I strode between two Chinese food stores. No dead end, so I wasn’t boxing myself in. Rocks scuffed on the path behind me. I smiled. Three supernaturals. I scented two shifters and a vampire. They’d decided now was the time to approach.

Turning, I lowered into a fighting stance.

Front and center was a tiny brunette – her hair braided down her back in a single line – female, a shifter but not wolf. Something close … fox maybe. Flanking either side of her was another, much larger male shifter, also fox – and third was a vampire. They continued straight at me. I waited, poised on the balls of my feet, hands relaxed but ready at my sides. I also had an ear out for any approach from behind, in case they were going for the whole distraction ploy.

“You shouldn’t be here,” the fox girl said, showcasing her pointy little teeth. She’d been spending too much time in her animal form. It was starting to bleed into the human. “You have brought unease to our sanctuary. The Four roam the mountains around us, and you pack around with another set of quads. You must leave.”

The Four were here, in Romania! Shit! Another awesome piece of news to add to my shit-cake of a day. Would December hurry up and fuck off already, it was turning out to be my least favorite month. Supernaturals don’t celebrate Christmas, that was a human tradition, but even if we did there wasn’t anything jolly going on right now.

The male fox distracted me from my thoughts. “You must leave!”

I raised my right eyebrow. “And if I don’t?” It wasn’t a blatant challenge, but it was close. I hadn’t really scented aggression from them. I was pretty sure they’d just followed me as a warning, but I was in the right sort of mood to push them.

The three took a step closer, barely five feet between us. “Then we will make you.” Finally the vampire got to speak, and compared to Maximus this guy’s balls hadn’t even dropped. It was as if he was trying really hard to deepen his voice to that scary octave which the quads were kings at. He missed it by about a mile.

I pushed aside thoughts of my vamp, now wasn’t the time to drown in heartache. I was ready to work off some of the anger which was riding me like a mermaid in a seaweed storm. I slowed my breathing, taking a few moments to size up my opponents. The chick was the leader, and the one I was most wary of. When you’re smaller than most supes, you had to rely less on strength and more on developing skills. Something told me she had some mad skills.