DAITARI IN THE HUMAN DISTRICT

MALIA

Sneaking the most wanted tiger in Kavros into my apartment had seemed considerably less stupid from inside the tiger kingdom.

In my defense, I had originally planned to come alone.

In Daitari's defense, he had heard that plan, stared at me for several long seconds, and apparently decided I had suffered enough head injuries for one lifetime.

So here we were.

The King and Queen of the  feline kingdom, slipping through the Human District under enough concealment magic to make Fallon proud, all because I needed my weapons, several boxes of personal belongings, and a collection of shiny garbage belonging to a bird who was currently thousands of miles away terrorizing palace staff.

There were probably less dangerous ways to spend an afternoon.

None of them involved Zazu.

The elevator groaned as it dragged us toward the fourth floor, shuddering hard enough between the third and fourth that Daitari's attention snapped toward the ceiling. His body went rigid beside me, and I watched his gaze travel from the flickering fluorescent light to the narrow seam between the metal doors.

He had been suspicious of the elevator from the moment I'd pressed the button downstairs.

Not afraid. Daitari would rather chew off his own arm than admit fear of anything constructed by humans.

Suspicious.

“This is normal,” I said.

The elevator gave another metallic lurch.

His eyes moved to mine.

“Mostly.”

“You lived here?”

“In the elevator?”

His expression flattened.

I smiled sweetly. “Fourth floor.”

The doors opened before he could decide whether strangling his mate violated some ancient tiger custom, and I stepped into the hallway with the strange sensation of walking backward through my own life.

Nothing had changed.

The same ugly runner stretched beneath my boots, patterned in dark green diamonds that had probably been fashionable during someone's grandmother's childhood. The light above apartment 4B still flickered. Mrs. Calloway's ceramic cat remained stationed beside her door, its painted eyes following everyone down the hall with an intensity I had always found vaguely threatening.

For months, I had lived in a palace surrounded by open balconies, carved stone, vines, waterfalls, and enough jungle to swallow half of Kavros without burping.

I'd forgotten how small everything here was.

Daitari hadn't.

He followed close enough that I could feel the heat of him against my back, his shoulders nearly filling the hallway as his attention moved between every door, stairwell, and darkened corner we passed. We had entered the district quietly and taken enough precautions that nobody should have known we were here, but apparently nobody had explained the concept of subtlety to the six-foot-something apex predator stalking behind me like he expected assassins to burst from the laundry room.

I stopped outside my apartment and felt Daitari halt behind me, close enough that his heat settled against my back while his attention immediately dropped to the lock.

“No.”

“I said nothing.”

“You didn’t have to. You’re judging it.”

His gaze lingered on the deadbolt with quiet offense. “It would take very little effort to break.”

“Most burglars aren’t Apex alphas.”

“That does not make it secure.”

I slid the key into the lock and glanced at him over my shoulder. “Most burglars also don’t know the woman inside keeps venom-tipped arrows in her bedroom.”

That earned me a brief pause before his expression eased by a fraction.

“Fair.”

I turned the key, pushed open the door, and stepped inside.

The smell hit first.

Dust. Old wood. The faint stale trace of incense that had somehow survived months without Fallon burning enough of it to summon respiratory failure. Beneath it lingered something familiar that I couldn't name, something woven into the walls after years of late nights, bad decisions, takeout containers, bloodstained clothes, and Zazu throwing seeds into places seeds had no business being.

My hand remained on the doorknob longer than it needed to, and for the first time since we'd entered Kavros, Daitari stopped looking for threats. His attention settled on me instead, quiet and watchful, but he didn't ask what was wrong or try to pull me forward.

I stepped inside on my own.

The apartment looked almost exactly the way I'd left it, which was considerably more unsettling than finding it changed.

Our couch still sagged in the middle. Fallon's old gray sweater remained hooked over one arm, one sleeve brushing the floor. A stack of mail had accumulated on the counter beside the ceramic bowl where we'd thrown our keys, and someone had kept the plants alive with varying degrees of success. The fern by the window had gone brown around the edges and appeared to be surviving entirely out of spite.

Relatable.

I walked farther inside while Daitari closed and locked the door behind us.

My life had become absurdly large since I'd last stood here.

My life had become absurdly large since I'd last stood here, complete with a kingdom, a crown, a mate, and council meetings I still occasionally considered faking my own death to avoid. Somewhere beyond Kavros, thousands of weretigers now called me their queen, and somewhere in the palace Zazu was probably stealing something expensive while nobody had the courage to discipline him because he belonged to me.

