21 Shades of Night, page 279
“The drive to protect you was so strong I knew I would do anything to keep you both from harm.”
Tears of joy and gratitude pooled in her eyes. “Oh, Mason.” She fought to keep her voice steady. “I love you, so.”
“Aye. I love you, too.” He wiped a teardrop that slid down her cheek. “No tears, okay?”
She took a deep breath. “No tears.”
“You’ve distracted me from my ulterior motive.”
“Which is?”
He pulled her closer and his erection pressed against her thigh. “Convincing you to stay here a little longer.” After kissing her lips, he added, “What I was about to tell you was how I liked waking up and seeing you. Much better than seeing my brothers. Have you seen how ugly they are in stone?” He donned a serious expression before his mouth spread into a wide grin.
“I’ve seen you in stone, too.” She raised her eyebrows and smiled.
“Then I feel sorry for you,” he teased. “Falling for an ugly piece of rock.”
“I love you in every form.” She ran her fingers through his black hair. “But you’re much more enticing in the flesh.” She moved her hand down his back and over his buttocks. Moving to the front, she traced the contours of his smooth chest before moving down and stroking his stiff rod. “And parts of you are just as hard as when you’re stone.”
Mason rolled her onto her back and climbed on top of her, teasing her opening with his cock. “Want to feel just how hard you get me?”
Her body responded almost immediately. She wrapped her arms around his waist and pulled him closer. “Aye.”
Brushing his lips over her neck, he moved to her breasts, kissing them while he used his fingers to explore her wet folds. Then he moved his head down, down—she held her breath—wondering, waiting for more.
“You’ll have to wait.” His mouth was before her sex and his warm breath made her tingle. “Because I’m hungry for you.”
“Oh?” Her voice caught in her throat. She tilted her head back, barely catching the movement of fluttering leaves as her anticipation soared. She couldn’t wait much longer.
His hot mouth was on her and she forgot all else.
After they made love, they rolled onto their sides, facing each other as they caught their breath.
“I’d love to wake up this way every morning.”
Kayla would like nothing more, but there was still the question as to where they would go. Were they still leaving the Isle of Stone? “Where would we live?”
“Right here.”
“In the copse?”
“We could build a house in the trees.” Mason pointed to the green canopy above them. “And a platform for me to rest in stone.”
She smiled. “Symbolic, isn’t it?”
“How so?” He propped up on his forearm.
“A neutral area between the lands. Bridging them together.”
Mason pulled her close and gave her a deep, scorching kiss, one that left them both breathless. “The perfect spot, indeed.”
* * *
Continue the Highland Gargoyles series in in book two,
Knights of Stone: Lachlan.
https://www.amazon.com/Knights-Stone-gargoyle-Highland-Gargoyles-ebook/dp/B0194DQYN0
www.lisacarlislebooks.com
* * *
Newsletter
Sign up for new releases and specials at www.lisacarlislebooks.com
* * *
About the Author
Lisa Carlisle is a USA Today Bestselling author of romance and suspense. She loves stories with dark, brooding heroes and independent, caring heroines. Her travels have provided her with inspiration for various settings in her novels. She worked in Okinawa, Japan, backpacked alone through Europe, and spent time as an au pair in Paris before returning to the U.S. Now she lives in New England with her husband, two children, two kittens, and many fish.
Read More from Lisa Carlisle
www.amazon.com/author/lisacarlisle
www.lisacarlislebooks.com
Sign up for more bargain boxed sets at:
www.hotboxedbooks.com
JUMP TO...
BENEATH THE BROKEN MOON by SARAH MÄKELÄ
CLOSE LIAISONS by ANNA ZAIRES
TAKEN BY THE BEAST by KRESSLEY & HAMILTON
NIGHT HAWK by J.E. TAYLOR
ROOK by JC ANDRIJESKI
THE LOST QUEEN by ANGEL LAWSON
A PRESCRIPTION FOR DELIRIUM by NOREE COSPER
REAPER by K. DE LONG
PURGATORY by SUSAN STEC
FORBIDDEN LOVE by TERRY SPEAR
THE WOLF, THE WITCH, AND THE WASTELAND by JACQUELINE SWEET
KNIGHTS OF STONE: MASON by LISA CARLISLE
HUNTER UNDONE by EDEN ASHE
SOUL TIES by LJ SWALLOW
WOLF IN EXILE by AMBER ELLA MONROE
AWAKENED by LAXMI HARIHARAN
HIGHLANDER’S KISS by JOANNE WADSWORTH
THE WATCHER’S DAUGHTER by CJ FLYNN
DARK WINGS by SKYLA MADI
DESIRING DEATH by C.P. MANDARA
WITCH OF THE CARDS by CATHERINE STINE
HUNTER UNDONE
BY EDEN ASHE
Copyright © 2016 Eden Ashe
Choosing him could cost her everything.
