The Real Death Valley

California, USA

“Hurry!” I shouted. “The sun is almost up!”

The engine of our monster truck roared as my sister Ana, the driver, pressed on the gas and laughed like a loon. I grinned. The nut job loved speed. I crouched low on the platform built over the car’s hood and clung to the railing, eyeing the terrain ahead for oncoming threats.

Daylight was the most dangerous time in Death Valley. That’s when the monsters crept out. Normally night would be the most dangerous time, right? Well, not here. Even the sun was a weapon in the valley.

This was the time it really got dangerous.

We should have been home before daylight, but our last job transporting outlaws across the valley had run late, leaving us out here at the worst time of day.

Right now, to be precise.

While Ana drove the truck, it was my job to blast away any monsters that might want to snack on us.

I was a lot of things, but monster snack wasn’t one of them.

“To the left, Bree!” my sister shouted.

I squinted into the distance. The weak morning sun painted the desert valley in shades of gray and gold. A salt monster hurtled toward us on sturdy legs made of slabs of pressed salt. We were driving through the Bad Water, a dried-out old salt lake, and these were the guardians. One hit with their giant hands could pulverize puny mortals like us.

“Ah, dang! These guys are the worst.” Salt monsters were a witch to take out, even with my sonic boom power.

I called upon the magic within me.

Come on, don’t fail me now.

My power wasn’t exactly reliable lately, but out here in the desert, I didn’t have to worry about property damage or zapping innocents. We were the only fools dumb enough and desperate enough to work out here.

Anyway, all I had to do was hit the salt monsters.

Easy peasy.

Ha. As if.

Ana hooted and laid on the gas. The burst of speed jerked me backward, but the climbing harness strapped around my waist and legs yanked and kept me in place.

The monster thundered toward us, footsteps shaking the ground. Chips of salt rained off as it ran. The beast was at least twenty feet tall, and half as broad.

If I could pulverize him properly, he’d coat the rims of a lot of margarita glasses.

Hmmm… Could we sell that? Not a bad thought for later. We needed the cash.

I swallowed hard, focusing on the magic within me. It was like a stubborn light that zipped around in my chest, waiting for me to catch it and hurl it outward.

“There’s another!” Ana cried.

Shoot. Fifty meters behind the first monster, there was a second, even bigger one.

“Head straight for him!” I called. A direct path would increase my chance of success.

Ana veered left, tires kicking up dirt and rocks. The first monster was twenty meters away now, its craggy white face glowering. It had pits for eyes and no mouth. A face only a mother could love.

I called on my magic, gathering it up in a bundle. It thrashed inside me, almost a wild thing, and I launched it outward. The power exploded forth, plowing into the dirt ten feet to the left of the salt monster. Gravel sprayed up.

“Dang it!” I called on the magic again, flinging it outward. It was a little easier this time, and the power shot toward the beast.

It slammed into the creature’s chest, blasting him into a million pieces. Salt rained down like snow, and we sailed through it.

When I got it right, I got it right.

The buggy zoomed away from the salt rain. Buggy was a weird name for such a hulking machine, but we liked the dichotomy.

I licked the salt off my lips, wishing it really was coating the rim of a margarita glass, and squinted toward the next monster.

“Get ready to dodge!” I called upon my magic once again. I could already tell this one was going to be tricky. My power was partially drained, and he was big.

The earth trembled with the monster’s footsteps. It was only thirty feet away. No distance at all, with the buggy going this fast.

I threw my magic at him. It plowed into his leg, obliterating the limb. The beast crashed to the ground.

“Right!” I screamed.

Ana jerked the vehicle toward the right. I clung to the railing, sliding on the platform. We swerved around the salt monster, but the beast reached out with one long arm and swiped at the side of our buggy.

His massive hand destroyed the metal spikes on the side, bending them backward. Though they were coated with deadly Ravener poison, it didn’t affect a creature like him. The shriek of tearing metal sliced at my heart. There went the side door panels.

I loved the buggy. But worse than that, we didn’t have the money to fix the machine, and we needed this thing for work. For survival.

“Rat bastard!” Ana screamed. It was currently her favorite curse word.

But salt monster wasn’t down yet.

“Just keep going!” Quickly, I unclipped my harness and climbed over the front windshield. The truck had no top, just two bench seats where people could sit—or fight from if necessary, hurling magic without the restriction of a roof to stop them.

