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trouble.” I was
much more interested in getting home to make sure my apartment wasn’t damaged.
    “That’s a pretty laid-back way of thinking about it,
Mr. Sanders. Most people are angry or feel violated in this situation. Maybe
you should come down to the station for a---”
    “No, thanks,” I interrupted. “My friends and I are
going on a trip in the morning.”
    “A hunting trip?”
    “No.” I knew the man was fishing, but I wasn’t
biting. If it came down to it, I was prepared to use my magic. Fortunately,
they left very soon after that and I didn’t have to resort to mind control.
    “It’s the same scent as the one at your friend’s
house,” Henry said as soon as they were gone.
    “Figures.” Henry and I spent the rest of the
afternoon taking pictures with my phone and cleaning up. Darwin finally arrived
and we drove back to my apartment, which was only a couple of minutes away. I
half expected my apartment to be destroyed, but fortunately, it wasn’t.
    Henry sniffed the door and searched the unit.
“Anything?” I asked.
    He returned to the living room. “No one has been in
here.”
     
    *          *          *
     
    I had dreams of Heather and Astrid, but they were
actual dreams, where I couldn’t communicate with the very real and very dead
Heather or my trapped vampire friend. I woke to a loud crash and Darwin yelling
that he didn’t do it.
    I got up, dressed, and only then noticed that my
phone was missing. Whatever mess Darwin had made was cleaned up by the time I
went out to the living room, where Henry and Darwin were sitting on the couch,
eating breakfast, and watching the news. The takeaway bags from the nearby fast
food place were open beside the coffee table to be used as little trash bags.
    Henry could make a full-time career out of
cleaning up after Darwin . With his insanely high I.Q., Darwin could create
advanced computer programs, crack any mathematical formula, and make
predictions based on probability that could pass for magic, but he wasn’t the
most functional man alive.
    Aside from experiencing horrible pain if anyone
touched his skin, Darwin was extremely socially awkward when he thought he was
being judged. He was also raised to stay with his family indefinitely.
According to his father, the university was the only thing that kept him from
sitting in front of the computer for days at a time without sleep when they
were at home.
    “What does Maseré think of your wolf?” I asked
Darwin. He stopped shoving bacon into his mouth, looked at me, and shrugged.
“You didn’t tell him you can shift now?”
    Despite eating with his mouth full quite often, he
took his time chewing before answering me. “It came up a time or two. He can
sense the wolf. My wolf sensed him, too.” He chugged down his coffee. “Dad’s
wolf is a part of him, so his wolf should technically be as much my wolf’s dad
as Dad is mine.”
    “So your wolf was fine with him?”
    “No, he wasn’t. He would have challenged Dad if I let
him out. It’s not the normal behavior for wolf shifters. Are we gonna go or
what?”
    “I used your phone this morning and took care of the
insurance for the office,” Henry said.
    I managed to get a bite to eat before Darwin scarfed
it all. Of course, as thin as he was, nobody could guess how much he ate. After
we grabbed our bags and locked up, we took Henry’s maroon, extended cab pickup,
since my car wouldn’t hold everything and Darwin didn’t have a car.
    The first few hours were great because Darwin napped.
Then he woke and spent the rest of the drive harassing Henry with personal
questions. He wanted to know everything about Henry’s ex-wife, what it was like
being a thief, and where he was going from here. Fortunately for the jaguar
shifter, his fiancé disappeared after falsely accusing him of killing his
parents. Henry was not an open person, but his patience was improving all the
time. When Darwin asked about Addison, the jaguar growled