“Fuck,” he muttered.

“You have a vampire wrapped around your little pixie-dusted finger, is what you have,” Barb muttered over him, then shouted, “Shotgun!”

Yuri looked to the sky.

“No way! You get to drive to KFC!” Aurora shouted back.

Perhaps he was demented, having run across a witch he did not detect had spelled him insane, which meant he’d found an adorable, petite, but lushly beautiful witch attractive enough to put up with her annoying mother and her own frustrating, but effective, games.

“Battle it out amongst yourselves, but when the car is in gear, it’s moving. So whoever isn’t in it gets to spend the night with Sula,” Yuri declared as he moved around the hood of the car.

He was about to open his door when he heard one shut and looked across the roof.

Barb was gone, presumably in the front seat.

He presumed this because Aurora was standing at the door to the back, her eyes on him.

“You have a beautiful laugh,” she called softly.

What he had was the hope she liked getting a spanking.

Because she’d earned one.

And she was going to get one.

He didn’t share that.

Instead, he said, “Thank you, my sweet.”

She sent him a soft smile, then folded in the back of his car.

He folded in the front and reluctantly headed them toward what would eventually be a dinner of Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Chapter Eighteen

I Got Skills

Delilah

“Everyone in the compound has been quarantined,” Gregor stated as all the members of The Three sat around the table in the conservatory, listening to him. “Stephanie has begun her interrogations with the human staff.” He turned his eyes to Lucien, then to Callum. “Rooms have been set up for the both of you, Ryon, Cosmo, Calder, and Caleb, so you all, as well, can start working to find the traitor, or traitors, as the case may be.”

“Uh,” I cut in hesitantly, having zero experience with interrogation tactics but still thinking they had a sure thing and should use him. “Wouldn’t it go a lot faster if Abel just mind-controlled everyone to spill their secrets until he found the bad guys, or gals, as, erm, the case may be?”

Gregor blinked at me.

“I mean,” I cautiously went on, “he could get them to ’fess up, then he could get them to keep doing their dastardly deeds, except we’d control what they’re doing and saying.”

“Seems a good plan to me,” Abel muttered.

I looked to him to see him grinning at the table, but I felt his hand come out and curl around mine.

“I apologize,” Gregor said, and I turned my eyes to him. “I’m unused to having someone with Abel’s extraordinary skills available for such tasks. You’re correct, Lilah, that would likely make things go a great deal faster, not to mention put us in an advantageous position.”