Stealing Summer

Hunter, A Thieves Series Book 5

About the book

From New York Times and USA Today bestseller Lexi Blake comes a new epic-length story in her Thieves/Hunter world…

A daughter lost

Summer has spent her whole life wondering about the family she left behind. On the night she came into being she only had a few moments with them. In that brief time, she reached out to her father, looking deep into his soul, and gifted him the will to go on. But now she is the one in need. Once a child made of pure magic, she is forced to live as a mortal. Her power caused great harm, and she has sworn never to let it happen again. With her friends beside her, she tries her best to help those she can. If that requires her to do a little thievery, well, she is her mother’s daughter, after all.

Everything changes when a woman falls from the sky and Summer meets the handsome vampire named Marcus Vorenus. Just as her past begins to catch up with her, she might have finally met her future.

A mother discovered

Kelsey Owens went searching for Dev and Marcus but all she found was a trap. She was pulled through a magical painting and thrown smack into the middle of a battle on a foreign plane of existence. Luckily she’s good in a fight. Saving the woman targeted by the horde of brutal soldiers, Kelsey is shocked by her resemblance to her queen. As Kelsey investigates the mystery surrounding Summer Donovan-Quinn, she also hunts for a way back to the husbands and son she just claimed.

A queen exiled

Zoey Donovan-Quinn is not happy. The wizard Myrddin is back, her marriage is troubled, and she is sure those two problems are connected. But nothing is more worrying than Dev’s sudden disappearance. When she and Daniel go looking for him, they are drawn into a world thought lost to the Earth plane. Danger awaits them there, but so does the daughter they thought they would never see again. She hopes they survive their reunion.

Three heroines. One mystery. And an ending that will change the Thieves world forever…

Excerpt

Chapter One

A trick and a trap. You’ll solve the mystery and never see the evil coming for you. The world will fold and bend in on itself and you will be left on the wrong side. Years will pass. Your wolf will howl but he will remain steadfast. Hell will come and you will weep, but never leave the path. Hold fast. The magician will rule but you can win. Take back the plane. Don’t believe the myth that there can be only one. There is strength in numbers. So much strength in the blood. Don’t let them forget. History plays itself out again and again, mothers and fathers giving more than mere advice to their children. They give blood so the story continues. The path is set.

Summer is almost here.

Grayson Sloane, Dark Prophet

Zoey

I’ve been through a lot in my time. Losing Daniel—first to death and then to the old Vampire Council—signing a contract with a demon, killing said demon, taking down the same Council and becoming the Queen of all Vampire. Hell, I’ve survived my children, so when I tell you that realizing Devinshea was missing was one of the worst moments of my life, you should understand I was beyond scared.

I sat around the conference table that morning the day after Dev disappeared, my heart in my throat as I realized how bad the situation was. It was only a few of us—Zack, Daniel, and that other one who wouldn’t have been there if I’d had any say in it. Myrddin Emrys had been sitting in the conference room when we walked in, almost as though he’d known we would gather here.

Or Daniel had called him back from the Hell plane where he’d been acting as Daniel’s emissary. That was the likeliest of scenarios.

“I’ve got some security footage of Dev. He came into the building. I’ve tracked him by scent from the front door to Daniel’s office. At some point after that, we started having some trouble with the cameras.” Zack Owens was up early. Or rather he hadn’t gone to sleep at all. None of us had. If it had been a normal day, we would have been happily sleeping in since the supernatural world tends to be pretty nocturnal. “I’ve got someone looking into what’s going on with the whole system, but it seems to be electrical. The super says we blew a couple of fuses because of the party last night, and he hasn’t gotten them back up and running completely yet. So it’s possible we missed Dev walking back out of the building. I can’t be sure.”

We’d stayed up celebrating a wedding long after the newlyweds had left for their hotel, taking Dev with them to perform fertility rites. While the newlyweds had been trying to conceive their first child, everyone in the Council building had been dancing and drinking and basically enjoying the night. The party had been to celebrate the wedding of my friend and Zack’s niece, Kelsey Owens, to her chosen men, the dark prophet and half demon, Grayson Sloane, and the alpha werewolf who’d been my bodyguard for years, Trent Wilcox. Yes, she married them both. What can I say? I’m a trendsetter. I’m married to two men—Daniel Donovan, the King of all Vampire, and my faery prince, the High Priest of the Fae, Devinshea Quinn.