I scrambled by Ana, leaping over one bench seat and then the next, climbing onto the back platform.

“Safety first!” Ana hollered.

“Yeah, yeah.” I clipped off my harness because she had a point. If I fell out of this truck, we were both dead.

Me, because I’d be monster chow, and Ana because she’d come after me even if I was a lost cause.

Behind us, the salt monster clambered to his feet. Uh, make that foot, singular. I’d blasted off the other one. Not that he let it stop him. Nope, old salty was using his arms as legs now, like some kind of strange orangutan. He lumbered after us, picking up speed.

“Come and get it, salt face!” I shouted.

“That’s the best you got?” Ana yelled back.

“You don’t like salt face?”

“I’m gonna be frank. It was weak.”

I scoffed and heaved a sonic boom at the monster. It exploded out of me, much bigger than I’d expected, blasting me backward. The harness jerked me to a stop, and my back ached like hell. My magic had always been tricky and weird, but lately it’d been even worse—sometimes huge, sometimes not.

I scrambled upright, clinging to the back railing. The blast had plowed into the salt monster, obliterating him. No surprise—it had been so big that I really hadn’t had to aim.

“You get him?” Ana asked.

“Yeah!” I turned around, wind whipping my dark hair back from my face.

The sun was fully up now, illuminating the valley around us. Sloping mountains on either side rose up toward the clear blue sky, and the heat was already pressing down, suffocating. It was August, and if we didn’t get out of here soon, it’d be hard to tell the difference between us and beef jerky.

“Almost there.” Ana turned the buggy toward the mountain slope nearest us.

I inspected our surroundings for more threats, but once she directed the buggy to climb the slope, I relaxed. The deadly part of the valley—the one that humans knew nothing about—was trapped between two parallel rows of mountains. Now that we were leaving that behind, I could finally start breathing normally again.

I unhooked my harness and climbed onto the bench seat next to Ana, collapsing into it with an exhausted sigh and pulling off my dust goggles. I propped my booted feet up on the dash as the truck bounced over the rocks and looked at Ana.

She grinned at me, lifting up her goggles to reveal tired green eyes. Her once blonde mohawk was now pulled back in a long ponytail, a style that made it easier to blend into a crowd. She changed it a lot, but lately, it’d been a more subtle style. Her brown leather pants and strappy brown leather top made her look like she was in Mad Max, but the outfit worked out here. I wore the same, unless I wasn’t fighting. In which case it was plain jeans and a tee.

Blending was important, especially for us. We might be leaving the monsters of Death Valley behind, but danger waited for us all the same. We’d been lying low all our lives, hiding from an unidentified threat. Hell, even those we paid to protect us were now hunting us.

“Did they tip?” I asked, mentally calculating what we’d need to make this month’s payment on our concealment charms.

“No.” Ana scowled. “Stingy jerks.”

“Damn.” Asking for tips was a new thing, but the monthly cost on our concealment charms had been jacked up, so we’d put out a tip jar in the buggy. Considering that we charged thousands for a trip across the valley, it wasn’t surprising that folks weren’t willing to cough up a little extra. “Ricketts is going to be pissed if we can’t pay.”

“He’s already pissed. We already gave him the money from this job, and it wasn’t enough.” Ana gunned the engine and swerved around a boulder.

“Well, he shouldn’t have jacked up the price.”

“He does it because he can.”

I scowled. We were at his mercy, and he knew it. After years of paying on the installment plan, he’d realized how desperate we were to stay hidden. So he’d jacked up the price, sending his bone crackers after us when we couldn’t pay.

But we needed that charm to hide us from whoever hunted us.

After they’d come for us when we were five, we’d spent most of our lives hiding—first with our mother, and then alone—but we’d never figured out who hunted us or why. However, they’d killed our mother and maybe even our sister, Rowan, so the threat was pretty danged clear.

My running theory was that they wanted us because we were Unknowns. We were the only supernaturals of an unknown species that I’d ever met. There were mages, vampires, shifters, fae, demons, and monsters of all varieties.

And then there was us—anomalies. Freaks. Unknowns.

Marked by a four-pointed star at the tops of our spines. Marks we kept hidden by magic.

In a world where all magic should be identifiable and controllable according to our government, the Order of the Magica, being an Unknown was dangerous. Our magic was often incredibly strong…and uncontrollable. Throughout history, Unknowns were often killed out of fear or manipulated by others for their own purposes.

