I pushed the unease away, and directed my mind to something useful. What password would Gran pick? After running through a dozen possibilities, I was about to give up for good.
She loved me as much as she’d ever loved anyone. After Grandpa Mick died, I was all she had.EvieBlackI typed in, just for the hell of it... and then I was in the system. I furiously blinked tears away. I was strong. I wouldn’t let Gran’s death bring me down like this. She was with our ancestors, and that was a great honor in my family, one I wouldn’t tarnish with my tears. She wouldn’t want that.
This also meant, holding on to her cabin, no matter what.
Opening my email, I jerked straight up on the couch when I saw the subject line from my boss, Mack. “Sirens again.”
Mack was a satyr and head of the Supernatural Bounty Hunter Service. There was no organization better at hunting down the bad guys—at least not in North America—and he didn’t mess around, even though Mack was prickly as fuck.
The subject could only mean a case, especially since he’d emailed me when I was on bereavement leave, but I still hesitated to open the message. See, I knew plenty about sirens, as I’d been the one to take down the last we’d seen of them during a case. But something about that situation had never sat right with me, and I had a very bad feeling about this one. Sirens were devils in disguise, with pretty hair and pearl earrings.
I sighed and clicked open the damn email—I was a rip-the-Band-Aid-off kind of girl.
Right away, I wished I hadn’t.
“You fucked up, Black. One of the twin sirens broke free, and has been spotted in your neck of the woods. Track her and bring her in, or you’ll owe me half the bounty you got for them.”
Shit.
My stomach sank. No, “Hope you’re well” or “Take care.” No “Sorry the only family you ever had just died.” Nothing. Fucking Mack. He was good at his job, but that was about all I could say for him.
He knew damn well I’d already spent the bounty—all of it. It had been a tidy sum, but after I’d split it with Cass and, you know, lived for a while, it was gone. Gran left me this cabin, and her 1973 Cadillac Deville, but that was it. She didn’t have gobs of money lying around for me to inherit. Not like Brock the Cock’s daddy probably left him when he died.
“Motherfucker,” I shouted to the empty living room. Then I got my shit together, like I always did. I’d decided long ago that the only way to be a badass was to believe you were one, so I’d play the role until I got my groove back. I wasn’t going to let this siren bankrupt me.
I wanted to email Mack and tell him it wasn’t my fault the siren had broken free. I’d done my job of turning her in, but I knew better. Cass and I had dropped the siren twins off at bounty headquarters, and let some rookies transfer them to the human courthouse. If one broke free before getting there, that was on me.
Now she’d been loose for three days because I’d been too busy babysitting the cabin, and my battered heart, to worry about work.
Still pissed off, I clicked on the links at the bottom of the email. No doubt they were from Stella, the uber-efficient secretary of the hunter service, who kept everything running when Mack was off, banging some fae in his office. Satyrs’ sexual appetites were almost as bad as Cass’.
My hand stilled as a photo popped open on my screen. It was a grainy zoom-in of security footage, but with her long green hair and vicious eyes the color of the ocean, I’d recognize the chick anywhere. My stomach dropped when I realized where she was in the security photo. Right in front of the bar I’d been at a few nights ago. Where I’d met the alpha.
Fuck!
Another reel of unwelcome imagery flashed through my mind before I shut it down, hard. Damn that sexy wolf. It’d be a while before I forgot what he did to me.
If the siren was in town, then it’d be an easy snag. Okay, maybe that was hopeful thinking, because sirens were mean as hell. Besides, if she was here, the odds were she was looking for me. Sirens didn’t forgive easily, and I’d been the one to take her down and her twin sister.
Humans knew their own weaknesses, and catching supernaturals was one of them. They depended on us bounty hunters to do it for them, and paid a hefty fee for the service. It’s what put food on the table, and I was grateful for the job. How the rookies had lost Calista, after I’d handed her over bound in anti-magic cuffs, I had no idea. I was just glad we still had her twin, Constance, locked behind bars, and likely soon headed for the Island.
The sirens were bad news.
Once I responded to Mack to tell him I was on the job, I reached out to Cass.
‘Cass, one of the sirens broke out three days ago. She’s in town.’The bar was only a couple miles up the road. He should be able to hear me.
‘The sirens from last week? Which one of them?’
‘Calista, the meaner-looking one.”
‘You’ll have to be more specific. They were both bitches.’
True.‘The one with the ugly scar across her chest.’
‘Damn. For real? I thought we nailed them good.’
Speaking of a good nailing, my thoughts whisked to the wolf, and I cursed. Cass laughed across our connection.‘You’ve got it bad for the alpha, don’t you?’
