“Sure I do,” I muttered, grabbing the cat by the tail and ignoring the guts flapping in the wind. Without a glance back, I headed out of the forest.
The trees passed by in a blur as I hightailed it out of there. The sooner I got to my SUV, the sooner I could stop pretending I wasn’t holding a dead cat. Thoughts of Kale’s arrival worried me and I didn’t like it. Had the coven hired a new warlock without my hearing of it? While that wouldn’t surprise me, since I tended to stay away from the coven unless I had to be there, it did shock me they didn’t throw a welcoming party for him. Moreover, why would they send a new warlock to me, and not one experienced in Charleston?
If the matter were serious, which I suspected it was if he was there, then why were they taking chances? It didn’t add up. This, I’d get to the bottom of. For now, I focused on getting rid of the stinky cat.
Kale followed behind me for only a moment before he easily caught up with his lengthy strides. When he settled in next to me, he slowed down since my five-foot-five frame couldn’t match his six-foot-three, and he stayed silent.
Fine by me.
At the edge of the forest, I spotted my black Benz parked on the grass near the entrance. My SUV wasn’t anything sporty like I’d prefer, but my M-Class sport utility vehicle made sense. The SUV was safe, big, and powerful. All good things to have in my line of work. Besides, it also had a big-ass hatchback to put things like dead cats in.
I grabbed the keys from my pocket and clicked the button to open the back. Scanning the area, a missing object grated my last nerve. I glanced sideways at Kale. “You didn’t drive here?”
He shook his head.
Terrific! The bitch of it, he had to come with me. “How’d you get here, then?”
“Walked.”
The silence continued.
Once at my SUV, I reached into the side compartment of my hatchback and drew out a garbage bag.
“I’ve got that.” Kale stepped next to me and took the bag, holding it open while I dumped the cat in. The kitty plopped into the bag and Kale tied the red string to close it, then he threw the bag into the back. It landed with a heavy thud.
I glared at him, even if his helping me came as a shock since no warlock had ever offered to help me before. “Couldn’t you have been a bit gentler?”
“It’s dead.” His eyebrow lifted. “I doubt it noticed.”
A sassy retort hung on my tongue, but I ignored my impulse to rise to the bait. “Warlocks.”
I left said warlock behind, making my way over to the driver’s side of my SUV while Kale got into the passenger seat. Careful not to touch anything with my dirty hands, I settled into my leather seat and grabbed my hand sanitizer from the cup holder, drenching my hands with it.
I could only imagine what I would have seen on the cat’s tail if I had looked hard enough, but I shoved the images of maggots from my mind to settle my woozy stomach. I dropped the sanitizer in the holder, then I started the SUV and headed off in a hurry.
On the outskirts of town, leading back into Charleston, the streets were relatively quiet. For the most part, if any people were out and about they would be downtown to enjoy Charleston’s nightlife. Most around here, including warlocks and witches, lived a relatively normal life. Sadly, I wasn’t among them, and my “normal” involved a hunt for evil before it became danger.
In my hopes of keeping conversation to a minimum, I cranked the radio station, drumming my fingers on my thigh to the alternative song blasting through the speakers.
Kale didn’t appear to have the same wish. “Do you plan to tell me where we’re going?” I turned the music down and he continued, “With a gutted cat, no less.”
Glancing out of the corner of my eye, I noticed how his body filled my seat quite nicely. Too bad warlocks were men I avoided—I found getting with a warlock always led to disaster—because this warlock would be one to have some fun with.
While his looks might tempt me, the decision came years ago when I’d had enough of their egos, their need to be the tough guy, and their tendency to have their own agenda. My last attempt to respect warlocks ended at the age of twenty when one broke my heart. Since then, the only warlock I could stand was Peyton’s boyfriend, and even he walked a fine line of always needing to prove himself to me.
Lately, I’d stuck to the non-magical man, but those relationships hadn’t led to anything serious, nor did they belong on my fantastic memories list. Where warlocks had too much stuff, non-magical folk didn’t have enough. Needless to say, it’d been months since I heard the word date and my regions south had declared death a while ago.
I cleared my mind of unimportant things and set to answering him. “We’re going to Magnolia Cemetery.”
“I see.” He turned in his seat and sent his hard stare onto me. “You’re an Enchantress?”
The rich nature of his voice made funny things awaken in my dead regions. Perhaps my libido wanted to be reincarnated. I quashed the thought with a fierce no. “Mm-hmm.” Two could play at the game he presented—if he wanted to assign labels, so could I. “You’re a Ward?”
“Correct.”
Not like I needed the confirmation. Any warlock who worked for the coven received the title. “What’s your talent?”
“Runes.”
I jerked my head to look at him and the car swerved before I straightened the wheel. “You draw runes?”
A hint of a smile turned up the corners of his mouth. “You look surprised.”
“I am,” I admitted with no shame. “I haven’t met a Ward who holds the talent of rune magic.” Glancing back at the road to avoid a crash, I shrugged to downplay my awe. “At least, not any from Charleston.”
