and I just want to be sure I’ll make it home to Trent’s wife tonight instead of ending up in a danguri’s belly.”

I pat the shotgun next to me. “I can take care of a danguri, if it comes to that. But let’s try not to set off its traps instead, yeah?”

“We’re coming up on the house,” Elizabeth, Trent’s wife, says from the driver’s seat. “Enough of your gum smacking. It’s time to focus.”

“Yes, sweetie,” Savannah and Trent chorus.

Trent turns to me, worry in his gaze. “You sure you want to do this? As Savannah said, I’m not turning my nose up at what you bring to the table, but…”

I grunt. “Just spit it out.”

“You guys have been keeping your hands clean lately.” He raises his palms toward me. “And there’s nothing wrong with that. But this is definitely not on the right side of the law. We’re not bending rules to do good here. This is straight-up, jailable theft.”

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