Edge of Magic (Tara Knightley Series Book 1) Read online

  The app pinged again, and I opened the message that told me who my courier was.

  Ray Artois.

  My brows lifted. Ray was back in Katerina’s employment? Last I’d heard, he’d started his own business.

  A black SUV with tinted windows pulled up behind my Rover. The driver killed the lights and the engine. A lanky guy about my age with the tall but muscular build of a basketball player got out and ambled up. His unusual height was due to some Fae Elvish blood from his mother’s side.

  I rolled down my window.

  “Ray,” I greeted him. “What are you doing with a Volkov lockbox?”

  He grinned as if he were glad to see me. Maybe he was. It could be hard to tell with Ray. He had movie-star good looks and a chill confidence about him, an effective mask for the shrewdness underneath. Even though he could be hard to read and there was something about him I didn’t fully trust, I was glad to know him. There weren’t too many of us with a splash of Fae blood living in Boise.

  “Just picking up a little freelance work while a couple of Katerina’s people are on vacation,” he said. He held the lockbox under one elbow and leaned the other forearm against the doorframe, peering down at me and seeming in no hurry at all to pick up the Fae ring. “It’s been a while since we crossed paths, Tara Knightly. How are you?”

  I gave him a faint smile and a half-shrug. “Can’t complain.”

  He tilted his head. “How are things going with Shaw?”

  My gaze turned straight ahead. There was no point in trying to lie to Ray. He was a quarterling—one-fourth Fae and the rest human—and because I was part-Fae too, we couldn’t lie to each other outright. We could dance around a topic or refuse to answer, but Fae weren’t capable of lying to each other. It was physically impossible.

  I suppressed a sigh. I didn’t like talking about Grant Shaw. He was my other boss, of sorts. But my obligation to him ran much deeper than that of a normal employee. I could quit my job with Volkov Retrieval if I wanted to. I had no such freedom with Shaw.

  I hadn’t even realized that my fingers had moved to the pendant that had been tucked under my shirt on its thin chain, but my thumb was caressing it like a worry stone. When I met Ray’s gaze, I saw his eyes flick down to the rectangular jewel. He’d asked me about it once, and I’d told him the truth. Not the entire, detailed story of how I’d come to be bound in a blood oath to a Fae mob boss, indebted to Shaw until I paid off the price of keeping my mother and sister alive. But I did tell Ray the general gist of the situation.

  “Same old, same old,” I said. “Quiet lately, though. It’s been a couple of weeks since Shaw summoned me.”

  I glanced down at the pendant, which showed how much of my debt to Grant Shaw I’d paid off. It was depressingly little, considering I’d been working at it for about a decade.

  Ray frowned. “Really? I heard a rumor he’s put out the call for something major. Biggest bounty in years.”

  A little jolt straightened my spine. “What’s the target?”

  “I’m not sure. But it’s been rippling through his network the past few days.”

  I cursed under my breath. “Figures,” I muttered.

  He gave me a questioning look.

  “Shaw likes to make it seem as if I’m the last to find out about the bigger bounties because I live on the Earthly side of the hedge, but the bastard doesn’t want me to know. Why would he? He has a personal interest in making sure I’m bound to him for as long as possible. He’d rather someone else scored the big payouts.” I couldn’t keep the bitterness from my voice.

  Unfortunately for me, my ability to sense magical objects—which, ironically, some of Shaw’s people had helped me hone and deepen—made me one of Shaw’s special pets. He coveted valuable things, and his collection of magical artifacts was one of the reasons he held such power.

  Ray gave me a sympathetic look. “Find out what the bounty’s for, and maybe you can get in on the action.”

  “Yeah, I’ll do that.” I rubbed my forehead. “Thanks for the tip.”

  He lifted the lockbox, and I dug in my pocket for the jewelry box and passed it to him. He flipped the lid back, took a picture of the ring with his phone, and then set it in the metal box. We both pressed our thumbs on the mechanism that locked the contraption, and there was a soft click. My app pinged again, and I didn’t have to look at my phone to know it was a message confirming the Fae ring had been passed to my courier.

