Priceless

by Shannon Mayer

  I shrugged and smiled up at him, running my tongue over my lips. “Maybe.”

  He swallowed hard. “Into the tub.”

  “Only if you come with me.” I leaned forward. Just a little closer and I could almost taste that minty flavour of his mouth. A shiver rippled the length of my body as the heat between us spiked, my skin prickling with anticipation. “Touch me, please.” I wanted his hands on me so badly I didn’t care if I begged.

  Putting his hands on my shoulders, he started to set me back toward the bath, his mouth a tight line. A smile curved my lips into what I knew was a sultry twist, one I’d seen Milly turn many a man’s head with.

  Feeling bold, I slid my hand across his chest, my fingers finding their way in past the buttons. Smooth, hard abs trembled under my fingertips, and I couldn’t stop the sigh that escaped me. “Please.”

  His hands slid down my shoulders to my elbows where he tightened his grip, pinning my arms to my sides. “In a minute.”

  With one smooth motion he picked me up and dropped me into the tub, the water exploding out all around me. Sputtering and gasping, I sat up, the spell receding quickly with the salt water. O’Shea stared down at me.

  “Better?”

  I took quick stock. My brain functioned fine, and while I still ached with some serious hormones, I knew it wouldn’t have mattered who it’d been, I would have thrown myself at them.

  “Nothing personal,” I said, slicking my hair back. “Damn, that was a potent one for it to stick to you and then still have enough juice left to hit me.”

  O’Shea nodded. “Does that sort of thing happen often?”

  “No.” I dunked down under the water, held my body under for ten seconds, and resurfaced, letting my body float in the salt water. My bra and jeans would survive the dunking, but I’d have to wipe down all my leather jacket with salt water and condition it right away. Shit, what a pain in the ass. But it wasn’t as bad as it could have been.

  If only O’Shea knew what we’d just avoided.

  As if reading my mind, he asked the one question I’d hoped he wouldn’t.

  “What would have happened if you hadn’t known how to break that . . . spell?” He leaned against the bathroom counter, cool as could be. Like nothing had happened. Good, if he could ignore the blood-pounding moments, so could I.

  I stood, and he handed me a towel. Stripping off my bra behind the towel, I wrapped my body with the fluffy white material. “We would be going at it hot and heavy right now.”

  He nodded. “I got that much. But who really cares who you knock boots with?”

  Blinking, I realized this was going to be a steep learning curve for the agent—strike that, former agent. I shimmied out of my wet jeans and left them in the water. “How easy would we have been to find if we couldn’t stay out of each other’s pants? And if no one was looking for us, we’d have just banged the life out of each other. Literally.”

  It was only a slight shift of his body, but I saw him recoil as the implications set in; in fact, I saw the very moment he got it. His eyes widened and his jaw actually dropped. “You mean we would have fucked each other to death?”

  “Yup. Eventually. I suppose it wouldn’t be a bad way to go, and it certainly would be hard to pin on anyone.” I held my hand out. “Another towel, please.”

  He handed me a smaller towel, which I wrapped my hair in. “As soon as we dry out, we’ve got to move. The Coven who has India are the ones who attacked you and tried to kill me, and they will no doubt make another attempt to stop me.”

  “Why’s that?”’

  “Because I have a reputation for being stubborn,” I said. “And they know it.”

  He snorted.

  I glared at him.

  Putting his hands back on his hips he nodded, the hint of a smile flicking across his lips. “It doesn’t take supernatural ability to know that.”

  18

  In less than an hour we were on the road. I wanted to check out the mineshaft while there was still daylight and we were less likely to run into any uglies.

  “Uglies?” Alex barked from the back seat.

  O’Shea cringed. It would take him some time to get used to the werewolf.

  “Yup, uglies. What are they, Alex?” I wanted him to keep talking. Things had gotten awkward as we’d piled into the Jeep, my hand brushing against O’Shea’s thigh by accident, the heat flaring between us.

  “Demons.” Alex whispered and crouched low in the seat, his tail no longer wagging.

  “You have got to be kidding me.”

