Chapter 1

1

Elena

The otherworldly trills of insects, frogs, and animals too frightening to mention, rose like a thick curtain around me. Their chorus nearly covered the swishing of my thigh-high boots trekking through the brackish waters of the bayou.

I refused to contemplate what else I disturbed under the water’s surface because, well, that was the stuff of nightmares.

Artifact hunting sounds like a glamorous profession, but it’s not. More often than I liked, I ended up on my hands and knees, covered in things I never wanted to encounter again.

Tonight was no different.

Water sloshed against a decaying dock as a thick, stinking fog rose from this tributary of the Mississippi River, blanketing the nearby ghost-town port in a gray cloud. I grabbed my low-light headlamp for the third consecutive night and snapped it on before removing my faux-leather gloves. My haphazard coal miner look killed my otherwise kick-ass outfit, but keeping my hands free was essential to my job.

Not that I would call this a real job.

Technically, I’m an outcast who accidentally discovered a niche within the supernatural black market of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Retrieving was my game, and I am damned good at it.

I’m what equates to a magical bloodhound.

If you need something found that no one else can locate?

I’m your girl.

I’ve never understood the things I could do, and I’ve never had parents or a family around to supply the answers I so desperately sought for so long. All I know is that I’m better than good—like fucking awe-inspiring—at recovering magical objects. And for certain people with lots of cash and secrets, it’s a talent with a monetary value.

It also has an unfortunate habit of landing me in the crosshairs of the shadiest people in the magical underworld—characters who get what they desire by any means necessary. It’s fair to say I will never receive a 1099 form in the mail from any of my clients.

My roommate, Chastity, the only human being to give a fuck about me (and by far the best witch in Baton Rouge) has warned me many times that my job would land me in what she called deep kaka.

Those words reverberated in my head as I waded in the bayou muck as dusk descended around me, surrounded by whizzing bugs seeking the nearest blood source and larger predators seeking meaty snacks.

My client insisted on a level twenty out of ten degrees of secrecy that encouraged me not to play detective. It can make things a real pain in the ass when questions pop up, but a person in my position can’t afford to be choosy. I nicknamed my latest sketchy client Mr. X, since he wouldn’t give me anything else to call him.

He’s also the reason I was down here, thigh-deep in the marshes along the coast of Baton Rouge, swatting away mayflies, mosquitoes, and all matter of night creatures as they belt out their nocturnal symphony of chirps, croaks, and the odd squeak or two.

I slapped the annoying bugs from my neck as cicadas escalated their screeching. Then I smelled it. It wasn’t an odor but more like the sensation of approaching rain—right before the petrichor hits.

I didn’t experience this the last two nights, so it must be a sign.

Third time’s a charm, right?

You see, I can’t always predict if my instincts will lead me directly to my target. It may take a try or two—or in this case three—but in the end, I always get my mark.

And so far, my record of success was untarnished.

But this time, it damn well better be my target, because my client gave me three areas scattered across the bayou where I might locate the object. This was my third and final attempt to find the mystery man’s lost valuable.

The first two pieces of real estate wasted my time, lacking even a two-bit talisman I could pawn, so I was down to my last chance to profit.

Mr. X’s vague description made me feel less hopeful that I could zero in on my target. And going back to him empty handed wasn’t an option.

So, what precious artifact drew me to these murky waters?

A canning jar.

Not some ancient, beautiful Egyptian funerary canopic vessel carrying the organs of a great pharaoh. No, like a jar that some white-haired grandma filled with strawberry jam or brining pickles.

It’s not empty, and I’ll know when I see it.

Or so Mr. X. told me.

I’ve found that when I hear those words, it’s an object I do not want to become intimately acquainted with. I’ve unearthed more magical murder weapons in these swamps than I care to recall.

But a canning jar?

It was so anticlimactic.

But who am I to judge what someone deemed important? The color is green—cash that is. That’s what I’m chasing and the only thing I care about. A girl has got to eat—especially one severed from her foster family. Humans “age out” of the foster-care system. Paranormals like me who don’t make the grade? We get kicked out, cut off, and completely ostracized from everyone we ever knew with no chance of returning.

Life’s a bitch sometimes, isn’t it?

The most exciting aspect of this mystery container was that it supposedly fell off the pirate Edward Teach’s Queen Anne’s Revenge when it sailed into Louisiana and moored at Port Hudson.

A pirate jar. Imagine.

Even I had to admit that holding something that had once belonged to Edward, or more commonly known as the revered pirate Blackbeard, would score high on the list of coolest things I’ve ever retrieved.

But the secrecy surrounding it made me think that whatever the contents—treasure map, sand from a sacred place, or the eyes of his enemies—the less I knew, the better.

As usual, just another night plodding through noxious swamp muck and risking my life hobnobbing with the gators and copperheads. No big deal.

The fetid, salty-sweet stink of old, rotting fish carcasses and human sewage filled my nostrils as I approached a runoff channel. It was a hundred yards off, but I could scent the corpses of aquatic life and algae turning fouler as I approached.

