21 Shades of Night, page 291
“Damn fucking straight,” Deacon said without hesitating. “Doesn’t change anything. So what’s the plan?”
Tyler rubbed at the migraine building in his left temple. Common decency told him he needed to shut Deke out, then handle this all on his own, but, logic said he not only could use the extra muscle, but his police connections, too.
With a frustrated growl, Tyler started at the beginning and told Deacon everything that had happened that day, from his mother’s attack on Shay, to the apparition in the parking lot, and ended with the demon slipping past his defenses to attack her in her own bedroom.
By the time Tyler was finished talking, Deacon looked just as ready to kill something as Tyler felt. Without a word to him, Deke turned and stalked across the porch to the front door, opened it, and then bellowed for Shay.
When she came running, Tyler could have knocked Deacon’s head off his shoulders for putting fear into her eyes.
Deacon lifted her off her feet in a giant bear hug. Tyler caught something in her eyes he couldn’t quite identify, before her perplexed gaze met his.
Deacon shook his head at Tyler, though he wasn’t sure why, as she hugged him back.
She kissed his cheek. “I’m okay, Deke. I promise.”
Deacon hugged her a moment longer, and then kissed the top of her head. He set her back on her feet with surprising gentleness.
As soon as her feet were back on solid ground, she squeezed Deacon’s hand and then turned to Tyler. Her smile didn’t come close to her eyes, and this time, he identified the shadows he’d seen in her when she came out—stark terror.
“Can I talk to you for a minute, Ty?” Shay asked.
Deacon glanced between the two, and then shrugged. “I need to go make a few phone calls. I’ll be back when I’m done.”
Without another word, he jogged down the steps and headed toward his police SUV.
Shay didn’t say anything until Tyler was directly in front of her, and Deacon was out of ear shot. Then the worry leached into her eyes. “The school just called me. Ivy never showed up to class after lunch.”
The familiar sense of dread started to rebuild in his gut. “She’s seventeen. Maybe she ditched.”
Shay shook her head. Reaching out, her fingers latched onto his “No. Not Ivy. She knows if she skipped a class Garret would be upset, and I’d ground her from seeing him. Those two haven’t gone a day without seeing each other in years.”
He cursed under his breath. First Malia had gone MIA, and now Ivy? His brain wanted to automatically jump to worst case scenarios, but that would only serve to upset Shay even more, so he kept that worry to himself for now.
“Hey.” For the first time that day, she looked close to panicking. She had to feel like her world was imploding, and he didn’t blame her one damn bit for wanting to cry. “We’ll find her, all right? Chances are, she’s with Garret making out somewhere and just lost track of time.”
“Ty— “
“I know, gypsy.” He wrapped his arms around her and hauled her in, tucking her up against him until every inch of her soft, curvy body molded to his hard edges. “Nothing is going to happen to that girl. I promise, Shay. I’m not going to let you lose someone you love.”
Pressing his lips to the top of her head, he breathed her in. But instead of calming him this time, her scent triggered every one of his over-protective instincts. She was hurting, and the only thing he knew was he needed to fucking fix it.
* * *
SHAY COULDN’T SIT still. School had ended hours ago, and there was still no sign of Ivy.
After Shay had called him, hoping Ivy was with him, Garret had nearly torn the town apart looking for her. Now he sat on Shay’s couch, his face getting more drawn by the minute. As the clock rolled toward midnight, Deacon was nearly sitting on top of Garret to keep him from running out the door and tearing through every house in town until he found her.
She knew the feeling well. While Tyler and Deacon were doing everything they could to put the pieces of her disappearance together, they weren’t moving fast enough.
“We’ll find her, gypsy.”
Her whole body stilled at Tyler’s rough voice, more growl than anything. Realizing that she was standing in Ivy’s room, and unaware of how she’d even gotten there, she turned to look up at him. Exhaustion tightened the lines around his mouth, but it was the edge of wild hunter in his eyes that worried her. He was shirtless, barefoot, and two thick strands of hair had escaped the small knot he’d twisted it into hours before.
