That saying about the devil you know being better than the one you didn’t? Well, I guess it didn’t apply since I knew both of them, but for the moment he seemed like the lesser of two evils.

“Now we’re friends again?” he murmured, and I looked up to see his eyes were locked on where I held his arm. I tugged him forward a few steps, away from Missy and closer to the opposite side of the yard. With Crash somewhat blocking me from her line of sight, I felt safer, but she was so focused on the house, a hungry look in her eyes, that she hadn’t even glanced our way yet. You see, the thing is, I knew my gran had left me treasures hidden within the walls. But no one other than the person whose name was on the deed would be able to unlock Gran’s secrets. So said Gran’s book.

I was starting to think I wasn’t the only one who knew that.

“She can’t have Gran’s house.” I growled the words and Crash’s arm flexed under my fingers. “She’s banana pants crazy and mean as a snake with a toothache in one of her fangs.” No, as far as I knew she didn’t actually have fangs, but at the rate I was going, who knew?

Missy stood near the far side of the garden, right up against the side butting up to the Sorrel-Weed house, which put a good amount of space between us. I wasn’t sure it mattered, though. Her eyes hadn’t left the house once in all the time I’d been watching her.

Crash turned his body so that he completely blocked my view of Missy and vice versa. “You think she’d hurt you?”

I looked up at him and saw something in his eyes that I wasn’t sure I liked. Genuine concern. “Don’t make me like you again, Crash. I’m still angry about the demon knife. That and not letting me return the two knives for credit. You’re the bad guy, remember?”

He snorted, and his lips twitched. “Wait until you get a bounty that requires you to bend the rules, Breena, then we’ll discuss those knives and what it means to be a bad guy.”

I got up on my tiptoes, mostly so he wasn’t looking so far down on me. I wasn’t short at five-foot-eight, but these last few weeks had carved a good deal of my extra pounds off—pounds I’d used to my advantage in the past to throw my weight around.

“Right is right, wrong is wrong.” That came out of my mouth as clearly as if my gran had whispered it in my ear. “But let’s set that aside for now. Missy cannot have this house.”

“Why?” He lowered his voice, his eyes flicking over my face as if he couldn’t help himself. Softening just a bit as they dipped low to my lips. Score one for Kinkly’s makeup help. “You afraid she’ll sell the china?”

I blew out an exaggerated puff of air as Monica the realtor stepped back out onto the porch, a little wobbly, but moving around now as if nothing had happened. I frowned as she shook her head and clutched her clipboard to her chest.

She opened her mouth, closed it, and tried again. “It’s like she’s pretending she didn’t just float across the yard like a balloon,” I said.

“The human mind shuts things out,” Crash said. “Fairy magic in particular tends to do strange things to humans.”

I wanted to look at him, to see what his face was saying more than his words, but I found myself staring at Monica. She tapped the wooden porch with her foot to get our attention, using three hard knocks that reverberated harder than they should have in my experience. The sound vibrated through me, and I couldn’t help but tighten my hold on Crash’s arm.

“Interesting,” he said.

Interesting? That wasn’t the word I’d use. Was Monica with the shadow world? It felt like there was some intention behind those knocks, but intention to do what? Not just to get people’s attention, but something else. She was human, so why the hell had she done that?

An intention to wake something.

That was my knee-jerk guess, and my guesses had a tendency to be pretty damn good. That meant someone had told her to do it, but not why, because I’d bet my last dollar she really was blind to the shadow world.

A few people drifted out of the house and into the overgrown front garden, as if all they’d heard was a simple knock.

Crap! So they hadn’t all left? I pinched the bridge of my nose for a moment. I should have waited to pull my stunt show.

“Let’s begin, shall we?” Monica’s voice was not wobbly at all, though she’d locked her knees together.

“Wait,” called out a voice that made my skin crawl. Any anger I felt toward Missy was burned up by the fury that this one’s voice lit in me. It felt like a ticking time bomb.

“Um, Breena,” Crash breathed out my name. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but you’re hurting me. Ease off.”

I barely heard him as he peeled my fingers off his arm, my hands settling into fists at my sides, fingertips biting into my palms. My eyes were all for the lanky bastard who strode down the middle pathway toward the porch. His eyes were all for Monica, and he didn’t once look my way. No, that’s not entirely true. He glanced at me, but didn’t seem to realize it was me. Ass.

