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“I’ll be gentle.”

“No. The big sexy giant is going to hold you down and we’re going to live vicariously through you that he’s got us pinned.”

Okay, so a bunch of us might have misunderstood Logan’s hostility for flirting, but that was pretty obvious. Saul wasn’t fazed. He generally wasn’t. You could put him in a room with a bunch of naked women and bombs going off and he’d probably just light up a joint if he thought he could get away with it.

“His name is Saul, and he’s a priest,” I pointed out.

“And he’s famous in the Quarter as the big sexy giant. Deal with it. Grab him.”

I wasn’t a small man, but next to Saul, I might as well be. He wrapped his arms and legs around me like a limpet and was this really necessary? It was humiliating.

I finally found out how Pan killed those werewolves. He could shift just his jaw. His canines became bigger and razor sharp. I really hoped this wasn’t some test and letting a Hellhound bite me wasn’t the wrong choice. Because it seemed like all of this was some cosmic test of my faith.

The Hellhound was surprisingly gentle. He wasn’t trying to prove a point. It hurt less than getting blood work. His canines pricked my arm and then withdrew. I didn’t know why he licked the puncture wounds after until I saw them healing before my eyes.

All of our information on Hellhounds was incorrect. The Esoteric Texts said they were mindless killing machines and agents of Satan. I had a feeling Pan was the thing she was protecting when she told us about the night her mother was taken. He’d made the decision to protect her and protect us when neither of them liked us very much. And he agreed to cure me despite that. There was nothing in our texts that Hellhound venom could kill a hex and their saliva had healing properties.

An overwhelming rage overtook my body, and it also felt like my blood was boiling. I had no idea what I was saying, but someone was probably going to be offended when I came back to myself. I’d never been this furious before and I’d gotten angry a lot since I was cursed.

I wasn’t going anywhere. I was fighting Saul tooth and nail to get away and just hurt someone, but he just tightened his arms. I’d never been in this much pain before. It felt like I was being boiled alive.

Thankfully, blackness overtook me.

Saul ended up carrying Caleb to one of the bedrooms. We didn’t know how long he’d be out. I tucked him in and Pan said he would stay with him while he slept. Pan curled up into Caleb’s side and promised to call us if anything happened. Pan was a caretaker, but I had this feeling he was trying to avoid me. I didn’t get it.

Ariel and Sasha stayed for Rainer’s famous bisque and also because they were definitely going to have questions about our guests. They were both from different covens, but good friends. They grew up with my mother, but I didn’t meet them until after she went missing. I needed to warn them about the threat and see if they had heard any rumors about The Yellow King.

My mother went missing when I was seven and Rainer took me in. Rainer was a life-long bachelor and well known and loved in New Orleans. A whole bunch of women stepped up to be my auntie and handle the things Rainer wouldn’t know. Ariel and Sasha were just two of those women. Oddly, Ariel and Sasha had the exact same information about boys as Rainer did. If they tried to talk to me, punch them in the dick and run away.

Rainer made soup in a Magnalite pot that was older than I was. I was pretty sure it was my grandmother’s. He called everyone to come serve themselves. He was bringing out all his famous recipes instead of just serving them sandwiches because we all knew good food brought people together and we needed them on our side.

“Is he going to be okay?” Solomon asked.

“He wouldn’t have been if you’d waited. He was pretty strong fighting it this long, but eventually, he would have done something he couldn’t come back from. You would have had to put him down and his afterlife wouldn’t have been what he wanted.”

“Ours doesn’t work like that,” Solomon said.

“You misunderstand this curse. It’s a blood curse. You might not know anything about our religion, but a lot of us find the study of world religions fascinating. This curse would have made him commit a mortal sin and reject your god.”

Solomon flinched.

“Well, thank you for helping him despite what you know about us.”

“We aren’t evil,” Sasha said. “I’m a green witch. I take plants and use them to make lotions, soaps, and skin care that help people.”

“She’s got a face mask that smells like lavender and marshmallows that gave me the best sleep I’ve ever had,” Rainer said, puffing up his chest.

I swear to shit, if he didn’t ask this woman out already, I was going to punch him in the dick.

“Could I purchase that from you? I’ve had trouble sleeping my entire life and nothing works,” Solomon asked.

“I’ll buy it for him,” Saul said. “He’s crabby when he can’t sleep.”

“I’ll send a sample to see if it works for you, but it should. Now, the two of you need to talk. Neither of you play well with others so why are you working with Venatio Daemonum?”

Between Rainer and I, we explained everything. I talked about hearing about the Yellow King the night my mother went missing and again at the house a few days ago. I told her what Delilah told me about the Yellow King and the coven that trapped him.

“It’s possible. Most of us have a type of magic that calls to us. It might not be what our parents do or how we were raised. For instance, my parents are elemental witches and I was raised learning that kind of magic, but plants always called to me more. Some witches feel a pull to more than one type of magic and study all of them. That kind of spell would require several disciplines.”