A psychic gypsy. A demon hunter living in the shadows.
Tyler Wade’s entire life revolves around hunting down and killing the things that go bump in the night.
Shay Evernight embraces everything Tyler fights against. She talks to ghosts, she has terrifying visions of his future, and she’s determined to help Tyler's mother. His long-dead mother.
When the truth of his mother’s disappearance comes to light, demons start popping up around town, and Shay’s visions get more terrifying. Can two people who have spent their lives in the shadows of their secrets come into the light together a war clouds gather?
Hunter Undone © copyright 2016 Eden Ashe
Copyright notice: All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Warning: the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.
Cover by Fiona Jayde
Chapter 1
TWENTY YEARS AFTER clawing his way out, Tyler Wade was crawling back inside the belly of the beast.
In the passenger seat next to him, Malia lowered her bare feet from his dashboard and sat up straighter, pushing her sunglasses to the top of her head.
“This is it? This is the hellmouth you’ve been avoiding for two decades?” She lowered her window and peered at the quaint Michigan lakeside town. “It looks like a forgotten Gilmore Girls set.”
“I don’t know what that means.” Pulling his truck to a stop at one of the town’s three stoplights and leaned forward, deliberately ignoring the people on the sidewalk staring at them. The sun was setting, which didn’t give him and Malia much time to get their shit done and get the hell out of dodge.
Malia twisted in her seat to look behind them, before shaking her head. “Everyone’s waving at us. That can’t be normal.”
“Like I said. Hellmouth.” Sighing, reached over her to open the glove box, pulling out a piece of pink folded paper and his handgun. He shoved the note into his front pocket and the weapon into the waist of his jeans at his lower back. Popping his door open, he lifted his brow at her. “You know what you’re doing?”
She blew a bubble before shoving her feet into flowered—for fuck’s sake—combat boots. “Of course. Sweet talk the case file off the record’s clerk.”
She hopped out of his truck and bounced around it until she was next to him on the sidewalk. Thanks to the sheer amount of energy in her, he’d developed an eye twitch two months into their working together. Four years later, he accepted the twitch was here to stay.
She planted her hands on her hips and looked up at him. “You sure you want to open this particular can of worms?”
Hell-fucking-no he wasn’t sure. He didn’t like a goddamn thing about this, but the note in his pocket may as well have have been an anchor for the difficulty it caused him. It had been three months since he’d first seen it, and it had been weighing him down since.
Tyler,
My name is Shay. You don’t know me, but you need my help. I live in a town called Willow Springs, Michigan. I was recently…contacted by a deceased woman who says she’s your mother. She said you’re too stubborn to find peace until you solve her murder, so you need to come home. She has made me promise to help you.
P.S. Just so you know I’m not cracked, because she is certain you will think I am, she said to tell you that Wilfred is buried underneath the back porch steps. He’s still there, waiting for you.
P.S.S. I am really hoping that Wilfred isn’t a dead dog or cat or something. Or a person. Because deal’s off, then.
Shay Evernight
For three months, the name had convinced him the woman was just off-her-rocker bonkers. He didn’t even care how she knew about Wilfred. And then, in the end, it was the name that had driven him crazy with doubt. The Evernight family were crackpots, had been for centuries. But that knowledge didn’t make that one little niggle of doubt that continued to gnaw at his brain every day go away. He didn’t have time for this shit. While the authorities had searched for his mother, and the other women who’d gone missing around the same time, they’d never found anything to indicate her death.
The annoying cracking of Malia’s gum brought him back. He sighed in frustration. She was capable enough, but four years into their partnership her irritating quirks still made him want to lock her in a closet somewhere until she finally—fucking finally-ran out of words.
