Bennett - Milly Taiden Page 0,6

badasses. It just made him feel bad about himself.

Yeah, and so what? What else was new?

His phone pinged with a notification, and he pulled it out from his pocket to check the note. It was from Vance, one of his best friends.

Let’s trash Gray’s place with an epic battle of Wars of Sorcerers tonight.

With a smile, Bennett gave him the address.

If there was one thing Ben could count on, it was his WOS crew. They were all as socially inept as him.

He would just have to make sure he kept the colossal secret that not only was their old buddy a Chad, but a shapeshifter.

Maybe Bennett was the one who was losing his mind.

Jury was still out on that one.

Chapter Five

Dakota

Man alive. Who could even afford a place like that?

Dakota blew out a whistle.

It was an enormous house. It was beautiful, but there was no way she would ever want to clean it all. It would take two weeks and a half to get everything done, that was for sure.

She should know. She had spent a few months as a cleaning lady, and she knew for a fact that people who owned houses like that were not the nicest. Nor were they the cleanest. She had some pretty gruesome horror stories that still gave her nightmares. She really felt bad for the cleaning staff that would have to keep all of those windows clean.

Her stint as a cleaner had been short-lived because she had decided to get back at one of the homeowners for his constant habit of leaving used condoms on the bedroom floor.

Dakota had decided to leave them there. Her thought process was clear. If you can roll the damn thing on, you have the capability to put it in the trash like a decent human being. She had been fired by the cleaning company that day because of her insubordination. Or maybe it was because shad had called the client a cum-bucket.

Her boss had waited for her to finish cleaning all of the windows before letting her go. All twenty-seven thousand of them.

Talk about cruel and unusual punishment.

Keeping her eyes on the mansion, Dakota sniffed the air. She knew the couple who owned the house were shifters, but there was another smell lingering in the air. It made her mouth water, and her heart thump animatedly in her chest.

Dakota grabbed her overnight bag from the trunk before making her way up the few steps. Nick had given her a key and all of the security codes for the house. She knew she had to change them as soon as possible for security reasons. She had been instructed to change them once a day, preferably around noon. She would do that, just as soon as she met her client. It wouldn’t do well to start changing things without at least making herself known first.

The man she would be protecting didn’t own the house. He was working for the owner, in a basement lab. Dakota didn’t understand why she had to play babysitter, but she was hopeful. It meant it would be an easy gig. A breezy seven days that would result in permanent employment was all she could hope for.

“Hello?” she called as she closed the front door behind her.

The alarm system was blaring annoyingly at her, and she quickly punched in the code to make the atrocious sound stop.

“Hello?” she tried again, but there was more silence.

Seriously?

Who wouldn’t be thoroughly bothered by the high-pitched tone of the alarm? She knew that with her shifter hearing, all of the sounds were heightened, but that didn’t mean humans were immune to security noises that were meant to announce an intruder.

Her client was clearly off his rocker if he hadn’t heard her coming it.

“Hello?” That was the last greeting she called out before giving up.

With Nick’s instructions in hand, she made her way down the hall and dropped her bag in the guest bedroom that had been reserved for her. There was more than one apparently, though Dakota hadn’t bothered to look at the one which was marked for her. She was more concerned that she would run into her client, and be taken for an intruder. The last thing she needed was for the cops to be called.

She sighed and decided that the best course of action would be to walk down to the basement lab. It was the only place the man could be since she hadn’t seen him on either of the main floors. With sure, quick