  Ray stepped back and gave me a little salute. “I’ve got to get back to Volkov’s and deposit this. Good luck with the Shaw thing. See you around, Tara.”

  “’Bye, Ray.”

  I was just about to shift the Rover out of park when a text dinged. I let out a low hum of annoyance, thinking it was my sister again, but it was a message from Roxanne.

  I’m still up. Come by when you’re done with your assignment, if you want.

  I replied that I’d be there in ten. It’d do me good to decompress before I headed home. And maybe Rox could help me think through how to deal with Shaw trying to keep me out of a major bounty. I wanted in, but I needed to do it in a way that wouldn’t piss him off. It was a delicate dance, being under Grant Shaw’s thumb, one I’d been performing for longer than I wanted to think about.

  I pulled away from the curb and headed to Roxanne’s.

  Chapter 2

  WHEN I PULLED into the lot by Roxanne’s condo, I could smell the water even before I opened the car door. Her place was in the southeast part of the city not far from Boise State University. The complex where she lived was older, but it was in a coveted spot right next to the Boise River. Her rent was probably three times what my mom, sister, and I paid for a house with twice as many bedrooms in a less desirable location. But Rox could afford it. She was part of a very successful coven, one of the few that managed to survive and thrive financially. Her current income flow was good.

  The April night was cool, and even more so near the river. I inhaled the familiar scent of fresh flowing water, decaying leaves, and wet river banks as I took the paved path to Rox’s front door. She was there to let me in before I had a chance to knock, her wards having warned her of my approach.

  “Hey,” she said, swinging the door wide and beckoning me in.

  I followed her inside. From the back, we almost could have been twins. We were both on the petite side, with pale blond hair. She wore hers in an edgy pixie cut with a wide pink stripe in the bangs. Mine was below my shoulders and platinum blond due to the bleach kit I used on it. I’d tried dark dyes, but they wouldn’t stick past one washing. Even with the harsh bleaching chemicals, the pastel would start to show through after a week or so. Though I had very little Fae blood—my father was a sub-quarterling as far as Mom knew—my hair was full-on Fae crazy. If left on its own, it grew out in an array of pastel colors that from a distance blended to form a gross light greenish-brown. Though Rox and I were about the same height, I was more muscular due to the physical training I kept up. Our similarities were outward only. Rox was full human and a powerful witch. I had my special talents for sensing magicked objects but couldn’t wield human or Fae magic.

  I relaxed a little in the welcome warmth of her place, decorated with mid-century finds from second-hand stores along with a few modern pieces.

  “How did your job go?” she asked.

  “I had to sacrifice a spell capsule and a shuriken to get away, but I made the retrieval.”

  I flopped on the grass-green sofa, and Rox eased onto a curved leather chair with a matching ottoman. The gas fireplace was on, giving the room a cozy glow.

  Rox and I had met not long after I started working for Katerina. I’d soon realized it would be helpful to have a witch scan job sites for wards before I blundered into them, and Felicity had done it a few times. But my odd hours didn’t mesh with her work and the demands of the kids, so she’d asked around, looking for someone else who might help me. Jen Kincaid, a friend of Fel’s and a coven mate of Ella Grey, had told Fel about
Roxanne. Rox had started helping me with the wards, and we hit it off right from the start.

  “Well, you got the job done, and that’s what counts,” she said. “Too bad you had to use a capsule, though.”

  I grimaced. “I know. That kind of expense really cuts into my fee. All part of the job, though.”

  Katerina’s retrievers were responsible for supplying our own defenses and gear. We were contract workers, and as such didn’t get any benefits. Spell capsules were one of the most costly things in my arsenal of supplies.

  “How’re things with the coven?” I asked.

  Rox rolled her eyes and swung her feet up to the ottoman. “Squabbling over how to invest our surplus. But I shouldn’t complain. Most covens don’t have a surplus to fight about. It’ll get worked out.” She made a lazy gesture with her hand, as if brushing away any worry about her coven.

