Page 2 of Secrets of the Forgotten Heir

‘Control your damned dog!’ he snarled. His fury was so powerful I actually felt a flutter of it; for me to feel emotions coming off a non-magical person means their feelings have to beseriouslystrong.

I have far better control over my dog than most pet owners, but sometimes you have to accept that they are animals and occasionally they do whatever they like. This situation hadn’t beenmyfault, though, nor Eva’s or even the woman’s; if the suit had been watching where he was going, he wouldn’t have got tangled up.

Eva pressed into my side and I patted her reassuringly, ignoring the rude man in favour of checking over mydog and the shaken young woman whose head was no longer bobbing cheerfully. I gave her my standard spiel about being aware of her surroundings and passed her my self-defence business card, because … well, why not?

By the time I reached home, I had replayed the conversation with the rude phone man at least half a dozen ways and come up with a number of witty replies he would never hear:Ah yes, because my dog was the one staring at their phone and not watching where she was going. Classic canine behaviour!My other favourite was:Oh no, I didn’t realise my dog was controllingyourfeet too! I’ll have a word with her about that.

It's such a pain when the witty repartee comes to you too late, but it’s the story of my life. I was still thinking up cutting comebacks as I slotted my key into the lock.

That was the moment the whole debacle evaporated from my thoughts.

Because my front door was unlocked.

And I sure as hell knew I hadn’t left it that way.

Chapter Two

I nudged the door open a couple of inches with my foot and peered inside. Whoever had decided to break in had badly misjudged what they would find: my camera and computer were so old that they were close to worthless, and there was zero in the way of designer clothes or jewellery. Courtesy of an elf, I still had a greenhouse full of thriving plants, but I doubted there was much of a black market for stolen ferns. And even if the burglars had raided the fridge, all they’d have found was a bag of grated cheese and half a bottle of Oyster Bay. I hoped they liked questionable dairy and disappointment.

Whoever had broken into my house had made a dire mistake. I’d spent the first sixteen years of my life training to be the guardian of the most magical, powerful relic in Witchlight Cove, and I’d started learning to fight as soon as I could stand. Neither was I on my own: I had Eva and, as she’d proved time and time again, she was an asset in numerous ways. We werenotan easy mark; in fact, we werethe worst possible mark. We were the kind of mark that stole the wallet back before you’d even finished lifting it.

‘Ready, girl?’ I asked, glancing down at Eva. Her hackles were up, but instead of the vicious snarling I’d expected – or even the low rumbling growl she’d given the damned squirrel – her head was tilted to the side and she was sniffing the air curiously.

I tried to tap into her emotions to see if I could glean anything from her, but all I got was a mild sense of curiosity. As I was trying to dig out what she might be thinking, however, I was hit by a dozen other emotions – and none of them were coming from Eva.

Houston, we had an intruder.

‘Get behind me, girl,’ I ordered. Half of me wanted to grab her by the collar and move her away, but I couldn’t lose focus because I was feeling the emotions of whoever was in my flat and they werestrong.Strong was bad. The only time I’d felt emotions this intense was when I was emotionally close to the person, and that wasn’t possible here because everyone I cared about was either dead or in Witchlight Cove. Or they were seriously magically powerful.

There was one possibility that made the old fear rise up and threaten to consume me: my grandmother. Her body had never been found, and though she’d been banished,I’d never been sure that she’d been truly vanquished. The possibility of her return filled every single one of my nightmares. You don’t get over the potential resurrection of a homicidal magical matriarch.

‘I know you’re in there,’ I called, trying to keep my voice steady.

Much as I didn’t want to admit it, I was bricking it. Facing a non-magical assailant didn’t bother me as long as they weren’t armed with a gun – and given the UK’s gun laws that was unlikely. I was fairly sure I could disarm and immobilise almost anyone, regardless of their size or training; I’d successfully taken on ex-military types countless times, plus an assassin a few years back.

But when you’re up against someone magical, it’s a whole different ball game. For all I knew, the intruder could already be reading my mind, stealing my best moves and judging my life choices. Even if they weren’t witches, shifters had crazy strength even in human form. As for vampires, who combined speed with that whole pointy-teeth thing, they weren’t something I wanted to deal with either. Not without some weapons in my hands to level the playing field.

‘I don’t want anyone to get hurt,’ I called, hoping they’d think I was referring to them. ‘Whatever you’re after, I promise you’ve got the wrong person.’ Unless it was dearold Grandmama, in which case, ding, ding, ding! She was on the right track all right.

That was when the emotions hit me again and this time it was a full-on tsunami, even with my mental shields up. Anger was being aimed straight at me, as well as hurt and fear and so much confusion. But it was the last emotion that had me gripping the doorframe to keep myself upright.

Love. Love for me so deep and fierce that it melted away the anger, disappointment, and hurt.

The fact that I could discern those feelings told me that I was emotionally close to my intruder, and the blend of emotions melded so perfectly with sympathy and grief that it could only belong to one person.

Straightening up, I stepped into my apartment and switched on the light. ‘Maddie?’ I whispered as I stared into my best friend's eyes.

‘Hi, Bea,’ she said brightly, giving me a finger wave and a smile as if all that hurt and upset weren’t coursing through her veins. ‘How’s things?’

When you say you’ve got history with someone it can mean anything. It can mean you had a drunken hookup one night, or maybe you were work besties who fell out over a promotion, or maybe the history goes back as far ashigh school. But when I say it about Maddie, it would be more accurate to say that shewasmy history.

She was my ride or die, my best friend since I was old enough to land my first uppercut. Maddie was the only person who knew everything about me, from which guy I was crushing on – I tended to have a thing for shifters – to how much it hurt me to have such pathetic magical powers when I was the offspring of one of the most potent witches around.

Maddie had been the only one I could let it all out to. When the shit really hit the fan and my parents were killed, she and her grandmother, Yanni, had moved into my family home. She’d even taken over my position of guarding the Eternal Flame when everything had become too much for me.

I had run away from the task I had been born to do and left Witchlight Cove the moment I was eighteen. For the last ten years Maddie had taken over the responsibility for the Flame, lived the life I thought would be mine. I’d been pushing her to the back of my mind ever since, trying to pretend that I didn’t miss her and the cove every second of every day.

That was a damn sight harder to do now that she was standing in front of me.

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