Priceless A Sexy Urban Fantasy Mystery - By Shannon Mayer Page 0,50

her weight. I couldn’t stop the involuntary tensing of my muscles. Even this close to death, she was a deadly adversary, one that could kill me with barely a flick of one claw.

“Do you know why the Coven is stealing children?” After seeing the mineshaft I had no doubt the kidnappings had been going on for a while, which meant there was more than one kid down there.

The Harpy took a deep rattling breath, the scent of coppery blood on her words as she exhaled. “The Coven tagged us, with this.” She lifted a claw and I saw a ruby embedded in the top of her foot.

I bent over and put the edge of a knife to it, popping it free, and slid it into my pocket.

The Harpy blinked twice, eyes un-focusing in between each movement. “That is what you must remove from my sister if you are to free her. My sister’s true name, call her by it and she will know you mean her no harm. Eve, her name is Eve.“ Her chest stilled, and the last of her life escaped from her as she breathed her sister’s name. Damn it.

Standing up, I brushed the dirt off my jeans. “Let’s go.”

O’Shea and Alex climbed into the Jeep in silence, but it didn’t last for long.

“I think we should pull up the files on the other three kids that are missing,” O’Shea said, his voice steady, considering the last half an hour.

I put the Jeep in gear and headed out, taking a long loop back to the highway. “At this point it doesn’t matter. We’ll find the other kids when we find India.” I tapped the steering wheel with my left hand. “They’re looking for something, children with certain abilities. Don’t you ever wonder about those cases where kids just up and vanish? They’re stolen by people like the Coven. But we’re running out of time if we are going to get any of them back.”

“Stolen,” Alex grumbled from the back.

I glanced back at him to see his lip curling up, and looked back to where I was going. The light started to fade, our day almost done. We would need the cover of night to break into the Coven’s stronghold and get India out. And maybe a pile of other kids.

“I wish Milly was with us,” I said softly.

“Why isn’t she here?” O’Shea asked.

“Sorry, I’m not used to anyone but her riding along with me.” I turned back onto the highway and headed into Bismark. Giselle’s place was loaded with gear, ready as my backup stash.

“You didn’t answer the question.”

My shoulders tightened, and I had to resist the urge to push O’Shea out of the Jeep at high speed. Taking one long, slow breath, I answered him, albeit through gritted teeth.

“Milly’s a Witch, a damn good one, but she’s finally been accepted into the Coven, which means she can’t have contact with anyone outside of the group. In the past, she’s gone with me, always been my partner on the hard salvages. The ones I couldn’t do on my own.”

Silence reigned for all of three seconds. “You’ve got me, you don’t need Milly.”

I wanted to bash my head into the steering wheel; it would be less painful than trying to explain a lifetime of knowledge to one oblivious agent who thought he understood. I settled for shouting at said former FBI agent. “YOU AREN’T A WITCH.”

“So?”

Unbelievable. The arrogance of some people truly astounded me. Again, I struggled for control; a slight glance at O’Shea stiffened my spine. He enjoyed this back and forth. A smile curved up the edge of his lips and his eyes definitely sparked with humour. The bastard.

Slamming my mouth shut on the response I’d been prepared to assault him with, like how stupid could he possibly be and what was he thinking taking on supernaturals as a human, I swallowed the words down instead.

“You going to go all Ice Queen on me now?”

Alex barked from the back. “Icy Queenie!”

Good grief. Alex’s excitement and apparent happiness was infectious, and it took all I had not to laugh out loud.

Biting down on the laughter that bubbled up, I stared at the road, focusing on the need to get to Giselle’s and get loaded up. My humour faded. This was going to be a bad hunt; really, really bad. Nothing had gone right so far, and my gut feeling was that it wasn’t going to change.

The sky was dark when we pulled into Giselle’s yard, and I