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Kade dropped to his haunches, laying a hand on the ground and threading his other through the grass.

“What are you doing?”

Kade glanced up at her and smirked. “Tracking magic.”

She studied him as he closed his eyes. His forehead smoothed out as he inhaled, and his shoulders relaxed. The wind whipped by, ominous and wild. Evelyn’s chest ached as Kade used his werewolf abilities. Something about it, something about him, made her so curious. What else did she not know about him? What else could she learn?

Kade’s eyes flashed open, and his jaw ticked. “Sheila was here.” He stood to his full height. “There’s also . . .” His nostrils flared as he sniffed the air.

Evelyn let out a giggle, then clamped a hand over her mouth.

He narrowed his eyes, but mirth lay in his stare. “What?”

“I’m sorry.” She shook her head. “I just . . . you’re sniffing the air.”

“I am a werewolf. We have heightened senses.”

“Trust me.” Evelyn held up her hands. “I haven’t forgotten. What are you sensing?”

Kade’s eyes flashed with something she couldn’t read, and then he said, “Licorice. I also smelled it at Lake Glenn.”

“Licorice? Like the candy?”

Kade nodded. “I think it belongs to someone.”

“Is that what vampyrs smell like to you?” Evelyn approached closer to the cottage.

“No, vampyrs smell sharp, almost like a lemon.”

More curiosity, more interest, sparked in Evelyn, but she dismissed it. “I’m going to check the other side.”

She didn’t wait for Kade’s response, circling the perimeter of the cottage. She found no signs pointing to Sheila’s murder. No blood. No signs of a fight. On the other side, the fog thickened, becoming as dark as smoke, the wisps and tendrils moving like a crowd of ghosts.

Evelyn sent out her magic. An oozy energy, like tar, slid against her. She’d never felt anything like it before and her instinct told her something was off. Her heart hammered away like it would after having a nightmare.

She assessed the cottage further as she neared the other side. Had this been another meeting place between a victim and the vampyr? Between the caved-in roof and overgrown vegetation, Evelyn doubted it, but she also questioned if a vampyr had killed Sheila. Commissioner Doyle said her body was missing a head, but she hadn’t been blue or held a bite mark.

Evelyn wondered if Kade, with his werewolf senses and tracking magic, had discovered anything new, but when she rounded the corner, he was gone.

“Kade?”

As Evelyn searched for him in the thickening fog, the air dropped a rapid ten degrees. A gust of briny wind ripped Evelyn’s hood back. It howled, sending shivers up her spine. Sensing the change in atmosphere, she readied her magic.

A raspy, throaty laugh echoed behind her. “Oh, hello, Evelyn Carson. I’ve waited so long to meet you.”

Chapter Forty-Five

Evelyn

Evelyn whirled. Her cloak billowed, and fog moved in its wake, unveiling a woman with eerie features standing in the thicket of trees growing from the doorway.

Only her face was visible between two vine-like branches. The woman twitched and tilted her head, blinking in a slow, animalistic way. Evelyn dared to think she’d once been beautiful, but her white, gaunt skin appeared sickly. Inky black hair, long and tangled, shined with grease. Beady red eyes, as if the woman rarely saw the light of day, assessed Evelyn with a predatorial interest.

Was she another faerie working with the vampyr? More importantly, where in the fucking flames was Kade?

“Daughter of the Goddess at last,” the woman said. Her voice echoed across the cliffs, as if she shouted from elsewhere.

Evelyn took a cautious step back and reached for her bone staff pinned through her bun—