With a shake of his head, he turned and headed in the other direction. “Jail is that way. I’ll meet you back here in an hour.”
He made it twenty feet before a little, gnarled old lady with a pouf of lilac-colored hair stepped in his path and crossed her arms over her chest.
Before he could move around her, she lifted her cane and nailed him in the gut with it. “I don’t know you.”
Obviously. He lifted a brow. But while he’d been raised and living in fighter mode for the last twenty years, he still had an ingrained sense of respect for his elders. Mostly.
“No, ma’am,” he said, “you don’t.” He nodded his head and took a step around her. “Have a nice day.” When she simply moved with him, blocking his escape, he sighed. “Can I help you?”
Her wrinkled brow furrowed as she continued to study him.
“Welcome to Willow Creek.” She shook her head. For a moment, he worried the sheer amount of hair on the top of her head was going to break her neck with the movement, but she didn’t seem fazed by it. “Can I help you?”
Deciding not to point out that he’d just asked her the same thing, he started to tell her no, and then thought better of it. Because she was here, there was no point in dicking around. He wanted to get the hell out of this town before he got sucked back in. So he nodded instead. “I’m looking for Shay Evernight. Do you know where I could find her?”
The friendly look disappeared, and she narrowed her eyes at him. Her spine snapped as straight as her old bones would allow, putting her at a full four-and-a-half feet tall.
“I don’t know you,” she said again.
She had to be fucking with him. He crossed his arms over his chest. Fuck, he hated this town. “No, ma’am.”
She canted her head and sized him up.
“In that case,” she said, nodding once, so firmly he was a little afraid the motion would turn her brain to mush, “I don’t know where she is.”
He lowered his head toward her. “Are you sure?”
“Wait a minute.” Her cloudy blue eyes studied him. “Are you sure I don’t know you? You look familiar all of a sudden, and I never forget a face.”
“I’m sure, ma’am. Shay?”
Her brows drew together. It took her a moment before she finally scowled at him and stepped back, pointing toward the end of the downtown area. “You could try the…”
She moved in closer and peered up at him. Realization sparked in her eyes.
He caught the faintest hint of baby powder and roses.
“And you say you’re looking for Shay?” she asked.
For the love of bacon. “Yes, but I’m not—“
She cut him off by batting at the air. “Yes, she’s definitely in the body shop. Try there.”
Before he could figure out why she was being so helpful when her eyes were full of mistrust, she glared up at him before she turned and walked away, her head held high.
Swearing under his breath, he jogged across traffic—what the town considered traffic, at least—and headed toward the body shop he’d passed on the way in. He played what he knew of the Evernight family in his head. Phoenix Evernight, now in her eighties, was a ‘psychic,’ in the most absurd form of the word. Convinced as a child that she had magic powers, she’d never outgrown that belief, and still flaunted her abilities. Raven Evernight, her daughter, rumored to have been a black magic witch, had been the town’s one murder casualty, while her daughter, Shay, was an enigma. He’d found nothing on her outside of school transcripts, a credit report, and an arrest record longer than his arm.
None of which made sense. She’d gotten straight As in school, apparently brilliant enough to graduate at sixteen with honors, her credit report was flawless with not even a single contested doctor bill on it, and despite the mile-long rap sheet, he couldn’t find record of a single charge ever being brought against her. He didn’t understand how a woman who got arrested on what looked like a monthly basis for disorderly conduct and assaulting an officer never spent more than an afternoon in jail.
It didn’t matter, really. The woman had been raised by her bat-shit crazy grandmother, and after reading the charges that had been brought against her mother before her murder, which were pretty freaky, he expected nothing other than a flamboyant, obnoxious shrew of a woman.
Who was not in the town’s only body shop. Not that he was surprised. But with nowhere else to look, he stepped up to the counter, anyway. “I’m looking for Shay Evernight. I was told she’d be here.”
Young, with the name “Garret” sewn onto the breast of his dirty gray coveralls, the kid at the desk gaped at him. “Someone sent you here? To look for Shay?” He grinned. “Yeah, man, I don’t think that’s ever happened. Shay being here, I mean.”
Gritting his teeth, Tyler braced his arms on the Formica countertop. “Do you know where I could find her?”
Garret’s smile disappeared, suspicion darkening his freckled face. “Who’s asking?”
