"Here, put this on your face."

It felt good and I sagged against the doorway to enjoy the numbness it brought to my throbbing cheek.

"I called Zee and told him what happened," Samuel told me. "You can go to bed. Zee's planning on working the shop for you today. He said he could do it tomorrow, too, if you need him."

Siebold Adelbertsmiter, known to his friends as Zee, was a good mechanic, the best. He'd taught me everything I know, then sold the garage to me. He was also fae—and the first person I'd intended to go to for information on sorcerers.

Even though he sometimes filled in for me when I was sick, I hadn't even thought about calling him for help with the garage—proof that it would probably be better if I didn't try going to work today.

"You're swaying," said Samuel after a moment. "Go to bed. You'll feel better when you wake up."

"Thank you," I mumbled before shutting myself back in my room.

I flopped facedown on my bed, groaned because that hurt my face again. I rolled until I was more comfortable, covered my head with my pillow and dozed for a while, maybe for all of half an hour.

I could smell Stefan.

It wasn't that he smelled bad—he just smelled like himself, sort of vampire and popcorn. But I couldn't get his statement about being dead during the day out of my head. Ugh. There was no way I was going to be able to sleep with a dead man in my closet.

"Thanks, Stefan," I told him glumly as I heaved my sore body out of bed. If I couldn't sleep, I might as well go to work. I opened the door to the living room, expecting it to be empty, since Samuel had been up all night, too.

Instead he was sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee with Adam, the local Alpha werewolf, who happened to live on the other side of my back fence.

I hadn't heard Adam come in. Once Samuel started sharing my house, I'd become careless. I should have realized that he would come over as soon as Samuel called him, though—and, of course, Samuel had to call him about the bloodbath at the hotel. Adam was the Alpha, and responsible for the welfare of all the werewolves in the area.

They both looked at me when I opened my door.

I was tempted to turn around and go back into my bedroom with the dead man in my closet. Now, I'm not very vain. If I'd ever been, making my living covered in various grease and dirt mixtures would have cured me quickly. Still, I wasn't up to facing two sexy men when I had one eye swollen mostly shut and half of my face black and blue.

Stefan, being dead, was unlikely to notice what I looked like—and I'd never dated Stefan. Not that I was dating either Adam or Samuel at the present.