I wasn’t willing to lose either one of them. It came as something of a shock because I’d gotten used to things being relatively calm. Yes, we had the odd coup attempt, but for the most part, we’d found a wary peace in our kingdom. We didn’t have our guard up, and that would prove to be a big problem because when you’re the royal family of the supernatural world, someone is always, always gunning for you.

The door opened and I had another ally.

“What’s going on?” Neil Roberts, my bestie, slid into the seat beside me. He yawned and looked generally annoyed to have been dragged out of bed, though he’d definitely been known to do that to me. “Someone told me Dev got lost. I thought he was going over to the hotel to do the fertility thing for the newlyweds. Did anyone check the hotel bar?”

I would normally have laughed. But I had checked the bar, and my vodka-loving husband hadn’t even stopped in for a drink. I know that because the security cameras at the hotel hadn’t malfunctioned. They plainly showed my faery prince walking out of the lobby and onto Main Street ten hours before.

“This isn’t a joke.” Daniel looked grim in the morning light. Despite the fact that he’s the ultimate vampire in our world, he’s not inhibited by the normal daylight issues. Most vampires would go poof in the light of day and leave behind nothing more than a pile of ash for our butler to vacuum up, but Daniel didn’t worry about UV rays. Feeding off Devinshea’s unique blood and sexual energy had given him the ability to daywalk. “Dev’s been missing for half a day now.”

“Missing is a very specific word, Your Highness,” a silky voice said.

I forced myself not to shudder at the sound of Myrddin Emrys speaking. The centuries-old wizard had once gone by another name. He’d been known as Merlin and he’d served as the advisor and teacher of a king named Arthur. There had been others who’d wielded the legendary sword, Excalibur, but Arthur was the most famous of them. Myrddin was tied to the sword. When the Lady of the Lake had given my husband Excalibur, Myrddin had become Daniel’s mentor, though he’d ignored us for almost a decade. I’d been perfectly happy with his absence.

When he’d walked through the doors of the Council building, into my home, I realized those years had been nothing more than a pause. Someone had hit play again, and I had to deal with a man who had far too much power over my husband.

I had to deal with the fact that Myrddin Emrys was dangerous, and no one believed me with the exception of Kelsey and my eleven-year-old son, Lee.

The good news was Kelsey is a badass. She serves as the sheriff of the supernatural world, though her technical title is Nex Apparatus. She’s a Hunter, which basically means her human momma got busy with a lone wolf who forgot to wear a condom. Her father had been one of the greatest men I’d ever met, and now I understood Myrddin had a hand in his death. He’d set up my former bodyguard to die because of a prophecy that claimed he could kill the wizard.

What he didn’t know—what Myrddin couldn’t ever know—was that Lee Owens’s soul now resided in his namesake. My son. My reckless, wonderful son was one of two beings in all the planes who might be able to kill the wizard.

According to Kelsey, Myrddin had gotten rid of the other potential slayer by sending him off the plane along with his mother. So my son was now the only person on the Earth plane who could harm the wizard. It made my Lee a big target.

“I’m not sure what other word I would use. Devinshea didn’t come home last night.” Daniel had turned to his mentor. “We know he left the hotel after the fertility ceremony. He stayed in the suite with Kelsey, Gray, and Trent for a couple of hours and then he left. It took him roughly fifteen minutes to walk back to our building.”

“Dev’s really missing?” Neil’s blue eyes went wide and he turned to me. “I saw him before he left with Kelsey and the guys. He seemed perfectly fine.”

“I’m surprised he didn’t have a driver,” Myrddin murmured. “At that time of night there are any number of criminal elements about. He didn’t have a bodyguard with him?”

That last question came with a sly look Zack’s way. Zack was in charge of the Council’s security. It was often a thankless job, especially when it came to the royal family.

“I offered to go with him,” Zack said.

“Dev didn’t want to stop the party.” I’d been there when Dev left. I’d kissed him and he’d promised he would be ready to play some fertility games with me when he got back. I wasn’t about to throw Zack under a bus. He hadn’t done anything wrong. “And this is a safe part of town. Dev knows how to handle himself. He doesn’t have a bodyguard on him twenty-four seven. He made it back to the building according to the security cameras. They didn’t go out until after he walked in.”

