by Pat Esden
Peregrine nodded. “She and Midas are making dinner.”
“I need you to go help them until the visitor leaves. Okay?”
Peregrine stuck out his bottom lip in a pout. “Can’t I just listen? I wanna hear about the loup-garou. Please?”
“Not this time.” She crouched, looked him in the eyes and turned on her mama tone. “You need to stay away from this man. He’s dangerous. Understand?”
“He didn’t look dangerous to me. He just talked kinda funny.”
“No arguing. I want you to hang out with Brooklyn and Midas. Later, I’ll tell you all about it.”
Peregrine stole another glance over his shoulder. His voice trembled a little. “I—I want to stay with you.”
Chandler straightened to her full height. Hands on her hips, she followed his gaze. There was nothing unfamiliar or strange in their front yard or in the parking lot beyond it, except for an old, lime green Volkswagen Beetle in front of the main house, undoubtedly the journalist’s ride.
“What do you keep looking at?” she asked firmly.
“Ah—What do redcaps look like?”
In two swift motions, she pulled him all the way inside and slammed the door shut. Heat and the thrum of protective magic blazed up her dragon and monkey tattoo-covered arms and across her shoulders. She studied the yard again through the door’s window, hoping to spot a fox or a mangy racoon. Something. Anything.
Peregrine wriggled in beside her, his breath fogging the windowpane. “There was a creepy person-thing next to that guy’s car.”
She scrubbed her fingers over the soft bristle of her close-cropped hair. Shit. Shit. Shit. Not this. Anything but this. Peregrine was the age when most witches’ abilities manifested. And—as much as she rarely thought of him—Peregrine’s biological father possessed the gift of faery sight, an ability to see through the glamour faeries used to make themselves invisible, fae such as redcaps. The gift was rare nowadays because the gene pool of witches with the ability had shrunk to a handful, after eons of them being murdered or blinded by the fae who preferred to remain concealed. It was an extraordinarily dangerous gift for the few adults who possessed it. But for an eight-year-boy? For her boy?
She wrapped an arm around Peregrine’s shoulder, snugging him closer. “Are you a hundred percent sure you saw something?”
“Yeah. Ah—maybe.”
Maybe? Her tension eased a fraction. In truth, it could have been nothing more than wishful thinking on Peregrine’s part, combined with an imagination as active as hers. Even if he had seen a faery, it could have been a benign and unglamoured garden sprite Brooklyn had invited into the complex to help with her herbs and concoctions.
A movement caught Chandler’s eye. Something coyote-size and hunched low to the ground was creeping out from behind the Volkswagen. It slunk along, dragging something—
Chandler shrieked. A body! A child.
She pushed Peregrine behind her, then eased the door open just far enough to get an unobstructed view. She had to have been mistaken. It couldn’t be carrying a child.
The creature swiveled to look at her. It dropped the body. Tufts of straw trailed out from where the child was missing an arm.
Chandler let out a relieved breath. She recognized the child and the creature now. “There’s nothing to worry about,” she said. “It’s just Henry with Brooklyn’s scarecrow.” Well, there wasn’t anything to worry about as long as Brooklyn didn’t catch Henry, Devlin’s golden retriever, making off with her straw man. If she did, then there’d be hell to pay.
Peregrine wiggled past her to look. “I wasn’t afraid of nothin’. And that isn’t what I saw. What I saw was bigger. A lot bigger.” He fanned his arms, indicating something twice as tall and large as the scrap-metal rhinoceros that she’d sold to a client last month, impossibly larger than a redcap.
She gave him a side-eye look. Now he was fibbing, except . . .
A chill traveled up her arms, prickling against the magic in her tattoos. But what if—other than the size—it wasn’t a fib? What if he did have the sight like his father?
DON’T MISS THE DARK HEART SERIES
A Hold on Me
Annie Freemont grew up on the road, immersed in the romance of rare things, cultivating an eye for artifacts and a spirit for bargaining. It’s a freewheeling life she loves and plans to continue—until her dad’s illness forces her return to Moonhill, their ancestral home on the coast of Maine. There she meets Chase, the dangerously seductive young groundskeeper. With his dark good looks and powerful presence, Chase has an air of mystery that Annie is irresistibly drawn to. But she also senses that behind his penetrating eyes are secrets she can’t even begin to imagine. Secrets that hold the key to the past, to Annie’s own longings—and to all of their futures.
Beyond Your Touch
Annie Freemont knows this isn’t the right time to get involved with a man like Chase. After years of distrust, she’s finally drawing close to her estranged family, and he’s an employee on their estate in Maine. But there’s something about the enigmatic Chase that she can’t resist. And she’s not the only woman. Annie fears that a seductive stranger, who is key to safely freeing her mother, is also obsessed with him. As plans transform into action and the time for a treacherous journey into a strange world draws near, every move Annie makes will test the one bond she’s trusted with her secrets, her desires—and her heart.
Reach for You
A world of deception and danger separates Annie Freemont from her mother—and from Chase, the enigmatic half ifrit with whom Annie’s fallen in love. But she vows to find her way back to them, before Chase succumbs to the madness that threatens his freedom. The only person who can help is the magical seductress Lotli, a beautiful, manipulative woman…a woman who has disappeared.
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