That was not gonna be us.

So we laid low, paying for our concealment charms—when we could afford it—and living on the outskirts of society.

The buggy crested the top of the mountain ridge, and the view spread out in front of us.

It was glorious, as always, with the desert stretching far and wide. In the distance, our little town of Death Valley Junction sat like a forgotten remnant of the Old West. It was one of the few all-magic towns in the world, hidden from humans by a spell called The Great Peace. The spell kept the existence of supernaturals on the down-low and led humans away from any of our towns.

It was the place we’d ended up after our mother’s murder when we were thirteen. It’d been home for the ten years since. But even that was starting to look iffy, what with Ricketts sending his bone crackers after us.

I leaned forward and squinted, searching for any sight of Ricketts’s goons. We’d gotten a warning visit recently, which meant we could look forward to seeing more of them soon.

“See ‘em?” Ana asked.

“Nope.” Just the usual light foot traffic between the old wooden buildings. “We really do need to find a different dealer.”

“Who though?”

“Fair point.” Ricketts had been the only one willing to sell to us on an installment plan.

Which meant we were stuck relying on a guy who was as likely to kill us as help us.

Ana drove the buggy onto the flat ground of the desert and sped toward the town. I stayed alert as we neared. It might be our home, but it hadn’t felt that way since Ricketts had sent his bone crackers to scare us.

“We really need to move,” I muttered.

“And go where? Our magic is too unstable to be safe outside of the valley.”

“My magic, you mean.” I was the one who blew shit up.

“Not like I’m going to ditch you.” Ana scoffed. “Anyway, without you, I’m nothing but a shield. We need your firepower to make a living. So yeah, here we stay.”

I grinned, my chest filling with warmth. Ana was right—there were practical reasons that we stayed in Death Valley. But the fact of the matter was—there would always be a we. Ana and I were a team.

Ana drove the buggy down the main street of town. It was straight out of an old western movie, with a packed dirt road, wooden buildings, and even a saloon called The Death’s Door.

A tumbleweed bounced across the road as a couple of the old timers sitting on the saloon’s porch tipped their hats to us. It’d taken us years to earn that honor. Which was fair. The old coots had once been some of the toughest dudes around. Before our time, at least.

Death Valley Junction was full of outlaws. But if you really needed to hide out, then you caught a ride with us across Death Valley. We’d take anyone who could pay, delivering them to Hider’s Haven, where the real outlaws lived.

We were the only ones brave enough to risk the trip. Therefore, we earned the honor of a hat tip.

Ana turned onto our street. She parked the buggy in the patch of dirt at the side of our rundown house. It was a one-story affair, built of weathered brown wood with a broken step leading up to the magically reinforced door.

I leapt out of the buggy and hustled inside, Ana following right behind. I ran a wary gaze over the interior of the house. We were in the kitchen, but I could see the living room at the back of the house.

Same crappy old furniture… Check.

Same unpaid bills on the counter… Check.

Picture of Mom and Rowan on the empty TV table… Check.

Whelp, that was it. We didn’t own anything else of value besides our enchanted weapons, and we carried those with us at all times, stored inside the ether and ready to be drawn out of thin air when we needed them. That spell had cost a pretty penny, but it’d been worth it.

Ana rubbed the back of her neck and headed toward the fridge. I followed.

“Really feels like something is about to blow any minute, doesn’t it?” She grabbed a cold bottle of beer out of the fridge and tossed it to me, then took one for herself. “These are the last ones, so enjoy them.”

“Will do.” It wasn’t froufrou cocktails like I preferred, but those had gone out of the budget years ago.

I popped open the beer, took a swig, then poked in the cabinets for some food. I frowned, shoulders drooping.

Pretty barren, just like the fridge. Not even PB&J. Or candy sandwiches, as I liked to call them.

With my stomach grumbling, I sat in the rickety chair and propped my boots on the table, then sighed. “I wish there was something we could do about Ricketts and his bone crackers.”

Just thinking about it made fear buzz under my skin. Made my stomach turn. When I was afraid, I liked to take action. Jump into it.

But at the moment, there was nothing to do but wait. Couldn’t even sleep in security.

It was torture.

“We need those concealment charms, so we have to keep him happy.” Ana leaned over the kitchen sink and looked out the window, clearly checking for our stalkers. “You remember what Mom said before she died.”