  The coven Roxanne belonged to had received their charter about four years ago. The group was full of women like Rox—early to mid-20s, ambitious, and skilled in specialized human magic. Rox had learned a lot from her insider’s view of one of the most famous covens in history, the one that boasted legendary Ella Grey as a member. Ella had almost single-handedly prevented the Cataclysm from becoming a massive disaster. She and Rox had met before Ella Grey was a household name, and they considered each other family.

  “Hey, guess who my courier was?” I said to Rox with a little grin.

  “Who?”

  “Ray Artois.”

  “Oh?” she drew the word out a little, her eyes sparking.

  The first time she’d met Ray, around six years ago when she and I had first become friends, she’d declared him a nine-point-five on a scale of ten. She’d only been eighteen at the time, but by the look on her face, her twenty-five-year-old self still approved of him.

  “He said Shaw’s got a big game going. I knew nothing about it.” I let out an exasperated breath and stood, pacing around the living room as my agitation returned.

  “What about Marty? Or your other friends in Shaw’s network? Why didn’t any of them tell you?”

  I shook my head. “They’re not my friends. They’re colleagues.”

  Most of Shaw’s people resented me because I’d reported directly to the big man from day one instead of having to work my way up like everyone else. What they didn’t seem to understand was that being directly under Shaw was not a privilege.

  “Not Marty,” she insisted. “You guys are friends.”

  She was right. Marty was a friend, and we went way back. He was probably the only one in Shaw’s organization I really trusted. But I couldn’t expect him to keep me up-to-date all the time. He had to watch out for himself, too. And if he was tied up in Faerie, he had no easy way to contact me out here on the Earthly side of the hedge.

  “So, take a leave from Katerina and go after Shaw’s bounty,” Roxanne said. “If it’s really as big as you think, it’s a chance to pay down a huge piece of your debt.”

  I stopped pacing by the fire and turned, crossing my arms. “I have to keep my job with Katerina to keep a roof over my family’s heads. Dominic is graduating this spring. Someone’s got to pay for his first semester. I spend all of my time dancing like a monkey for Katerina and Grant, and it doesn’t seem to be getting me anywhere. I’m just so damn stuck, Rox.”

  Roxanne’s blue eyes were genuinely sad for me, even though she’d heard different versions of this rant before.

  I yanked the pendant out from under my shirt.

  “I mean, look at this. It’s pathetic. I’ve been working for Shaw for a decade, and I haven’t even paid down a quarter of my blood oath debt.”

  I looked down at the jewel in disgust. The slim rectangle had a white stripe at the top. The rest of it was blue. When the white completely overtook the blue, my debt to Shaw would be paid. Then, I could leave his organization, and the powerful charms keeping my mother and sister alive would be theirs for good.

  But until then . . .

  I worked for Shaw to pay down my blood oath. I worked for Katerina to pay the bills. I couldn’t ditch either one of them.

  “Tara,” Roxanne’s usually soft voice said my name sharply enough to make my gaze snap up. She waited until I was fully focused on her. “You can’t spend the rest of your life imprisoned by the people around you. You have to accept what you can’t change and work with the rest. Find a way to make your own life out of it.”

  I opened my mouth to argue, but instead exhaled slowly, my shoulders slumping. “I can’t just ditch Mom and Felicity. Mom’s fragile, and Felicity has more than her fair share to deal with. And the kids . . .” I shook my head, thinking of my four nieces and nephews. Two different fathers, both deadbeats who’d had left Felicity to raise their children. “I’m sorry I’m getting so agro.”

  “I know it’s not me you’re angry with. I’m here for you to vent, like I’ve always been,” she said. “And I always will be. I just wish you would find a way to get more freedom.”

  I let out a humorless little laugh. Freedom. Right.

  I went back to my spot on the sofa.

  “Maybe you’re right about going after Shaw’s big score, whatever it is,” I said, thinking. It would be rough to take a leave from the retriever contracts, but it could be worth a brief interruption in income if it meant making a big jump toward freedom from Shaw. “I need to at least find out if the bounty is for something I have a chance at finding, right?”

  “Yeah,” she said, brightening. “You should definitely check it out.” Her smile turned into a yawn that she stifled against the back of her hand.

