He lifted his eyes and slowly broke into a jog next to me. I’d say he was making fun of me, only I really wasn’t moving that fast. Running is not my forte unless I’m running for my life, in which case I’m not half bad at it. I mean, I’d still die, but I’d give whatever was chasing me a good twenty-foot sprint.
“You look blue,” I said as we jogged side by side. “What’s got you down?”
“Unrequited love,” he said with enough seriousness that it made me bite back a kneejerk quip.
I blinked up at him, not sure if he was joking. He was in his mid-thirties, built like a brick house—muscle for days—had lovely amber eyes, a great sense of humor, and was for the most part pretty sweet. “Seriously? Who wouldn’t want you?”
Oops, I’m not sure I was supposed to blurt that out. I’m going to blame it on the lack of blood flowing to my brain as it fought to keep my body moving. He, like Corb, was a hot potato that my raging hormones would love to wrap their greedy little hands around. Sure, he was a werewolf, but I liked dogs just fine.
Woof, woof.
He barked a low laugh. “Thanks, Bree. I think that . . . no, never mind. I’m used to it, and I’ll get over it. How did it go at the auction today?”
Ah, so he knew about that then, did he? “Well, I didn’t get the house.” I didn’t slow to a walk, but my jogging was so slow I might as well have been walking. “They didn’t even let me bid. Himself made sure of it.”
“Himself?”
“Yeah, it’s what I call my ex. He thinks so highly of himself, and I hate saying his name, so it seemed to fit. It just popped out of me one day, and after that it stuck.” I paused and then went through what had happened at the auction, including the parts where I’d kept Missy from bidding so Crash could get the house.
“You should try to separate yourself from Crash,” he said, but it felt like he was saying the words by rote, like maybe he didn’t really believe them. I frowned up at him.
“You know, we might not have known each other all that long, but I can tell when you’re saying something you don’t believe. Why should I stay away from him?” I asked. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m trying to keep my distance, but I want my gran’s house back, and he’s in the way.”
His unusual amber eyes met and held my gaze. “It’s what I’m supposed to say. I’m a mentor, I shouldn’t be encouraging you to be involved with, or hang around, characters who have been deemed shady by the council.”
Huh. So this wasn’t just about Eammon’s beef. Crash had pissed off everyone. I had a feeling deemed shady was worse than it sounded. Tack that on to him being the fairy queen’s ex . . .
He really was a bad boy.
I didn’t like the shiver that thought sent through my body.
We jogged past three tombstones before I spoke again, choosing my words carefully. “So—hypothetically, of course—if I told you that Crash had offered to let me stay in my gran’s house for two months, to help keep Feish from being lonely, you’d tell me not to do it. Right?”
Sarge startled, and for just a moment, I could have sworn he’d brightened up. “Hypothetically answering, I’d be obligated to tell you it’s a bad idea. But I do think Corb could use some space. He’s mentioned to me more than once that he wishes you weren’t underfoot. And if Crash isn’t there, you should be fine.”
I thought again about the buckets of lube under the sink and the fact that I’d interrupted Corb’s carnal activities the night I’d arrived in Savannah. Tried not to think about the panty-melting kiss he’d given me just a few short days ago. That was just . . . that was nothing. I cleared my throat. “Yeah, I agree. I think he needs to get laid.”
Sarge grinned then, bright as the sun, more his normal jovial self. “You’d better believe it. But who’ll do the dirty work?”
I laughed as his eyes swept over me, and again I had to banish a curl of heat from my body. “Don’t look at me, I won’t be the one doing the laying. I’m the old lady, remember? Besides, he probably couldn’t keep up with me in that department. He’s well past his prime in his thirties, and I”—I touched a hand between my breasts—“am just swinging into my best years of a libido that will not die.”
Sarge’s eyes went wide, a slow look of what could only be called horror flicking across his face. As if his mother had started talking about orgasms. Multiple, mind-blowing orgasms.
I laughed at him as we both slowed to a walk. “Please, you’re telling me that you didn’t know that women sexually peak in their late thirties?”
