A string of curse words floated past my gritted teeth as I realized how close I’d come to dying when I’d gone up against Crash. Of course, I’d felt invincible with Karissa’s magic floating through me.

“Boss. How did she beat you?” Feish asked.

I put my hand up like I was sitting in school. “Karissa kissed me. I was full of—” I lifted both hands up, wiggling them.

“Youth,” Eric said. “Vitality. Strength.”

I waved a hand at him. “What he said.”

Feish was frowning. “Boss, Karissa’s magic does not hurt you. It wouldn’t have worked on you that way.”

Crash stared hard at me, his blue and gold eyes sweeping over me. “Because it wasn’t just her magic. Some of it was from Breena.”

Gran puffed away in a quick movement that I did not miss even as his words sank into my mind. Not just Karissa’s magic.

Hadn’t Officer Jon’s friend told me I was something different? That I didn’t look like I was human? What the hell was happening to me?

“GRAN!” I twisted about, but she was gone. Sort of.

“I don’t want to talk about it!” Her voice was faint, but I still heard it and I followed the echo.

I was up and out of my seat, running for the stairs, forgetting that there were maybe more important things to deal with than my potentially questionable heritage. Except that my heritage (parentage?) could potentially help or hurt me in this particular situation.

I skidded to a stop in my bedroom, shocked at how fast I’d gotten there after the day I’d had.

But maybe I shouldn’t be so shocked if there really was something inhuman inside of me. Something that was waking up?

Why would it come out now, though? Why not when I was younger and training with Gran and Officer Jon? Why not . . . any time in the last twenty years when I could have used a shot of confidence? When I could have used a little magic to put Alan in his place?

Gran paced inside my old bedroom. “I didn’t know it would be like this, Bree. I really didn’t. I was doing my best to protect you from those who would attempt to use you.”

“Spill it, Gran, who knocked boots with someone in the shadow world?” My parents had died in a car accident when I was barely ten. Another wave of intuition passed over me.

“My parents. It wasn’t a car accident, was it?”

Her lips trembled. “No, I don’t think it was, but I’ve never been able to prove it. Jon could never find anything.”

“Just like it wasn’t a natural death for you?” My guts were churning. Who the hell was killing my family and why?

She closed her eyes. “I truthfully don’t remember my own death. I opened my eyes, and I was standing over my body. Whatever happened to me is gone from my mind.”

“I will find the people who killed you and my parents, but we’ll circle back to that. Gran, what the hell am I?” I took a step toward her and she sank to the bed. I had the urge to do the same. I wasn’t human.

“Your grandfather was fae.”

Her words like a slap to the face, I took a step back as my brain did the math. I was a quarter fae?

She looked at me. “I did the best I could to keep you hidden, and honestly, when you left Savannah and asked to be blocked from the shadow world, I figured it was the best way to keep you safe. As much as I hated for you to be gone, it meant there were no fae looking for you, no one wondering at your fast reflexes or your flashes of intuition. So long as you were blinded to the shadow world, no one was looking your way, no one was thinking about using you. Like Karissa would. Like Crash might.”

Gran’s hair swirled around her, buffeted by an unseen wind. “Your grandfather was fae, and your father was from the supernatural world too. I can’t remember what he was, Bree, and I’ve been trying!” She swung her arms above her head in obvious frustration. “But he was strong. And that strength, along with your grandfather’s bloodline, is what makes you who and what you are—unique in the shadow world. When you asked for the magic back, it came quietly that first night, but it has been growing ever since, and it will continue to grow.”

I blew out a slow breath. “So whatever magic I’ve got, I asked for it back, and just like that it’s here?”

Gran gave me a smile that was somehow both sad and proud. “You released yourself from my spell, Breena. You opened yourself up to your full potential by shedding the past that had shackled you. You had to want it.”

I didn’t think she just meant the spell. She meant Alan. She meant my lack of confidence in myself. She meant everything I’d lived up until this point. I straightened my back and gave her a nod. “Okay, Gran. Okay. All this is groovy—” Actually no, no it was not groovy, but I would deal with the mental fallout later. “—but we’ve got to figure out what exactly we’re doing with the quartz cross and that mark on Crash’s neck.”

Because I couldn’t give the cross to Karissa, no matter what I’d promised her. And I couldn’t give it to Crash, because he’d be forced to give it to O’Sean.

A knock on the front door snapped my head around.

I hurried down the stairs to the door just as Suzy rounded the corner, a gun in one hand and a knife in the other. From the front hall I could just see Crash, sitting quietly at the table, his eyes the only thing that moved as they tracked me.

