Just another day in the life of Breena O’Rylee. I lifted my face to the last rays of the sun and dared to close my eyes for just a second. “If Crash didn’t hate me before, he will now,” I said as I opened my eyes.

“I don’t think he hated you at all,” Eric said. “From what I’ve heard, he’s never so much as blinked in the direction of women other than for temporary pleasure.”

A snort slid out of me. “You should have seem him in the orgy pit.”

Eric choked back a sound. “I’m sorry, the what?”

“The doorway we went through to avoid the idiots in black was an in between, and it took us to what was basically a fae orgy pit. He had a brunette on one side and a raven-haired girl on the other, and it looked like they were maybe eighteen at best.”

“Well, shit,” Eric muttered, and coming from him, a bigfoot who looked more like a professor, it made me snicker.

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you swear before.”

He patted my shoulder. “I don’t often. It’s a bad habit in my profession.”

We were quiet for about half a block before I asked a question. “Who do you think is behind all this weird stuff, Eric? I mean, we’ve got the O’Sean family. Karissa and Crash are obviously fighting over . . . maybe territory? And obviously this thing,” I put a hand on my bag as I looked up at Eric. He shrugged, so I went on. “The idiots in black, who may or may not have something to do with that, and then someone shot at us, but who?”

“Hard to say. All of it is a tangled mess.” He paused and turned to look behind us. I looked with him.

There in the distance was a broad-shouldered figure I knew all too well. “Oh shit. That spell didn’t knock him down for long.”

“Do we run now?” Eric breathed out.

“Just walk faster,” I said. I mean, Eric was hardly the one to blend in at over seven feet tall.

We picked up our pace, weaving our way through the next square, doing our best not to look like we knew we were potentially being chased.

“How close?” I asked quietly.

“He’s not hurrying to catch us, so either he doesn’t see us, which I doubt is the case seeing as he’s not blind, or he wants to see where we’re going,” Eric said softly.

I took the next right, and we broke into a run as soon as we were around the corner, heading for our house. For Crash’s house.

Gran’s house.

Crap on crackers, he was going to kick me out. I was going to lose my gran’s house completely. He’d never agree to sell now.

A flutter of wings caught my attention over the ragged sound of my lungs working overtime. “Kink! Are you okay?”

Tears streaked her face. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I should have warned you that she’d use you. I thought you were like the others, but you’re not. You’re my friend. She kicked me out for standing up to her.”

I wanted to ask her a question, but I didn’t dare. If I did, I feared I wouldn’t have enough air left to keep going. We reached Gran’s house and I bolted through the gate and up the porch steps. “Kink, meet me out back!”

As soon as we entered the house, I sent Eric to the kitchen with a hand motion, as I ran through the house to the back door, and right out into the backyard. I wanted to catch my breath, but I had more problems than a woman could count, and having all the time in the world wasn’t one of them.

“Kinkly!” I whisper-yelled her name and a moment later she buzzed down to me. “What the hell are you talking about? Is Karissa one of the bad guys?”

“No.” She shook her head and then nodded. “Maybe. She’s working with the O’Seans. They told her they’d help her secure her territory if she got them the fairy cross.”

Now that set me back on my heels. Because I knew Crash was working with them too.

Or at least he was making a crucible for Douche Canoe.

Now, if I’d been twenty years younger, I might have lost my mind right there.

But I was not.

And I would not.

I turned around and marched right back into the house in time to see Crash barrel through the front door. I pointed a finger at him. “You. In the kitchen, now.”

His jaw dropped and I lifted both eyebrows at him, not even trying the one brow trick. “Seriously. In the kitchen.”

“Give me the cross,” he growled.

“IN THE KITCHEN!” I yelled and he took a half step back. My heart was beating hard with a mixture of anger, hurt, and sheer exasperation. I went into the kitchen first, part of me expecting a blow from behind, but trusting Crash just enough to give him my back.

Eric, Suzy, and Feish were already crowded up against the far wall, like kids whose parents were really scrapping it out. I pulled out a chair and sat down at the table. Waited for Crash.

A full minute passed—which is a long time to wait, let me tell you, but I refused to back down. Not today.

Not tomorrow.

He finally came inside and sat across from me, his eyes flashing with anger. I glared right back. “You are working on a crucible for O’Sean Senior, are you not? I assume you need the quartz for it, as I believe I recall you saying it would take some time. Are you supposed to make the crucible out of the cross?”

