“Oh, I’m listening. I’m just going to get some champagne.”

Erin shook her head. “She’s not listening.”

Chloe glanced down at the girl. “We’ll deal with all this tomorrow.” She stepped over the snoring new girl. “You guys get her back to bed. I want watchers in the trees until the sun comes up.”

“I doubt the Killers will be back,” Tessa noted.

“Let’s not take a chance. Like their god, they are none too bright.”

“Leigh. Annalisa.” Tessa pointed at the new girl. “Take the kid upstairs.”

“Sure that’s a good idea?” Erin asked.

“You want us to let her sleep on the stairs? These stairs are hard marble.”

“No.” Erin moved in close to her team leader. “You know what will happen if we take responsibility for her. She’ll be part of our team.”

“So?”

Erin pointed at the new girl’s tattoo. Tessa glanced down and repeated, “Donnie.”

“Not that tattoo. The other one. She’s an ex-marine. You know what that means.”

“That she’ll be kind of a pain in the ass?”

Erin smiled. “Exactly.”

CHAPTER TWO

He didn’t even hesitate. He just turned on her, that big kitchen knife in his hand.

But she’d always been kind of fast and managed to stop him before he could plunge the weapon in her heart.

But she couldn’t stop him. He was so strong.

All the skills she’d picked up. All the training provided by the U.S. government didn’t mean shit in this dark alley behind her job at the coffee shop.

She fought, but she just wasn’t strong enough.

She heard a deep voice cry out, “No!” but it was too late.

The blade rammed into her chest, past skin and flesh and bone. And right into her—

The door slammed open and Kera sat up, desperately trying to get the sleep out of her eyes, the panic of knowing she was dying still raging through her veins.

When her sight was no longer blurry, she watched the Asian woman she’d met last night stand on Kera’s bed, open the window over the headboard, lean out, and scream, “You are an asshole!”

Kera put her hands to her head and asked the air, “What’s happening?”

Three other women, casually dressed in shorts and T-shirts or bathing suits, rushed into the room—a different room, she’d just realized, from the one she’d woken up in last night—and desperately tried to pry the Asian woman from the window. But she wasn’t having any of that.

“Asshole! Asshole! Asshole!”

“Chloe!” a female voice yelled from outside. “Go inside! I’ll handle this.”

“Asshole!”

“I am trying to help you!” a male voice yelled back.

“Help us? By accusing us of being thieves? That’s you being helpful?”

“Maybe if you stopped being an emotional twat—”

“Twat?” the little Asian exploded.

Kera scrambled off the bed to avoid the flailing arms and heaving bodies. She took a quick look around and found a big T-shirt to cover her nakedness.

She yanked it on, and that’s when she realized Brodie was gone.

“Brodie?” she called out. “Brodie?”

Kera left the room—and the yelling—and walked into the hallway. She stopped right outside her room and gazed at a hole in the wall that she realized she’d put there. She glanced at the room across the hall. There was no longer a door on that room, and Kera knew that was because of her.

Deciding to focus on her dog and nothing else at the moment, Kera quickly walked down the hallway until she reached the circular area with the two sets of marbled stairs.

“Oh, you’re up,” a yawning voice said from behind her.

Kera looked over her shoulder at the woman standing in an open doorway, scratching her dark red hair. She wore tiny white shorts and an even tinier white tank top that really made all the bruises on her pale body stand out.

She yawned again and said, “I thought you’d be asleep long—”

“Asshole!”

They both glanced down toward Kera’s new room, then back at each other.

“Well . . . since you’re up now and it doesn’t seem like—”

“Asshole! Asshole! Asshole!” the Asian woman chanted as she marched out of Kera’s room with the other three women behind her. But the “asshole” must have said something, because she spun around and charged back into the room, and the screaming started all over again.

“That’s Chloe,” the redhead said. “She’s in charge.”

Kera frowned. “In charge of what?”

“Us.”

“I find that disturbing. And sad.” Kera pushed her hands in her hair. “So, this isn’t—”

“Let me answer all your questions for you right off the bat,” she cut in. “No, this isn’t a dream. Yes, you died. Yes, you were brought back by a Nordic goddess. Yes, you’re one of us. No, you’re not pure evil. Did I cover it all?”

“Actually, I was just going to say this isn’t a very well-organized group . . . but okay.”

The redhead frowned. “Organized? We’re Crows.”

Kera shrugged. “I don’t know what that means.”

“You will.”

“What happened to me? Why am I here?”