by Annie Bellet
The kids. I suddenly remembered Miranda’s parting words. Oh shit, she was taking the kids. Not only were they my ticket back home, but they were my only way out of the barrier that surrounded the house. Unless they let me out, I’d be stuck here with only that asshole ex-professor to play with. I raced through the doorway to see the car backing out of the driveway, Charles running after it.
I ran too, only to bounce off an invisible wall right next to a hedge and land flat on my butt. The car stopped as it entered the street, Miranda changing gears. No! No, no, no. Getting up, I frantically felt along the barrier, trying to find some weakness I could push through. I’m sure I looked like a psychotic mime.
The car drove past. My eyes met Apollo’s and I saw him mouth something that looked like “thank you”.
Vertigo hit and I staggered. Everything shifted in a blur, and when my eyes focused I no longer saw a hedge before my eyes.
An elderly and significantly out of shape Wonder Woman screamed in my ear, pushing past me as she ran for the door. I was surrounded by chaos – broken decoration, spilled punch bowls, and crushed cookies. I reached down to pick up half of a snickerdoodle and munched on it as I watched.
The grim reaper sidled up to me. “You pee lately?”
That had to have been the strangest question I’d ever been asked. At over nine hundred years old, that’s saying something.
“No. I’ve been kind of busy though.”
He nodded, waving his scythe at the panicked humans. “Everyone is peeing blood. The mayor thinks a terrorist put ground glass in the cookies.”
I regarded the remains of the snickerdoodle in my hands and popped it in my mouth. “Nah. It was the punch.”
Chalk it all up to another successful Halloween. Yes, it was good to be an imp.
Start the Imp Series with Book 1 – A Demon Bound.
Samantha Martin is an imp, enjoying an extended vacation from Hel. All she wants to do is drink beer by the pool, play mischievous pranks on the humans, and get her hot neighbor in the sack. It’s a relaxing break from her infernal home, as long as she manages to avoid the angels, who won’t hesitate to execute her on sight.
But when her naughty hellhound lands her in trouble with the local werewolf pack, Sam is blackmailed into helping track and catch a killer. The steps she must take to appease the werewolves will put her right in the crosshairs of the angels. And with angels, there is no second chance.
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Dog Days of Summer
Hailey Edwards
When a fae boy goes missing, all evidence points to a warg being responsible for the crime. Thierry is called to lead the hunt for the rogue, but the closer she gets to locating the boy, the further she gets from the truth.
CHAPTER ONE
The sun beat down on my head and bare shoulders. I smelled coconut and my skin burning. June was brutal in Texas, and my sunscreen had sweated off hours ago. Thank God. My skin would regenerate on its own, but tell that to Mom and her spray bottle of SPF 100. After this I would need a miniature shovel to unclog my pores. Not to mention a gallon jug or three of ice water to stave off dehydration.
Heat radiated off the sizzling asphalt while I trudged onward down the low shoulder of the road. A horn blasted staccato warnings behind me. I raised my arm, hand waving, and gestured them past.
Honk. Honk. Hoooooonk.
I whirled on the ball of my sneaker, flung out my arms and kept walking backward. “The road’s wide enough for us both.”
Asshole was implied.
A monster of a truck rolled to a stop two car lengths away from me. The driver, a handsome fae with molten copper eyes and mahogany curls, grinned through the windshield before whipping his ride in a squealing circle of burnt rubber. He pulled the behemoth alongside my pathetic self and idled with his gas guzzler facing in the wrong direction. The window rolled down, and frigid air poured out of the cab smelling of bergamot and patchouli. The heady combination of scents made my already weak knees sag, and I stumbled back. The driver flung open his door and lunged in time to catch me before I fell.
Suspended in his arms, I traced the stern curve of his frown. “Nice save.”
“I do what I can.” Shaw drank in the sight of me like he was the thirsty one. “You okay?”
“I’m hot, tired and smelly,” I grumped. “I also have the world’s strongest craving for KFC.”
His laughter rocked me in his arms. “Mable told me you volunteered for the cockatrice case.”
