Page 10 of Royal Ransom

“It wasn’t bothering me, honest. I’m just…” She waved her hand in front of her face, trying to fan away the heat pouring off her cheeks. “Damn it. I’m sorry. It’s just…” She tugged away from me, wrapping her arms tightly around herself. “I just want to scream!”

“Why?” I started as she turned to look at me with ire in her eyes.

“We’re wasting time! Janara’s had him for more than a week! She’s torturing him? By now, she might have even killed him. I just... I can’t...”

Charlie turned her face away before I could read her expression. I was glad. I didn’t want her to see pity in my eyes. Because I’d been exactly where she was now—worrying if the person you cared about was dead or alive. It still struck me as nothing short of a miracle that Dickhead Reynard had found love in a backwoods Hollow of all places. But Charlie was clearly smitten. You didn’t react like this unless your feelings werestrong.

I patted her back, unsure of how to comfort the grieving vampire. I didn’t trust her near my neck, so hugging her was out. The idea of embracing an undead felt alien, but oddly, I didn’t feel much disgust towards her. If the story she’d told Tally was true, she’d been mauled and turned as a last resort. She felt almost human, as though the death magic on her hadn’t fully taken hold.

“He’s alive,” I said.

She looked up at me with hope in her eyes. “You can’t know that.”

I sighed. Tally was going to hate me for this, but... “He is.”

“But how—“

“—there’s a ransom demand. It arrived earlier today.”

“But,” Charlie started, shaking her head. “No one—”

“Janara is giving Taliyah two days to turn herself in, or she’ll kill Reynard. That’s part of why we’re meeting tonight: to decide whether to take the deal.”

The room erupted into furious mutters. I hadn’t tried to shout, but in a room full of monsters, it was hard to keep secrets, even when said secret was important. Tally would be furious about my announcement, but I couldn’t stand to watch the vampire cry over Reynard. The reasons for my feelings surprised me.

I hated the guy. I would have happily punched him for talking down to my wife. But… he was family. Estranged and uncomfortable, but still family. He held answers about a part of myself I’d never examined. I realized I didn’t want him to die. Which meant I had to save his life at some point. Damn it.

Charlie looked up at me with that expression of placid hope. I wanted to give her a reassuring smile, ignoring the arguments starting around the tables. The bickering would take most of the night before we came up with a concrete plan. But I couldn’tfocus on anything but the pulse of dread coursing down my spine when a runestone in my pocket buzzed. It was a crude security measure, but I’d rigged it to alert me when and what kind of magic interfered with Tally’s wards.

I felt a chill seep from the stone. A chill that didn’t belong to Tally. Which could only mean one thing: they were at her house, waiting for her to arrive.

Fuck.

Chapter Seven

Taliyah

I was on my feet and running before I could think, vaulting over the tail end of the cruiser.

The air around me crackled with power. That was familiar, too. I remembered the spiteful flavor of Wren’s magic when I’d touched the bone knife she’d fashioned from my mother’s skull. And now she’d come back to my town, touched one ofmypeople. She was going to pay for that.

I felt winter rise in me, stronger and more violent than ever before as I approached, steam pouring forward, obscuring the road as my power mingled with the balmy air. I knew the street by heart. Wren and her cronies wouldn’t. Let them try to take me out on my home turf. I would dropkick her elfin ass all the way to a prison cell.

I gripped my service pistol, drawing it slightly from the holster as I approached the shadowy back end of Darla’s car. The trunk appeared open, and I could see a pale leg draped against the darkness of the bumper. My stomach clenched tight in sudden, rational fear.

Was Darla dead? Had they killed her and stuffed her into the trunk of her own car? It wasn’t the first time I’d seen someone I cared about lifeless on the ground, but by God, it was going to be the last. If Wren had killed Darla, I’d wring her scrawny neck with my bare hands.

She might not be dead. Don’t jump to conclusions.

Right. I needed to get closer and check her pulse.

Which was the point of the trap. I couldn’t rush in half-cocked and take their bait. There was something nasty waiting between me and the ex-ghost turned medium. If I ran into its path, I was going to be hurt. Badly. I couldn’t even call for backup without alerting them to the fact I’d caught onto theplan. They knew I was somewhere nearby, but the winter in the air was too thick for even Janara’s best to see me clearly. Rime, Janara’s pet prophet, was probably the one to worry about. He could sense things beyond normal faerie perception.

Think, Tally,I thought to myself, tightening my grip on my gun. There were many things proof against bullets in the supernatural world. I’d learned that the hard way when I started policing them. But faeries, especially those as humanoid as the Sidhe, were susceptible to iron. Even if it didn’t kill them, it would hurt like a son of a bitch. After everything they’d done, that thought didn’t bother me much. They deserved a little pain.

So, think! Of what?I thought back at myself snarkily. To my shock, something else answered.

Solutions.

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