  I glanced over at O’Shea. “No. YOU have got to stop saying that. This is reality.” I debated whether or not to mention the Arcane division of the FBI. They might welcome him with open arms, but then, as I glanced over at him, they might not. Most likely, nobody was supposed to know about it. Certainly not me and definitely not someone who was on the lam for killing his partner.

  “If I can prove this exists, this supernatural side of things, they might re-instate me,” he said.

  We pulled off the main road onto a barely discernible track that had at one point been the main drag into the mine. Now it was filled with potholes and washouts. Just one more reason I had a serious love for my Jeep. I threw it into four-wheel drive and hit the gas, ignoring O’Shea’s statement.

  “Bumps!” Alex screeched from the back as we started to bounce down the track. I didn’t take it easy, despite O’Shea’s grunts of displeasure as he was jostled in the passenger seat. This was something Alex loved and I wouldn’t deny him this small pleasure, not with each day being one closer to the day the pack might finally catch him.

  “Slow the hell down, Adamson.” O’Shea snapped after his head got thrust into the not-so-well-padded roof.

  “Almost there, I think.” I took a deliberate sharp turn in order to hit one last big rut in the road. Alex squealed and I couldn’t help laughing. “Enjoy the ride, Agent. You never know when it might be your last.”

  He glared over at me, but said nothing, his hand gripping the Holy Shit handle with decidedly white knuckles. “Fuck.” He muttered it just low enough that I had to strain to hear him.

  I couldn’t resist poking at him. “What was that?”

  “FUCK!” Alex screeched from the back of the Jeep, and I burst out laughing. A glance at O’Shea and I caught a smile twisting his lips.

  “Admit it, that was funny.” I gunned the Jeep and slammed on the brakes so we skidded through the loose scree. I mean, who had a werewolf yell out “fuck” in the back of their Jeep?

  “No.”

  Of course, that only made me laugh harder. Never had I been so distracted on a case before, but in a weird way it felt like a good fit.

  I turned the Jeep off. “Here we are.”

  Lucky enough, I’d been right and there were no “uglies,” so to speak. But then, the gateway through the veil wasn’t open either. The mineshaft wasn’t particularly narrow, about two and a half people wide. Walking around the edge of it, I let my fingers trail over the metal rim, feeling the jagged cuts where grappling hooks would have been jammed in, in order to repel down. In my mind I tried to imagine how it would look.

  “There’s just enough for two people and a kid,” O’Shea said, coming to the same conclusion I had.

  Damn, how many others had this Coven stolen? “Have there been a lot of other missing kids lately? You know, ones with no leads?”

  O’Shea gave a sharp nod. “Three. All in the last six months. All within a two day drive of here.”

  Double damn, that was not good.

  Leaning over the rim, I put my weight in my heels as I stared into the pitch black hole. How terrifying would it be as a little kid, to be forced to go there with people in cloaks, people you didn’t know or trust?

  I took a deep breath, the faintest scent of sage wafting up to my nose, a common herb burned in all Covens. “Alex, come smell.”

  Loping over to me, he stuck his head down the pipe. I laid a hand on his collar, just i
n case.

  “Witches,” he grunted, then took another sniff. “Demons.” He whimpered, and on the third sniff, he cocked his head. “One more.” He took a long drag and curled his lip, showing his teeth. “Don’t know. Funny smell.”

  Hmm. It was never good when Alex couldn’t identify a scent. “Okay, let’s go get ready.”

  “That’s it?” O’Shea asked, peeking into the pipe. “We don’t dive in?”

  “Not without the right gear—of which you have none. Mine is all back at my house, where the pack is currently staked out. Which means we need to go where I can get us the right weapons. Unless you have a grappling hook, harness and rope stowed away in your pants pocket?”

  He didn’t answer except with a glower.

  I cast out for India while O’Shea mulled that over. She was not any easier to trace here, but I could feel her. The fear was almost gone, but the most important thing was that she was alive. They—the Coven—hadn’t used her for a sacrifice yet.

  O’Shea followed me and Alex back to the Jeep. “You didn’t kill her, did you?”