“Yeah. We can’t be exposed. And Ricketts wouldn’t hesitate to cut the magic to our charms.”

At least Ricketts was someone we knew.

The unknown was scarier. We had no idea what had happened to Rowan five years ago. Though we’d searched—spending most of the money meant for our concealment charm payments—we’d never found her.

Honestly, we thought she was dead, captured by those we hid from.

My throat tightened.

Rowan.

I drew in a shuddery breath, forcing away the pain. She might not be dead.

Maybe.

“Uh, Bree?” Ana’s voice broke through the sad soup of my memories.

My gaze jerked up to her. “Yeah?”

She turned from the window, her gaze stark. “The bone crackers are here.”

Cold fear flowed through my veins. My muscles tensed and my mind went on alert as I carefully swung my legs off the table and stood. It felt like I moved in slow motion.

I was almost relieved—finally, the waiting was over. “How many?”

“Six. And I’m feeling more magical signatures, so I think there’s more.”

“Shit.” My heart thundered as I walked to the window.

At worst, Ricketts sent two to scare us. But six?

That was unheard of.

Six wasn’t a warning. Six was…death.

I leaned over the sink and looked out the window. The packed-dirt street was empty except for six mages. Each lazily tossed a fireball in the air.

Fire Mages.

In a wooden town.

Staring at our wooden house.

“He’s come to make an example of us,” I said. We hadn’t paid up in months, instead using our money on a lead for Rowan that hadn’t panned out.

“We don’t have the payment.”

“And we’ve hocked everything of value already.”

“Except the buggy.”

My stomach soured. “We give him that and we’re dead. No way to make a living means we’ll be in this situation next month when it’s time to pay up.”

“So you’re saying we run for it?”

A blast sounded. Debris exploded out from the corner of the kitchen.

I leapt back.

One of the mages tossing blue balls of energy into the air had clearly gotten sick of waiting and had hurled one toward the house.

I stared at the hole in the wall. Outside, sunlight shined on the dirt. I swallowed hard. “Yep! Time to run. The time for negotiating is past. We can do a couple more jobs in the desert and use that money to buy ourselves some time.”

“Sounds risky. But since the alternative is that they blow up the house with us inside…” Ana grimaced. “I’m in.”

“Good.” If I was going to go down, it’d be in a blaze of glory, rescuing some baby bald eagles or something heroic. Not as a barbecued example made by a Blood Sorcerer.

I leaned to get a better look out the window. The Fire Mages were tossing their fireballs more quickly, deadly jugglers impatient to start their act. My heart thundered, and my skin grew cold.

Another energy ball plowed straight toward the kitchen window, as if someone had seen me peering out.

A scream caught in my throat as I threw myself to the floor, trying to avoid the blast of wooden shards splintering out from the wall.

“Time to go!” I scrambled to my feet, Ana following.

We crawled to the back door, staying low to avoid the windows and darting around debris. In the living room, I grabbed the picture frame off the otherwise empty TV table and yanked the picture out, shoving it in my jacket pocket. It was the only image we had of our mother and Rowan. If these guys bombed our place, no way I wanted to lose it.

I hurried to join Ana, then crouched at the door and looked at her. I swallowed my fear. “You shield and I’ll blast?”

She nodded. “On three.”

We counted down, then burst out of the door. Because our lives were generally screwed up, we’d practiced this, knowing that one day, our luck would run out and someone would find us here.

Like clockwork, we did as we’d trained, Ana going high and me going low, like the SWAT team on TV. It was where we’d learned our moves, back when we’d had a TV.

She threw out her hands and her magic exploded outward, creating a glimmering force field that shielded us from oncoming blows.

Ten feet from us, there was a man. He was tall and slender, wearing an overcoat that must be torture in this heat. He raised his hand, and a blue glass potion bomb glinted in the light.

Dark magic radiated from the thing, stinking like a fish in a sewer.

Only deadly potion bombs smelled that bad.

“You’re gonna die, girlie,” he growled, voice thick with malevolence.

“Girlie?” I snarled at him.

I drew my sword and shield from the ether, not wanting to waste magic on someone so close. His eyes widened at the sight of the steel. He moved to hurl his potion bomb, but I was too fast, raising my shield and darting toward him. I stabbed him through the heart.

