His shoulders crept toward his ears. “Maybe?” It was an honest answer, but apparently not the one they wanted to hear. The energy in the room grew palpable: wariness, concern, worry tipping toward panic.
His hands trembled with the urge to shift, so he fisted them. “Was I not supposed to?”
“No!” The angel set the plate on the counter and whirled toward him. “Are you okay? Tell me how you feel. What’s different?”
“I feel…” He sensed her panic, the brunette’s worry, the man’s confusion. As for himself? “I don’t know.”
The man rose and carried his bowl to the counter, setting it next to the empty plate. “The cake was here, next to my dish. I assumed you set it out for Pete.”
“Oh, dear.” The angel wrung her hands. “That was meant for a demon. I don’t know what it will do to him.”
“Oh, dear, indeed.” The man arched a brow at Pete. “Are you okay,mon ami?”
“I don’t…” His gaze darted from the man to the brunette to the angel. “Who are you people?”
“I’m Jane.” The brunette approached him with slow, cautious steps. “This is Gaston and Destiny. You know that, right? You met us twenty minutes ago.”
No, he did not. He’d never seen these strangers in his life. At least…he didn’t think he had. His brain was fuzzier than his tail at the moment.
Jane took another step toward him, and he shot to his feet. “What did you do to me? Why am I here?” Where else should he be?
“Oh, sweet spirits. This is bad.” Destiny’s voice drew his gaze to her. Something about her presence calmed him, called to him…to his rabbit. But what was an angel doing colluding with vampires?
“What’s the last thing you remember?” she asked.
“I don’t know. I…” He racked his brain, trying his damnedest to conjure a memory, finding nothing but a blank slate. A rabbit hole leading to a bottomless pit. “I can’t remember anything.”
“Do you know who you are?” she asked.
He glanced at Jane and Gaston before returning his gaze to hers. “I assume my name is Pete, since that’s what you’re calling me.”
“Dude, you’re the Easter Bunny,” Jane said.
A maniacal laugh rolled up from his chest. “Yeah, right. And you’re the Tooth Fairy. And I suppose that’s Santa Claus.” He waved a hand at Gaston.
His body hummed with the need to shift. These people were more than a few eggs short of a dozen. They looked at each other with strange expressions and scrunched their brows at him.
“What’s going on?” he asked. “What did you do to me?”
“Destiny,” Jane said, “I think we know how your cake affects the fae now.”
The fae? Was this some kind of sick joke? He was a rabbit shifter, not a fae, and definitely not the fluffing Easter Bunny.
The angel buried her face in her hands and took a deep breath before tilting her head toward the ceiling. “Good gracious. I gave the Easter Bunny amnesia.”
“You’re insane. All of you. Stop calling me that.” He shuddered, every hair on his body standing on end, his skin threatening to sprout fur.
“Pete,” Destiny took a step toward him. “It’s who you are.”
Something about the way she said it made him want to believe it was true, but he shook his head, chasing away the feeling. She was an angel. Who knew what kind of power she had over people’s minds. She’d obviously blanked his. Or maybe the vampires had.
“No.” He backed toward the door. “Whatever this is, I want no part of it. I’m out.”
He shoved the door open, shifted into his rabbit form, and darted away. Where he should go, he had no clue, but anywhere was better than there.
* * *
Destiny’s mouth hung open as the door slowly swung back, the click of the latch sounding so final, her wings nearly molted right there in the shop. They might as well have. Her halo could have clattered on the floor for all it mattered.
