by Amelia Shaw
Magic Hunter
The Rover, Volume 4
Amelia Shaw
Published by Tamsin Baker, 2021.
This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.
MAGIC HUNTER
First edition. April 25, 2021.
Copyright © 2021 Amelia Shaw.
Written by Amelia Shaw.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
To all the people that made this book possible.
To Monica Corwin- you are amazing. Thank you for all your help in making this book awesome.
To my incredible editor- Rainy Kaye- you are a devil for the details, and I love you for it.
Christian Bentulan- you are a true artist. Thank you for this incredible cover!
Chapter One
FIGHTING WITH MY ‘SORTA boyfriend’ in front of my ‘sorta father’ was like a nightmare come true. I wasn’t doing it.
Rage pounded through me so hard I could hear my heartbeat in my ears. And all I could do was adjust to the situation.
“Chief, do you mind I speak to Fin alone for a moment?” I asked, my tone careful and calm.
I kept my eyes locked on Fin as he leaned to the side on the blanket he lay upon, his hand pressed to his healing wound.
The Chief knew me better than anyone. He cast a glance between Fin and me, then stood and walked out of the room, closing the door behind him.
Fin dropped his gaze as I took the seat the Chief had vacated.
He knew he was in trouble. That was clear.
“Is it true?” I asked. “Have you had this secret relationship with the Chief the entire time we’ve known each other?”
He let out a long sigh, then dragged his gaze to mine. “You’re overreacting, Zoey. We haven’t had a secret relationship. We met a couple of times over the years when I was working for the fae council.”
I couldn’t even touch that piece of information yet. “But you’d met before and you just left that tidbit out?”
“What do you want from me?” His tone was sharper than usual, likely caused by the pain from his wound, but I didn’t care.
People had been using that tone with me all my life.
“I want the truth. Why didn’t you tell me before? You had plenty of opportunity. Every single time I said, ‘Fin, no more secrets’ and you said, ‘okay, Zoey, I respect you enough to abide by that.’”
His pale lips folded in a thin line. “It never occurred to me it would matter. You said yourself that your relationship with the Chief was strained. I thought you two barely spoke to each other. He fired you, remember?”
“Well, what the hell was he supposed to do?” I asked, throwing my hands in the air. “Sometimes I’m an asshole.”
“Oh, I’m well aware.”
I narrowed my eyes. “If you’re using this opportunity to tell me I’m an asshole, then you have shitty timing.”
He hissed out a strained breath. “Oh, kettle, is that black you’re wearing? It looks just like mine.”
Touché.
We sat there staring at each other. It wasn’t really the fact that Fin knew the Chief and didn’t tell me that pissed me off, but the way he continually promised me that he was telling me everything and then around every corner, there was some new secret waiting to blindside me.
“What else?” I demanded. “What else are you keeping from me? I’m tired of the lies and the secrets and more lies as you tell me you don’t have any secrets.”
He surged to his feet, still clutching his side with his palm. “What do you want me to do? Roll out the decades of my life for you to inspect to ensure something won’t pop up and get me into trouble with you? I lived an entire lifetime before you were even born, Zoey, and part of that life might have overlapped with yours. How am I supposed to know which parts did that?”
I waved at the door. “The parts that are obvious. The parts that are so glaringly obvious they should have already been disclosed to me, like the fact you were at my parents’ crime scene and the fact that you and the Chief have a history.”
With a gusty sigh, I slumped back into the chair. Under the weight of grief and exhaustion, I had little left to push with.
After a minute of wobbly standing, he sank back into the twin size guest bed and stared at me. “I worked for the council on crimes against fae. I came into contact with the Chief once at your parents’ murder. That’s it. I didn’t see him again until I saw him at the Office the day you took me in there.”
Another question surged through the exhaustion to bob at the surface. “If you were working crimes against fae, then which of my parents was the fae?”
I didn’t need to add the question: and which the mage?
“Your mother. She was fae,” he whispered.
“And there you go again, something you could have told me at any point. Perhaps when we were talking about my parentage, or maybe when you were teaching me how to use magic.”
“Look, Zoey, I’m sorry. I can’t rifle through my head to discern what I should and shouldn’t tell you on any given day. Please understand. I didn’t choose to hide the information from you.”
Gods. I wanted to believe him, but Fin had a habit of keeping things from me. Over and over, until he got caught and had to dig his way out of the lie again.
Why couldn’t I learn my lesson the first time?
I crossed my arms under my chest and stared him down, forcing our gazes to lock. “I’m going to ask you this one time and if I find out you lied, it’s over. I’m done with all this. With everything.”
He didn’t speak, simply waiting for me to say something, his chest rising and falling jaggedly.
“Is there anything else you’ve been hiding you need to tell me?”