Yet my coffee mug was still sitting upside down beside the sink, a stupidly ordinary reminder that the person I'd been hadn't vanished simply because everything else had changed.

Daitari wandered farther into the living room while I stood there absorbing that, his gaze traveling slowly over the apartment before settling on the kitchen, which could comfortably fit approximately one and a half people provided neither required personal space. I recognized the judgment on his face immediately.

“Don't.”

“I have not spoken.”

“Your face is being rude.”

His mouth twitched, which only confirmed my suspicions.

“This apartment was expensive,” I informed him.

“I believe you.”

“No, you don't.”

“I believe humans charged you an unreasonable amount for it.”

I narrowed my eyes at him, but that was close enough to agreement that I let it go and abandoned him to his architectural judgment while I crossed toward the enclosure beside the windows.

Zazu's former kingdom occupied nearly the entire corner, with branches crossing between perches, ropes hanging from the upper frame, and the little hammock Fallon had bought him after insisting birds enjoyed comfort too. The hammock had lasted three days before he'd chewed through one side and then screamed until she repaired it.

I opened the lower compartment and crouched.

There it was.

“Found it.”

Daitari approached behind me as I pulled out the first shallow wooden box. The contents rattled when I set it on the floor, revealing years of evidence that my bird was a kleptomaniac.

Coins. Bottle caps. Bits of colored glass. Jewelry. Buttons. A silver teaspoon. Two charms. Something that might once have belonged to a watch.

Daitari crouched beside me and picked up the spoon, turning it between his fingers with the solemn consideration of a man examining an artifact of great cultural significance.

“He kept this?”

“He loved that spoon.”

“Why?”

“It reflected his face.”

Daitari considered that for a moment before carefully placing it into the canvas bag I'd brought, apparently deciding vanity was a perfectly reasonable explanation for sentimental attachment.

I continued sorting through the rest, keeping anything I remembered Zazu being particularly attached to while setting aside the things that probably belonged to actual people. A brass button disappeared into the bag, followed by three bottle caps and the piece of green glass he'd carried around for almost a year, but when my fingers closed around a silver hoop with a tiny blue stone, I stopped.

I knew that earring.

“Oh, you little shit.”

Daitari glanced over, and I held it up between two fingers. “Kae spent two weeks accusing Fallon of losing this after a hunt.”

“You knew the bird had it?”

“I know now.”

I considered setting it aside before dropping it back into the box. If Kae ever found out, I would deal with that problem when it became violently relevant.

Daitari watched me do it. “You intend to return it?”

“Eventually.”

His eyebrow lifted.

“Don't judge me. Your treasury contains things stolen by dead kings.”

“They were conquered.”

“Fancy stealing.”

A low sound left him that might have been a laugh, and I reached for another handful of Zazu's ill-gotten treasures before realizing Daitari had gone completely still beside me.

I'd learned the difference between tension and that particular stillness. Tension meant he was wary; this meant every predatory instinct he possessed had abruptly focused on something I hadn't noticed yet.

The warmth beside me disappeared as he rose, his attention fixed on the front door while his head angled slightly and his nostrils flared. I straightened, but when I opened my mouth to ask what he'd heard, one lifted hand silenced me.

A few seconds passed before I caught it too: footsteps in the hallway, two distinct sets moving steadily toward my apartment rather than wandering past.

Daitari moved before I could reach for my bracelet, stepping between me and the entrance as the man who had been crouching on my floor contemplating a bird's favorite spoon disappeared beneath the king who had survived assassination attempts, wars, and enough political enemies to populate a small country. His shoulders squared as amber began bleeding through his eyes.

“Two females,” he murmured.

The footsteps stopped outside my door.

Well, that was inconvenient.

Nobody was supposed to know the Tiger King and Queen had entered the Human District. As far as Kavros was concerned, Daitari and I were safely tucked away behind tiger borders, where most sane people preferred us. Discovery here wouldn't merely cause questions. It could become an international incident before dinner.

Daitari reached back and closed his hand around my wrist, drawing me behind him without taking his attention from the door. I looked down at his fingers before lifting my gaze to the back of his head.

“We have discussed this.”

“Stay behind me.”

There were times when arguing with Daitari was deeply satisfying, but with two unknown people standing outside an apartment nobody was supposed to know we were inside, survival suggested postponing it.

Three quick knocks struck the door.

My irritation vanished.

I knew that knock.

“Malia?”

My stomach dropped as Daitari glanced back at me, but I could only stare at the door. There were voices a person forgot with time, and then there were voices attached to too many nights spent bleeding together to ever truly leave your head.