  I froze between one step and the next, but didn’t turn around to face him. In a way, I was surprised it had taken him this long. “You finally believe me?”

  The shuffle of clothes told me he’d shrugged. “I’m having a hard time with believing any of this, but I’m seeing it whether I want to or not.”

  “Maybe one day I’ll tell you the whole story,” I said, knowing that would pique his interest.

  He caught up to me in split second, grabbed my arm, and spun me to face him. “You didn’t tell us the truth?”

  In all the interrogations after Berget had gone missing, I’d adamantly stuck to my story. We’d been at a park, she’d been on the swings one second, gone the next. Nothing else to say. But how was I going to explain to the police what had really happened? It was bad enough they thought I was guilty, that I thought I was guilty, even though I’d done nothing. All along, that was the problem. I hadn’t saved her and that made me guilty in my own eyes. In our parent’s eyes.

  “You’d believe me now, because you’ve seen what the world holds in truth. But not then,” I said, brushing his hand off my arm.

  We started to pile into the Jeep when a hair-raising screech spun me around, my eyes searching the skies above for the only thing that could have made the sound.

  Harpies; three of them. They were each the size of a large cow, well over a thousand pounds per, and had greasy brown feathers covering their lumpy, bird-like bodies. While legends sometimes pinned them as having the upper bodies of beautiful women, that wasn’t quite true. Hypnotizing eyes making you believe they were beautiful were the main gear the Harpies employed when it came to seduction. They didn’t look like much as far as being dangerous, but the two sets of claws—one off the bottom of their feet and one set at the tips of their wings—were enough to cut a man in half with a single squeeze. They could rip my Jeep open like a tin can and have us for dinner without breaking a sweat.

  Damn it all to motherfucking hell, this was about to get ugly. The last time I’d faced Harpies had been five years ago, and that had only been one Harpy. It’d taken Giselle and Milly at my side to knock her out, and we’d barely made it out alive.

  I pulled a sword out as the first Harpy struck, her claws skimming precariously close to my stomach, ripping through my thin t-shirt and exposing the flak jacket below. Spinning, I swung my blade overhead, arcing toward where the Harpy’s wings should be. My aim was true and the spelled sword cut deep into what would be the bicep of the Harpy, taking her right wing completely off. Howling and flailing, she rolled on the ground, brilliant red blood spurting in a fountain from where her wing had been only moments before. She flopped on the ground, arterial spurts shooting out around us.

  That had been lucky, like as in ridiculously so. Of course, there were two more, so I wasn’t counting us out of danger just yet.

  “Get in!” I ran for the Jeep.

  O’Shea listened for once, and the doors slammed shut as I peeled out.

  “No smell Harpies.” Alex whimpered. Of course he hadn’t smelled them before; no doubt, they’d watched us from a distance, flying in high enough.

  “It’s okay,” I said, though it wasn’t. “O’Shea, you’re going to have to take the wheel, or take one of my swords and try to fend them off. They’re territorial, so you just have to buy us time.”

  “You drive, I’ll fight.”

  “Don’t look them in the eyes, no matter what.”

  O’Shea took my offered—and bloodied—sword and rolled down the window.

  “Why?”

  We hit a bump and I fought with the steering wheel, no longer enjoying the pot-hole filled road. “Think a version of the spell that was on you and me, except you’d get to ‘knock boots’ with them, and then they’d eat you.”

  Without a word, he slipped off his seatbelt and slid halfway out the window, his butt hanging on the edge. A part of me was starting to admire the former agent. He was not only doing as he was told, but he did it without arguing. Damn, I really didn’t want to like him.

  A screech from above us that might as well have been inside the cab lifted the hair all over my body. Alex howled, adding to the noise, but it didn’t affect my concentration. Ahead was a Y in the road. To the right waited the main highway and possible safety. To the left waited more of the badlands. Decisions, decisions.

  O’Shea hollered and his body flexed as he swung. I didn’t have to see to know what was happening. I could almost feel the missed thrust of the sword.

  “Get back in!” I hoped O’Shea could hear me. One of his hands slipped back in and gripped the Holy Shit handle, and he yanked his body back in, the sword dented.