His mouth popped open, and I held up my hand. “No, this is your last chance. Don’t waste it. Because we aren’t doing this whole roundabout again. I won’t be punched in the head with one of your lies again. Not only is it embarrassing, it’s distracting because it makes me want to throw things at your face.”
I focused on breathing through my anger, slowing my heart rate.
“There is something else, but I can’t tell you yet.”
Just like that, my calm evaporated like a bubble on a blade of grass. “Excuse me?”
“It’s not that I don’t want to tell you, but you’re not ready to hear it and I can’t risk telling you until you’re ready.”
A rushing sound filled my ears. I was two seconds from drop kicking him in his stupidly beautiful face.
I stood, trying to project calm despite the rage coursing through me. Without another word to him, I walked out of the room and slammed the door behind me.
The Chief stood against the wall opposite the doorway and handed me a long strip of wrapping for my hands. He didn’t need to explain himself. I gripped the wrap and headed down the stairs to the right, straight into the basement the Chief used for training. I’d spent more time down there than I had on the upper level.
My hands sho
ok as I tried to wrap them, and the Chief dragged me to stand in front of a punching bag. Then he took the strip of material from me and wrapped my hands carefully, methodically. A flash of him doing this the first time hit me. I’d been thirteen and dealing with the anger over my parents’ murder. He’d helped me channel it into my training.
The present image burned so much brighter. It had been years since we stood in this room together. I would not cry. Not in front of Fin and not in front of the Chief.
Once my bandage was wrapped tight, he turned me to face my opponent.
I took my anger out on the sand-filled bag hanging from the ceiling. The bag swayed with every punch. This was always the best part. The bag could pretty much take every bit of my rage and not change. Not shift. No matter what, the bag remained the same, and that was comforting to me.
I didn’t know how long I stayed down there. The Chief didn’t keep a clock in the basement. He used to say, ‘you stay down there until you don’t need to be there anymore, no matter what time it is in the outside world.’
The bag swung wildly on its hook and I hugged it to my chest, resting my cheek against the vinyl. Another wave of exhaustion hit me, threatening to drag me under until I submitted.
With shaking arms, I unwrapped my hands and put the bandage in the drawer with my name on it, still here, written on a white label. Then I lumbered up the stairs.
The Chief met me at the door, and I waved him away. “I’m going to shower. Then probably eat something and crash.”
He scanned me from head to toe in one smooth inspection. Then with a nod, he headed back to the kitchen.
The bathroom felt a lot smaller than it had in my teen years. A shower sat in the corner. Gray stones lined the space and multiple shower heads hung overhead. The Chief enjoyed his showers.
I found towels under the sink and stripped out of my dirty, sweaty clothing. Under the spray, I let my shoulders fall and relaxed some of my guard.
I felt Fin brush against the bond between us.
“No,” I growled, and locked down the connection.
I could still feel him on the other side, but I didn’t want to be anywhere near him, mentally or physically, right now.
With sore arms it took me longer to wash my hair, but I revelled in the muscle ache. When I finished, I climbed out, dried off, and wrapped the overly large towel around my body to go find some clean clothes.
I almost tripped over the pile of clothes the Chief had left for me outside the bathroom door. Once I dressed and braided my wet hair to keep it out of the way, I walked back out to find the Chief in the kitchen.
“Did you just move into the kitchen now, or am I just lucky to keep finding you in here when I’m hungry?”
The Chief snorted and continued ladling soup into a bowl. Then he layered a couple of grilled cheese sandwiches on a plate and carried them around the counter for me.
When I reached out to take them, he dodged my hands. “These are for your boyfriend. The bowls are in the same place. Help yourself.”
He said boyfriend like it was a curse word, and I smiled as I took his place on the other side of the counter to get my own meal.
I took my food to the couch and settled into the plush cushions in front of the fire with my feet folded underneath me. The Chief came back and joined me on the couch with his own food.
“Soup, your specialty.”
He huffed more than laughed as he sipped the tomato soup with a ridiculously large spoon. Once he swallowed, he said, “Surprised you’re not in there eating with him.”
“I know you heard out fight. Pretending otherwise won’t help the situation. He needs time to consider his priorities and where I fit into that mess. I need time so I don’t plant a knife through his ear.”
I lowered my face to take a few sips of the hot liquid. We lapsed into a calm silence and I finished my sandwich and soup, then took my dishes to the kitchen.
As the Chief finished eating, I washed the dirty dishes in the sink and eyeballed his rising dough still sitting where he’d left it on the bench.
“Don’t touch it while it’s rising. It can feel your eyes on it, and it might fall. It senses fear.”
I chuckled and threw the dish towel onto the counter.
The events of the day caught up with me. The Captain’s face swam in my vision and I swallowed the lump in my throat.