Even if he’d had trouble on the streets, he wasn’t exactly an easy target. My faery prince hubby is pretty much a demigod. Years before he’d taken the ancient Irish deity Bris into his body, and the fertility god gave Dev supercharged powers that went beyond the ability to make people horny. Though don’t discount that. It can be difficult to focus on battle when you suddenly want to get down and dirty with the enemy. But beyond the powers of lust, Dev can call all things green to his aid. It might sound like a minor power, but it can freak out a bad guy when the trees start attacking or they find themselves wrapped up so tightly in rose bushes they can’t breathe. And what that man can do with poison ivy would make most baddies think twice about facing down my honey.

“We have very different definitions of the word safe, Your Highness. There seems to be nothing at all safe in this time. And I don’t trust those camera things. They can easily be manipulated by anyone who wished to trick us into believing Devinshea made it home. Certainly a man closely associated with the royal family shouldn’t be moving about after midnight by himself. There are any number of factions who would love to take down someone so close to the king. Devinshea’s unique nature alone makes him a target.” Myrddin was a handsome man who appeared to be roughly in his mid-forties. He was a man frozen in the prime of his life, with wavy dark hair and chiseled good looks. He was also crazy judgmental most of the time. He turned my way and I could feel all his judgey goodness focus on me.

“His unique nature also makes him hard to take down,” I replied.

“Dev is a badass.” My bestie always backed me up. Neil was one of the few people who knew how I felt about the wizard. He and Sarah understood. I’d left Zack out of my “We Hate Myrddin” club because he was far too close to Daniel.

“I’m sure Devinshea’s powers are formidable,” Myrddin said in that passive aggressive way of his. “But anyone can be overwhelmed, and Devinshea would be an excellent hostage to any number of forces that would seek to influence the king. He should be guarded at all times, as should the queen.”

A chill came over me as I realized how Myrddin could use this incident against me. I don’t like politics, but I’ve learned over the years how to recognize when someone is manipulating a situation to force me into a corner. Guarded at all times also meant watched at all times. It meant putting me in a position where I couldn’t make a move without Myrddin knowing.

“He wasn’t far from the Council building and I know he made it back here,” Daniel argued, but not in that crazy, “I’m going to rip your throat out for questioning me” alpha-vamp way he would with anyone else who suggested he didn’t properly take care of his precious blood.

That’s what he calls us, Dev and me. We’re Daniel’s lovers, spouses, partners. We’re his everything and he’s ours.

“Danny talked to him. He called Dev as he was entering the building, so we know he made it.” I remembered it vividly, though at the time it seemed like nothing more than a normal domestic situation. Lee had left his tablet downstairs in Danny’s office and I knew he would want it the next day. I’d asked Danny to have Dev pick it up on his way to the penthouse.

Devinshea wouldn’t have gone back out into the city without telling us. Never. He wouldn’t have up and decided to take an impromptu trip or decided that it would be cool to head up to an Oklahoma casino. He wouldn’t have tried some new bar or hooked up. If he’d been needed down in Ether, the nightclub he ran, he would have texted Daniel to let him know he wouldn’t be coming up to the penthouse yet. Dev was always thoughtful. There was no question in my mind that something bad had happened.

And every minute we didn’t find him was another minute he was taken further away from me. The fact that the security cameras hadn’t gone wonky until after Dev had made it inside raised all my alarms. Something bad had happened to him here in the building where Myrddin had so recently taken up residence.

“Have you called in the Nex Apparatus?” Myrddin asked, and it seemed to me he was taking over this meeting in a way he shouldn’t. But then that was what he did around Daniel. He took over in small ways, never enough that he couldn’t hedge if called out about it, but enough to sway any conversation the way he wanted it to go. “I understand it’s her…what did you call it?”

Daniel leaned in as if he was thrilled to be able to help. “Honeymoon. It’s what newlyweds do in this time period. They spend a week or so off on their own. It’s their version of bonding time.”

Bonding time was what vampires had with their companions. Not that we’d had either a honeymoon or bonding time, but then when I married Danny I hadn’t exactly been aware I was doing it. Even my marriage to Dev had been something of a surprise, and it had come with a full-on public proof of sexual compatibility ceremony.

Myrddin nodded. “Ah. The couple, or threesome in this case, wants to spend time together alone. I take it this is why the young wolf is running about without his parents. Does he know he’s supposed to wear clothes? I was told this is a cultural norm in this period, despite the choices of some women.”

Like I said, he was a judgey asshole who didn’t appreciate miniskirts and tank tops.