Himself wore a three-piece suit and tie, a jaunty cap to hide his mostly bald head, and three days’ worth of stubble. I suppose some people would think it made him look more approachable. I just wanted to kick him in the balls and be done with it. Okay, maybe I wanted to kick him in the balls, and then stomp on them when he went to the ground.

Of course, he swept the yard with his gaze as soon as he joined Monica on the porch, and he did a full-on double take when he saw me.

A look of satisfaction flashed across his features, then anger. He leaned into Monica and pointed me out, saying something as he did so. She glanced at me and frowned, and shook her head as if disagreeing with him. I thought I heard her say something about letting all bidders bid.

“That son of a . . .” I breathed out a number of my more creative curse words, several that my phone liked to autocorrect to duck. Ducking limp dick. Mother ducker. Jaw ticking, I stood my ground.

“He’s not going to let you bid, is he?” Crash asked quietly.

My entire body shook with a hot rage that built with each passing second, and I couldn’t answer him with anything but a shake of my head. I barely noticed that Crash had stepped away from me at first, and when I did, my anger only redoubled. He was acting as if I were contagious. Of course, he wanted the house for his own reasons—he wouldn’t want an association with me to ruin his chances.

Monica beamed his way, and even winked at the crowd or, more specifically, Crash.

“Let’s begin, shall we?”

3

Monica the realtor held her hand up, and started the bidding at one hundred thousand for my gran’s house, the house that was supposed to be mine. I lifted my hand in answer, but her gaze swept right over me, and she pointed at someone to my right.

My jaw ticked and I tried again at one hundred fifty thousand. Again and again, her eyes and hand swept over me. I forced myself to look at Himself at her side, and he had the nerve, the ducking nerve!, to give me a smug smile that didn’t reach his eyes. His hands were at his sides and he spread them a little, palms facing me as if to say what did you expect? Of course, he might also be getting back at me for the little display Corb and I put on for him.

Rat bastard indeed.

I had twenty thousand in my bag as a down payment, but I wouldn’t be able to use it if I couldn’t get a bid in. Not that it looked like it was going to matter—the auction was already above my pay grade.

Gran appeared in the doorway, and her eyes flicked to my far right, her left. I followed her gaze to Crash, who was bidding, but she shook her head, so I moved it further to the right. Missy stood there, silently bidding with just a flick of her cane when it was her turn.

Monica called out, “Four hundred thousand.”

Missy lifted her hand. The house was now far out of my league.

I blew out a breath I’d sucked in as Crash nodded in response to Monica’s query for more money. They were the only two left in the auction; the rest of the group was just watching now to see the outcome.

What was I going to do?

Think girl, think! I heard my gran’s voice say, although this was my inner gran, not her ghost. You aren’t some inexperienced woman. You’ve got years of life experience under your belt, and years of working at a law firm too. You’ve got to do something or you’re going to lose any chance you have at getting the house.

If I could distract Missy long enough . . . maybe Crash would get the house. If he didn’t have to pay as much, then maybe he’d be grateful? What his gratitude would do for me I didn’t know, but something told me Missy was more dangerous. For now, anyway. For all I knew, she’d been in on Hattie’s plan. I didn’t want her to increase her strength with whatever Gran had hidden for me in the house. All of that flashed through my brain in milliseconds and I came to a quick decision.

I strode across the garden, pushing several tall stalks of herbs out of my way to get to where Missy stood. She was so intent on her bidding war with Crash that she didn’t notice. Kinkly floated down from a tree branch to land on my right shoulder, light as a feather. “Careful,” she warned.

When I stood right behind Missy, I whispered, “I have her book.”

Missy whipped around and stared hard at me. “What?”

A chance was all I was going to get. I didn’t take my eyes off her as I flipped open the bag on my hip and pulled out the red leather-bound book, cradling it in my arm. I knew she’d recognize it. The front cover, hand etched with a crescent moon and a spattering of stars, was one of a kind, much like the handwritten pages inside. “This is what you’re looking for, isn’t it?” I stared down at the book, stroking the cover. “Written in her hand.”

“Give it to me,” she hissed, reaching for it. I jerked it away from her hands. “Celia left that book for me, and someone stole it from the house.”

“Going once.”

I shrugged. “I bought it fair and square. It doesn’t bother me none that you had it first.”