When did the tides rise high enough to push an item from the harbor this far back into the marsh? Did an animal find it interesting enough to carry it to a burrow? Had it grown into the roots of a cypress or tangled underwater in a mangrove forest?

Every search carried the possibility of a fairytale made real in my life, which you’d think would make me more excited about the quest than the payout.

But I’ve lived my whole life smack dab in the middle of a Grimm brothers’ dark story, and I’m one of the monsters—sort of.

My footing slipped, and I landed almost hip-deep in a muddy sinkhole. The curse in my throat froze when a fresh scent hit me. An aroma so repulsive, I would have swum in sewage rather than face it.

The stench of musk, cypress wood, sex, and hunger made my stomach roil, and heat worked up my thighs to pool in my center.

It was the one aroma I never desired to encounter again. The smell of him.

The love of my life.

I sucked in a deep breath of fishy, sweaty stench to clean him out of my nose and sniff the air again, but that unmistakable scent remained.

Kye Driftwood.

The man I thought I’d spend the rest of my life with. My former partner-in-crime, spy-movie snuggle buddy, and running companion.

aka, my Mate. Or the asshole who was supposed to be.

But moon after moon, when I didn’t change, eventually, he stopped telling me everything would be okay. And soon after that, he stopped speaking to me altogether.

In short order, he took another mate—one he deemed worthy of being the pack Alpha’s wife—and gave me my walking papers.

I was barely out of high school when my world got fucked and I hit rock bottom.

Everything’s a little less happily-ever-after when you don’t turn out the way everyone expected.

But his presence sparked the question at hand.

Why the fuck was he here?

With all the other smells and my focus on divining the jar’s location, I wasn’t sure if the smell was fresh or old, and it careened through my brain, almost forcing everything else out.

Except for the pounding of my heart, screaming that he was here—now.

Damn it.My skin prickled and itched at the anticipation of meeting him. This fated mate shit never goes away, does it?

I glanced around, but the near-full moon showed me only the silhouettes of mangroves, Spanish moss, and a few bats hunting the bugs that hadn’t yet sunk into the tall grass for the night.

Focus, dumbass.

Kye’s scent faded, and the artifact’s draw grew stronger in my head. I could almost visualize it, laying in a tree trunk, burrow, or some other dark place, but close.

Ahead was one of many dilapidated old shacks rotting in the swamp, missing half its clapboard shingles. Part of the roof had caved, leaving the structure a gaped-tooth shell, but that only lended me a fifty-fifty chance that it was empty.

Out here, everything fights to survive.

Even if it had occupants, it was probably just used for making moonshine. But Moonshiners had guns, and my scars tell me I’m not immortal.

I sniffed the air, turned out my headlamp, and closed my eyes, willing my peepers to adjust to the dark interior that the moonlight dared breach. Tiny eyes peered back at me from the shadows—a hundred hidden tiny monsters with unknown intentions.

With a last noisy pull of my boots from the water and muck, I stepped onto the semi-solid ground and made my way inside.

The second my foot passed the cabin’s threshold, the tug of the artifact was overwhelming.

With each step, I tested the rotted floorboards against the possibility of falling through the floor. But miraculously, with little more than a groaning complaint or two at holding my weight, I successfully made my way across the room toward a stack of crates and barrels. Behind them stood two dilapidated sets of cupboards featuring strips of peeling paint clinging to the warped walls.

Then, as I checked my next foot placement, I heard a creak behind me and spun.

Only to come face to face with my ex.

“Fancy seeing you here, Pinky.” He smirked, one hand behind his back, the other hooked in the belt loop of his cutoff jeans. Even if I hated his guts, I couldn’t avoid looking there between the corded muscles of his thighs.

Fuck a duck.

But Pinky?

I despised that nickname. Especially now.

And not because I disliked the blush pink tips I’d been adding to my hair for years—but because of the dickhead who used to affectionately call me that before turning my world upside down.

“You lost the privilege to use pet names with me, Kye.” My voice resonated through the rotted shack walls and across the swamp with a steely coldness that silenced the surrounding wildlife.

His leer faded, and I watched him regroup. He struggled to act casual, but I saw the way his pretty eyes darted left the moment I turned toward him.

As if reading my mind, he headed in the direction I predicted, circling the room at the edges and giving me space, or maybe just the weakest floorboards, a wide berth.

I followed him, slowly pivoting, waiting to see what deadly surprise lied behind his back.

Not that he needed a weapon against me. He had teeth and claws to call at will.

I… did not.

But I also wasn’t who I used to be—the weakest pack member.

My hand gripped the hilt of my Bowie knife, ready to strike. Between that and a lifetime absorbing every fighting style I could learn for free or in trade, I was way more dangerous now than Kye could imagine.

He paused and raised both hands playfully, as if signaling peace.

Yeah fucking right.