Kae.

Before I could process hearing her again, another familiar voice carried from farther down the hall.

“Her car isn't here.”

Brenna.

Fuck.

The last time I'd spoken to them, Fallon had been missing and I'd been driving toward alpha territory alone while both women tried to convince me I was being suicidal. They'd been right, of course. I'd simply been too busy being suicidal to appreciate it.

Worse, I'd told them that if I wasn't back by morning, they should escalate. Morning had come without me, followed by considerably more mornings than any of us had planned for.

Daitari turned toward me. “You know them.”

“They're huntresses.”

His grip tightened around my wrist, and I sighed before adding the part that wasn't going to improve his mood.

“They're also my friends.”

It did absolutely nothing to improve his expression.

Another knock rattled the door, and I slipped out from behind him.

“Malia.”

“They won't expose us.”

“You cannot know that.”

“I do.”

His jaw tightened, but after a moment he released me and stepped aside. I unlocked the door to find Kae standing on the other side with Brenna beside her, and for several long seconds, none of us seemed to know what to do now that we'd found one another again.

Kae looked older somehow, although not enough time had passed for that to make sense. Her dark hair was pulled away from her face, and a pale scar disappeared beneath the sleeve covering the arm a cougar had nearly torn apart, while Brenna stood half a step behind her, healthy and upright, faint constellations glowing beneath the skin along her collarbone.

Seeing them alive and whole loosened something beneath my ribs that I hadn't realized was still clenched.

Kae's lips parted. “Malia?”

There was enough disbelief in my name to make me feel like a ghost, and all I managed was a quiet, “Hey.”

Her face crumpled for half a second before she stepped toward me, but whatever reunion had been about to happen died when her gaze shifted over my shoulder.

I didn't have to turn around. The familiar warmth gathering at my back told me Daitari had followed, and I watched the last of the relief disappear from Kae's face as she recognized him. Brenna saw him a heartbeat later, the faint constellations beneath her skin brightening until blue-white light spilled across her collarbone.

Relief became recognition, and recognition became something considerably more homicidal.

Kae's hand moved toward her hip.

A growl rolled out of Daitari behind me, and I closed my eyes for one brief, deeply tired moment.

Of course.

When I opened them again, Kae was staring directly at him.

“You.”

Her weapon cleared its glamour in a wash of electric light as Daitari shifted his weight behind me. Beside Kae, celestial magic ignited beneath Brenna's skin and spread down both arms until blue-white light washed through the hallway.

I considered intervening.

Then I remembered Kae unconscious on my apartment floor with blood running through her hair, Brenna screaming while a lion beta dug through her magic, and Fallon disappearing while the two women in front of me begged me not to drive into alpha territory alone.

They had earned this too.

I stepped aside and leaned against the doorframe.

Daitari's gaze snapped to mine. “Malia.”

“You earned this.”

His expression became almost impressively offended, but Kae didn't give him time to argue.

She crossed the threshold with one glowing baton already spinning, the glamour falling away from its twin as she snapped them apart and sent a ribbon of electric light whipping between them. Daitari avoided the first strike and caught her wrist on the second, making the unfortunate decision to look almost bored while doing it.

Kae smiled.

Instead of fighting his grip, she released the weapon. The glowing baton dropped beneath his arm and swung around on its tether, forcing him to let her go before it clipped the back of his head. Kae caught it neatly on the return and twisted away while Brenna slipped through the doorway behind her, quietly shutting the door before joining the fight.

At least someone remembered we were supposed to be sneaking around.

Daitari barely had time to turn before blue-white light spread across my ceiling. Brenna lifted one hand, brilliant points appearing in the air around him as thin celestial lines connected them into a constellation, then curled her fingers inward.

The entire formation collapsed around him.

Luminous bands wrapped around Daitari's arms and chest, jerking his shoulders backward and pinning his arms against his sides. He tested the magic once before looking toward Brenna, and the irritation on his face gave way to genuine surprise.

I couldn't help grinning. Apparently Brenna had picked up a few new tricks while I'd been gone.

Kae didn't waste the opening. She ducked beneath one of the celestial bands and drove the heel of her hand into Daitari's jaw hard enough to turn his head, then hit him again before he had fully looked back at her.

“That one was for my arm.”

His gaze flicked to the pale scar disappearing beneath her sleeve, which gave her just enough time to hit him a third time.

“That was for Fallon.”

When she drew back for another, Daitari caught her fist in his palm.

