Clenching down on a rage that wouldn’t ease, she had washed him gently and wrapped him in a towel, and together they had shared the snack of boiled eggs Maggie had offered to tide them over until the pub started serving supper.

At least he didn’t have fleas. Sophie had been surprised at that.

He had gulped down without chewing the pieces of egg she had fed him and growled at her when she stopped. “You quit that,” she said in a firm voice. “It’s not okay to growl at me. I don’t want you to throw up again. You can have more food soon, I promise.”

At that, he had stopped growling, almost as if he understood her, and curled into a tight ball on the old narrow bed. Intense weariness dragged her down beside him. Unable to fight off the black tide that took her, she closed her eyes.

She had only meant to rest for a few minutes, not fall asleep. Now jet lag would keep her up through the night.

The horrific dream still clung to her, like sticky black cobwebs in her face and hair, and her heart raced. Just another thing to add to her what the fuck list. Rubbing her face, she sat, turned on the bedside light, and looked down at her unexpected companion. She didn’t know how to cut a dog’s hair, and he looked pretty bad, a small bundle of ragged hair and bones. At least the mats were gone.

She washed her face and hands at the small basin in one corner of the room, then walked over to gently touch the dog’s shoulder. “Time to wake up, kiddo.”

He growled without opening his eyes.

“Hey!” she said sharply. “No growling! Do you want supper or not?”

At that, he snapped upright and looked at her alertly. Again, almost as if he understood her.

She frowned at him. What the hell, maybe the dog did understand her. She had seen a lot of strange things in her life, both inhuman creatures and events that logic alone couldn’t fully explain.

“And you need to go outside so you don’t have an accident in this nice place,” she told him, then sighed. “And tomorrow we’ll start looking for a good home for you, with someone who will love and take care of you.”

At that, the dog let out the cutest little whimper and, tail wagging, came across the bed to stand his forelegs against her hip as he nudged her hand.

Stroking his round head and thin, silken ears, she scowled against the sneaky melting in her heart and muttered, “Suck-up.”

Scooping him under one arm, she left her room, locked the door, and pocketed the key in the back of her jeans. As she headed down the narrow, steep staircase, she told him, “I’ll look after you, and I promise, I’ll make sure you’re okay. But you’ve got to understand something—I don’t live the kind of lifestyle that’s good for a dog. Do you hear me? I’m not good for you. I’m too mobile, and I’m not just an asshole magnet. I’m a weirdo magnet. Weird things happen to me all the time.”

Kind of like the dog itself. And that rope tied around his neck. That rope hadn’t just been weird. It had been evil.

As she told the dog all the reasons why she couldn’t keep him, she reached the ground floor. The pub had several public rooms, and the staircase let out into the game room toward the back, where a dwarf and a human male were smoking, drinking pints, and throwing darts.

She raised her eyebrows at the smoke, pretty sure the two were breaking the law from the articles she had read about the UK in preparation for her trip, while the two males watched her with unbridled curiosity.

Giving them a nod, she strode to the front room. She was starving again, and a classic pub supper of fish and chips or shepherd’s pie sounded heavenly. It probably wasn’t the healthiest thing to feed the dog, but any calories right now had to be good calories for him. A diet of proper dog food could start tomorrow.

As she stepped across the threshold into the front room, the dog started making noise, a cross between a growl and a high whine. Staring down at it in puzzlement, at first she didn’t take in the details of who populated the room.

Then she felt a male presence so heavy with Power it felt like a thunderclap.

Lifting her head, she found the male sitting by the large picture window near the front door. He wore biker’s leathers and was as big as she remembered, this saber-toothed tiger of a man, only now his face wasn’t obscured by the blank, featureless helmet.

She took in the sharp eyes that were at odds with his relaxed demeanor, and the strong features that carried a rough sort of handsomeness. While she was usually good at spotting and identifying those of the Elder Races, she couldn’t place his heritage. But whatever he was, he wasn’t human.

He was looking right at her or, more accurately, at the dog under her arm. He recognized the dog, and clearly, the dog recognized him.

Leisurely the male came to his feet.

A heavy dose of adrenaline dumped into her veins. Bitching under her breath for letting herself get caught unawares—like the magic fucking rope didn’t give you enough of a massive fucking clue to make sure you had your shit together, Sophie—she backed out of the doorway, turned and strode rapidly toward the back.

Her limbs shook. There was too much fight or flight going on for her system to absorb.

Just as it had been when she’d watched the gun swing toward her, and she looked down the wrong end of the barrel as the shooter had taken aim.

She’d reached for the shadows to pull them around her, but she’d been too late for that trick to work. He had already laid eyes on her… and she’d heard a flat tat-tat-tat and felt the individual blows to her body, but by then Rodrigo had dived into the room, his own gun firing.