Despite the wild storm raging in her blood stream, and the fear that was desperately trying to eat her alive, she’d never been more grateful to see a face. “I need to go see Phoenix.”
He blinked at her once, twice. Then he just snorted and shoved his hands into the pockets of his ripped jeans. “No. You’re not going anywhere.”
She frowned up at him, too emotionally wrung out to appreciate the view of his shirtless chest. But the heat and safety of it beckoned her, and she took a step toward it before she even realized she’d given herself permission to move. Once she was close, nothing could have stopped her from wrapping her arms around his waist and holding on.
“I need to see her, Ty. She has a spell recipe that induces visions and lets me control them, to a point.”
His jaw tightened as he set her back. “What’s the side effect?” His large, muscular arms crossed over his chest, and one brow went straight up toward his hairline. “If there wasn’t a dangerous side effect, you would have mentioned this hours ago.”
Not only did it require asking Phoenix for a favor that would torture Shay somehow, the spell wasn’t fool proof. Visions didn’t like to be tampered with, and there was a good chance that in the end, she’d be drugged and see nothing but weird dreams that wouldn’t help them at all.
Too tired to lie or downplay it, when this was their only option at the moment, she told him the truth. “What looks and feels like a vision could turn out to be nothing more than just a vivid dream, and we’ll end up chasing shadows.”
Grabbing her hand, he linked their fingers. Pulling her over to Ivy’s neatly made bed, he settled her next to him as he sat. “Have you used this spell before?”
His dark blue eyes blazed into hers, daring her to lie to him. She shook her head.
“No. I don’t ask Phoenix for favors, and I’ve never had reason to try to force a vision.” Shifting on the bed until she was facing him, she searched his face. “I have to do this, Ty. I have to try. She’s Ivy.”
A low growling sound rumbled in his chest as he wrapped his arms around her again. “Deacon and I have some leads, but not enough to narrow anything down yet. And as much as my gut tells me not to let you do this— “
She managed a small snort. “I wasn’t exactly asking.”
He continued without pausing. “It might help us figure out where this fucker is.”
Loud pounding started at the front door. Shay was up and moving before Tyler could stop her, but a second before she got to the door, Deacon caught her off her feet.
“Let Tyler answer it,” he murmured.
She very nearly kicked him, just for the hell of it. This was her house, damn it.
Tyler cracked the door, and a voice she’d never heard before snapped out.
“You asshole.” A sledgehammer-sized fist shot through the narrow entrance and slammed into Tyler’s jaw. “I’ll kill you.”
“Ah, fuck.” Deacon set her on her feet and pushed her toward Garret before stalking to the door and throwing it open. Without a word, he grabbed the man by the throat and hauled him in, throwing him up against the wall next to the door. “Who the fuck are you?”
“Let him go, Deke.” Rubbing his jaw, Tyler shut the door and laid his other hand on Deacon’s shoulder. “This is my partner, Leith. Leith, this Deke, the police chief.”
Shay could only gape. While Tyler was tall and built like a Spartan, Deacon had him beat through the shoulders. Still, neither of them came near the sheer size of Leith. With the sleeves of his gray plaid flannel rolled up, she could just see the tattoos covering his forearms and hands. His dark hair hung to his shoulders she was surprised fit through her doorway, but it was the light blue eyes as much as it was the pale scar on his face that at once mesmerized and made her wary. While the scar added a sense of mystery, it was the coldness in the eyes that sent shivers through her bloodstream.
When those eyes scanned her living room, locking on hers for the briefest instant, she was glad Tyler was close by. This dude screamed trouble.
As quickly as he’d focused on her, she was dismissed, and his gaze narrowed on Tyler. “Tell me you have a lead on Malia, before I give in to the urge and peel your face off your skull.”
Despite the bored look on Tyler’s face, Shay was certain Leith had the strength to do exactly what he’d threatened. Moving past Garret, she lifted Tyler’s arm and tucked herself under it before glaring at the newcomer.
