Chapter Four
Serra was still pissed.
No one screwed with her mind, forced her from her home, and terrified the life out of Serra without becoming her enemy.
But she couldn’t deny the stark words had touched her heart.
Dammit. She’d always had a soft spot for kids. Yes, she pretended to be a kick-ass, take-charge kind of female who didn’t have time for things like a family and a pack of brats. But beneath her brash image she was a huge sucker when it came to the precious munchkins, and she’d offered her services more than once to help the police locate a missing child.
“Your daughter is missing?” The words slid past her lips before she could stop them.
“Not missing.” A murderous fury glowed in the bronze eyes. “She was kidnapped.”
“I know the feeling,” Serra muttered.
“She’s four years old and a helpless norm,” Bas chided, his voice frigid. “I doubt very much you know how she’s feeling.”
Serra grimaced. The man was a jackass, but if he was telling the truth then she could understand his desperation.
What father wouldn’t be distraught?
“You’re right,” she said. “But, if she really has been kidnapped then she’s in danger. You need the police, not a psychic.”
“No police.”
“Fine.” She shrugged. “Then pay the money and get her back.”
He made a sound of irritation, the witch’s mark on the side of his neck deepening in color. She frowned as she realized beneath the eye-shaped mark were several small horizontal lines tattooed into his skin, disappearing beneath the collar of his expensive shirt. They looked like a barcode.
An odd choice for a tattoo.
“You think I wouldn’t give them every penny I could get my hands on to have Molly returned to me?” he rasped, offering a hint of the volcanic emotions that smoldered just below the surface.
Serra hesitated. So the kidnappers weren’t demanding money? Unusual.
“Then what do they want?”
“It won’t matter once you’ve found my daughter.”
Serra shook her head. “No.”
The muscles of his jaw knotted, his expression closing down as he studied her with a ruthless resolve.
“That wasn’t a request.”
She tilted her chin, refusing to be bullied. Better men than Bas Cavrilo had tried. And failed.
“Dammit, I’m not taking the responsibility for a young girl’s life,” she snarled. “Get someone else.”
He leaned forward, holding her captive with the mesmerizing bronze of his eyes. “No one else has your talent for tracing.”
Tracing was a rare gift that only a handful of psychics possessed, and even fewer could use with Serra’s skill.
Some psychics could hold an object and catch a vague impression of who owned it and where it was from. Others could actually get a mental image of the owner. Serra, however, could touch an object and connect with the mind of the owner.
It was why the police had called her in when a child went missing.
“It’s not magic,” she told Bas, giving him the same speech she gave to everyone who came to her wanting miracles. “I don’t touch an object and instantly connect with the person. Especially not if that person is a norm.”