Rylee Adamson: Blind Salvage Part 1

Rylee Adamson.

Blind Salvage.

Mayer, Shannon.

PRAISE FOR BLIND SALVAGE.

"If you love the early Anita Blake novels by Laurel K. Hamilton, you will fall head over heels for The Rylee Adamson Series. Rylee is a complex character with a tough, kick-a.s.s exterior, a sa.s.sy temperament and morals which she never deviates from. She's the ultimate heroine. Mayer's books rank right up there with Kim Harrison's, Patricia Brigg's, and Ilona Andrew's. Get ready for a whole new take on Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance and be ready to be glued to the pages!"

-Just My Opinion Book Blog.

"Mayer creates heroes you love and enemies you hate, weaves edge-of-your action that leaves you breathless, and includes enough plot twists and turns to keep you guessing all the way 'til the last page.

BLIND SALVAGE made me doubt everything I knew about Rylee's best friend Milly from earlier stories. It takes an incredibly talented writer with a well-plotted story arc to take a reader from wishing a villain was dead, to understanding more of what made them do the awful things they did in the first place.

Death, mayhem, intrigue, fighting side-by-side with Ogres... this latest addition to the series has all of that and more. Readers will feel exactly as I did when the book ended they'll want more! Excellent work, Ms. Mayer!"

-CJ Ellisson, USA Today & New York Times Bestselling Author.

Another book done, and again, so many people to thank. My writers group (Writing In Progress) has been a huge support during these last few months. They have helped buoy my spirits and have kept me going even on those days I was frustrated with how things were going. Thank you for helping me through those days.

Melissa Breau and N.L. 'Jinxie' Gervasio, you two ladies have come through as always, helping me fine tune (and in some cases rip apart and re-write) this ma.n.u.script. I couldn't ask for better editors, and better people to work with. Mere thanks will never be enough to express my grat.i.tude to you both.

I'd like to acknowledge all my 'non writing' friends for their willingness to put up with my discourses on marketing, writing, and pretty much anything to do with this business. I know that it is boring to you, and so I appreciate that you let me ramble from time to time.

To my proofreaders, thank you for taking the time to help me make sure the final edits were as clean as possible. You know who you are, and you rock!

Thank you to Lysa for all you do, but above it all for helping me keep perspective on this crazy journey. You are amazing and I am grateful to call you not only a team member, but friend.

This was a harder book for me to write, (I suspect because it was the fourth book in as many months) and I would not have completed it without the love and support from my husband. You truly keep my head above water, keep my floating in the right direction, and help me to see that the world won't come to an end if I don't get 10k words written each day. Thank you for who you are, and all you do for me.

AUTHOR INTRODUCTION..

The Rylee Adamson Novels are not written as standalone novels. While each book MAY be read on its own, to get a comprehensive understanding of characters and their interactions, I always advise to read the series in order. As the characters do make repeat appearances, I've decided to add in a state-of-the-art feature to refresh your memory when necessary.

In the Kindle edition of The Rylee Adamson Novels, the reader will come across occasional hyperlinks when a character first appears. Clicking on this underscored text will take the reader to a brief description of the character and how they relate to Rylee, for those interested in getting a reminder of characters and past events. Just hit your back b.u.t.ton to return to the spot you were reading.

However, these links are in no way necessary to understanding and enjoying each book on its own or The Rylee Adamson storyline. The ebook format has allowed the opportunity to utilize this state-of-the-art functionality in a way that has been impossible in the print world. I hope this feature enhances your enjoyment of The Rylee Adamson Novels.

I HATED SAYING GOODBYE almost as much as I hated Monday mornings. And this day had both of those brilliant things mashed together.

"Rylee, you don't have to leave, you know that, right?" Will tried to capture my eyes with his. I avoided his seeking gaze and instead looked out across the pond, reliving recent memories as I stared. I could feel again the fear and adrenaline as the Beast ran me down, the crush of Eve's talons as she s.n.a.t.c.hed me from his grasp in mid-air. The specter of death had hovered close lately. How many times had I dodged his grasping hands since arriving on this side of the ocean? Nothing had gone as planned, so much death and pain ... so much loss.

I closed my eyes and memories far worse a.s.saulted me, battered at me and forced me to feel them again. Berget's death rocketed through me, tearing what was left of my heart into pieces, and then the shock with her apparent re-birth as a vampire, her eyes pleading with me to side with her. To turn my back on Liam, Pamela, and Alex. To help her become the Empress in truth, so that she would have control of the vampire nation.

She forced me to make a decision between the family I dreamed of and the family who'd stood by me through thick and thin. And I'd chosen to turn my back on her; I'd left her behind.