“You can try,” she snapped, “but I come from a long line of black magic gypsies. I promise you’ll live the rest of your life as a cockroach if you even lift another finger toward him.” When everyone gaped down at her, she shrugged, not at all feeling bad about the bluff. She may not have the power to turn him into a roach, but she had more than enough ingredients in her possession to make his dick shrivel up and stop working. “Now, if we’re done, I was just telling Tyler I have a way we might be able to find Malia and Ivy.”
Tyler’s frown was black as he growled down at her. “I told you, you’re not doing it.”
She shrugged. “And I told you, we don’t have a choice.”
Not liking herself for what she was about to do, she took a deep breath and turned to face Deacon and Leith, filling them in on her plan to go to Phoenix. She prayed to the goddesses that Tyler would forgive her.
When she was done, Leith just stared at her with that calculating expression, while Deacon whistled under his breath. “That’s a hell of a risk, Shay.”
Snorting, Tyler let her go and started a slow prowl around the room. “It’s more than that. I can feel it. It’s wrong.”
“I don’t disagree,” she murmured, her gaze flickering between all four men in the room. With Ivy missing, she wasn’t about to leave Garret out of the planning, or who knew what the hell he’d do. “But it’s not that big of a risk. If it doesn’t work, we won’t have lost anything except time.”
Garret spoke up, his freckled face pale with stress. “What will Phoenix ask for the spell and ingredients?”
Damn it. She’d been hoping no one would ask that. Blowing out a breath, she struggled to keep her body from tightening and giving herself away. “A favor. Whatever it is, it will be worth paying if it finds Ivy and Malia.”
Leith surprised her by nodding. “I agree with her. Whatever the favor is, we can all pitch in and find a way to repay it. We need to at least try.”
“I agree, too,” Deacon said. At Tyler’s savage growl, Deacon shrugged, every line of his body heavy with exhaustion. “We’re coming up with nothing from computer searches, police files, and background checks. One of us can run to the courthouse to get property reports and shit like that, but we can’t do any of that until morning. This way, at least we’re doing something.”
While Shay knew this was the best option, she hated feeling like they were ganging up on Tyler. Without saying anything to any of them, she moved in front of Tyler, stopping him mid-prowl. His scowl was borderline savage, but she wrapped her arms around him anyway and just held on.
“Come with me,” she said softly. “I’ll feel better if you’re with me.”
His arms came around her with so much force she nearly couldn’t breathe. “Like you could stop me at the moment, gypsy.” Leaning down, he pressed his brow to hers, that madness swirling in his eyes closer to the surface than she’d ever seen it. He was fighting his own instincts, and it almost hurt to watch, because she knew it was because of her. His thumb brushed over her cheek, and he sighed. “You’re not allowed out of my sight until this fuckhead is dead. So until that happens, consider me glued to that sexy ass, Shay. I’m not going anywhere.”
Chapter 18
AS SHAY STOOD on the stoop of Phoenix’s trailer for the second time that day, she unlinked her fingers from Tyler’s and concentrated on securing her mental walls. It was something she’d been doing all of her life, because with a family like hers, she couldn’t afford any kind of vulnerability. They were psychic predators, preying on weaknesses, and she’d learned very early on the only way to survive was to never let them inside her head.
While Phoenix wasn’t as savage in her quest for power as Raven, her grandmother wasn’t quite…normal. Underneath her harshness and secrets and flamboyancy, there were moments of genuine empathy and insight, causing Shay to wonder more than once what had caused her to become so hardened—or if she really had been born that way.
Tyler’s strong hands on her shoulders pulled her out of her thoughts. Her heart stuttered—then expanded—at the banked fury burning in his bright eyes. Beneath the temper was soul-screaming worry. For her.
Her eyes searched his, and suddenly, she knew. Despite the miles of differences between them, despite the hurdles and obstacles, and despite everything barreling down at them in that moment, she’d never been more sure of her own safety. Nothing was going to get passed him to harm her, ever again.
He growled low, his fingers tightening on her shoulders. “Tell me again why I’m letting you do this?”
