“Wait. Where are you going?”
“To find me some tail,” he announced.
“You can’t leave me.” Ireallydidn’t want to know more about his active sex life so I chose not to comment on his need for “tail.”
“Sure I can.” He waltzed toward the front door.
“You can’t drive.” I put a hand on my hip. How dare my best friend leave me while I was bored out of my mind on house arrest!
“I have my ways.” He winked and pulled a cigarette from behind his ear, his magical skateboard tucked under one arm. His tiny wings couldn’t take him that high or far without getting fatigued, but throw a little demon magic under his skateboard, and he could hover-fly to a location a good twenty minutes away before the magic wore off again.
“You’re going to fly all the way into town?” I looked at him, doubt sketched all over my face. The imp was a lot of things, including lazy. There was a reason for that pot belly.
He shrugged. “If I have to.” Both of his hands swept down the many curves of his small body. “I can’t deny the ladies all this, now can I?”
There was no way in hell I was touching that question. Still, I couldn’t help but smile. Cass amused me even when he was pissing me off. “You can’t go because Brock is just waiting for us to leave the house empty. The second we do, he’ll tear it down. You know he will.”
“I have no doubt he will. The alpha looked all business.” Cass’ face lit up. “But only you have to stay here, not me.” He was entirely too happy about that fact.
“So you’d leave me? All alone? To fend for Gran’s cabin?” My bottom lip really got into the frown now. Cass was a sucker for my puppy-dog eyes and pout.
“Of course I would.” He grinned, and the fucker’s eyes sparkled.
“Remember that Gran did a lot for you too. She took you in like you were her own,” I reminded him.
“Come on, that was no effort. I’m loveable. Everybody wants a piece of this.”
I knew the real Cass behind all the attitude. He appreciated what Gran did for him. A lot. He just wasn’t going to admit to it.
Daggers shot from my eyes at him as he placed his little knobby hand on the door handle. “You know if you really needed me here, I’d stay.”
Yeah, I did know that. “I do need you.” Why was I being so whiny? Oh yeah, because I was used to living in downtown LA, and going out every night. Staying cooped up in this tomb of memories was going to kill me.
“No, Evie, you don’t. You’ll be fine.” He pulled the door open. “Don’t wait up. You know how it goes. Once the sun goes down, I’m all fire.” His pink furry ass, stuffed into too-tight leather shorts, strutted outside and he slammed the door behind him.
“Fucking imp.”
“I heard that,” he called, far too happy with himself.
Fine, he wanted to leave, no problem. I had things to do anyway. I was a damn fine bounty hunter. I’d have a new case for us by the time he got back.
Twisting the lid off a beer—thank you, grocery home delivery—I booted up my laptop. Gran never liked the idea of Wi-Fi, invisible and insidious; dial-up was the only internet she permitted. I roamed the house looking for the hookup, surprised I’d forgotten where it was.
I hadn’t been back since I was sixteen. Once I’d been admitted to prestigious Hunter Academy in LA, I’d left and never looked back. Gran visited me about three times a year to see my big city life, as she put it. She respected my hatred of this town, the place where my parents died, and where the Black family had mercilessly teased me for being a dud.
Finally, I found the dial-up next to Gran’s apothecary of herbs, all neatly labeled in her hand. Just seeing her writing, the one that had penned so many old-school letters to me, had tears pricking at my eyes.
But just because Gran was old school in most things, didn’t mean she didn’t know how to break her own rules. She was a traditional witch, and she’d often told me that the old ways, when available, were best. “Why reinvent the wheel?” she’d say. But she’d also say, “Use it when you have it,” when she got the hankering down for a particular bit of tech, or modern invention.
The internet fit the bill. A world of information at a witch’s fingertips—and a witch could do a lot with little.
The last three days without internet and with my cell phone turned off had been rather nice, just me and Cass drinking beers, watching Gran’s old movies, and playing poker.
I turned the modem on and tried to link to it. When it asked for a password, I frowned. Shit. Gran hadn’t left me a sheet of instructions. She hadn’t expected to die. Hell, she’d expected to live another half century, at least.
A shiver ran through me and I shook it off immediately. There it was again, that feeling that something was wrong. Yet, Gran had died peacefully in her sleep. Witches lived a long time by human standards, but they weren’t immortal. I didn’t like it, but there it was. At least she’d gone quickly. No one had reason to kill her—well, beyond the alpha. But as bad as he was, I didn’t think he’d actually kill Gran over the land. Besides, I’d had a bounty hunter buddy look over her body and speak to the medical examiner, while I was trying to wrap up my last gig in LA and get out here. He’d found nothing out of the ordinary, and I trusted his instincts.
However, the feeling was still there, nagging at me. I wished I’d been able to get here sooner, see her body, inspect the scene.