Will's fingers brushed along the back of my neck snapping me back to the present. I stepped away from him and gave him a glare for good measure. He was lucky we were friends or I would have done a h.e.l.l of a lot more than glare at him.

"No. I have to go. This isn't my home and I don't belong here." I looked around me. My bag of weapons was at my feet, full of all sorts of goodies. Alex splashed at the edge of the pond, near Deanna and Pamela. We were as ready to go as we ever would be.

Deanna hugged Pamela and whispered something in the young witch's ear. While Deanna had pet.i.tioned me to let Pamela stay with her and train to become a druid, Pamela chose to come with me. Unlike her predecessor, Deanna had let it go at that. Good thing too. I would have hated to kill her when she'd helped me get Liam back. Her predecessor though-I would have gladly removed Daniels' stupid head from the rest of her, but this time around that hadn't been my job. Nor had I been given the chance.

Even before we made it back from Venice, Daniels had gone 'missing', and Deanna was back in charge of the druids. I had to give it to the Beast, he didn't waste any time making good on his word to clean house with Daniels. One less lunatic in the world was a good thing. Particularly when the lunatic had a serious hate on for yours truly.

Will surprised me again, pulling me out of my thoughts, as he tugged me into his arms. Hugging me tight to his chest, his arms clamped around my upper body as if he would hold me there forever, his heart beating hard against mine. He spoke softly into my ear, his breath tickling my skin, warm and gentle.

"You will always have a place here, Rylee. I need you to know that. No matter what comes, you would be safe here, with me." He held on too long and I squirmed, more than feeling the overtones of what he wanted, of what I couldn't reciprocate. Maybe, maybe if Liam hadn't come back to me this moment would be a different story. But Liam had come back, so there was no guessing about this, about Will, for me. Besides, if he thought he could keep me safe in a world where death and disaster were my constant companions, he didn't know me as well as he thought he did.

A low growl came from the left of us, and Will let me go. Kinda. He still hung onto my forearms as he glared over at Liam, letting out a low rumbling kitty cat growl of his own. I jerked my arms out of Will's hands, but it didn't help. The testosterone and tension in the air grew heavy, broken up only by sheer luck. Alex bolted in between us, slammed into me and then Will, like a freaking ping pong game gone awry, and then knocked us both to our knees.

"Home, home, hooooooooooooome!" His howl quivered in the air, dissipating the two alphas' staring match. His timing was perfect, and I let out a quiet sigh of relief. I didn't want to play referee between the two alphas. I had enough on my hands just trying to keep us all alive.

In the two days since Liam had been back, this was the third time the two alpha shifters had started to lock horns. And it was the third time Alex had interrupted them, essentially keeping them from each others' throats. Sensitive as the submissive werewolf was, I wondered if he picked up on the combative vibes, didn't like them, and had realized he had the ability to stop the fights before they even occurred. But was he really that intuitive? As if to confirm my thoughts, he rolled his eyes up to mine as I stood. One long slow wink and he put his index claw to his muzzle.

Smiling, I reached down and scratched him behind his ears. "Alex, you are the best."

His tongue lolled out, flipping spit as he nodded vigorously. "Alex knows that."

With a laugh, I stepped away from Will, putting Liam between us, and headed to the car, acting like nothing had happened. One thing I'd learned with supernaturals, you just moved on. No need to point out what could have been, unless you were spoiling for a fight. Particularly with alphas.

A part of me wished Eve was still here, that I could hop on her back and fly the h.e.l.l away from all of this. But Eve had already left, choosing to hopscotch across Iceland and down the east coast of Canada before banking to the west to North Dakota. The trip would take her a few days, maybe a week depending on her wings, and she'd probably get home not long after us. She knew to take it slow, but even with that, I worried. She was young and wanted to prove herself. I knew what that did to people. The need to prove oneself could make you stupid and encourage stupid decisions. I, of all people, should know that better than most.

Will cleared his throat, maybe started to say something, but was cut off.

I turned around in time to see Liam lift his hand, his light golden eyes narrowing. "Enough. She isn't yours and she isn't staying here. Let it go, cat, before this gets ugly."

Wow. I swallowed hard, a part of me bucking under his a.s.sertion that I was his, as in belonging to him, as in not my own person. I took a deep breath, opened my mouth and then shut it with a click. Maybe I'd matured, probably not, but whatever the case, I let that bucking part of me settle down, calmed it with the simple truth: Liam was right, but it went both ways. I was his, and he was mine through and through.

