“Sounds Apocalyptic.”

And since she’d been through one or two of them, she’d know.

She gave him a hard stare. “When you and Caleb closed the hell-gate and released your father’s powers, you are sure you sealed it properly? Right?” she asked again.

He gave her a droll stare. “Are you seriously asking me if I said all the words? ’Cause yeah, I basically said it. Yeah. Almost in the right order. With all the right syllables.”

She rolled her eyes at his play on one of his favorite movies, Army of Darkness, that he’d made her see enough times that she now groaned out loud at the mere suggestion of it. “Yeah, it was definitely an N word … necktie … nickel … nectar.”

“Nekoda.”

“Not funny … Nick.”

“Yeah, I know. I suck as a dung-eating boyfriend.”

Kody snorted. “No. There, you don’t. Other departments…” She rocked her hand at him.

“Thanks.”

She flashed an attractive grin and winked. “Any time, baby. Any time. Hail to the queen.”

Suddenly, Stone started making a low howling noise from where he stood with his class, lined up against the opposite wall. And he wasn’t the only one. Mason. Alex. Justin.

Every one of the shape-shifters. They were all but whining and barking.

Well, that can’t be good. Especially when added to everything else that had already happened. It was as if they were reacting to something only their animal senses could detect. Like the way animals fled or panicked before natural disasters.

This just keeps getting better and better.

The teachers and staff who doubled as Squires, and knew about the preternatural students, began to get nervous that the shape-shifters were about to expose themselves to the “baretos” or normal humans who knew nothing about the supernatural world that coexisted with them and attended St. Richard’s. The Squires were all charged with protecting and concealing the identity and existence of the Were-Hunters.

“Attention, students!” Mr. Head said over a bullhorn as he walked down the hallway. “Your teachers will be dividing you into groups for either the cafeteria or the gym until such a time as we have power restored. Please move quickly and quietly to your assigned area.”

Nice. Good way to divide out the student body without the baretos being the wiser. This way if something caused the preters to break into their animal bodies, it wouldn’t freak out or endanger the uninitiated. Or betray the existence of the Were-Hunters.

Unfortunately, because the staff members didn’t know better and had no idea she was actually a corporeal ghost, Kody was placed in the baretos group. Nick, who worked part time as a Squire for an immortal warrior, was sent to the gym with the shape-shifters and the humans who knew about them. It was so aggravating to keep secrets. But as much as the humans thought they knew, there was a lot more to this world than even they suspected.

And no one could ever know who or what Nick really was. Not with the bounty on his head. Even a Squire might be tempted to take a shot at him. There were very few he could trust with that knowledge.