  “I should let you get to bed,” I said, lifting my arms over my head to stretch.

  “Want to train this weekend?”

  I’d been teaching her the art of knife throwing and showing her some basics in hand-to-hand combat. It was payment for helping me scope out job sites for wards. I wasn’t sure how much she really cared about learning the skills I taught, but the trade was a way to let me keep my pride. Plus, it gave us another excuse to hang out.

  “Sure,” I said. “Let me know what time is good.”

  She walked me to the door, and I gave her a quick hug before she could reach for the knob.

  “Thank you for always being here for me,” I said. I wasn’t one for emotional displays, but I honestly didn’t know how I’d get by without Roxanne.

  On the way home, I stopped at a gas station for the bread and milk my sister had requested. At the house, I parked in the carport off the alley. When I let myself into the back door of the four-bedroom, two-bath rental, the place was quiet and dark. I stepped into the small laundry room and locked the door behind me before continuing into the kitchen.

  After putting the milk away in the fridge, I turned and nearly screamed when I found a small figure standing in front of me.

  “Nolan,” I whispered, clutching my chest. “You almost scared the turds out of me.”

  He gave me a faint grin when I said “turds.” Any form of poop humor seemed to delight ten-year-old boys.

  “What’re you doing up?” I asked, unstrapping my utility belt and hanging it over one of the chairs around the breakfast nook table.

  He slid a look to the side. “Dominic didn’t want me in our room.”

  I frowned. “Why?”

  “Umm . . .”

  Grumbling low in my throat, I marched past Nolan to the staircase and went up to the second floor. The door of the bedroom Dom and Nolan shared was closed. I heard an airy female giggle from the other side. Not bothering to knock, I turned the knob. Too bad Dom hadn’t thought to lock it. The door flung open.

  A pretty girl with long, honey-blond hair let out a surprised gasp. My seventeen-year-old nephew narrowed his dark eyes at me and flipped a swath of rich brown hair off his forehead. He and the girl were on his bed, their shoes off and their legs intertwined. Thank the goddess they were still dressed.

  “What the hell, Tara?” he exclaimed, his voice heavy with teenage indignati
on as if I were the one who was doing something wrong.

  I jabbed my index finger in the direction of the girl. “You. Out. Now.” I pointed to the door.

  She jumped off the bed, snatched up a pair of black ballet flats and the little leather cross-body bag from the floor, and fled past me.

  Dominic stood, facing off with me, his hands fisted. Then he lifted a hand, summoning strands of magic so fast I almost didn’t react in time. Before he could fling a shock of power at me—a mix of air, fire, and a smidge of water that would have hit me like an electric jolt—I reached into my back pants pocket. With movements that were more reflexes than conscious thoughts, I flicked a hard rubber star-shaped shuriken at my nephew. It flew with deadly speed and accuracy and hit him in the middle of his smooth, olive-toned forehead. He dropped his magic and grabbed his head.

  “Ow!” he exclaimed, rubbing his forehead. “That’s going to leave a bruise!”

  “No magic in the house, Dom,” I snapped.

  “You can’t just bust in on me. I’m practically an adult,” he said. “And I’m allowed to date.”

  I crossed my arms. “Yes, you are. But you’re not allowed to boot your brother out of his own room so you can play grab-ass in bed. Nolan’s ten, and it’s almost midnight on a school night,” I hissed, trying not to raise my voice too much and wake the rest of the house.

  “It’s not a school night. It’s Friday.” He gave me a victorious little smirk.

  I flung my arms out. Damn, teenagers were frustrating. “Not the point! This is his room, too.”

  He scowled.

  “Look, I know it’s not easy sharing a room at your age,” I said, taking pity on him. “But it’s only for a little while longer. Soon you’ll be off to college.”

  He slouched over to his dresser, where he yanked out a pair of pajama pants emblazoned with cartoonish images from a video game he’d been obsessed with a year ago.

  “You used to be cool, Aunt Tara,” he muttered.

  I let out a laugh, and he glared at me over his shoulder. Something behind me caught Dom’s eye, and his expression softened.