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Kade’s interest was piqued. “Can you tell me anything about her?”

She nodded furiously. “Yes, but not here. The town is already gossiping, and I don’t want anyone to hear what I have to say.”

Kade exhaled, searching for Evelyn again. He should wait, but he wanted to know what Penny had to say and, by the sound of her nervous heart and the shake of her voice, her courage to seek him out would falter soon. Besides, he needed to gain any clues he could to solve the murder, protecting these people from the vampyr.

“All right.” He followed her out of the inn and into the side alley.

The wind had tamed, and night had fallen in the smaller village, stars littering the sky with blinking white lights.

Penny checked around them, continuously wringing her hands. “McKenna had a lover,” she said in a rushed whisper.

Kade’s brow rose. “A lover?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Who?”

“I don’t know. She never told me his name, and she’d only ever meet him at night.”

Kade mused. At night would fit if this “he” was in fact a vampyr.

“I never met him. McKenna was secretive these last few weeks.” She shook her head. “She kept telling me they were in love and that he had promised her forever.”

Forever.

Kade pinched the bridge of his nose. He’d never known the creatures to form relationships with humans. They killed, slaughtered, drank from them, sometimes took them away to turn them. But falling in love? Promising forever? Kade flushed with frustration, unable to believe what Penny had told him.

Then he remembered something Brenna had said.

There’s a castle, a ruin from the ancient faerie reign. She used to visit and leave trinkets.

“Did she tell you where she met him?” Kade asked.

Penny peered around the corner and watched the door for a beat before whispering, “Aye, she did. Connacht Castle.”

“Thank you, Penny.”

She grabbed his forearm, stopping him in his tracks. “Can I ask ya to keep this to yourself? The McCarthys are good people. They don’t need rumors. McKenna’s death is enough.”

Kade nodded. “Of course.”

They parted ways, and Kade headed to the stables to check on Bleu and to ask the stableman about Connacht Castle. Once he learned the directions, he headed back to the inn. He expected to find Evelyn at the bar, but she was nowhere to be found.

The barmaid caught his stare. “Looking for that beauty?”

Yes. He nodded.

“She took her dinner and wine up to her room. Haven’t seen her since.”

Kade slumped onto a barstool, running his hand over his beard. A sinking feeling filled his stomach as the barmaid slid him dinner. As he ate alone, he reminded himself she’d left. Yet, he couldn’t shake what he’d witnessed today—Evelyn helping the McCarthys. Solving this murder for money was bullshit. She’d lied to him. Something else drove her, and there was something more to her running two years ago.

He went to bed, determined to find out what it was soon.

Chapter Thirteen

Evelyn

Evelyn draped her mud-soaked cloak over the chair at the writing desk and splashed her face in cold water. She worried for Maxie in their new apartment, but she’d cracked the main window, and her crafty familiar would be fine.