He gurgled and grunted, blood pouring down his chest. The deadly potion bomb dropped to the ground, and I dodged the splash. I yanked my blade free and kicked him backward. He tumbled into the dirt, sprawling on his back.

“Shouldn’t stand so close to the enemy,” I said. “Because I’m fast.”

I raced back behind Ana’s shield and stashed my sword in the ether.

“Nice one,” she said.

“Thanks.” I was good with my sword, though I hated to kill. But that guy had made his plans clear. Frankly, I’d rather it be him than me and Ana.

“There!” Ana pointed toward the edge of the house.

A mage had appeared, clearly scouting out the back of the house. He was a skinny man in his forties. His black eyes darted to us, and he grinned, raising his hands. Fire glowed around them, ready to be hurled at us.

At my wooden house.

They were going to destroy my house.

We owned almost nothing, and they would take it from us.

My skin chilled as I crouched low and lunged toward the edge of the shield. Behind him, there was nothing but sagebrush, since we lived at the edge of town. I could attack without worrying about blasting away my neighbor’s house. I flung a sonic boom toward the man.

He hurled a fireball at the same time. It collided with my magic, the fire exploding in a shower of sparks, before the boom overpowered it and crashed into the mage, throwing him to his back.

He stayed down, clearly knocked out.

Good. After our fight across Death Valley, I wasn’t fully charged. Every shot had to count.

“To the corner.” I hurried toward the edge of the house.

Ana dropped her shield and followed. Like all supernaturals—or the vast majority, at least—her power wasn’t infinite either.

We peered around the edge. Relief coursed through me when I saw that the buggy, which was parked at the side of the house, was fine. There was no one near it, and the only damage was from the salt monster earlier today. The enemy congregated at the front of the house, on the main street. From here, I could see at least three, though there’d been more when I’d looked from the kitchen window.

One of the mages, who was tossing his fireball in the air, caught sight of us, his blue gaze going bright with interest. We had to get away from the house so his fire wouldn’t light up our home. I couldn’t bear to lose it.

“Shield!” I said.

Steaming noon sun burned down on us as Ana threw up her shield, a shimmering barrier about seven feet tall and four feet wide. Sticking side by side, we darted out from behind the house, staying between it and the buggy, not wanting to draw their fire toward either of our only possessions.

The mage hurled his flame at us, clearly not able to see the shield or not caring. It exploded against the luminescent surface that protected us, a shower of sparks raining onto the dirt.

The surprise and anger in his eyes confirmed what I’d suspected—he hadn’t seen the shield. Only a few supernaturals seemed to be able to.

I shifted to the edge of the shield, just enough that I could send a sonic boom toward him. It exploded out of me, blasting through the air to collide with his legs. The shock reverberated up his body, making him shake like a rag doll in a tornado.

He crashed to the ground, unable to even shout.

I winced, a little bit horrified by my own power. Sure, he was here to kill us and I wasn’t about to let that happen. But I was used to using my magic against monsters and inanimate objects. Seeing it hurt a person like that was…disturbing.

A blast of blue energy plowed into Ana’s shield, driving the worry from my mind.

“Only twenty feet to go,” I murmured, edging toward the buggy.

Ana strained to keep her shield up. When a mage approached with his flame, I raised my hands to blast him, but something plowed into me from behind. Electricity shot up my spine, pain tearing through me. I crashed to the ground on my front, skidding on the dirt. Beside me, Ana sprawled out.

Bells clanged in my ears. I blinked, trying to clear my vision. Panic surged as I played dead, surveying our surroundings. Ana was out cold, prone on the dirt next to me. She’d taken the brunt of the hit. Electric shock, I was pretty sure. Painful, but at least it hadn’t been fire.

The bastards were slowly approaching, their gazes riveted to us. Their hands no longer glowed with magic—they probably wanted to poke us with sticks to see if we were really dead. Which bought me a few precious seconds.

It felt like time slowed. Adrenaline raced through me. This was it—I had only seconds and we were surrounded.

I scrambled to my feet. Pain twisted my muscles as I grabbed Ana’s arm and dragged her limp form across the dirt, heaving with everything I had. Before the mages could power up their magic, we were behind the buggy, Ana still out cold.

Unfortunately, the protected side of the buggy was also the side that had been damaged by the salt monster. The damaged poison-coated spikes bent over the door, locking it closed. I could carefully climb up and over, slipping into the cockpit and driving off, but there was no way I could drag Ana over the spikes without the Ravener poison getting her.