The Chief put his dishes in the sink, chuffed my bicep, and went back to his room for bed, I suspected. He never told me where he was going. Or why.
I settled onto the couch and tugged a blanket off the back. No way I’d be going into the room and squeezing in beside Fin.
Footsteps in the hall made me look up. Fin padded into the kitchen and placed his dinner dishes in the sink, then came over to the couch.
“I’m not ready to talk to you right now,” I said, gazing at the dwindling fire.
He settled beside me, leaving some distance between us. For his safety, no doubt.
“Do you have any secrets?”
I turned my head to look at him. Was he fucking kidding me? “You hide things from me and then you have the gall to ask me if I’m keeping things from you?”
He tilted his head to stare at me. “You keep just as many secrets as I do, Zoey. You just seem to catch me in all mine.”
My mind flashed to Sol’s necklace and my ability to possibly track her through her metalsmithing. To be fair, it wasn’t a secret. We just hadn’t had time to go over all the details and make a plan to do it yet. Fucking Esteban had interrupted us.
Instead of answering his question, I said, “We need to make sure the Captain is taken care of. I don’t like the idea of him just lying there all alone.”
Fin lifted his hand like he might touch me, but then settled it back down, thinking better of it. “I’ll take care of it. He won’t be alone.”
The silence stretched between us and I hugged the blanket higher to my chest. “Well, goodnight.”
After a minute, he sighed heavily, lumbered off the couch, and went back to his bedroom alone.
I ignored the tears tracking down my cheeks and lay down. I’d taken so many naps on this lumpy old couch and as it settled around me, I sighed. It felt like home being here in a way my apartment never gave me. I needed to be here. Something deep inside told me coming home was the right choice.
I felt the bond between Fin and me.
I let my shields go and brushed against the connection, checking it was still there. If he felt me do it, he didn’t respond. So, I lay there with my anger, and my grief, and let sleep carry me out of it for a while.
But sleep wasn’t in my future, it seemed. I blinked my eyes open and found myself flat on my back on the blue mats in Fin’s training room.
“What the fuck?” I said out loud, staring up at the white ceiling.
“You always did have a way with language,” a familiar voice said from beside me.
I glanced over to stare at the Captain.
He wore a plain black t-shirt and a pair of gray sweatpants. Otherwise, he looked exactly the same as he had when I’d last seen him, alive.
No, this wasn’t real. It felt like a sending. I peered around the room, afraid to sit up, afraid to breathe. How could he be initiating a sending if he died? I saw him die.
Fear clawed through me. Had we run away from the house and left him there alone, bleeding out slowly?
I clawed at the mats, trying to lever myself up, but even in my dreams my muscles were sore, and it took me a minute to sit up.
“Take your time,” the Captain said.
I burst into tears.
Chapter Two
“OH SHIT, ZOEY, DON’T cry. This may come as a shock to you, but I’m not great at dealing with female tears,” the Captain said.
My sadness turned into laughter as I stared into his face. “Yeah, you are definitely the type to be manipulated by tears.”
He narrowed his eyes. “I wouldn’t go that far. I’ve known plenty of women who pull th
at move ruthlessly, dropping big fat crocodile tears at a moment’s notice.”
Neither one of us needed to mention the fact that I was one of those women who could put on a show if I needed to get my own way. But I wasn’t doing that now. I wanted to hug him and tell him how sorry I was that he was gone. Especially knowing how much Fin was hurting.
I didn’t hug him though; I gaped at him, trying to think of something to say. Anything that might convey how much it hurt to know he wouldn’t be there when I woke up.
He stared back at me, like he was perfectly comfortable to spend time in my company for however long we had.
“What’s going on here?” I asked, unable to sit still in silence for long. “You’re not alive, are you? I feel like I would know if you were alive.”
Come to mention it, while this felt like sending, it also had a dreamier quality about it. Like a sending, but through a fog.
He smiled. “No, I’m definitely not alive. This is just a lingering part of my magic and my consciousness that connected to you the last time we had a sending.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. Not only did I not know how much time we had, I also couldn’t think of a proper way to actually apologize for him dying. Right beside me, right beside Fin.
He raised his eyebrows in question
Fuck, we couldn’t just sit here looking at each other.
“I really don’t know what to say. I’m so sorry that you died, especially that way.”
Within arm’s reach.
“It wasn’t your fault, Zoey.”
“I just feel like if I should’ve done something different. I should’ve been better. I should’ve saved you.”
He gathered my hands in his and I marvelled at how solid they felt in mine. How solid all of him felt. Even as he moved, the surrounding air stirred as though he was real.
“I don’t want you to blame yourself. Fin is going to blame himself no matter what. Even if I stand at the end of his bed as a ghost and tell him not to. Can you try to get him to understand that it wasn’t his fault? I’m pretty sure you might be the only person who can get through to him about it.”