“I assume there are more.”

“Several.”

A laugh escaped me before I could stop it, drawing his attention across the room.

“What?” I asked.

Daitari's expression suggested I would be answering for that later, and with one violent flex of his shoulders, Brenna's celestial bindings shattered around him in a burst of blue-white light.

Brenna staggered as sparks scattered across the apartment, while Kae immediately retreated before Daitari could catch her. She didn't get far. His hand closed around the glowing tether between her weapons, and one sharp pull dragged her backward, but Brenna recovered quickly enough to flick two fingers toward the floor.

A celestial band snapped around Daitari's ankle and wrenched his leg sideways, his foot striking the tile hard enough to crack it beneath his weight. Kae used the opening without hesitation, planting one foot against the couch and launching herself back at him.

My smile disappeared as soon as I recognized what they were doing. Brenna hadn't simply restrained him; she'd put him exactly where Kae needed him.

Kae twisted at the last second, and the blade skimmed Daitari's cheek before she landed several feet away. A thin line of blood appeared beneath his eye, and for one remarkable second, the entire apartment went still.

Daitari touched the cut, then stared at the blood on his fingertips as though the possibility of Kae actually reaching him hadn't occurred to him. When his eyes lifted to mine, I bit the inside of my cheek and tried very hard to arrange my face into something appropriate for the situation.

I failed.

The smile slipped out anyway, and the look Daitari gave me promised consequences later, although considering the particular direction his consequences tended to take these days, that wasn't much of a deterrent.

Kae came at him again, but this time Daitari was finished indulging her. He caught one baton before it reached him and yanked hard enough to pull her off balance, intercepting her around the waist as she stumbled forward. Kae twisted violently in his grip, but he simply turned and deposited her onto my couch with enough force to make the cushions bounce beneath her.

The indignation on her face almost killed me.

Brenna was considerably less amused. Her magic flared until celestial light washed across the apartment and turned the windows blue, another constellation forming around Daitari before contracting sharply enough to bend his knees beneath the pressure. Glowing bands wrapped around his arms while Kae rolled off the couch, reclaimed her weapon, and came up ready to fight.

This time, they moved together.

Brenna forced him left, and Kae was already waiting for him. Daitari avoided her blade, only for another celestial line to catch his shoulder and wrench him backward, putting him directly into the path of Kae's next strike. She changed direction without so much as glancing at Brenna, sweeping low at the exact moment another band of magic locked around his leg.

I straightened as I realized what I was watching.

The last time I'd fought beside them, we'd all been competent enough to survive through skill, instinct, and Fallon's ability to keep the rest of us from doing anything catastrophically stupid. Somewhere in the months since Fallon and I disappeared, Brenna and Kae had learned each other's movements well enough that neither needed to look for the other anymore.

They'd become a team, and a damn good one.

Daitari apparently reached the same conclusion. He broke Brenna's bindings with a violent flex of his shoulders, sending blue-white magic exploding across the room, then caught Kae's next strike before it reached his ribs. This time, when his fingers closed around her weapon, claws had begun to lengthen from their tips.

There it was, the exact moment the tiger stopped finding any of this educational.

I pushed away from the doorframe as Kae twisted free and swung again. Daitari avoided the strike, but Brenna caught his arm with another celestial band, and the growl that rolled through the apartment vibrated deep enough to settle in my chest. Amber swallowed the last of his eyes as his claws extended fully.

All right, they'd had their fun.

I summoned my bow, the familiar weight settling into my hand as Kae lunged and Daitari turned toward her. Before either of them could make the next move considerably more permanent, I drew and released.

The arrow buried itself in the wall between them with enough force to leave the shaft trembling.

Everyone froze.

Kae's gaze shifted to the arrow beside her shoulder, while Brenna's celestial magic remained suspended around her hands and Daitari slowly turned his head toward me. I lowered my bow and looked between the three of them.

“Okay. Therapy session's over.”

Kae was breathing hard, a strand of hair stuck to her cheek, but enough of the fury had finally burned out of her expression that I no longer expected her to immediately resume trying to murder my husband. Brenna seemed to reach the same conclusion, because she lowered her hands and let the remaining celestial magic fade until the apartment returned to its usual considerably less glowing state.

“I feel better,” Brenna said.

Kae rolled one shoulder. “I don't.”

“You made a list.”

“It was long.”

Daitari's claws were still extended, so I looked pointedly at his hands until he followed my gaze. After a moment of what I suspected was serious internal disagreement with himself, the claws slowly retracted.

Good husband.

