Page 20 of Princess Seeks Dragon

I snort at the image he conjures up. I don’t like Lawder, but he has a way with words. “So Genovese asked our boss to help him find the girl?”

“Like I said, friends in low places. Best we can tell, this pretty young thing got cold feet and took a train into Binghamton last night. I made a couple calls, and nothing but regional rail departures went out last night or this morning. She has to be in the tri-state area, and you... Well, I think you’re useless. A repo man, just muscle. But the boss said you’re supposed to look for her using your special gifts. He said if she disappeared near your old stomping grounds, you’d find her. So get on it, or you’re on his shit list and off the payroll. Got it?”

“I got it.” I hang up, puzzled.

I know that my boss didn’t hire a private detective to track the girl. He’s using magic, calling in favors from beings that associate with him, probably none of them on the side of good. Binghamton is the local travel hub. Pine Ridge is too small to have an airport, but we have a train station, and we’re right on the regional rail line. If this little mafia princess escaped, and suddenly an incubus’ evil friends can’t “see” her? There’s really only one possibility.

That’s why he had Lawder call me. He knows she stepped into magical “protected” airspace.

Pine Ridge.

Pine Ridge, home of one of the smallest but most powerful covens on the eastern seaboard. Pine Ridge, where the monsters have united to form a Night Watch and go around playing happy suburbanites by day and warding, charming, and hexing the balls off of anything evil that sets foot over the city limits by night.

Shit, she’shere.

I’ll find her, talk to her, calm her down, and get her back into the arms of her mafia prince. I’ll keep my job and ask for—no,demand—a big fat bonus, too.

I wrap my fist over my amulet, slipping easily into human form. “I call upon the clan’s powers,” I mutter. My father would have been ashamed. The powers of the amulet are for protection, and calling on them for selfish needs would earn such a scolding, an entire sermon.

But I already do things a member of an honorable clan shouldn’t do.

Guilt nibbles, and I push it away. “I call upon the clan’s powers.Virtute Mac Catháin.Strength of the descendants of Kane, the warriors. Grant me luck instead of strength today. Help me find the girl.”

A voice in the back of my head scoffs.Like you believe in that. You’ve asked that amulet to help you find a bride, a mate, for over a year.

Not to find love. Just a mate, a different, bitter-sounding voice points out.

Well, I’m in Pine Ridge now. I’ll have better luck with all the Ley Lines singing underneath me, I think, hurling myself out of bed. I have to go to work, to the landscaping business I once planned on running with Ian. Put in an appearance and then go to the coffee shop.If anyone new has come to town, someone at The Pine Loft will know.

***

“IT’S BEEN A LONG TIMEsince you’ve been home,” Georgia, the bubbly blonde who runs the coffee shop with her brother, greets me with a smile and a wave. I notice that one hand now sports a glittering wedding band set.

This place ought to be named Noah’s Ridge—everyone pairs up, two-by-two.

“This isn’t home for me. Just filling in for Ian and Vanessa. One large, black.”

“Anything with that?”

“Are those scones in the case?” Ian’s money burns a hole in my pocket.

“With clotted cream and lemon curd, $5.50.”

“Damn it. I can’t resist that. It’s bloody difficult to get a good scone where I’ve been staying. Not that I crave them or anything.”

I don’t. I pull the coat of my collar up tighter and feel my amulet sting against my skin. You could tell Georgia you miss scones. You could say that you remember having them with your mother, that she’d always make them on your birthday, and that you’d kill for a good Victoria sandwich with nice, light golden sponge and far too much whipped cream.

You don’t have to be tough here.

Well, rather... You don’t have to prove it. Here, people seem to rest in their softness a bit.

Which is rubbish. Not for me. What’s the point of being a monster if you can’t show it off?

“Just the one?” Georgia asks, setting a plate in front of me, a perfectly golden, shiny-topped scone with two little tubs beside it, one with sunny yellow curd and one with a dollop of cream.

“Yes, just the one.” Don’t get soft. Don’t get spoiled. “Seems to be a fair number of newcomers who can...seethe sights,” I whisper, looking around the coffee shop. There’s a rusalka wrapped around some buff guy in workout clothes. Bryce Frobisher, the yeti who plays hockey for the local minor league hockey team, has a human girl in his lap and a tourist’s guide to Brazil in one massive, furry hand. And then there’s the thick, sexy piece of confection—a round little brunette with a bottom that I’d like to bite into—kissing the Orc chef on the cheek as he brings out a fresh tray of doughnuts.

“You’re not kidding. I mean, a few people a year. I suppose it’s surprising if you look at the world as a whole, but not at Pine Ridge. People who spend more time with the paranormal have more chance of getting up close and personal with it.”

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