Page 1

Chapter

One

GRACE

“ G oblin,” I said, his name fell from my lips like a gasp of horror twisted with a prayer. The sweet puppy was racing toward us from the front of the house. The engine growled as Bones dropped his hand to the stick shift. And it was a stick shift. Dammit.

“Backseat,” Bones ordered and I didn’t argue, I just freed my seatbelt and climbed over. “On the floor and get ready to open the door.”

He waited only long enough for me to slide into the back before the car did a hard reverse. I bumped into the front seat even as I braced against the backseat. As much as I’d like to see where we were versus Goblin, I didn’t say a word and just waited.

The car spun to the side.

“Now,” Bones ordered.

I shoved the backdoor open. “Goblin!” The beautiful dog raced toward me. There was no mistaking the blood on his fur as he leapt onto the backseat. The heavy scent of copper made me want to gag, as did the wet sound of him slicking over the seat.

A bullet sparked off the door and I stretched over to yank the door closed before covering him even as Bones hit the accelerator and spun the car. Thankfully, the force of his curve helped the door to slam shut.

The explosive sound of his gun firing was violently loud, sharp, and almost deafening. It seemed to bounce off everything around us, like the car amplified the sound of the weapon. My ears rang with a high-pitched whining static that threatened to drill through my brain.

Goblin made a low sound or maybe it wasn’t low, I couldn’t hear him so much as feel the sound vibrate through him.

If my ears hurt this bad, then he had to be in hell.

The air seemed to compress, then pop almost painfully before everything muffled again.

If there were other sounds—I couldn’t hear them at all.

The car slammed forward again, the acceleration shoving me against the seats and I braced one hand and one foot to keep from squashing Goblin. The good boy had his claws digging in to keep himself in place too.

Bones said something—maybe. It was muffled and distant. I might as well have been underwater for how many syllables I could make out. The car shifted gears, then lanes, and slid around corners, all the while the acceleration varied.

Goblin slurped my face and I lifted my head in time for Bones to downshift abruptly before we took a hairpin turn that plastered me to the outer door.

“Fuck!” The word exploded out of me as I wrapped a hand through one of the seatbelts and clung to it as much as Goblin was to the seat.

In front of us, Bones shouted something. Or at least I caught the sight of his lips moving, but the words were still muffled as hell. When he raised his gun, I ducked.

Hopefully, he’d been saying duck.

Though maybe he’d yelled fuck too.

At least when he fired this time, my ears were already too clogged to flinch. Goblin wiggled against the seat as Bones downshifted again. We were climbing, the engine seemed to whine beneath my feet as if the car were giving its all.

Heart pounding, I stole a look toward the side mirror on the passenger side. I could lean to look at it without raising my head. Where were we?

Town. We were somewhere in the mixture of old and new worlds that made up the town. We were whipping through narrow backstreets, crossing bone jarring cobblestones, then skidding out onto wider open boulevards.

I was surprised we didn’t have police chasing us. Maybe we did, I couldn’t hear anything over the rush of static and wind. Then I saw a motorcycle in the side mirror.

No.

Two motorcycles. They were racing after us, all in black, leaning over their bikes as they accelerated and closed the distance. This shit looked so exciting in movies.

It was nowhere near as fun in real life. Fear pumped through my blood as I hung on. When Bones hit the brakes abruptly, I slammed against the back of the passenger seat. Teeth gritted, I managed to not hit my head, but I had a good view of the motorcycle racing up on us.

I shoved the door open abruptly and winced as the bike and rider slammed into the open door.

“Shit!” The one word came through like a clarion call from the front. The man hanging on the door had lost the gun in his hand but he lifted his head and turned to look at me.

The dark helmet and visor hid his facial expression and ice water flooded my veins. Goblin bared all of his teeth.

“Down!”

The order came from behind me and I ducked, covering my head and Goblin’s with one of my arms as I curled over him.

Three rapid-fire shots exploded over my head. There was a shatter of glass and a horrific meaty thunk then a clatter before the car jerked forward again.

The door thudded to the frame, not quite catching because it swung open as Bones navigated around another corner. I tightened my grip on Goblin and the seatbelt. The last thing I wanted to do was fly out of the car.

Something like the wee-woo sound of the local police or maybe an ambulance penetrated the roar in my ears. My hearing returning? Good. The warning of that rising siren? Not so much.

We slid around another hairpin curve, and it was definitely a slide with the rear of the car leading us around. I managed to steal a look at Bones. His expression was a fierce mask of concentration. A feral energy radiated off him as he seemed to glare ahead of us.

When the car slowed, I tried to suck in a deep breath. My ribs ached. My head hurt. My teeth felt like I’d been clenching them too hard. With a sudden lurch forward, the vehicle bucked like a wild bull released from a chute.

Just as abruptly, Bones slammed on the brakes and we were reversing backwards at nearly the same speed we’d been going forwards only to come to another sudden and violent stop as the second of the two motorbikes crashed into the back of the car.

There was no mistaking the crunch of metal, the crush of glass and the vivid image of a helmeted head striking the rear window. A spidery pattern of cracked window radiated out from where the helmet struck.

Unlike with the man who struck the open door, the rider didn’t lift his head. Horror slow-crawled through me as we pitched forward again and the body didn’t move. Or at least the helmet didn’t. One of his hands was partially through the glass and my stomach rolled.

I tried to breathe through my mouth as the body bounced and shifted with the movement of the car. Were they still alive in that helmet and just unconscious? Were they staring sightlessly forward?

Between the rusty smell of blood, the musky stink of my own flop sweat, the cloying stink of burnt rubber, and the acrid smell of charcoal and sulfur—probably from the gun Bones had been firing—mingled with something that might have been gasoline, it took everything I had to not vomit.