Will needed to understand that. He drew himself up, his brown eyes bleeding to the kitty cat green that preceded a shift to his panther form, and irises contracting as the feline in him rose up.

"Why don't you let her decide that for herself? d.a.m.n wolves, you think you rule the whole b.l.o.o.d.y world."

Liam tensed, fists clenching. At his feet, Alex let out a whimper. Looked like it was my turn to break things up.

Yippy.

"Seriously?" I put my hands on my hips. "Grow up, Will. Untwist your b.a.l.l.s from the knot they're in and chill the h.e.l.l out."

Pamela joined us, her face clearly showing her confusion, as she glanced from Will to me to Liam. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing. Say goodbye to Will. We're leaving." I pointed at him and she shyly stepped close to him to give him a hug, her face pinking up, lashes lowered over her bright blue eyes.

He spoke to Pamela, but his eyes never left mine, the intensity in them undeniable, even though there was no return of emotion on my part.

"Stay clear of wolves, they will pull you apart."

d.a.m.n, he was going to push this with every second we had left here. Liam flexed his muscles and growled under his breath, and I had no doubt we were as close to a fight between the two of them as we'd ever been.

We needed to leave, now, or there was going to be a mangled body that had once belonged to a friend. Someone would get hurt badly, or worse, killed. And I knew it wouldn't be Liam dying, not with the Guardian blood flowing through him. No matter how much Alex might interfere, the two men were going to come to blows very soon. And I really didn't want to st.i.tch either of them up. Will was a friend and an ally, but I would always stand with Liam.

Always.

I flicked a hand beckoning to Alex who scampered to my side. He whispered out the corner of his mouth. "Boss is maddy mad."

"Yeah, but he'll chill out once we get home." G.o.ds, I hoped that would be the case.

A quiver ran along my shoulders, a solid feeling of being watched rolling through me. I turned to see Jack standing in the doorway, watching us leave. He hadn't spoken to me since Liam had shifted back, and Milly had stolen the violet book of prophecies. He didn't come down to see us off, or even wave goodbye. Not that I cared, at least that's what I told myself. The old b.a.s.t.a.r.d had lied and manipulated me with the best of them. Not something I tolerated well on my good days. But a part of me felt sorry for him, and I fought the urge to go and tell him he could come with us, that he didn't have to die alone. In that, Jack was right. I had to start putting my foot down. No more charity cases, no more wards to take care of. I had enough trouble keeping those I cared about alive as it was.

The sound of tires on gravel brought my head around. Our ride was already here. Who the h.e.l.l was it now?

A black, sleek sedan rolled to a stop, blocking off the driveway. Liam's former boss-and my one time boss-Agent Valley pulled his short stubby body out of the car with some effort.

"Adamson," he said, straightening his suit coat over his portly frame (which didn't really help). "Why is it that I had to learn through the rumor mill that you'd found Agent O'Shea?"

I pursed my lips. "Sorry, my secretary must have lost that memo. Alex, why didn't you tell Agent Valley we'd found Liam?"

Alex did an exaggerated point at himself his lips twisting comically. "Rylee said no tells."

"Right, that's why." I lifted an eyebrow at Agent Valley.

Liam moved up beside me. He had shaved off the beard, but had left his hair long. Black as the night sky, it brushed the top of his shoulders, very definitely not FBI agent styled; there would be no more short cropped brush cut for him. I liked it.

"Agent O'Shea. Good to see you." Agent Valley held out his hand and Liam took it.

"Just Liam now, sir."

Agent Valley blinked several times. "What does 'just Liam now' mean, exactly?"

Liam took a slow breath, but never looked away from his boss. "I'm not coming back to the office. Things have changed."

Frowning, Agent Valley shook his head. "No, I won't accept that. You are one of our best agents, O'Shea. My understanding is you are a ... werewolf now. Is that correct? We can find ways to work around this disability. I have no doubt of that."

Liam stiffened, his whole body seeming to freeze up.

I stepped in between them, stuck my face in Agent Valley's, about as p.i.s.sed off as I'd ever been. But I did manage to control myself; d.a.m.n, I didn't even pull a blade on him. Go me.

"Take your disability and shove it up your a.s.s, Agent Valley. We're leaving."

Alex and Pamela made their way to the cab without being told and slid into the back seat. I scooped up my bag of weapons and followed them. Liam, though, stood there unmoving. s.h.i.t, the last thing I needed was for him to be unsure about this. We'd talked about it already, and Liam had agreed that the FBI put too many stipulations on its agents that worked with the supernatural. There was no way either of us could truly work for the FBI and still get the job done. They just didn't understand what it took to get a job done, and they weren't willing to bend.