Guessing, I was guessing, but the tightening along his neck told me I was spot on. Score one for me. Unfortunately, I had a feeling I wasn’t going to score any other way any time soon.

Before he could speak, I held up a finger. “I don’t want the O’Seans to have a leg up. Pardon me, the O’Sean to have a leg up.”

He frowned but kept his mouth shut. Look at me go. “The younger of the two is dead, and it looks as though your ex-wife is also working for O’Sean Senior.”

That frown of his deepened. “Damn it. Damn her.”

“Yes, well, seeing as I took on a job for her, I am the one cursing myself. You are somehow both working for the same asshole. How’s that for a pickle? I’m not interested in giving either of you this quartz fairy cross.”

“I’ll kick you out of your gran’s house,” he said.

I leaned back in the chair, having already guessed he’d say that. “My gran would prefer for me to lose this house permanently than to help an O’Sean hurt this town, something she is very sure will happen if they have their way. Savannah is mine to protect, as it was my gran’s. So if you want to intimidate me, keep trying.”

He mimicked me. “Why aren’t you still running away?”

“You want to run around in this heat? Bless your heart, I thought you knew better than to risk heat exhaustion.”

Suzy snickered into her hand, but quickly covered it up. I glanced over to see my three friends eating some concoction Eric had whipped up earlier. Like they were spectators at a bull fight. I frowned at them and the jerks all shrugged in unison.

Back to Crash, I put both hands on the table. “We are at an impasse.”

Gran floated to the left of me. “My book, you read in my book about fae, about how to bind them, forcing them to heel.”

What the hell did that have to do with Crash right now? Yes, he was fae, but . . . had they made him sign some sort of contract?

Oh.

My eyes widened. “Are you being forced to help the O’Seans?”

His blue and gold eyes closed and he leaned back in his chair. “I am a prisoner to them, far worse than Feish is to me.”

Well duck me sideways.

19

Sitting in my gran’s kitchen, across the table from Crash, I just stared at him, gobsmacked by the words that had fallen out of his mouth. He was something like a slave to O’Sean Senior?

“Seriously?”

His jaw flexed, but not with anger, more like he couldn’t answer me. I’d seen enough of that lately to recognize it for what it was. Feish gave a burble off to my left. “I can speak for him. He will have to punish me later, but you must know, I think, or we will all walk off a cliff that can’t be seen in the fog.”

I swiveled in my seat to look at her. “What kind of punishment?”

“I’ll yell at her,” Crash said softly, “and throw things around.”

Basically, they’d put on a show for whoever was listening. Clever.

Feish pulled out a chair and carefully lowered herself into it, her bulbous eyes blinking rapidly. “Boss was caught sleeping two years ago, and they spelled him to stay asleep and inked him. They forced him to sign a contract too, threatened my life if he didn’t. No one else would have dared. His magic is dulled right because of their hold on him.”

Suddenly her fierce protectiveness of her boss made even more sense. He’d given up his freedom to save her. Karissa’s words about the Unseelie flowed through my brain.

I whipped around to face Crash. “Let me guess, they gave you the mark of a crescent moon?” He leaned back in his chair and gave me a slow nod.

Karissa had said it was a sign of Unseelie, the bad fae. Had she told me that so that I’d distrust Crash if I saw it on his neck, not realizing that it was a mark of slavery to the O’Seans, and had nothing to do with being Unseelie? I was guessing the answer was yes.

Setting me in direct opposition with Crash. “Would you have killed me if you could have back there? Because of whatever magical hold they have on you?”

Another jaw tick. “I was holding back the best I could. But yes, they want you dead now that they know you were the one who stopped Hattie. Even though they still got what they want.”

Did that mean the ceremony that had cost Eric’s cousin his life had let through the demon Hattie had wished to summon? Had the demon been wreaking havoc in New Orleans all this time? Now that would make for some seriously shitty irony.

“Won’t help if they figure out you killed Sean O’Sean,” Suzy said, ever helpful.

Crash’s head whipped around to look at her, then back to me. “Pardon, what?”

“Old news. Kinda,” I muttered. It seemed like weeks since Suzy and I’d been fired, since we’d been down in the enslaved quarters. Since Sean O’Sean had attacked me.