Kae watched the exchange, and something in her expression shifted as her gaze moved between us. She didn't exactly soften, because Kae wasn't built for sudden emotional breakthroughs, but some of the remaining hostility eased as she seemed to understand that whatever had happened after I disappeared, I wasn't standing beside Daitari because I had to.

For a few seconds after Brenna's magic faded, nobody seemed to know what to do with the quiet.

Then Kae looked at me properly, no longer paying attention to the bow fading from my hand or the irritated Tiger King bleeding onto my living-room floor. Her gaze moved slowly over my face as though she were searching for something she'd expected to find there, and whatever she saw made the last of her anger falter.

“You never came back.”

There it was.

I glanced toward Brenna. The magic around her had disappeared, although the constellations beneath her skin still glowed softly, and the hurt on her face landed considerably harder than anything either of them had thrown at Daitari.

“I know.” I swallowed. “I'm sorry.”

Kae looked away. “We thought you were dead.”

“I know that too.”

There wasn't a clever answer that could make any of it better. I'd left them injured and terrified, driven straight toward the people responsible, and told them what to do if I didn't return by morning. At the time, going alone had seemed perfectly logical; standing in front of them months later and seeing what my disappearance had done to them, I was beginning to appreciate why everyone found my decision-making exhausting.

I crossed the room and wrapped my arms around Kae. She stiffened for half a second before crushing me against her hard enough to make my ribs complain, and Brenna joined us a moment later, her cheek pressing against my temple as something tight inside me finally loosened.

They were here and alive, and somehow, so was I. Apparently we'd all become annoyingly difficult to kill.

When we finally separated, I looked between them. “You two okay?”

Brenna glanced at Kae before nodding. “Better than we were.”

There was more behind the answer, but I didn't need all of it tonight. The scars told me enough, as did the way they'd moved together against Daitari. Whatever had happened after Fallon and I disappeared, they hadn't stopped living.

Kae wiped beneath one eye before immediately looking toward Daitari as though the moisture was somehow his fault. “I still hate him.”

“That seems healthy.”

Daitari's jaw tightened, but before he could contribute anything likely to restart the fight, Kae turned back to me.

“So what happens now?” Her gaze wandered around the apartment, taking in the boxes and everything I was preparing to carry away. “You disappear back into tiger country and we hear from you when you're eighty?”

“No.” I glanced toward Daitari. “You can visit.”

That got his attention.

I ignored him.

Brenna raised a brow. “Visit where?”

“The palace.”

The silence that followed lasted just long enough for Kae to slowly turn toward Daitari, whose expression had gone very still.

“You are not serious,” Daitari said.

“I'm queen.”

“I am aware.”

“Then you're aware I can invite whoever I please.”

Brenna's mouth curved as she glanced between us, apparently delighted by this new information. “Do guests get rooms?”

“Of course.”

“Weapons?”

“No,” Daitari answered before I could.

Kae smiled at him. “We'll discuss it when we arrive.”

Something in my husband's expression suggested he was beginning to understand that marrying me had come with considerably more baggage than the boxes scattered around my apartment. I took his hand before he could contribute anything unhelpful and tugged him toward them.

“Good. Now that everyone has processed their feelings through attempted homicide, you can help me pack.”

Kae didn't move. Instead, her gaze dropped to our joined hands before returning to my face. “Wait. Are you actually his queen?”

“Unfortunately, the title is legally binding.”

Daitari looked down at me. “Unfortunately?”

“Focus. You're still on probation.”

Kae's attention bounced between us before something else apparently occurred to her. “You married him?”

“There were extenuating circumstances.”

“She proposed,” Daitari said, with entirely too much satisfaction.

I turned on him. “Whose side are you on?”

“Mine.”

Brenna covered her mouth, although not quickly enough to hide her smile, while Kae stared at me as though this particular betrayal required more processing than my becoming queen.

“You proposed to the tiger?”

Brenna gave me a long, assessing look. “You disappeared for a few months and came back with a husband and a government.”

“When you say it like that, it sounds irresponsible.”

“Is there another way to say it?”

I looked at the three of them, decided there was absolutely no recovering my dignity, and pointed toward the boxes. “Can we pack now?”

It turned out three huntresses and one deeply offended Apex alpha could empty an apartment remarkably quickly. Brenna took over the kitchen while Kae helped me dismantle what remained of Zazu's enclosure, and Daitari carried the heavier boxes without being asked, although I suspected that had less to do with helpfulness and more to do with his refusal to watch anyone struggle with something he could lift one-handed.