“Volunteered is a strong word for what actually happened.” But as a rookie, pickings were slim.
Until I skimmed the file she put in my hand, I hadn’t known what a cockatrice was, let alone that fae bred them locally. According to the picture I was given, Farmer Brum’s prize bird looked like a cross between a Rhode Island Red rooster and the world’s smallest dragon. Basically a surly chicken with a scaly underbelly and a serpentine tail, sickle claws and, in rare cases, the ability to spit flames.
What the documents hadn’t mentioned was how ungodly ripe cockatrice smelled, but it made tracking the thing easy-peasy.
Shaw’s brow puckered as he scanned the road. “Where’s your car?”
“I left it out at the Brum farm.” The better to stalk my prey.
“Ah. That explains the sunburn.”
“I’ll buy some aloe after I cash in my bounty check.” I tapped him on the chin. “There’s a reward for Ringo’s safe return.”
“Brum wants his Starr breeder back that badly, huh?”
He waited.
I blinked slowly.
His sigh urged me to console him. “There was a joke in there somewhere, wasn’t there?”
“Ringo Starr, as in the drummer for The Beatles?” He shook his head. “How do you not know that?”
“Maybe because I’m eighteen—” I screwed my pointer finger into his chest, “—and not ancient like some people I know.” I stuck my tongue out at him, emphasizing my maturity level.
Faster than I could squeak out a protest, Shaw claimed my mouth with urgency that managed to melt the parts of me unaffected by the sun. When he broke the kiss, he was breathing harder than I was.
“Naughty incubus,” I murmured. “Now is not the time.”
The hungry glint in his eyes said he begged to differ.
“You’re right.” He straightened and set me back on my feet. “I brought reinforcements.”
“Oh?” I leaned to the right and peered past his shoulder. “Do tell.”
Shaw jogged back to his truck, lowered the tailgate and patted it once. Willing to be persuaded, I moseyed over while he climbed into the bed and hauled a cooler large enough to hold a dead body to the edge. The seal broke with a sigh I mirrored as I perched on the tailgate and let my legs swing.
“Catch.” He tossed me a bottle of water slick from the ice bath, and I held it against the stinging base of my neck while he rustled around. “I’ve got twenty-three more friends where he came from.”
“Kinky.” I twisted the lid and drank until I sucked air. “Toss me another.” He did, and I drained it too, but stopped at three before the cramps in my belly got serious. “What brings you out my way?”
The cooler protested when Shaw sat on its top and stretched out his long legs toward me.
“Can’t a guy be worried about his girlfriend and want to check up on her?”
Okay, I admit it. My heart fluttered. Having Shaw call me his girl made me giddy.
“Nice try,” I allowed, “but no. I can see the open case file on your dash from here.”
“Point to you.” He peeled the label from the bottle of water clenched in his fist. “What do you know about cockatrices?”
The use of a stalling tactic made me wonder if this wasn’t some kind of test. He was my training officer after all.
Staring over my shoulder at him cramped my neck, so I turned to face him. “Enough not to look one in the eye.” Holding their stare would kill yo
u. It was all very Medusa-like. I shifted one hip and pulled a shiny compact, the clamshell kind with double mirrors, out of my pocket. “I also brought this in case he tries to flog me.”
“Except that seeing its reflection would kill it,” Shaw interrupted me.
“Leave me to my fantasies.” I was ready to wring its stinky neck barehanded.
His toe nudged my thigh. “I’d like to hear more about these fantasies of yours.”
“Not these you wouldn’t.” I pinched his leg through his jeans. “They involve barbeque sauce.”
The thoughtful tilt of his chin should have concerned me more, but one thing I can say is dating an incubus opens your eyes to an entire world of erotic possibility you never imagined existed. What did it say about me that the application of barbeque sauce in the bedroom intrigued me a teensy bit?
I was born and raised in Texas after all.
“Come on. The truth this time. What brings you out to this fine stretch of unnamed road?” The mile markers had run out about the same time as my enthusiasm for this case. “If you came to tell me chicken jokes, I’ve heard ’em all.” One guy at the office didn’t even bother with a punchline, he just started clucking.