Fenrir was the young werewolf Kelsey, Gray, and Trent adopted recently. He was a young wolf king, the werewolf equivalent of Daniel’s vampire king. He was stronger, faster, bigger than other wolves. He would one day lead them all as the alpha, but for now he was a nine-year-old boy who didn’t like pants but did adore Lee. They’d been fast friends, and in the weeks since he’d come to live here at Council headquarters, that friendship had deepened. We were watching over Fen while his parents enjoyed a couple of weeks in a tropical paradise.

Or would have if Devinshea had made it back to the penthouse the night before. “She’s already on her way.”

Zack stood up. “I need to go meet her. I’ve got to tell her Marcus is missing, too. I’m not sure how she’s going to handle that.”

The vampire Marcus Vorenus and Kelsey had a relationship that went pretty deep. He’d been her trainer and her lover before she’d settled into her power and realized she was deeply in love with Gray and Trent. She still had a place in her heart for Marcus. I did, too. Daniel wouldn’t be alive and king without the support of Marcus.

See, there’s a mentor. I didn’t get why Danny needed Myrddin when he’d had Marcus. Marcus had taught him everything he needed to know about how to navigate vampire politics, and Dev had taught him how to be a king. Myrddin had been needed to fix Danny’s heart at one point, but as far as I could see the old dude should go back into retirement.

Zack went off to greet his niece and hopefully to fully apologize for interrupting what should have been a nice morning.

“When the hell did Marcus go missing?” Neil sat back, obviously shocked by how his day was going. “He seemed fine at the wedding. I didn’t see him at the reception, but I wasn’t surprised. I mean, Kelsey dumped him not so long ago and she’s already married two other dudes.”

“She didn’t dump him.” It was far more complex than that. “She and Marcus are good. I was so busy I didn’t notice he wasn’t at the reception.”

I had been the hostess of that wedding and the reception that followed, and it had been important to me that the whole thing went smoothly. Kelsey was kind of the opposite of a bridezilla, so I filled in. I had to put together an elegant wedding honoring the traditions of half demons, mutant werewolf human hybrids, and werewolves who’d grown up in weird cults and just wanted everything to be normal. It wasn’t easy. And there were vegans there, too.

“I find it interesting that we’re missing those particular two members of the community. The academic and Devinshea have had trouble before, haven’t they?” Myrddin sat back in his chair, his hands coming up and forming a temple in front of his chest. I liked to think of it as his thinking face. His thinking face always brought about my worrying face.

How would he know Dev and Marcus had trouble in the past? Who had he been talking to? He’d only been here with us for a few weeks, but he was already very knowledgeable about my family, and that didn’t sit well with me. “Marcus and Dev get along fine.”

A single brow rose over Myrddin’s eyes. “Oh, really?”

Daniel reached over and slid a hand across mine. “You know they haven’t always gotten along, and that’s mostly Dev’s fault. Come on, baby. We have to consider every possibility. I know Dev wouldn’t go somewhere without telling us.” He turned back to his mentor. “Devinshea has had problems with Marcus in the past.”

“Hey, I was there when Marcus tried to take off Dev’s head,” Neil interjected. “It wasn’t all Dev’s fault. I didn’t like Marcus much that day, either.”

It had been the moment Marcus discovered my relationship with Dev, way back before we married. It was truly in the past and had nothing to do with their current issues.

“There is a prophecy concerning Marcus that Dev isn’t comfortable with.” Daniel summed up the problem succinctly.

Myrddin nodded. “Yes, the one about his eventual companion. I’ve read about it in the Council documents. It’s from the prophet of light, Jacob. I believe he foretold a time when Marcus would take a woman of the queen’s line as his companion.”

I hadn’t read the prophecy. I hadn’t realized it was written down somewhere. It was unnerving that Myrddin knew more than I did. Still, I’d been there when Jacob had faced Marcus and made things clear to him. “Yes, it was why Marcus protected my great-grandmother all those years ago in Ireland. If he hadn’t, she probably would have been taken as a companion and I wouldn’t exist. According to Jacob, this woman will be a relative of mine and will be the companion he’ll walk into death with.”