“What are you doing here? You’re the one who’s no longer allowed on pack land.” His grin broadened, and he leaned on a barrel—a barrel that called out to me like a fucking honing beacon.

That jar, and whatever was still in it, was right under his elbow, and he goddamn knew it.

Kye had at least a hundred pounds on me, and if I wanted to beat him, I would need every bit of training I’d ever gained.

A shit ton of luck wouldn’t hurt, either.

I moved in slowly, staying out of arm’s reach as I took my turn circling him. “Since when is this pack land? It isn’t marked. I would’ve scented it.”

I’d have smelled you.

His gaze narrowed. “Right, your legendary wolf nose. If the least useful wolf trait was the only thing I had to show for my heritage, I wouldn’t brag about it.”

“With respect, Alpha,” I sneered, “It isn’t bragging to point out you’re lying. And why lie when it’s so easy for me to sense the bullshit coming out of your mouth from a mile away?”

I was ready for many things to happen, but his next movements were nothing but a gray blur. His fist connected with my jaw, and an electric shock of pain shot through my face and down my spine as blood pooled in my mouth.

Aw. Big bad Alpha can’t handle the truth. Poor baby.

He stood over me, hands on his hips, and heaved a deep sigh. “Sorry, Pinky. The last thing I wanted to do was hurt you.”

“Today,” I scoffed.

I pressed my fingers to my aching jaw. Nothing shattered, just painful as fuck.

“What?” He replied.

“You mean, you didn’t want to hurt me, today.”

Kye shook his hands out as he chuffed, then awkwardly rubbed his neck with one hand. He glanced away, the fucking coward, which was less than I wanted. I’d have preferred him dying of shame on the spot. However, his attention shift gave me the barest glimpse of an opening.

I swung my leg around and knocked him to his ass. “Hey, asshole? Didn’t your mama ever tell you not to hit a woman?”

He growled and jumped upright in a fluid movement that no human could duplicate, but I leapt to my feet too. We stood eye-to-eye on as equal footing as we would ever get.

“This isn’t sparring, Pinky. I will not take it easy on you.”

I tucked a stray lock of blonde-pink hair behind my ear. “You never took it easy on me, Kye. No point in pretending that you weren’t trying to force the change on me every time you put your hands on me.”

“Too bad I couldn’t. You know, everybody told me I gave you too much credit.”

“They might have been right. It still makes you look pretty pathetic though…”

His eyes widened as I feigned a right at his face and followed through with my left knee to his inner thigh when he blocked the punch.

“Still so predictable, too,” I snapped.

He roared and grabbed me around the waist, sending us careening to the floor. My forearms barely broke my fall before the back of my head slammed into the boards. The impact sent wood chips, dust, and dried rat shit flying like confetti in Times Square.

I closed my eyes and mouth and heaved with my legs to shove him off me. He didn’t even budge. His weight was still there, and I opened my eyes to find him staring right back at me.

I suddenly remembered the last time I called him “predictable”, and for a moment, neither of us breathed.

“You’re so predictable,” I giggled, rolling us both so I was on top again with my ankles locked behind him. “How did you not see that sacrifice move coming? I telegraphed it so hard I should’ve rented a billboard.”

“Yeah, you did, so hard, in fact, I honestly thought you were faking me out.” He tucked an escaped bit of hair from my ponytail behind my ear. “I guess you’re just too honest.”

I chuckled at that. “You’re just saying that, so I’ll tell you I love you.”

He smiled, not his usual charming, butter-wouldn’t-melt grin, but softly. He saved his softness for when we were alone. Just for me. “I’d believe you.”

“I love you, Kye Driftwood.”

He kissed me then, the softness gone, replaced by hunger. His hand wriggled under my sports bra and cupped me, squeezing as he devoured me from the mouth down. I unlocked my legs behind his back, and he immediately flipped us, so I was under him, and the full length of his body, and his erection, pressed against me.

“You are my everything, Elena Barlow.”

“Oh,” I laughed, “you know my name now?”

“Zip it, Pinky. I’ve got you right where I want you.”

I blinked to clear the stars swimming in my vision. Memories were sharper than steel knives and cut deep.

His eyes captured the moonlight streaming from the broken roof, and they flared with a sinister glimmer.

“I can’t believe I ever loved you.” He said.

Ah, there was the cruel asshole I knew and loathed.

But instead of shoving off of me, he stayed.

His breathing grew ragged as his eyes trailed over my breasts rising and falling. Then something else, wide and steely, pressed hard against my hip.

Was he seriously getting a hard on right now?

There was no doubt in my mind he wanted to rip me into bloody pieces…but now that seemed to be only after he fucked me.

Not that I was completely surprised. The lines between hate and passion were always thin with Kye. His unpredictable temper often led to intense fucking—which I used to love.

But this was something different.

There was no emotion here.

No love. Only hatred.

And as such—this would be pure punishment. Punishment for all my so called failings and fuckups.

Too bad Kye didn’t get the memo.

Because I was done being punished.

By destiny.

By my ex pack.

And most definitely by him.