I was stuffing Zazu's remaining treasures into his bag when Kae reached past me, only to stop with her hand hovering over the box. A second later, she slowly lifted the silver hoop with the tiny blue stone between two fingers.

“Is this my fucking earring?”

I considered lying, but one look at her face suggested that particular survival strategy had very poor odds.

“In Zazu's defense, it is very shiny.”

“I was wearing it when it disappeared.”

That complicated his defense considerably.

I held out my hand. “I'll return it to the accused for questioning.”

Kae shoved the earring into her pocket instead, apparently deciding the justice system could not be trusted. Across the room, Daitari made the mistake of looking amused, and when Kae noticed the thin pink line already replacing the cut she'd left across his cheek, her expression became so deeply satisfied that I decided not to interfere with whatever strange little rivalry had just been born.

Daitari returned his attention to the open weapons case beside him and lifted one of my old daggers, testing its weight in his palm.

“This is poorly balanced.”

“Put it down.”

“The grip is too light.”

Brenna glanced over from the box she was packing. “That knife went through a revenant's eye.”

Daitari examined it again with considerably more interest.

“And a vampire's hand,” Kae added.

“He was being grabby,” I said.

Brenna nodded solemnly. “Very grabby.”

After another moment of consideration, Daitari quietly returned the dagger to its case.

Kae watched him do it before glancing toward Brenna. “I hate that this somehow makes sense.”

The corner of Daitari's mouth curved.

Brenna caught it and made a disgusted sound. “Great. Now he knows.”

Somewhere between dismantling Zazu's former kingdom, arguing over which weapons were apparently beneath royal standards, and reclaiming property from a bird who wasn't even present to defend himself, the apartment steadily stopped looking like the place I'd once lived.

By the time we sealed the last box, Fallon's sweater had disappeared into my things, my remaining weapons were packed, and Zazu's criminal empire had been reduced to one canvas bag, minus the property successfully reclaimed by its rightful owner.

I lingered in the doorway while the others began carrying everything into the hall, looking back into rooms that seemed smaller now that they were nearly empty. Maybe they had always been that small, and I simply hadn't noticed until I'd learned what it felt like to live somewhere larger.

I'd lived an entire life here with Fallon and Zazu, surrounded by weapons, bad coffee, worse decisions, and people who had somehow become family while none of us were paying attention. I'd left one night expecting to come back, but I never had.

Strangely, closing the door didn't feel like losing anything. Fallon had moved on, Zazu had moved on, and somewhere along the way, so had I. Even Brenna and Kae had kept living without either of us, becoming stronger and finding their own way forward while I'd been building a life somewhere else.

I took one last look at the apartment before pulling the door shut and locking it behind me.

Daitari waited beside the elevator with two boxes stacked beneath one arm, while Brenna and Kae stood several feet away with the wary tolerance of women who had agreed not to murder my husband but had made absolutely no promises about liking him.

The elevator arrived with its usual unhappy groan, and the doors slid open. Daitari stared into the little metal box with enough suspicion that Kae followed his gaze before looking at me.

“Is he scared of the elevator?”

His attention snapped toward her as I stepped inside and pressed the button for the lobby.

“Terrified.”

Kae's eyes lit up. “Oh my gods. He actually hates it.”

“Kae.”

“The Tiger King is scared of an elevator.”

Daitari looked down at her. “I am reconsidering my promise not to kill your friends.”

I smiled at him from inside the elevator. “You lasted almost an hour.”

“Forty-three minutes.”

Daitari entered behind me and set the boxes at his feet before sliding an arm around my waist, pulling me against his side as the elevator doors began to close.

“Careful, mate.”

The warning warmed against my ear, and I smiled as the narrowing gap swallowed the last glimpse of my old hallway.

Brenna snorted. “Do you want me to hold your hand?”

Daitari stared down at her, but her expression remained so perfectly sincere that I buried my face against his chest before he could see me laughing.

“I dislike your friends,” he muttered.

“They're growing on you.”

“They are not.”

Kae leaned against the wall beside Brenna, looking entirely too pleased with herself. “Give it time.”

The elevator chose that moment to lurch beneath us, and Daitari's arm tightened instinctively around my waist.

Brenna immediately held out her hand.

He stared at it like she'd offered him poison, while she somehow maintained a perfectly straight face.

I couldn't.

My laughter finally escaped against his chest as Kae started laughing beside me, and for the first time since I'd stepped back into the Human District, the strange ache of returning here disappeared completely.

Gods, I'd missed these idiots.