“Guess the Holy Hunter’s intent wasn’t to steal from me.” My relief is watered down by my lingering infuriation about what his intent was. “Goddess below, I can’t wait to pick him up and torture a confession out of him.”
“I think it’d be better if you sit tight, and I grab him.”
“No. He’smyproblem, not yours.I’mthe one he screwed over,” I say, just as the station wagon comes into view.
I glower at it, my eyes feeling like twin laser beams capable of hewing through the faux wood body. Sadly, I don’t have that sort of power. I can, however, deflate his tires, blow out all his windows, and pop his doors.
“Walk me through your plan,” Malachi asks as he backs up into the spot across from the Volvo.
“First, I destroy his means of escape.” I demonstrate by lowering my window, sticking my hand out, and popping the valve caps off his two rear tires with a flick of magic. “Then I destroy him.”
I open my mouth to list the rest of my plan when something shifts in Reeve’s backseat…someone. When I spot a ball cap screwed atop the person’s head, I snort. Guess it explains why he stopped—to take a nap.
Our arrival is about to give a whole new meaning to a brutal awakening.
I reach for my door handle when Malachi hisses a sharp, “Wait.”
As though he doesn’t trust me to do as I’m told, he clamps down on my forearm and jams his lock button.
“For…?”
“I don’t think that’s him.”
I squint. Malachi’s right. Not only is the person in the backseatnotReeve, but it’s also not a man.
Chapter 47
Electra
My heart breaks over sharpening beats.
I blink fast to evict the sting of indignation before Malachi can spot what seeing a woman inside Reeve’s car does to me. Especially one wearinghishat.
Or maybe it’s not his hat.
Maybe they just like to match their styles.
I center myself with breathwork, something that Mom taught me when I was sixteen and all over the place emotionally. No amount of oxygen succeeds in clearing the hot pain slicing into me.
My anger is so great that I tear my arm from Malachi’s and lunge out of the vehicle. The girl’s head swivels. I’m guessing she knows who I am from how she dives into the front seat to start the car.
Before the rims can squeal against the pavement, I toss out a force field that sends the Volvo careening forward, toward the glass facade of a drugstore.
“Elle!” Malachi yells. “There are people in there. Innocents.”
He must send a bolt of his own magic to counter mine, because the car screeches to a halt right as its bumper kisses the wooden frame of the store window.
The girl erupts from the vehicle and dashes for the store’s door.
I jam it with more magic, taking perverse enjoyment in seeing her twist the handle and bang her shoulder into it. When she realizes her effort is in vain, she tosses us a glare.
Her eyes stop me cold as I realize who Reeve ran away with.
The girl bolts sideways, taking off down the narrow sidewalk. I’m about to go after her when I see Malachi reeling her toward him, his runes lit up like the sky on the Fourth of July.
Quinn snarls and fights at first. When she realizes that her capture is inevitable, she holds still…toostill, as though Malachi were pinning her arms to her side.
“Electra?” That voice…