I shook Ana. “Get up!”

She lay still as a rock.

“Get up!”

Still nothing.

Dang it. I had no more time. I could run for it solo, but I’d rather throw myself onto the Ravener poisoned spikes than leave Ana behind.

“Come oooouuut!” one of the mages sang.

His tone made me want to pull his tongue out.

Panting, I peered around the edge of the buggy. Four mages approached— two with glowing blue hands, and two with fire. Though the electric shock blasts would hurt like hell, it was the fire mages who really had me worried. One well-placed fireball could blow the buggy—and us—to smithereens if it hit the engine.

“One shot,” I muttered. That was all I had to take them all out, and they stood between me and my house, four of them about to fire.

I swallowed hard, calling on my magic and letting it grow inside me. With a desperate prayer to whatever fates were listening, I darted out to hurl it at the mages.

But a fifth mage—he must have crept up behind the other because I hadn’t seen him—threw a blue potion bomb toward us. I heaved my sonic boom at the mage, aiming for his blue leather jacket and hoping to stop his potion bomb. The force of the magic exploding out of me made me stumble backward.

The sonic boom that I’d thrown crashed into my attackers, colliding with them like a freight train.

They flew backward, their bodies slamming into the wooden wall of my house. Along with the rest of my sonic boom. It crashed into the wall, sending wood and glass flying. The house exploded into thousands of pieces of wood and glass. It rained down like a terrible hail.

Too much magic.

The four attackers were dead now. But so was my house.

Hot tears pricked my eyes. I’d expected that maybe they would trash our house. Not that I’d do it.

That place had been a hell hole, but it’d been our hell hole.

I stepped backward, horrified. Something crunched underfoot. I looked down—shards of the blue potion bomb.

Oh, shit.

And my side was wet and cold. I touched it, then raised my damp hand to my nose. A blue potion gleamed on my fingertips and smelled like sweet, rotten fish.

An impossible, terrible smell that sent terror streaking through me.

I’d heard of this—the poison that Ricketts used when he was done with you. It’d kill you in weeks unless you went to him to get the antidote. Most people didn’t even bother to go get it, because whatever he’d do to you when he got you…

Fear chilled my skin.

We should have paid him the money we owed.

I turned to Ana, who was still sprawled in the dirt.

Shards of blue glass were scattered around her, and her shirt was wet, too.

“No!” I fell to my knees at her side.

She’d been hit!

The potion bomb must have avoided my sonic boom and exploded on the ground between us, splattering us both. I’d been so obsessed with our destroyed house that I hadn’t noticed.

I shook Ana’s shoulder, throat closed tight with fear. “Wake up!”

She was limp as a dishrag. Frantic, I felt for a pulse at her neck. It was steady and strong, thank fates.

I peered around the buggy. My house was a pile of rubble, so I could see the front street that had previously been obscured. There were six other mages, all of whom turned to look toward us.

My heart thundered in my ears as I called on my magic, only to find the well empty.

I’d used it all up.

Shit. Sweat broke out on my skin. Shit, shit, shit.

We were rats in a trap, and I was just as scared. All the danger and monsters I’d faced out in Death Valley were nothing compared to this.

Oh, man, we needed to run for it. We had to find an antidote to this poison that didn’t involve Ricketts. Above all, we couldn’t be captured and brought to him. We’d be defenseless.

But we couldn’t run. There was no way I could haul Ana into the buggy without the Ravener poison getting her.

But what if I went from the front? That was slightly shielded.

I pulled a bandana out of my pocket and grabbed up some of the glass shards from the potion bomb. We needed to identify the exact poison if we made it out of here. Then I reached down to grab her arm, and pulled. I managed to get her to the front of the buggy, but it was impossible to haul her over the hood.

My strength, along with my magic, had waned so much that we were now sitting ducks. Terror tightened my throat.

A flash of movement caught my eye.

I glanced toward the street. Four more people had arrived. Three were pretty normal, but one was…

Holy shit.

The fourth one—a man well over six feet tall—had a magical signature that smacked me in the face like a wrecking ball. He was danger and violence and power. And hot as hell, with dark hair and blazing green eyes set over sharp cheekbones.

I shivered, my mouth suddenly dry.

If I thought Ricketts’s goons were scary, they were nothing compared to this man.

Then he turned and looked straight at me.