“We are few and far between,” he replied, cool and collected.
My breath seemed lost in the state between shock and bewilderment. He appeared to hold back on the interesting talent. Intriguing, considering most warlocks I’d met would gush at the opportunity to prove their abilities over mine. My curiosity about the warlock next to me rose, especially since I needed to discover the reason he’d been assigned to the case. “How long have you lived in Charleston?”
“Not long.”
Oh, this made no sense at all. We had our own Wards, who were talented in their own right, so we didn’t need Kale. I waited two breaths for him to answer, but he didn’t oblige me. “Where are you from?”
“Down south.”
I blinked at his indifferent voice, keeping the wheel tight in my hands to ensure the SUV went straight, but looked at him. “Do you plan on telling me anything about you?”
“I just did.” He gave a halfhearted shrug. “I’m a Ward, who draws runes, and I live down south.”
I snorted loud enough to ensure he heard it. Elusive might be an understatement when it came to Kale Griffin. I almost laughed at the situation; I wanted warlocks to shut the hell up, and now one did and I’d rather he talked.
Figures!
I had to wonder if he did it to get a rise out of me, since warlocks tended to do that, too, which is why I bit back the rest of my questions. He might want to play that game, but by the Goddess I wouldn’t feed into it. I slammed the accelerator down, ignoring the sexy warlock next to me. We had bigger problems.
The dead cat stinkin’ up my SUV reminded me of that.
Get tangled in Entangled Edge…
Night Demon by Lisa Kessler
Gretchen Finch’s job would be much easier if she weren’t alone in the jungle with a brilliant recluse whose every glance sets her on fire. But the more she focuses on her work, the closer she gets to unlocking the mysteries of a terrible creature—the Night Demon—that threatens the world as she knows it. Though her scientific mind tells her it’s impossible, she’s beginning to believe the ancient Mayan tales as the sinister jungle comes alive around her.
Lukas Smith has spent hundreds of years searching for answers to his immortal Night Walker nature. As a series of ancient glyphs become clear, he’s about to find out more th
an he’d ever hoped, but the more he learns, the more his fate intertwines with the Night Demon, and the harder it becomes to hide his immortal secret from the beautiful, intelligent Gretchen.
Together, they must find a way to stop the inexplicable violence and mass destruction surging across the earth before the Night Demon destroys more than just mankind.
Bittersweet Blood by Nina Croft
Tara’s eccentric aunt raised her to be fearful of the world and follow the rules. But after her aunt’s death, Tara is ready to take control and experience life for the first time. But she quickly discovers that everything she’s been told is a web of lies. Determined to solve the mystery of who she is truly, she hires private investigator to help her uncover the truth.
Christian Roth is more than your average PI. A vampire and ex-demon hunter, Christian lives among the humans, trying to be “normal.” But recently, things seem to be falling apart. There’s a crazed demon hell-bent on revenge hunting him down, and a fae assassin on the loose with an unknown target. And the Order he abandoned desperately needs his help.
As the secrets of Tara’s past collide with the problems in Christian’s present, she finds herself fighting her attraction to the dark and mysterious investigator. Falling in love does not fit into her plans at all, but Tara soon learns that some rules are meant to be broken.
Temping is Hell by Cathy Yardley
When your coworkers are demons, anything can happen…
Kate O’Hara can’t wait until this temp assignment is over. The woman who hired her is a psychotic pageant queen, her coworkers are convicts-turned-clerks, and it’s so boringly corporate it makes her skin crawl. Even her sexy-as-sin boss, famed billionaire Thomas Kestrel, isn’t enticement enough to keep her there. Once she makes enough to pay off her bills, she’s out. Or so she thinks...
Next thing she knows, she’s accidentally signed over her soul. Literally. And she’s discovered Thomas’s real mission: to kill thirteen bad guys in one year, in order to get his—now his and Kate’s—souls back. From learning to boost the morale of some paper-pushing demons to navigating her way through blood-red tape, Kate has to work closely with her super-hot supervisor and get her flaky act together, before somebody clocks her out—permanently!
Stone Cold Seduction by Jess Macallan
Elleodora Fredricks is about to realize the normal world she lives in isn’t quite so normal—and neither is she, thanks to her made-of-evil father, the devious king of the shadow elves. Discovering her own shadow elf powers is a wild ride, but thankfully she’s got a few good men willing to help her along the way. There’s her old flame MacLean the phoenix, able to wield fire. And then there’s the handsome, mysterious Jax. Turns out his rock-hard body is exactly that—she’s got a secret crush on a gargoyle.
Elle’s been moonlighting as a cat burglar to right her dad’s wrongs, but now that she can melt into the shadows—literally—she’s set her sights higher: take down the evil shadow-elf king before it’s too late. Should be a piece of cake, right? If only the king didn’t want his daughter dead…
Now available from Entangled Edge
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Stacey Kennedy, Werewolves Be Damned
Werewolves Be Damned Page 24