“A favor.” Shaw rubbed his jaw. “Have you met Jim in accounting?”
“Once.” I spun my bottle’s cap on the bed liner. “I paid him a visit because my check was wrong.”
“His middle boy is missing.”
“Oh no.” I slapped a hand over the whirling cap to stop it. “How can I help?”
“Jim’s family lives in one of the new all-fae subdivisions near Monahans. I want you to ride out with me to talk to the family.” He braced his forearms on his thighs. “Missing persons cases are bad, Thierry. People get angry. They get loud. They get violent. And we’re the ones wearing the badges.” His long fingers threaded together. “This is a solid opportunity for you to get your feet wet handling this type of case. Say the word, and I’ll pen your ID number on the tab next to mine. Are you ready for this?”
The offer to assist him was huge, but I had gone big before, and it had almost killed me.
Still. There was the missing kid to think of, so I looked Shaw square in the eye. “Let’s do this.”
CHAPTER TWO
Accounting must pay more than marshaling, because the swanky neighborhood Jim and his wife Marilynn called home rivaled the uber-exclusive gated community where my roommate Mai’s parents lived for opulence. I whistled through my teeth when Shaw parked on the street in front of a gray two-story fauxlonial—a colonial-style house so new I smelled fresh paint when I stepped onto the sidewalk to take a look-see.
Neighborhood watch signs boasting the strongest wards in the business kept me from poking my nose against the glass or checking the backyard where the top of a swing set peeked above the fence.
Once Mrs. Dodd answered the door and the guided tour of her home began, if we got one, we’d lose all hope of glimpsing what the parents might not want us to see. The grim fact was that statistically, when a child went missing, a family member was often to blame.
Shaw joined me in the driveway. “First impressions?”
Baskets of hanging ferns decorated the wraparound front porch. Each hung at an equal distance. Each possessed the same number of fronds. The house looked as perfect as a Photoshopped postcard.
“I chose the wrong profession,” I said at last.
At first I thought he would agree with me, but he shrugged. “Things aren’t always as they seem.”
The sobering reminder of what had brought us here wiped the smile off my face.
“You’re right.” The worst monsters hid in plain sight.
We had swung by my apartment so I could shower and change before he drove us to Monahans. I was grateful for the dress pants and ruffled top I had borrowed from my roomie’s closet. I lived in T-shirts and jeans, but Mai was a shopaholic fashionista who frequented outlet malls. Lucky for me, I got to mooch off her style as long as I tucked all my curves into one of those spandex body shapers.
Pulling on my marshal face, I set to work assessing the area. “It’s quiet for this time of day even if the residents are nocturnal.” Most neighborhoods catered to diurnal or nocturnal fae exclusively so clashing schedules didn’t lead to annoyance, and then to violence. “Jim works the dayshift. If he settled here, then the area is family-friendly, which means parents have locked down their kids.” I considered that. “It’s a natural reaction. A kid disappears, and people worry theirs might get snatched next. Their reaction also makes me think the kid wasn’t the type who wandered. If he had a history of getting into trouble or taking off on his own, they wouldn’t be concerned. This tells me that they’re scared.”
“Good catch about the kids.” He led the charge up a tidy walkway to the door and knocked.
Two heartbeats later a middle-aged woman yanked open the door with watery-eyed expectation.
Her bottom lip trembled. “Do you have news?”
“No, ma’am.” I took point. “I’m Marshal Thierry Thackeray with the Southwestern Conclave.” I gestured toward Shaw. “This is my partner, Marshal Jackson Shaw. We’re here to ask you some follow-up questions, maybe take a look around your son’s room if you don’t mind.”
“Oh. Ah.” She glanced over her shoulder and frowned. “Give me a second.”
Without waiting for an answer, she ducked inside and pushed the door shut behind her. My foot shot out on reflex and prevented the latch from catching. I didn’t do anything as obvious as stick my eye to the gap. Instead I inhaled in short breaths to draw the scents from the house through my nose.