He cleared his throat. “I try not to think about women in their late thirties and sex in the same mental space.”
My jaw dropped. Oh, snap. I mentally scratched him off my Hot List. That kind of mentality was not attractive, not in the least. I scrunched up my face and bent at the waist with a hand to my back. “Oh, me aching back, it hurts me fierce, young lad! Nothing like the big O to make it better. Would you be helping me out?”
The look of horror he’d given me before was nothing compared to his current grimace. “Are you speaking like a pirate again?”
I straightened up. “Whatever. I was going for old.”
“Terrible. On so many levels.” That last bit was whispered and I was probably not supposed to hear him, but I did. Yeah, he was off the Hot List. In fact, he was officially on the Not List. Even if he begged like the wolf he was, he would not be upgraded.
Nothing like acting like a jackass to kill whatever good looks God blessed you with.
He rubbed his hands over his face as if he could wipe away the image of me having sex. Yeah, total jerk. “Look, I’ll back you up if you want to take that room at your gran’s. That would give Corb some space I think he desperately needs, which will in turn make him less cranky—and thus easier to work with. All of that to say, I think you can handle Crash, especially since he won’t be there, and the risk is worth it in my opinion.”
Part of me wanted to say thank you, the other part wanted to be offended that he clearly thought so little of me and my fellow forty-plus women. Plus, he made it sound like I was a horrible roommate. Corb hadn’t seemed all that cranky to me, but then I didn’t work with him like Sarge did. I settled for a nod. “Thanks. I think.”
He clapped me on the back, sent me stumbling off to the side with the blow, then peeled off to go run with his trainee, Luke, swatting him on the ass when he got close. “Men,” I muttered at the locker room behavior. I considered trying to keep up with them, but they took off like a pair of sprinters, laughing and chasing each other.
Of all the trainees, I was fondest of Luke. He’d gone into this whole thing so he could pay down his dying mother’s medical debt, but he wasn’t getting out. Sarge had bitten him, and now he would become a werewolf. Or maybe he already was? I’d have to look it up in Gran’s book.
“Go easy on the kid, Sarge,” I whispered. Sarge turned back to look at me, just a fleeting glance, and gave me a nod. Because of course he’d heard me, damn werewolf ears. I glanced at where Kinkly had flown and saw her perched on the angel’s shoulder. She lifted both hands above her head, a raise the roof move. I gave her two thumbs up.
I made myself walk at a brisk pace, jogging where I could. My muscles felt like water and there was enough sweat flowing from my skin that I could have watered a garden in the Sahara Desert. I swiped a hand across my face, under my eyes—again. The graves around me were mostly unkempt, stones in disrepair, and names so old that they could no longer be read. From the corner of my eye, I caught the swaying of an all-too-familiar figure.
“Robert, I haven’t seen you for a few days.” I slowed to a stop and Robert made his way to me. He was not your typical friend, not by any means, but he was loyal and had saved my bacon more than once.
Robert was a skeleton with long dark hair that covered his face and head. I’d never fully seen his face, but I knew he had teeth in there somewhere. He swayed as he walked, his clothing a tattered mess on his narrow frame. With his clothes on, you co
uldn’t really tell he was a skeleton. The rags hid the worst of the bones, but here and there I saw bits of white.
I patted my bag. “I brought you something.”
His swaying slowed as I pulled a flask from the leather bag hanging against my hip. He’d asked for whiskey, and after all the help he’d given me on my last job, he’d more than earned it. I’d only put two shots of whiskey in the flask, not knowing how it would affect him, and also because it was Corb’s bottle.
I held out the flask, which he took carefully, almost, dare I say, reverently. “Friend,” he whispered.
I wasn’t sure if he was labelling me or the whiskey his friend. Maybe both. “Cheers, Robert. And thanks again for all your help.”
He tipped his head back to down the whiskey, which gave me a look at the vertebrae that held his head on. The whiskey slid through his mouth and trickled down his body, following the line of yellowy-white bones until it dribbled onto the ground below him in a puddle that would have looked more than suspicious under anyone else.
