Liam and I had been meeting in the woods in the afternoons, avoiding the realm for now. Instead, he’d been helping me practice releasing my thoughts, allowing me to more easily sense my magic—when it was running low and I needed to rest, when I’d taken too much and needed to dispel it, how to balance my emotions and fears, how to redirect negative energy.
After each session, I’d spend an hour or two journaling in my book of shadows, feeding and nurturing it with my questions, my answers, my observations. The act of writing was a direct connection from my heart to my hand to the page, and with every word I shared, I felt our bond deepening.
The strange, unfamiliar handwriting that had appeared so feverishly the other night had vanished, though I was no closer to answering its insistent question:
What are the consequences of messing with a demon’s soul?
Still, I’d left those pages blank. Even without the glowing blue words, the question still haunted me, waking me at night, slipping into the quiet hours before the dawn, whispering in my head.
I longed to talk to Asher about it, but that would require, well, talking to Asher. Obviously, that wasn’t happening.
Alone in the house for an entire blissful hour this evening, I was stretched out on the couch recording the details of today’s session with Liam when Emilio finally returned.
He’d just come home from a twelve-hour stint at the police station, and his face was as grim as I’d ever seen it.
“Where’s the demonic duo?” he asked.
“I think they’re out back working on Asher’s bike. What’s going on?”
“Round ‘em up and put on the coffee. I need to grab a quick shower, but then I’ve got some news.”
I closed my book and sat up fast. “About the vamp attack?”
“No. The hunter.” Emilio removed his badge and gun and headed down the hall toward his room, calling out one last directive. “On second thought, forget the coffee. We’re gonna need the hard stuff tonight.”
Twenty-One
EMILIO
Asher, Ronan, Gray, and I gathered around the dining room table with a bottle of whiskey and last night’s leftover veggie pizza, all three of them fidgeting in their chairs as they awaited the news.
I cleared my throat and sucked in a deep breath, picking up on too many scents at once—motor oil and metal from the guys, the tang of the alcohol, onions and garlic overpowering everything else on the pizza, and beneath all of that, the sharp, bright scent of Gray’s fear.
I didn’t blame her for being scared. Nothing about this situation was comfortable or reassuring, and I was about to make things worse in a lot of ways.
But the now-familiar steel in her eyes shone through anyway, and I couldn’t help but feel a little proud of her—of how far she’d come.
“Well. Let’s have it,” she said, pouring herself the first shot of whiskey, then passing the bottle to Ronan. “Whatever it is, we’ll figure out how to deal with it.”
“Always do,” Ronan said, pouring his shot and passing the whiskey to Asher.
Classy as ever, the incubus took a swig right from the bottle before handing it to me, then he dove right into the pizza as if he hadn’t eaten in a month.
Filling my glass to the brim, I said, “This week has been an absolute shitshow in the Bay. It seems the brawl outside Black Ruby set off a chain reaction of supernatural crimes across the city. Fights, vandalism, arson, you name it. I had to call in a favor and bring in some rookie shifters from Driscol Island PD to help with the caseload, and we’re still neck deep. Between that and keeping the human cops out of our hair…”
I trailed off, taking a good swallow of whiskey before continuing.
“Point is,” I said, “my tech guy finished isolating the security cam footage from Haley’s block the night you guys were jumped. It’s grainy as hell, but we got the make, model, and a partial plate on the van the suspects used.”
“They’re not suspects,” Gray said. “They’re perpetrators. We know they did it.”
“Sorry,querida. Old habits.” I sipped my whiskey, then continued. “With some help from a contact at the DMV, we were able to get the full plate and ID the vehicle’s owner. Forty-nine-year-old named William Landes out in Raven’s Cape. Human, as far as we could tell.”
“Raven’s Cape… That’s on the coast, right?” Gray asked.
“Small community just about spitting distance from the shoreline,” I confirmed. “Lots of cliffs and caverns out there, so if that’s indeed where the hunter is holed up, it jives with your vision.”
“Did you talk to this Landes guy?” Ronan asked. “Is he a hunter, too? Or just some asshole looking to make a quick buck?”