Not to mention, Agent Valley had tried to throw me under the bus when I'd worked with him last. Not cool, not cool at all. And it wasn't something I was about to forget.

Liam reached out and shook Agent Valley's hand. "Thank you, sir. But we'll both pa.s.s."

Agent Valley, King of Dramatic reveals, waited until Liam was at the cab, his hand on the door.

"Of course, if that's your decision, then I can respect that. But tell me just one thing. What do you know about a demon named Orion?"

MY BACK STIFFENED and I clenched my jaw shut to keep from giving anything away. I turned ever so slightly and caught Liam's eyes as they widened a fraction before he, too, caught himself.

"Nothing, sir," Liam said, his voice even and smooth. Perfectly believable, I thought. Yet Agent Valley didn't look convinced. Not a bit. His eyes narrowed and he clasped his hands in front of his belly.

"You're telling me you don't know anything about a demon named Orion? Or some prophecy that goes like this: the heart of the mountains he will p.r.i.c.k, and the land will know Orion's fury for being condemned to the seventh veil. He shall cleanse the land with fire for his coming." Agent Valley's eyebrows shot up over his muddy brown eyes. Liam shook his head and I mimicked him, as did Pamela and Alex. All together now, kiddos, and maybe Agent Valley would believe us. Though how he had this information intrigued me, it wasn't enough to make me ask.

Will and Deanna withdrew. Though they didn't know the particulars, they did know that I'd stuffed the black-skinned demon book into my weapons bag, which happened to speak a great deal about Orion. Not that Jack knew I'd taken it-no, we'd left a dummy book in its place.

I shrugged, going for casual. "Nope, not a single thing." Nor did I want to know what Agent Valley had going on with his intelligence gathering. Humans were notorious for reading into things that weren't there and missing the things that did exist. Nor did I want to guess at the prophecy he'd quoted to us. I'd been reading the black-skinned demon book of prophecies and there was nothing good in them. Not all of them were about Orion, but a lot of them were, enough to seriously worry me. Mostly, they were about how he would help the demon nation be reborn to the world, how he would kill the 'Tracker' and defile her corpse in a variety of ways.

Yeah, not exactly bedtime reading material.

Giselle had always told me prophecies were not to be ignored. But honestly, they were all so freaking contradictory, particularly when it came to comparing the demon's prophecies to any other supernaturals. Black and white. So how could they both come to pa.s.s? That's right, they couldn't. I had to believe that. Giselle's teachings, her words, floated in my head.

Different branches of possibilities. You know that. Don't delude yourself, either side of a prophecy can come true dependent on people's decisions.

Yeah, I did know it. I just didn't want to think about any of the demon prophecies as being even remotely possible. Or of people being stupid enough to help the dark branches of prophecy along.

I slid into my seat beside Pamela in the back of the cab and shut the door. Or tried to. Agent Valley stuck his hand out and caught the door before I could shut it completely.

"Adamson, this is serious. The rumors that are flying-they make our little zombie problem from last month look like a picnic on a fine summer's day. We don't even know what the seventh veil is-worse, we have nothing on this Orion fellow. We need your help."

I shrugged, did my best not to let him see my mind working. "Not my issue. I'm going home. And for the record, I don't know what the seventh veil is either." And that was the truth; whatever the veil fully encompa.s.sed, I didn't know.

Liam slid into the pa.s.senger seat next to the cabbie.

Agent Valley took his hand off the door. "We think someone is trying to bring Orion through, to our side, and with everything I've heard about how very bad this demon is, I would think you wouldn't want that."

How the h.e.l.l did he know all this? He'd gone from all but begging me to help him and his Arcane Arts division, to now knowing s.h.i.t about the supernatural that we didn't? The only answer was that he'd found someone to help him, someone who knew the supernatural. Maybe a Reader like Giselle that was my guess. Not that it mattered. If he got the information he wanted and didn't need us, all the better.

I glared at him. "Guilt trips aside, who the h.e.l.l would want a demon on our side of the veil, you moron? Find somebody else to do your dirty work. I find kids; I don't go after demons. I don't have what it takes to be some f.u.c.king superwoman."

Liam gave the cabbie a nod and the driver turned over the key.

Nothing, the engine didn't even sputter once. f.u.c.k me sideways, it looked like Monday had struck again. I looked over Pamela's head at Liam. "Too many of us."

He gave a quick nod, and then opened the door. "Alex and I will meet you there."

In other words, he would shift, and the two boys would run all the way to the point out in the bush where the cabbie would drop us off.

Pamela slid closer to me. "Will we have to wait for them?"