out of my pocket an hour and a half into my waiting, I started texting him when my phone buzzed in my hand.
Carter: Cutie’s name is Tom Lennon, not very fae, but I’m guessing it’s a human name to blend in. You know how the fae are. Out but not out and all that.
Kaliya: Thank you. Be safe.
I should have said it earlier, but I said it now, hoping my vampire didn’t run off in the middle of the night with a fae he barely knew and worked for the bad guy. I knew what Carter meant. The humans knew fae existed, but fae still didn’t live openly. They continued to keep disguises and kept their business to themselves. No fae was technically ‘out,’ even though the species was. It was kind of the werewolves’ faults. A fae died after they went into the open, and they just confirmed fae were real before the fae had much of a say in the matter.
Carter: So, Tom told me I should go by this address any night this week to hook up. It’s booked under his name. The witch’s name is Jeremy. They’re all talking a lot of shit about you.
Kaliya: Please don’t actually go fuck him. He works for Sinclair of all people.
Carter: They’re picking up a guy named Raphael soon, probably tomorrow night. They came to town a day early to enjoy Phoenix since they don’t get to often.
My blood ran cold. Sinclair was moving a lot faster than I thought. How much information did Mygi give him that they didn’t release to the public? Why go public with the bounty at all when they wouldn’t give up what was needed to catch a single human?
Kaliya: Did he say where?
Carter: No. Now I got to go quiet. He mentioned me being on my phone so much and not paying attention to him. Kaliya when you get the chance tell me what the fuck is going on. I’ll tell you when they head out.
How about I don’t and say I did?
I looked up the address and found the large home where they were staying. A private residence, of course, in Scottsdale, a nicer area of the Phoenix metro area. As long as they stayed at Midnight Reverie, I could get away with this.
Sinclair can talk all the shit he wants. I’m going to win this one.
5
Chapter Five
I pulled over two blocks away from Sinclair’s address. He needed to watch what his people said because it had been comically easy to find. Then again, I didn’t think he cared if people knew where he was. He had an ego the size of California, and there was no doubt his people did as well, thanks to him. They were probably used to ruling over everyone and being unafraid.
There was also a chance they had two places in Phoenix for their mission. I knew how criminals worked. Get a public address, somewhere safe that would throw everyone off their trail. A secondary address would be used for all the illegal things they planned. I just hoped this address had something I could use. If they were planning on picking up Raphael tomorrow night, I had less than twenty-four hours to get the information they received from Mygi and find him myself. It was already nearing two in the morning, and I would be lucky if Sinclair and his friends stayed out close to dawn.
I do love a time crunch.
I found their house and stood down the quiet street from it, wondering what sort of camera security they might have. Deciding I wasn’t willing to take the chance getting caught going in, I left the sidewalk and ducked between two houses once I was certain they had no security cameras watching the area. I pulled gloves on preemptively—I knew better than to leave fingerprints. I flattened my hair out as best I could and made sure no strands would come loose. I wouldn’t be able to do this later.
Then I shifted. The shift took everything I was wearing with it, not leaving a pile of clothing or any of my weapons. Magic was cool like that. I slithered in the grass, lifting my head to look around. In snake form, I was an eight-foot-long unclassifiable mix of a pit viper and a cobra. It was the standard naga snake form, though the colors were unique per individual. I was mostly a black cobra with a pit viper’s triangular head, red-orange eyes, and an orange to