  “We’re going to pit species against species,” I said, gunning the Jeep and cranking the wheel hard to the left. The four-wheel drive was a godsend as we blasted across the open badlands with nowhere to hide from the two remaining Harpies.

  O’Shea clicked on his seatbelt. “What do you mean species against species?” He had to yell to be heard over Alex and the Harpies.

  I gripped the wheel and kept my foot on the gas. “Just wait. You’ll see.” A part of me wondered at my reasoning. Maybe I didn’t want O’Shea to think all the monsters were nasty. Some of them were downright stunning in their beauty.

  “I’ll give you a hint,” I said. “Ever read anything by Peter S. Beagle?”

  We hit a bump and then something, presumably a Harpy, hit the Jeep and we teetered on two wheels. There was the screech of metal meeting and giving to talons as the Harpy dug into the hard top.

  “This side!” I motioned with my head for the two boys to throw their weight to my side of the Jeep. Alex obeyed, as did O’Shea. His body jammed against mine. Our eyes met for a split second, and I thought I saw something there in those dark depths. This was bad, we could die, yet I’m sure I saw fire flare inside him as if he were . . . enjoying this.

  Then the moment was over; all four wheels hit the ground and we careened down a slope, the Jeep skidding sideways as Alex whimpered in the back.

  Wind whistled through the new tears in the metal roof; flashes of dark brown between the bursts of sunlight were all I could see of the Harpies, but it was enough. At the bottom of the slope, the ground levelled out into flat hard surface, perfect for the Jeep to pick up speed. In a few short moments, we were doing over sixty.

  “They’re well behind us,” O’Shea said, half turned in his seat, and I glanced at him, his eyes still glittering. He was enjoying this.

  I didn’t let up on the throttle, though; I knew what was coming. Ahead of us was a large rock that stuck out of the ground like a mini mountain. Spinning the wheel, I tucked the Jeep in beside it, facing the Harpies. They hovered for another split second, and then they exploded toward us with a flurry of wings.

  “Oh shit,” O’Shea said.

  I lifted a hand and turned the Jeep off. “Just wait.”

  “Are you crazy?�
�

  I rolled down my window and prayed I was right. The distant thunder of hooves answered my pleas. This was the territory of the Tamoskin Tribe—or more accurately, herd.

  I felt more than saw O’Shea go still beside me.

  “Tell me I’m seeing things.”

  From off the plains thundered the Tamoskin Herd, their coats a myriad of colours, shining and glossy in the sun. From Paints, to blacks, chestnut and white, and a little of everything in between, there was only one thing they all had in common besides their equine bodies.

  The gleaming golden horn jutting from the middle of their foreheads.

  19

  “Yup,” I said. “You’re seeing things all right.”

  The herd of unicorns split into formations, four to be exact, surrounding the Harpies, who wailed and screeched, obviously pissed off at being tricked into crossing over the boundary line. I knew though they wouldn’t back down. A Harpy rarely backed away from a fight, especially when it came to their mortal enemies.

  It was a bit like watching a show, the kind you go to the local fair to see, where riders take their horses through complex patterns, barely missing each other as they gallop past one another. This was in some ways no different, only it was unicorns and no riders. The Tamoskin herd swirled and dove, moving like water, smooth and effortless as they engaged the Harpies.

  I glanced over at O’Shea, who sat transfixed by the sight. Even I was hard pressed to tear my gaze away from the awesome scene in front of us. It wasn’t every day you saw a childhood story come to life in front of you, that you saw legends held power in them still.

  “Never in my life . . . .” His voice awed to a bare whisper.

  Alex leaned forward and put his head on my shoulder. “Beautiful.”

  It was that; even though the sight was a deadly game the two species played, it was no doubt one of the most amazing, beautiful things I’d ever seen. A tightening started in my chest, a pang I’d pushed away for so long. It wasn’t for O’Shea I’d done this.

  It was for me.

  The dark side of the supernatural saturated me, was all I saw anymore. Most days I didn’t pause, I just assumed everything around me was dark and ugly. Like losing Milly, like Giselle losing her mind, like me losing Berget.