Tyler decided to go a different route this time and forced himself to smile. “A friend.”
“Nah, I don’t believe you.” The kid said it easily, like Tyler’s six foot five frame, which put him a good eight inches over the brat, meant nothing to him. “You said a nosy woman with purple hair and blue eyes sent you here?”
Tyler’s jaw started to ache from clenching his teeth. “I did not say she was nosy, but yes. Short. Gray-purple hair. Blue eyes.”
The kid shrugged, and then offered him a smile. “Okay, then, if Celia sent you here, I’d check her grandmother’s place. She’s probably there.”
Tyler studied him for a moment, before he raised a brow. “You’re messing with me, aren’t you?”
“Nope.”
“Fine.” He didn’t believe the kid for a heartbeat, but having her grandmother’s address couldn’t hurt. “Where does Phoenix live?”
“Go to the south edge of town. If you hit the river, you’ve gone too far.”
That was helpful. “Yeah, thanks, kid.”
Garret grinned at him. “No problem, man.”
Tyler shot him an irritated look on his way out the door. He had no doubt this Shay chick was anywhere in this town but at her grandmother’s. It wasn’t even in him to be amused by their obvious loyalty to the woman. He was here because she’d contacted him, not to make her life hell.
On his way out of the body shop, he pulled out his phone and did an address search for the grandmother. It was at least a place to get information. In his experience, most grandparents lived to talk about their grandkids, and he was hoping Phoenix Evernight wouldn’t be an exception. His grandparents were, but that was its own story.
“Do I know you?”
He staggered to a stop at the soft, feminine voice that came from directly in front of him. Not in the mood for any more games, he looked up from the cell phone, a sneer already tugging at his mouth.
He almost didn’t see her. A good foot and a half shorter than him, she stood in the middle of the sidewalk, oblivious to the pedestrians that dwarfed her.
Gypsy was the first word that came to his mind. A thick mass of pure black hair was pushed off her face, tamed by a sapphire hair scarf. A bright purple tank top clung to her like skin and showed off a hint of flat, toned belly, and the olive green skirt sat dangerously low on the gentle flare of her hips and covered her feet, except for the blue-tipped toes that peeked out.
Tears of joy and gratitude pooled in her eyes. “Oh, Mason.” She fought to keep her voice steady. “I love you, so.”
“Aye. I love you, too.” He wiped a teardrop that slid down her cheek. “No tears, okay?”
She took a deep breath. “No tears.”
“You’ve distracted me from my ulterior motive.”
“Which is?”
He pulled her closer and his erection pressed against her thigh. “Convincing you to stay here a little longer.” After kissing her lips, he added, “What I was about to tell you was how I liked waking up and seeing you. Much better than seeing my brothers. Have you seen how ugly they are in stone?” He donned a serious expression before his mouth spread into a wide grin.
“I’ve seen you in stone, too.” She raised her eyebrows and smiled.
“Then I feel sorry for you,” he teased. “Falling for an ugly piece of rock.”
“I love you in every form.” She ran her fingers through his black hair. “But you’re much more enticing in the flesh.” She moved her hand down his back and over his buttocks. Moving to the front, she traced the contours of his smooth chest before moving down and stroking his stiff rod. “And parts of you are just as hard as when you’re stone.”
Mason rolled her onto her back and climbed on top of her, teasing her opening with his cock. “Want to feel just how hard you get me?”
Her body responded almost immediately. She wrapped her arms around his waist and pulled him closer. “Aye.”
Brushing his lips over her neck, he moved to her breasts, kissing them while he used his fingers to explore her wet folds. Then he moved his head down, down—she held her breath—wondering, waiting for more.
“You’ll have to wait.” His mouth was before her sex and his warm breath made her tingle. “Because I’m hungry for you.”
“Oh?” Her voice caught in her throat. She tilted her head back, barely catching the movement of fluttering leaves as her anticipation soared. She couldn’t wait much longer.
His hot mouth was on her and she forgot all else.
After they made love, they rolled onto their sides, facing each other as they caught their breath.
“I’d love to wake up this way every morning.”
Kayla would like nothing more, but there was still the question as to where they would go. Were they still leaving the Isle of Stone? “Where would we live?”
“Right here.”
“In the copse?”