There are only a few ways to end a vamp’s life. Sunlight works on most classes of vampires. Marcus is an academic and their primary power is in their ability to daywalk. He could die if someone cut his head off or poked him in the heart with something pointy, but other than that, Marcus is pretty much immortal. As far as I knew at the time, he was the oldest vampire walking the plane and it weighed on him. Every now and then, however, a vampire and a companion are so in tune the vampire dies with his companion. It’s called sympathetic transference and Daniel has it. Marcus wanted it, wanted to love so much his very body followed when his wife was gone.

“For,” Myrddin corrected. “The actual prophecy states a woman of the queen’s line is the companion he will walk into death for. Not with.”

I hate prophecy. Seriously loathe it. It’s not that I don’t like Jacob or his demonic counterpart, Grayson Sloane. They’re cool dudes right up to the point when their eyes go weird and they talk in what I like to think of as misheard rap lyric. “For, with? I don’t think it matters. The gist is Marcus is going to get down and dirty with someone related to me and Dev is worried it’s Evangeline.”

My baby girl. Don’t get me wrong. Dev loves all three of our kiddos, but Evangeline is the apple of his eye. He adores his daughter and so does Danny. I often worry that Rhys gets left out. Lee is human so we worry about him constantly. Rhys takes after his Green Man dad and already shows great fertility powers. Seriously, if you don’t want to find yourself pregnant, don’t hang out with my baby boy. He’s not good with controlling it yet, and we’ve had a few incidents with plants around him exploding. Once he turned the household ivy into that creature from Little Shop of Horrors. We don’t worry about Rhys the way we do Lee.

Or Evan. My daughter took after me. She’s a companion, and according to Danny she’s almost as bright as I am. In our world it can be a dangerous thing to be. A companion is yin to a vampire’s yang. Our blood makes a vampire stronger and faster and smarter than one without a companion. Our blood also makes them hopelessly addicted. Vampires can see a companion’s “glow” and they rarely let one go. Before Daniel took over, companions were viewed as commodities. They were bought and sold and sometimes traded.

I did not want that for my daughter. So I worried about that tiny ball of light as much as I did Lee.

“Ah,” Myrddin said, as though he finally understood. “Devinshea is protective of his daughter. She’s a powerful companion, or she will be when she grows up. Even I can see a bit of her light.”

“You can?” Daniel asked. “Is that the demonic part of your DNA?”

Demons can see our light, too. It’s awesome. It’s like someone put a big old “get it here” sign on every single one of us. There’s a reason we’re rare.

“I suppose so. I can’t see the glow as brightly as you or other vampires can, but I can tell who is a companion,” Myrddin explained. “I can certainly understand Devinshea’s worry. A man who once attacked him might be his young daughter’s fated mate. That would bother anyone. Would he attempt to kill the vampire?”

Dev had tried something different. He’d gotten Marcus and Kelsey together, thinking he could stave off any attraction to our daughter. He’d thought if Marcus was involved with Kelsey, he wouldn’t ever leave her and by the time Kelsey was gone, Evangeline would have found a more proper partner and the threat would be avoided. The pull between Hunter and trainer could be as powerful as a vampire and a companion, but it also could be temporary. Kelsey had outgrown the need quickly, and that left Marcus out in the cold.

But Dev wouldn’t…

“No,” Daniel said quickly. “Absolutely not. Look, Dev and I disagree on this. I know Marcus. I understand him. If it works out someday between Marcus and Evan, I’ll be relieved because I can’t stand the thought of some vamp I don’t know having that kind of influence over our daughter. But Dev has other issues with Marcus. Like Neil said, in the beginning Marcus wasn’t exactly friendly to him. He warmed up, but Dev can hold a mean grudge. Still, he wouldn’t hurt Marcus.”

“But they could have argued,” Myrddin pointed out. “We have to consider it since they both seem to be missing. I’ll go and find Nimue and perhaps we can do a locator spell. I’ll need something of Devinshea’s.”

“Sarah already tried.” The minute I’d realized Dev wasn’t sleeping a bender off down in his office, I’d gone straight to my favorite witch. Sarah Day is a powerful spellcaster, and I’d known something had gone terribly wrong when she couldn’t find Dev. She should have been able to find something…even a body.

“I can get his scent,” Neil offered. “I know the cameras show he made it here, but I’ll start at the hotel and make absolutely sure.”

Unfortunately, we’d already tried that, and with a more powerful wolf. Zack was Danny’s personal servant. He was blood oathed to my husband, and that meant taking his blood on a regular basis. Daniel’s blood—a king’s blood—had transformed Zack from a normal wolf to one as powerful as any alpha. “Zack tried.”

