Heir of the Dog Black Dog - Hailey Edwards Page 0,8
nearest one and nudged its tail with the toe of my sneaker. A normal bird would have bolted before I got that close. This one just blinked round, black eyes at me. That wasn’t right. I smelled like a predator. I was a predator. The birdbrains should have taken a whiff of me then rocketed into the sky.
When Mom’s hand landed on my shoulder, I jumped a foot off the ground and whirled to face her.
Deep wrinkles gathered at the corners of her eyes, and laugh lines mapped her face, but she wasn’t smiling now.
Not for the first time, I wished I had her faded denim eyes or the rich auburn hair she sported in pictures from my baby albums instead of Mac’s wide green eyes and stick-straight black hair that refused to hold a curl.
“Is this something to do with—” she pitched her voice low, “—your job?”
I bit the inside of my cheek while deciding how much to confide. The Raven theme was too blatant to ignore. This was definitely a case of work coming home with me, but until I knew specifics, I followed our standard operation procedure. I lied. “No, it’s not.”
“I didn’t believe that face when you were nine.” She stared me down. “I don’t believe it at nineteen, either.”
Pretending I wasn’t offended—I was a damn good bluffer—I asked, “What time did you spot them?”
Not fooled one bit, she said, “Six o’clock.”
It was pushing eight o’clock now. At six, I had been buried nose-deep in paperwork. That put my run-in with the poacher around three. Plenty of time for him to organize Mom’s lawn party.
The question was why. Was this a message? A warning? Why target Mom—and therefore me—when Mable said there had been three other incidents?
I dragged a tired hand down my face. “Why didn’t you call sooner?”
“I did.” She reached inside the shelf-bra sewn into her swimsuit top and brought out her cell. “Hold on.”
The habit made me grin. She was the reason I tended to use my bra as an extra pocket instead of breaking down and carrying a purse.
“There.” Triumph lit her face. “My calls have been going straight to your voicemail for the past two days. When you finally answered, I almost dropped the phone. I was that shocked.”
“What’s that smell?” I took a few sniffs. “Did you scramble guilt for breakfast again?”
“I’m your mother.” She swatted my behind. “I have a right to worry.”
“I turned off my cell.” I hesitated. “I was...” don’t say troll hunting, “...troll hunting.”
Her knuckles whitened where she gripped her phone. “Troll hunting.”
Mom hadn’t known who or what Macsen was when they got involved. Not until I came along and wrecked their relationship.
Half-bloods were either born null, or they inherited a portion of their fae parent’s power. That meant Mac had to fess up or gamble that I would take after Mom instead of him. Lucky for us, he wasn’t a betting man and left her with a contact number—Mable’s, actually.
The slip of paper had gathered dust inside a teacup in Mom’s china cabinet until the night she came home from work and found me sitting in the floor in my bedroom surrounded by the corpses of my soulless best friends. They came for my thirteenth birthday party, slept over and thanks to me, left in body bags.
Happy birthday to me.
Before Mom called the cops, she dialed that faded number. Shaw came for me, that’s how we met, and he brought marshals with him to clean up the mess. I was bleeding magic I had drunk down so many lives, and Shaw took away that pain with a touch that burned clear to my soul.
A bond forged between us that night. Or I thought it had.
Rubbing a tender spot over my breastbone, I looked up to find Mom staring at me. “Have you had breakfast yet? I was just thinking it was eight...”
“And that the doors are already open at Jose’s?” She waved her cellphone at the birds. “Get rid of this poopfest, and I’ll drive out to the cantina and pick up breakfast—my treat.”
My stomach rumbled at the mention of my favorite Mexican restaurant. “You’ve got yourself a deal.”
“Good.” Tension eased from her shoulders. “I’ll go shower and call in the order.”
Once she returned to the house and shut the door behind her, I dialed my roommate’s number.
A sluggish growl answered me.
“You weren’t asleep, were you?”
Her low groan earned my sympathy.
“I need your help.”
“Whph?”
“Where am I?” I pumped my fist. I had her. “I’m at