“We could build a house in the trees.” Mason pointed to the green canopy above them. “And a platform for me to rest in stone.”
She smiled. “Symbolic, isn’t it?”
“How so?” He propped up on his forearm.
“A neutral area between the lands. Bridging them together.”
Mason pulled her close and gave her a deep, scorching kiss, one that left them both breathless. “The perfect spot, indeed.”
* * *
Continue the Highland Gargoyles series in in book two,
Knights of Stone: Lachlan.
https://www.amazon.com/Knights-Stone-gargoyle-Highland-Gargoyles-ebook/dp/B0194DQYN0
www.lisacarlislebooks.com
* * *
Newsletter
Sign up for new releases and specials at www.lisacarlislebooks.com
* * *
About the Author
Lisa Carlisle is a USA Today Bestselling author of romance and suspense. She loves stories with dark, brooding heroes and independent, caring heroines. Her travels have provided her with inspiration for various settings in her novels. She worked in Okinawa, Japan, backpacked alone through Europe, and spent time as an au pair in Paris before returning to the U.S. Now she lives in New England with her husband, two children, two kittens, and many fish.
Read More from Lisa Carlisle
www.amazon.com/author/lisacarlisle
www.lisacarlislebooks.com
Sign up for more bargain boxed sets at:
www.hotboxedbooks.com
JUMP TO...
BENEATH THE BROKEN MOON by SARAH MÄKELÄ
CLOSE LIAISONS by ANNA ZAIRES
TAKEN BY THE BEAST by KRESSLEY & HAMILTON
NIGHT HAWK by J.E. TAYLOR
ROOK by JC ANDRIJESKI
THE LOST QUEEN by ANGEL LAWSON
A PRESCRIPTION FOR DELIRIUM by NOREE COSPER
REAPER by K. DE LONG
PURGATORY by SUSAN STEC
FORBIDDEN LOVE by TERRY SPEAR
THE WOLF, THE WITCH, AND THE WASTELAND by JACQUELINE SWEET
KNIGHTS OF STONE: MASON by LISA CARLISLE
HUNTER UNDONE by EDEN ASHE
SOUL TIES by LJ SWALLOW
WOLF IN EXILE by AMBER ELLA MONROE
AWAKENED by LAXMI HARIHARAN
HIGHLANDER’S KISS by JOANNE WADSWORTH
THE WATCHER’S DAUGHTER by CJ FLYNN
DARK WINGS by SKYLA MADI
DESIRING DEATH by C.P. MANDARA
WITCH OF THE CARDS by CATHERINE STINE
HUNTER UNDONE
BY EDEN ASHE
Copyright © 2016 Eden Ashe
Choosing him could cost her everything.
A psychic gypsy. A demon hunter living in the shadows.
Tyler Wade’s entire life revolves around hunting down and killing the things that go bump in the night.
Shay Evernight embraces everything Tyler fights against. She talks to ghosts, she has terrifying visions of his future, and she’s determined to help Tyler's mother. His long-dead mother.
When the truth of his mother’s disappearance comes to light, demons start popping up around town, and Shay’s visions get more terrifying. Can two people who have spent their lives in the shadows of their secrets come into the light together a war clouds gather?
Hunter Undone © copyright 2016 Eden Ashe
Copyright notice: All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Warning: the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.
Cover by Fiona Jayde
Chapter 1
TWENTY YEARS AFTER clawing his way out, Tyler Wade was crawling back inside the belly of the beast.
In the passenger seat next to him, Malia lowered her bare feet from his dashboard and sat up straighter, pushing her sunglasses to the top of her head.
“This is it? This is the hellmouth you’ve been avoiding for two decades?” She lowered her window and peered at the quaint Michigan lakeside town. “It looks like a forgotten Gilmore Girls set.”
“I don’t know what that means.” Pulling his truck to a stop at one of the town’s three stoplights and leaned forward, deliberately ignoring the people on the sidewalk staring at them. The sun was setting, which didn’t give him and Malia much time to get their shit done and get the hell out of dodge.
Malia twisted in her seat to look behind them, before shaking her head. “Everyone’s waving at us. That can’t be normal.”
“Like I said. Hellmouth.” Sighing, reached over her to open the glove box, pulling out a piece of pink folded paper and his handgun. He shoved the note into his front pocket and the weapon into the waist of his jeans at his lower back. Popping his door open, he lifted his brow at her. “You know what you’re doing?”