Neil shook his head as though trying to clear it. “Then he should try again. And so should Sarah.”

“You’ll excuse me if I put a bit more faith in the Lady of the Lake than I do a young housewife.” Myrddin pushed his seat back and stood. “I’ll contact you when we have everything ready, if that’s all right, Your Highness. It will take a few hours while Nimue and I discuss what spell to use and prepare ourselves.”

He walked out of the room and I could breathe again.

Asshole. “Sarah works her ass off. He acts like taking care of a kid, a house, and a whole coven means nothing.”

Neil stood, too, shaking his head as he stared at the door Myrddin had walked through. “I don’t care what he says. I’m going to talk to Sarah. Maybe the coven can do something. Call me if you need me, Z.”

Neil left and I was alone with Daniel.

Daniel squeezed my hand. “I know you’re worried, but you should go easier on Myrddin. He’s a man of his time. He doesn’t fully understand this world.”

“He’s been exploring it for a decade.” When he’d left Daniel, the wizard had explained he needed time to get a feel for how the world had changed since he’d been trapped in his crystal prison by the woman formerly known as the Lady of the Lake. Nim, as we knew her now, had offered to show him around as a way of apology. Apparently they’d gotten along pretty well because when he’d walked into the Council headquarters, she’d been with him still. She’d moved right into the apartments Daniel had given Myrddin. I suppose when you’re an immortal being, a decade doesn’t seem like a long time, but I worried that Nim was still with the man she’d once feared. She didn’t seem to be the same woman I’d met all those years ago in Faery. It was as though the last decade had made her darker, had put out that bright light that had been in her soul.

Daniel tugged on my hand. “I don’t want to argue right now. Come here. I need you close to me.”

I found myself sitting on his lap, his arms wrapped around me and his face pressed to the crook of my neck. He breathed in my scent. This was what he needed when he was anxious. Had Dev been here, Daniel would have brought him close, too.

“He’s not dead.” I needed to say the words, needed to believe them because things didn’t look good. Zack had tried to track him and the trail had stopped in Daniel’s office. It was like he’d walked in there and disappeared.

“No, he’s not,” Daniel said like he could simply command it to be so. “We would feel it. Something’s going on.”

And wasn’t it odd that it started happening after Myrddin showed up? “I want Kelsey to look into anyone new to the Council. You know, anyone who’s shown up in the last few weeks.”

Daniel’s head came up. “You think someone’s come in to hurt us?”

I thought Myrddin was here to cause trouble, but I couldn’t say that to Daniel for fear he would go straight to the wizard. In almost all cases, my vampire husband plays things super smart, but Myrddin was his weak spot. From the moment they’d met, Daniel standing over the crystal coffin that had housed the wizard for centuries, Myrddin had a hold over Daniel that I couldn’t understand. It was precisely why I hadn’t talked to him about what Kelsey had told me weeks before—that Myrddin would come after our son, Lee, if he ever found out he held the old Lee’s soul in his body.

Most people don’t get to meet their kiddos before they’re born, but I might have done the Heaven plane a couple of favors. That was how I knew my beloved bodyguard had come back to Earth as my son.

It was my turn to protect him with everything I had, and unfortunately that meant leaving Daniel out of the loop. It was hard because I’d gotten used to telling Daniel everything. We’d left behind the times when I would work in secret, sometimes in direct opposition to my husband. I’d settled down, but it looked like the old Z would have to make an appearance if we were going to survive the wizard.

“You know someone’s always plotting against us.” In this case, I could hide behind the truth and make Kelsey’s job a bit easier. If Daniel found out she was looking into Myrddin, she would simply say she’d been ordered to look into everyone new at the Council. I took a deep breath and tightened my hold around Daniel. “Where is he?”

Danny held on to me. “I don’t know, but I promise you, we’ll find him and soon. I’m not going to rest until Dev’s back here.” He cursed under his breath. “What the hell are we going to tell the kids? How long can we put them off?”

I had no idea what to say, but I knew we would have to say something if we didn’t find him quickly. Evan was so young she might be put off with an excuse and a cookie, but Lee and Rhys would quickly figure out something was wrong, and goddess help us all if Lee decided to fix things. “Let’s hope Kelsey works fast.”

We sat there for a moment, both of us praying to anyone who would listen to give him back to us.