I grabbed the door and flung it open to see Officer Burke standing there, her fist raised to pound again. “Is that a knife?”

I looked at my right hand. “Shoot, yes it is. Cutting vegetables, and I ran for the door.” I tucked the knife into the sheath on my thigh, which might have slightly undermined my cover story.

Officer Burke gave me a tight smile. “I came by to tell you that Jon is doing okay. Or at least he’s stable and the doctors think he’ll pull through.”

I blew out a breath of relief. “I’m glad to hear that. Thank you for coming by to tell me, I appreciate it.” I swung the door shut, but she put her foot in the doorway, stopping me.

“About your Gran’s death. I took a quick look into it after you left the station. When you’re ready, come on down, and we can discuss what I found.” She pulled her foot back and turned around. I opened the door and stared at her back.

“My parents were killed too. Thirty years ago,” I said softly. “In an apparent car accident that probably wasn’t. But it would be dangerous to look into it. I don’t want anyone else to get hurt.”

Officer Burke paused, but didn’t look back at me as she spoke. “You know, the files from your parents’ accident might just end up with your grandmother’s files. Paperwork can get mixed up like that for people in the same family.”

“I see,” I said. “I’ll keep that in mind. And thank you. Again.”

Officer Burke strode down the narrow walkway and let herself out the gate without ever looking my way again. I shut the door and leaned on it a moment, breathing in deep.

With my eyes closed, I let the problems at hand fill my mind in the hopes that the puzzle pieces would click together. Crash was under the sway of O’Sean. Karissa was working for O’Sean. O’Sean wanted to do bad, although unspecified things to Savannah. I had someone shooting at me and Eric, most likely a henchman of O’Sean’s. Everyone in the Hollows Group was under an enchantment set by O’Sean Senior.

“Eammon wanted me to work for Karissa,” I breathed out the words and took a step back, turning to the kitchen. Crash was watching me, his eyes unreadable.

I cleared my throat, not entirely sure who I could fully trust, but knowing who would tell me the truth if not always as expected. “Feish, is there a way to take the mark off Crash, freeing him?”

“Your grandmother could have done it. It needs to be a spell caster with great power,” Feish said softly.

I grimaced, already knowing that there was one spell caster we could ask. Whether she’d help, I wasn’t sure. “Crap. Okay. And once you’re free of that mark, you don’t have to do what they want?”

“I’ve already asked Missy to remove the mark. She refused,” Crash said. “‘Just penance for a lifetime of sin and debauchery’ were, I believe, the exact words she used.”

My lips curled up. Suddenly their interaction at the auction made much more sense. He’d asked her, and she’d refused, but I wondered if it was because she wasn’t strong enough. Knowing her, she would have wanted Crash to owe her a favor.

“Yeah, that sounds like her. If I manage to free you from it, will you promise to help me stop O’Sean?”

Crash gave me a nod. “You have my word that if you free me of this mark, I am yours.”

Feish sucked in a not-so-silent gasp. I chose to ignore the potential innuendo in his wording, because it was Crash. Besides, I’d already come to the conclusion that he was not for me. No matter how hot he was.

“Crash, I need you to go outside a moment while my team discusses what we’re going to do.” I locked eyes with him. “Because for all we know, O’Sean can control you even now. Maybe he can even track you.”

“Like he tracked me,” Suzy said.

I thought Crash would get all stupid manly on me, that he’d scoff and say he was stronger than that. But he stood up and went to the door, his eyes finding mine for just a moment before he left. “That is smart. You decide how to move forward, and I will trust you to tell me my part.”

And then he was out of the kitchen and the front door was clicking shut behind him. I could all too easily imagine him sitting on the front step. Waiting.

“Holy crap, the heat between you two is going to light my panties on fire,” Suzy said. “I mean, he’s so damn comfortable in his skin, he’s not only letting you lead, but letting you boss him around? Hot. That’s hot.”

“Stop that.” I waved a hand at her, choosing to ignore what she was saying rather than digest it. “Here’s the thing. We have the quartz fairy cross. And I want to hide it in a place no one will ever think to look.” I grabbed a piece of paper and started writing. Suzy, Feish, and Eric leaned over my shoulder. “We’ll need Robert’s help. Eric, I’ll need you here, at the house. Suzy, you’ll bring Missy to meet us at the Hollows. Feish, you go to Karissa.” I sketched out my idea on the paper, lest anyone was listening, and Eric clapped me on the shoulder.