He handed the flask back to me and I tucked it into my bag.
Then he hiccupped and whispered, “Friends,” which was quickly followed by a wobble of his feet and a weird-sounding giggle. He toppled to the ground, wrapped himself around one of the tombstones, and started snoring.
“What the hell?” I put a toe against one of his cloth-covered feet. I could tell from the resistance against my boot, or lack thereof, that there were only bones under the material. “Robert?”
I crouched by the tombstone, using it for balance even as I cursed my tight hamstrings. My backside and thighs screamed at me, but I lowered myself close enough to poke at him again. “Robert, are you okay?” I didn’t think I could kill an already dead skeleton, per se, but I didn’t want anything to happen to him. Robert was, if nothing else, super protective of me. In the shadow world it was a good thing to have friends with some oomph in their bite.
Voices caught my attention, cutting through the early evening air. I stayed where I was and looked over my right shoulder to check out the newcomers. Two figures walked toward the entrance to the Hollows Group training facility, more specifically toward the tomb with the broken-winged angel. Fluttering at the top was Kinkly, frantically motioning for me to stay down, which I did.
I froze in my crouch as the figures both did a quick sweep of the area and the shorter of the two pointed at the group of running trainees at the far end of the graveyard. Where I should have been.
“The newbs are out there, we have time,” the one figure said. Male, with a nondescript voice that I didn’t recognize. Middling height, frame, nothing unusual stood out about him.
“Good, I heard that one of their trainees ruined the ceremony. We were able to salvage something, but . . . trouble.” I knew this guy’s voice. I just couldn’t place it. But bless his heart, he was talking about little old me! I pressed my fingers against my temples, trying to figure out just where I’d heard his voice before.
When it hit me, I literally staggered and ended up on my knees behind the tombstone. This was the guy who’d threatened my life. How could I have forgotten him? On my first visit to Crash to procure blades, this douche canoe had shown up and demanded that Crash make him a special crucible. Crash had agreed, but told DC (douche canoe, stay with me) that making it would take time. Said DC had then threatened my life if the crucible wasn’t made on his timeline. With all that had been going on, that particular death threat had slipped my mind.
So just what the hell was he doing here? Not to make good on his death threat, or at least I didn’t think that was the case.
I watched from around the corner of the tombstone as the two men, who were apparently oblivious to me, went down the long curving stairs that would take them into the Hollows.
I waited about five seconds before I pulled myself to my feet, cursed at the tingling in my lower legs, and then sprinted as fast as I could to cover the distance between me and the angel tomb. Hands on the gray-veined marble, I slid around the edge until I could peer down the stairwell.
Once more, voices floated up to me.
In for a penny, in for a pound or ten.
I took the first step, then paused to make sure there was no one coming up the stairs in a hurry. The Hollows was wrapped up in some sort of magic that I was still trying to fully grasp, but one of its eccentricities was that the stairs always stayed pitch black. Good for me, because I was going further down to listen to what was going on from the darkness of the stairwell.
At least that was my plan.
Of course, my plans had a habit of not going as, well, planned.
6
Standing there in the darkness of the stairwell of a tomb in the graveyard that I was supposed to be running around, it struck me that this might have been one risk too many.
I mean, the one dude had threatened my life, and if they were potential customers, Eammon wouldn’t want me to mess things up with my eavesdropping. Still, I lowered myself onto one of the steps to listen in. Because let’s be honest, if they were working with Crash, then they likely were not working with the Hollows Group.
“Grave consequences,” Tom said, his voice rumbling up to me. “Grave indeed.” He was one of the Hollows mentors—the calm one of the bunch, as far as I could tell.