She blew a bubble before shoving her feet into flowered—for fuck’s sake—combat boots. “Of course. Sweet talk the case file off the record’s clerk.”
She hopped out of his truck and bounced around it until she was next to him on the sidewalk. Thanks to the sheer amount of energy in her, he’d developed an eye twitch two months into their working together. Four years later, he accepted the twitch was here to stay.
She planted her hands on her hips and looked up at him. “You sure you want to open this particular can of worms?”
Hell-fucking-no he wasn’t sure. He didn’t like a goddamn thing about this, but the note in his pocket may as well have have been an anchor for the difficulty it caused him. It had been three months since he’d first seen it, and it had been weighing him down since.
Tyler,
My name is Shay. You don’t know me, but you need my help. I live in a town called Willow Springs, Michigan. I was recently…contacted by a deceased woman who says she’s your mother. She said you’re too stubborn to find peace until you solve her murder, so you need to come home. She has made me promise to help you.
P.S. Just so you know I’m not cracked, because she is certain you will think I am, she said to tell you that Wilfred is buried underneath the back porch steps. He’s still there, waiting for you.
P.S.S. I am really hoping that Wilfred isn’t a dead dog or cat or something. Or a person. Because deal’s off, then.
Shay Evernight
For three months, the name had convinced him the woman was just off-her-rocker bonkers. He didn’t even care how she knew about Wilfred. And then, in the end, it was the name that had driven him crazy with doubt. The Evernight family were crackpots, had been for centuries. But that knowledge didn’t make that one little niggle of doubt that continued to gnaw at his brain every day go away. He didn’t have time for this shit. While the authorities had searched for his mother, and the other women who’d gone missing around the same time, they’d never found anything to indicate her death.
The annoying cracking of Malia’s gum brought him back. He sighed in frustration. She was capable enough, but four years into their partnership her irritating quirks still made him want to lock her in a closet somewhere until she finally—fucking finally-ran out of words.
With a shake of his head, he turned and headed in the other direction. “Jail is that way. I’ll meet you back here in an hour.”
He made it twenty feet before a little, gnarled old lady with a pouf of lilac-colored hair stepped in his path and crossed her arms over her chest.
Before he could move around her, she lifted her cane and nailed him in the gut with it. “I don’t know you.”
Obviously. He lifted a brow. But while he’d been raised and living in fighter mode for the last twenty years, he still had an ingrained sense of respect for his elders. Mostly.
“No, ma’am,” he said, “you don’t.” He nodded his head and took a step around her. “Have a nice day.” When she simply moved with him, blocking his escape, he sighed. “Can I help you?”
Her wrinkled brow furrowed as she continued to study him.
“Welcome to Willow Creek.” She shook her head. For a moment, he worried the sheer amount of hair on the top of her head was going to break her neck with the movement, but she didn’t seem fazed by it. “Can I help you?”
Deciding not to point out that he’d just asked her the same thing, he started to tell her no, and then thought better of it. Because she was here, there was no point in dicking around. He wanted to get the hell out of this town before he got sucked back in. So he nodded instead. “I’m looking for Shay Evernight. Do you know where I could find her?”
The friendly look disappeared, and she narrowed her eyes at him. Her spine snapped as straight as her old bones would allow, putting her at a full four-and-a-half feet tall.
“I don’t know you,” she said again.
She had to be fucking with him. He crossed his arms over his chest. Fuck, he hated this town. “No, ma’am.”
She canted her head and sized him up.
“In that case,” she said, nodding once, so firmly he was a little afraid the motion would turn her brain to mush, “I don’t know where she is.”
He lowered his head toward her. “Are you sure?”
“Wait a minute.” Her cloudy blue eyes studied him. “Are you sure I don’t know you? You look familiar all of a sudden, and I never forget a face.”
“I’m sure, ma’am. Shay?”
Her brows drew together. It took her a moment before she finally scowled at him and stepped back, pointing toward the end of the downtown area. “You could try the…”
She moved in closer and peered up at him. Realization sparked in her eyes.
He caught the faintest hint of baby powder and roses.
“And you say you’re looking for Shay?” she asked.
