Page 7 of Moody as a Minotaur

At least I figured they must be wealthy, because a graduate degree focused on the occult wouldn’t be the fastest route to financial stability.

I grunted because he appeared to be waiting for my reaction.

Finley leaned forward and dropped his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “But seriously, I don’t believe in all that stuff. Preternatural creatures? What a laugh, am I right? But don’t let our YouTube followers know.”

He forced out a weird little laugh that made me think he was lying, but about what?

He winked and combed his fingers through his brown hair.Again. How many times did he do that in a day? I wanted to slap his hand down, and I’d only met him a few minutes earlier. He really needed to get a haircut, although maybe I shouldn’t be too judgmental about that. I needed a haircut too. No. On second thought—or was it my third?—I was okay with judging him. He was a hunter, after all.

I didn’t know what he saw on my face, but his grin widened, suggesting he was trying to be charming.

I was not charmed.

“What’s taking so long? Kyle is about to piss his pants. I knew we should have taken that two-liter bottle of pop away from him when we left the city,” a young woman, who couldn’t have been more than a few years older than Finley, said as she marched into the reception area.

She’d yanked open the door so forcefully the bell was still jangling when she got to the counter beside her friend. She wore a tan jacket and camo pants with lots of pockets, like human hunters dressed when they went after wild game. I guess she’d decided hunting supes was the same. After all, hunters never saw us as allies or equals. They only saw us as somethingother. The urge to shift and ram these people with my horns until they left Willow Lake damn near overwhelmed me.

But that was a surefire way to get more eyes on me and my community.

Her dark hair was back in a ponytail. If I’d met her before I found out she was a paranormal investigator, I might have found her attractive, for a human woman. But now I was fixated on the bulge in her pocket. Was it a hunting knife? Would she rip open a supe to find out how we differed from regular humans? Had she tied her hair back so it wouldn’t get caught in the gore? I knew from experience that hunters came in all shapes and sizes. And the pretty ones or the handsome ones could sometimes be meaner than the rest.

My heart was ready to stampede right out of my chest,and I prayed to the Eternal Magic herself for my face not to give anything away.

“We’re almost done, Tammy,” Finley said. “I was just telling—What was your name again?”

I didn’t want to say. I didn’t want these people to know anything about me. At all. But what else could I do? “Levi.”

“Levi,” Finley repeated back to me with a smile, like he liked my name.

I frowned at him.

“Anyway,” he turned to his friend. “I was telling Levi here about our YouTube channel. It scared him a little, I think. I remember what it was like, hearing about this stuff for the first time.” He stared off to a point over my shoulder like he was remembering the moment as we spoke. “Wild stuff. But I reassured him there’s nothing to worry about. Right, Tammy?”

Tammy eyed me curiously.Fuck, fuck, fuck. Had she identified me as a supe? “Have you been anywhere around here where you feel uncomfortable? Where your skin tingles? Where you feel like prey?”

I shook my head and tried to swallow down my fear. I felt damn uncomfortable and prey-like right now, but I doubted that was what she meant. No, she was talking about how humans often felt uncomfortable around a lot of supes. And her knowing that told me she knew a thing or two about supes. But how much? That was the question. Finley suggested they’d never encountered anything magical. Had he been lying?

“Nothing at all?” She leaned forward. “You sure?”

“I can’t think of anything…”

“Quit terrorizing the guy, Tam. He’s obviously uncomfortable with what we do. I’m trying to put him at ease, and you come in and act all suspicious.” Finley smiled like he thought this was funny. “Can’t take her anywhere.”

I didn’t smile, and neither did Tammy. Her gaze slid over my body, at least as much as she could see with the counter between us. Then she nodded sharply and turned her attention to Fin like she’d decided I was safe. AKA not a supe. AKA mundane. AKA not nano-seconds away from dying of a heart attack because a hunter stared me in the eye.

My eyes twitched with the urge to look down and check that the protection rune tattooed on my chest, right above where my magic lived inside me, wasn’t visible through my shirt. But I knew it wasn’t. That was just my insecurities talking. Still, I couldn’t stop myself from rubbing it, as if I could feel the pattern of the ink embedded in my skin.

“You don’t need anything more from me, do you?” Finley asked.

“Uh.” I swallowed hard as I glanced down at the paperwork. I couldn’t think of a single reason to turn them away, not when I’d already told him the motel had rooms for them to rent.

“Nope. I guess we’re all done.” I reluctantly set the keys on the counter, reminding myself as I did it that the best way to survive a chance encounter with a hunter was to pretend to be human like them.

“For real? These are actual keys,” Finley said, scooping them up from the countertop.

People always remarked on the keys. I should move to keycards at some point—if only to blend in with current expectations—but the keys worked fine. And I liked the way they looked. I liked the little rhythm of their teeth and notches. I could tell you which key belonged to each room just by looking at its blade. So why should I change something if it still worked? Most people these days fixated too much on technology.

Except, standing out was never advisable. For any reason. Not with hunters around.