Louis was up next, his French accent heavier than usual. “What exactly do you expect us to do about it? You can’t imagine we will—”
“There will be jobs offered to you. Do not take them if you value the lives of your trainees.” There, that was Douche Canoe throwing his weight around again. He was threatening our lives to get his way, just like he’d done with Crash. Of course, Crash probably didn’t care too much about the threat, but I wasn’t terribly worried for my safety. He was a do the job no matter what the cost kind of guy. He wouldn’t make the crucible to save me—he’d make it to get paid. From what I could tell, a job was a job to him. I sighed. What a waste of a hunk of handsome man. Maybe that was why Karissa had booted him to the curb. Too much forging of weapons, not enough nooky at home.
I shook myself, and realized I’d missed part of the conversation I was supposed to be listening to.
“You’d best keep it in mind, Eammon,” Douche Canoe growled.
“Get out,” Eammon snapped. “Your kind are not welcome here.”
Get him, Eammon! I wanted to cheer my mentor on, but I held my tongue. Good thing, too, since the next thing I heard was a number of footsteps headed my way. My heartrate spiked and I bolted up the stairs, scrambling to keep my feet quiet but faster than the approaching pair of men.
Ninja I was not, and I knew that there was at least one loud clatter as I ricocheted off the sidewall of the stairs. Hopefully their ears weren’t any better than mine. I burst out of the stairwell, grabbed the edge of the angel tombstone, and pulled myself around it before dropping to the ground. The exceptionally large mosquito buzzing in my ear had me cringing. I couldn’t even swing at it.
Worse yet, the mosquito landed on my shoulder and whispered, “Are they still in there?”
“Shush!” I hissed at Kinkly as I pressed my back against the tombstone, crouching down as far as I could get.
“Are the trainees out there?” Douche Canoe asked.
“I count them all.”
“Good. I want you to keep track of them. As I told Eammon, I will not be thwarted. Our plans will move forward one way or another, no matter the cost.”
I wanted to laugh, I really did. Because I was the ‘oldie’ of this group, and even I thought his manner of speech was ridiculously old school. Yes, I know in theory that forty-one isn’t that old, but when you’re hanging with a bunch of early twenty-year-olds, you are the oldie.
And for those who want to disagree with me about how a forty-one-year-old thinks and feels, you can stuff it. Not everyone rocks their forties, and not everyone suffers through them. I, Breena O’Rylee, sit solidly in the middle. When I’m feeling bummed, I feel ancient, and when I’m feeli
ng saucy, I forget my age and can hang with the best of them. I think.
But I digress.
As I crouched there breathing in the humid air and thinking that they were pretty stupid if they figured Sarge for one of the trainees, a thump rippled through the air and sent me sprawling sideways.
On my hands and knees, I pushed slowly up to peer over the bottom lip of the grave, between the angel’s feet, at the two figures.
“You’re good at this,” Kinkly whispered with more than a little awe in her voice. “They didn’t even look your way. It’s like you’re invisible.”
“Forty-one-year-old woman,” I whispered, as if that would explain it all. The rest of what I might have said slid away from me as I stared out across the graveyard. What could only be called a wave of magic rushed out across the training grounds, a swirl of darkness like a living mist, and before I could so much as draw a breath it slammed into the other trainees and Sarge. They all went down, one right after the other, like dominos.
I had to clap a hand over my mouth to keep the flow of curses contained. If I was discovered now, I had no doubt that I’d be next in the domino line, and that would leave no one to help. Triage at its worst. The two men, Douche Canoe and his friend, strolled down the path toward the exit. Partway to the gates, the air in front of them shimmered and they stepped through that shimmer and just disappeared. Gone.
Holy crap on Christmas toast!
“Eammon!” I yelled for him as I scrambled to my feet and got running as fast as I could toward where Sarge and the other trainees had gone down. I hadn’t known I could run that far, that fast. Crazy what some adrenaline could do for even me. I slid to a stop at the first body, which was Suzy, her blond hair spread out around her head like a halo. I bent and put two fingers to her neck and found a steady pulse. “Kink, help me check the others!”
“Okay.” She seemed uncertain, but she flew around to Luke. “He is breathing.”
I checked the others quickly and stopped at Sarge, who was in his wolf form sprawled out flat on his belly, snoring softly.
Midlife Fairy Hunter: The Forty Proof Series, Book 2 Page 6