For the love of bacon. “Yes, but I’m not—“
She cut him off by batting at the air. “Yes, she’s definitely in the body shop. Try there.”
Before he could figure out why she was being so helpful when her eyes were full of mistrust, she glared up at him before she turned and walked away, her head held high.
Swearing under his breath, he jogged across traffic—what the town considered traffic, at least—and headed toward the body shop he’d passed on the way in. He played what he knew of the Evernight family in his head. Phoenix Evernight, now in her eighties, was a ‘psychic,’ in the most absurd form of the word. Convinced as a child that she had magic powers, she’d never outgrown that belief, and still flaunted her abilities. Raven Evernight, her daughter, rumored to have been a black magic witch, had been the town’s one murder casualty, while her daughter, Shay, was an enigma. He’d found nothing on her outside of school transcripts, a credit report, and an arrest record longer than his arm.
None of which made sense. She’d gotten straight As in school, apparently brilliant enough to graduate at sixteen with honors, her credit report was flawless with not even a single contested doctor bill on it, and despite the mile-long rap sheet, he couldn’t find record of a single charge ever being brought against her. He didn’t understand how a woman who got arrested on what looked like a monthly basis for disorderly conduct and assaulting an officer never spent more than an afternoon in jail.
It didn’t matter, really. The woman had been raised by her bat-shit crazy grandmother, and after reading the charges that had been brought against her mother before her murder, which were pretty freaky, he expected nothing other than a flamboyant, obnoxious shrew of a woman.
Who was not in the town’s only body shop. Not that he was surprised. But with nowhere else to look, he stepped up to the counter, anyway. “I’m looking for Shay Evernight. I was told she’d be here.”
Young, with the name “Garret” sewn onto the breast of his dirty gray coveralls, the kid at the desk gaped at him. “Someone sent you here? To look for Shay?” He grinned. “Yeah, man, I don’t think that’s ever happened. Shay being here, I mean.”
Gritting his teeth, Tyler braced his arms on the Formica countertop. “Do you know where I could find her?”
Garret’s smile disappeared, suspicion darkening his freckled face. “Who’s asking?”
Tyler decided to go a different route this time and forced himself to smile. “A friend.”
“Nah, I don’t believe you.” The kid said it easily, like Tyler’s six foot five frame, which put him a good eight inches over the brat, meant nothing to him. “You said a nosy woman with purple hair and blue eyes sent you here?”
Tyler’s jaw started to ache from clenching his teeth. “I did not say she was nosy, but yes. Short. Gray-purple hair. Blue eyes.”
The kid shrugged, and then offered him a smile. “Okay, then, if Celia sent you here, I’d check her grandmother’s place. She’s probably there.”
Tyler studied him for a moment, before he raised a brow. “You’re messing with me, aren’t you?”
“Nope.”
“Fine.” He didn’t believe the kid for a heartbeat, but having her grandmother’s address couldn’t hurt. “Where does Phoenix live?”
“Go to the south edge of town. If you hit the river, you’ve gone too far.”
That was helpful. “Yeah, thanks, kid.”
Garret grinned at him. “No problem, man.”
Tyler shot him an irritated look on his way out the door. He had no doubt this Shay chick was anywhere in this town but at her grandmother’s. It wasn’t even in him to be amused by their obvious loyalty to the woman. He was here because she’d contacted him, not to make her life hell.
On his way out of the body shop, he pulled out his phone and did an address search for the grandmother. It was at least a place to get information. In his experience, most grandparents lived to talk about their grandkids, and he was hoping Phoenix Evernight wouldn’t be an exception. His grandparents were, but that was its own story.
“Do I know you?”
He staggered to a stop at the soft, feminine voice that came from directly in front of him. Not in the mood for any more games, he looked up from the cell phone, a sneer already tugging at his mouth.
He almost didn’t see her. A good foot and a half shorter than him, she stood in the middle of the sidewalk, oblivious to the pedestrians that dwarfed her.
Gypsy was the first word that came to his mind. A thick mass of pure black hair was pushed off her face, tamed by a sapphire hair scarf. A bright purple tank top clung to her like skin and showed off a hint of flat, toned belly, and the olive green skirt sat dangerously low on the gentle flare of her hips and covered her feet, except for the blue-tipped toes that peeked out.