Another hard turn, then a hard jolt of brakes as the car sputtered before the engine came back to life and he gunned it down what appeared to be an alleyway.

I watched it all fly past kind of distantly as I flexed my fingers around the straps of Goblin’s harness.

Metal sheared as he took a corner too tightly and there was a crunch and a thunk.

The body on the back window was abruptly gone. All that remained was a glove still partially through the cracked glass. My stomach rolled and I squeezed my eyes shut.

Please don’t have a hand in there. Please don’t have a hand in there. I rocked from side to side with the vehicle as we navigated these ancient routes. They had to be ancient really, narrow and bouncy with the cobblestones.

The sunlight cut abruptly and we were under cover inside a parking garage. It took me a moment to let my eyes adjust. He wound us down. Oh, the parking garage must be inside a hill. That made sense.

The guttural cough and choke of the engine replaced the hiss of static in my ears. Oh my hearing was definitely coming back. Goblin panted. I stopped pressing down against him so tightly and he slurped my face.

Finally, we came to a stop and Bones twisted in the front seat to whip off his sunglasses and look at me. “Show me.”

The order pulled me around and I raised my eyebrows.

My sunglasses had disappeared somewhere in the wild bumper car ride we’d taken.

When he touched two fingers to my jaw, it was the lightest of brushes and I tipped my head obediently.

When he ran a thumb along my throat to my collarbone, it stung and I grimaced.

“Just a cut.”

I’d gotten cut?

“It’s not bad,” he said and his voice was so deep, and had a bit of a growl like the engine had. “But I want to clean that out. We need to leave this car here.”

I glanced at the cracked back window, then the door that still hadn’t closed all the way, before looking at the front where it was also sporting a couple of bullet holes. “Are you okay?”

“Good enough,” he said. “Let’s go, I want to stash you and Goblin away from the car while I get us alternate transport.”

Oh, that totally made sense. I carefully unwound my arm from the seatbelt. The strap had dug grooves into my skin and I winced. Definitely some burn from the nylon. Bones slid out then opened the rear passenger door behind the driver’s seat.

He snapped his fingers and Goblin pivoted and jumped out. He wasn’t limping.

That was a good sign, right?

I followed him, but I was a lot shakier and if Bones hadn’t gripped my arm, I was pretty sure I would have dropped on the spot. My legs were spaghetti.

“You’re a very good driver,” I told him, then patted his chest as I firmed my legs beneath me.

He quirked a brow at me. “Is that so?”

“Yes,” I confirmed. Taking a couple of shakier steps forward before I glanced back at the vehicle. It was more than a little crunched. The rear bumper was gone, as were the hubcaps on this side. Nearly every single window sported some damage.

There was something dark splattered over the back of the car, blood probably. But I wasn’t going to focus on that. The glove sticking out seemed to taunt me.

Yeah, I wasn’t going to think about that either.

They started it.

“Very good driver.” Because that car had taken a battering and while I was pretty sure my bruises had bruises. We were all in one piece.

The corner of his mouth kicked up. He secured his gun and then moved to the trunk where he yanked out a couple of bags. “Follow me.”

“Yes, sir,” I said. It probably came out a little bitchy, but I was tired. So I just followed him and Goblin trotted with us. As soon as he “stashed me” or whatever, I wanted to go over the dog and make sure he wasn’t hurt.

We left the car on one side of the parking garage and he made his way over to the other. There was a stairwell in the corner, then a little cubby of space tucked between it and the wall. It would be putting me in a corner, but no one would see me.

It was cool down here and I shivered a little. He set one of the bags down, then thrust the other at me. “There’s water in here and clean clothes. Change if you can.”

I nodded.

Then he handed me a taser.

Oh, it was my taser.

Well, the one I thought of as mine. It was the one Voodoo had given me. How had they gotten the taser through security?

You know what, Grace? Not important right now.

“Remember how to use this?”

“Yes.”

“Good girl,” he said, then he crouched down to look at Goblin. “Stay with Grace. Guard.”

He spared me a look.

“If you tell me to stay with Goblin and guard, I promise to not growl.”

The corner of his mouth kicked up again. “Just get changed and stay put. You have your phone?”

I patted over my pockets. Then pulled it out. Yes, and it had a charge. Not much of a signal though. “Should I message the guys?”

“Not yet.” He just gave me a long look. “Don’t message anyone.

If you get a message from me, it means move.

Get out of here. The street is two flights of stairs up.

Go straight up and out. Take your bag and Goblin with you.

Head south toward the beaches. Strip down as you go, so if you can put a suit on when you change, you’ll be ready to hide by the water. ”

“Okay.”

“I’ll find you.”

I blew out a breath.

“Okay.”

“Tell me the plan.” He still crouched, his gaze steady on me.

Deep breath. “Stay here, clean up and change. If I get any message from you at all, take only my bag, and head upstairs two flights. Go outside. Go south toward the water. Strip so I look like I’m just out for a day in the sun with Goblin. You’ll find me.”

He nodded once. “Keep that taser with you, and Grace… if anyone comes near you, trust Goblin’s reaction.”

“I can do that.”

I glanced down at Goblin then back at Bones. “Please don’t get lost or hurt or disappear. Cause I’m not sure how we would find you.”

Another flash of a smile. “Like I said, I’ll find you.”

Then he was gone and it was just me and Goblin. I swallowed, then shook off the feeling of loss. He would be back or he would find me.

Believe it .

“Okay, boy,” I said to Goblin. “Let’s get cleaned up. Are you hurt?”