Peanut butter. Strawberry jelly. I sneezed. Dirty diaper.
Tiny footsteps trampled up the stairs. A small voice asked where Daddy was. Mrs. Dodd hushed the child and told the kids to stay in their rooms. The slap of her flip-flops telegraphed her approach.
I straightened my shoulders and wiped the expression from my face.
“I apologize. My toddler was napping on the couch. I didn’t want him to see…” Her voice faded to a sigh. “I sent the kids to their rooms so we can have some quiet. I would rather you didn’t bother them. They’ve been through enough for one day.” As if realizing she had left us standing on the front porch, she glided back. “Come in, please.” She smoothed her brown hair flat. “Can I get you a drink?”
I eased past her with Shaw acting as my shadow. “Thank you, but no.” Eating or drinking after an unfamiliar fae was too dangerous.
After Mrs. Dodd closed the door behind us, she led us into a living room that would have been at home in any doctor’s office in a Dallas high-rise. A smattering of toys in primary colors provided the only accents amid the gray-and-white decor. It humanized the home and made it feel less…artificial.
I had never lived in a brand-new house or owned any fresh-off-the-showroom-floor furniture.
Maybe it required time to cultivate the lived-in look?
“Have a seat.” She ushered us toward a long couch with flat cushions and then dropped into a boxy chair on tiny chrome feet as if her legs couldn’t support her weight another minute. Her bleak gaze drifted toward the stairs, and her forehead pinched. “Can we do this quickly for the kids’ sake?”
“Of course.” I noticed a neat row of sneakers beside the front door. “How many do you have?”
“Four.” She brightened a fraction. “A happy pack is a growing pack, so they say.”
Shaw caught my eye, and I ceded the lead to him with a nod. “Jim is listed as a half-blood on his conclave records, but there was no mention of his breed.” Shaw gifted her with a smile that warmed my cheeks from across the sofa. He wasn’t using his lure to persuade her, but then, he didn’t have to. Most women fell over themselves to please him. “When you say pack, do you mean just your family, or are you part of a larger organization? The Mayhugh pack perhaps?”
Mrs. Dobbs bit her bottom lip. “I don’t know if I ought to say…”
“Do you want your son return
ed to you safely?” Taking on the role of bad cop, I pressed her harder. “If you don’t share this information, then you’re stopping us from doing our job to the best of our ability.”
“Jim is half warg. His mother was human, but his sire ran with the Mayhugh pack. He can’t shift. If you don’t have a second form or can’t wield magic, then you don’t have to register your affiliation.” Her slightly pointed chin jutted out. “I’m full-blooded. Mayhugh was my maiden name. The alpha is my father.”
Oh crap.
CHAPTER THREE
Mrs. Dobbs got quiet after dropping the my dad’s the alpha bomb on top of our heads. What she hoped to accomplish with that revelation—other than to make us sweat—was unclear. Unlike Mrs. Dobbs, I wasn’t as quick to drop names, and I knew some big ones.
My father was the Black Dog of Faerie. One of two things happened when people found that out about me. Either they tried to kill me, or they tried to lever it against me. And it’s not like I went around advertising the fact. Though the hereditary runes stamped into my skin from fingertips to wrist might as well have been a flashing sign with my powers ramped up. The way she declared her affiliation—with no small amount of pride—left me tasting bitterness.
To break the awkward silence cloaking the living room, I rose to my feet with a bland smile.
“We ought to be going.” I smoothed my pants. “I respect your request not to question the kids—at this time—but I want to see the missing boy’s room before we leave.” I tilted my head, replaying our truncated conversation with a frown. “I don’t believe you mentioned—what is the boy’s name?”
“Xander.” Her fingers laced in her lap until her knuckles whitened. “His name is Xander.”
I hadn’t noticed Shaw stand, but Mrs. Dobbs rose stiffly from her chair and guided us through a maze of kids’ playthings up the stairs to the second floor. A door shut before we cleared the landing. Tiny voices whispered behind the first door on the right. Shadows danced in the gap above the floor.