Not even sure if he realized he’d hauled her so close her whole body bumped up against his, she tilted her head all the way back. Releasing her tension was easier than anything she’d ever done, because it was replaced with absolute, complete trust. “Because it’s our best hope to find them.”
“Not good enough.” Gruff frustration raked over his already graveled voice. “Not with you in danger.”
She went up on her toes as his head lowered, their brows pressed together. “I’m not in danger. It’s just a dream.”
A sigh escaped him, ruffling the hair that had escaped her headband. “Until Phoenix decides the price is your unborn baby.” A dark scowl had his brows pulling down. “That’s it. I’m reserving the right to pull the plug on this if her price is too high.”
“You know what?” Pulling back a little, she kissed his chin. “I really, really like you.”
He wrapped his hand around her hair and tugged her head back to brush his lips over hers, while his other fist reached over her shoulder to pound on the door. “Yeah, well, I like you, too. So please don’t make me regret this.”
As usual, Phoenix took her time getting to the door. Nothing and no one had ever been deemed important enough for Shay’s grandmother to rush. But despite it being after dinner, she answered the door looking as immaculate as always. Her pristine white dress fit perfectly against her tall, slender frame, while her raven-black curls waved seamlessly to her bottom. Tasteful makeup only enhanced her aging beauty, while striking violet eyes missed nothing.
Phoenix Evernight was nothing if not beautiful.
“Ah.” Lifting her manicured hand, Phoenix tapped blood-red tipped nails against the doorframe of her Airstream, disdain in her eyes as she skimmed her gaze over Shay. “I was wondering when you would get here. It took you long enough.”
It had been years since Shay had engaged Phoenix in an argument, but it never stopped her grandmother from trying to cut her off at the knees. It was always in the same vein—Shay wasn’t good enough. She certainly wasn’t good enough to possess the abilities Phoenix claimed to have.
“Good.” Shay forced a smile. “Then you know why we’re here.”
“Not really.” She sighed, her gaze shifting to Tyler. In an instant the disdain bled out of her eyes, replaced with calculating appraisal. She smiled and stepped back, allowing them to enter. “You must be the hunter I’ve heard about. Come in.”
Tyler didn’t say anything as she closed the metal door behind them, but his hand curved around Shay’s hip, fingers digging in as if determined to leave his mark on her. When Shay tilted her head back to look up at him, though, that rugged face remained cool and impassive, almost bored.
A smile curved her lips. It didn’t matter how much they tried to keep their emotion from her, Phoenix wouldn’t be satisfied until she broke them.
“So.” Crossing the small room, Phoenix settled herself on the couch, stretching her arm out and patting the seat behind her. “Why don’t you come sit by me, Mr. Wade, and tell me about yourself.”
Tyler didn’t move. “I’m good here. We need a spell.”
She waved that away with an elegant hand. “Tsk. Shay knows I don’t do business before bed.”
Shay managed to choke back the snort. She knew no such thing. As long as the price was right, Phoenix would sell her soul to the devil in a dream.
“Grandmother, we don’t have time for games.” She looked up at Tyler, her fingers brushing over his still digging in to her hip, before she moved over to sit on the other end of the couch. “I need a spell to induce visions.”
“Why?”
Shay canted her head. “Does it matter? Just tell me what you want for it, and I can be on my way.”
Phoenix tapped her nails against the back of the couch, studying Shay for a long moment. Finally, she uncurled herself from the couch and walked toward the curtained-off bedroom.
Shay didn’t relax by so much as a millimeter with her out of sight. She could feel the attack on her mental walls, and while she didn’t think Phoenix had that kind of power, whoever did was close by. Which was pretty much all of her traditional family, none of whom she wanted in her head.
Despite the worry gnawing at her heart, she kept all thoughts of Ivy and Malia out of her mind’s eye and focused on nothing but Phoenix’s trailer. She could feel Tyler’s unwavering gaze on her face, and just that dark intensity felt like a lifeline she’d never experienced before. When this was all over, she was going to owe him everything.
