The Summer King Bundle 3 Stories - Jennifer L. Armentrout Page 0,40

my keys and shoved them into the back pocket of my jeans. I pulled my peacoat from a hook and shoved my arms through it. The last thing I put on was the iron cuff. That was a just-in-case thing. I started for the door and then stopped, pulling out a gray basket. I snatched up an iron stake and placed it into the pocket of my jacket. That was another just in case.

I slipped out the side door and, after making sure it was locked behind me, I turned around and halted.

An odd feeling crept along the nape of my neck as I stared at the narrow pathway that connected the front yard to the courtyard out back. Tiny bumps rose all along my body as I shivered, not from the cold but from… from the feeling of being watched.

I walked to the end of the porch and saw no one in the courtyard or anywhere near the house. My gaze flicked to the house next door. All the curtains were in place. Coming back to the side door, I checked yet again that it was locked and then made my way to the front of the house.

As I stepped off the porch and walked toward the front yard, I told myself it was just my imagination, but I couldn’t shake the eerie sensation.

Couldn’t shake it at all.

* * * *

Emerald green beads whizzed through the air as the drunken college-aged guy in a one-piece hot pink bathing suit twirled in the middle of Bourbon Street, his white sneakers pounding off the pavement. The suit was cut high along the hips and the front was nothing more than two panels of cloth held together by a jeweled clasp. It was not the kind of bathing suit made to wear when someone actually planned on swimming.

Or made to wear on a chilly March evening.

The man spun, winging another strand of beads into the night as the crowd cheered him on. The back of the suit showed more of the man’s ass than it covered, but I had to say, it was a nice ass.

Mardi Gras had ended over a month ago, so I really had no idea what this dude was doing with the beads and the bathing suit. But it was Friday night in the French Quarter, so I knew I was going to see far weirder crap before the night was over.

Leaning against the brick wall of The Swamp, I sipped my ginger ale as someone shrieked happily from the courtyard behind me. Raucous laughter followed, and I figured someone had gotten thrown from the mechanical bull.

One of these days I imagined that bull was going to snap and pitch a person head first through a window.

Grinning at that because I was a terrible person, I took another sip of the carbonated goodness as I scanned the packed streets, looking for people that weren’t quite… people. I reached into the pocket of my lightly lined cotton peacoat, feeling a sharp trill curl down my spine as my fingers brushed over the warm, slim piece of metal.

There was an eight-inch iron stake in my pocket and I was so not afraid to use it.

I couldn’t help but wonder what I would be thinking if I had been out here two years ago. I wanted to be doing this, but I didn’t have the lady balls. Not only would the Order members have laughed like deranged hyenas, I would’ve laughed… and had a minor panic attack simultaneously, because I’m a good multitasker like that.

Now I was more than capable of patrolling for the Order, but they didn’t know that and if they did, it wouldn’t matter. Just look at how they’d treated me today. Even if they saw me in action, it wouldn’t change their views.

In their eyes, I wasn’t the same as them and I’d never be ready to take to the streets. Not at my age. It was so ridiculous, considering the Order had been nearly decimated.

I drew in a shaky breath and it got hung up on the knot that had formed in my throat as my gaze swiveled back to the mayhem in the middle of the street.

The guy in the hot pink bathing suit had no idea how close the world had come to chaos. None of the people partying in the streets, laughing, drinking, and shouting knew that so many people—people I missed with every breath I took—had their lives brutally ended in an