Must Love Hellhounds

mated with humans. The offspring are the grigori.”
    She watched his face, and saw the horrified realization that his family had been changed by dragon blood. His voice was low and furious. “Is he trying to experiment with her? To see if he can impregnate her?”
    “If he is, there is one silver lining: it has to be of her free will.” As in everything else, the demons’ Rules had to be followed.
    “And so he does the nice-guy routine before he tries to—” He bit the rest off. Anger and horror battled for equal play in his expression.
    “Yes.” She focused on the road again. “But maybe we’re wrong. It just might be . . . Oh, Jesus.”
    The SUV sped past them, heading the opposite way, but she was certain she hadn’t mistaken the driver. James. Her heart began pounding, but she fought the impulse to slam the brakes, to whip the vehicle around and follow him.
    She pressed the button that lowered the rear passenger window. “Sir Pup. It’s the black Land Rover that just passed us. Do you have your locator?”
    “Is it James?” The fury hadn’t left Blake’s voice.
    “Yes.” A tracking device landed in her lap. “All right, Sir Pup. Just lead us to him. If you can do it where no one can see it, detain him. But don’t shape-shift.”
    The hellhound gave a disappointed whine.
    Maggie slowed as soon as James’s vehicle was out of sight, then pulled off onto the shoulder. Sir Pup jumped out the window.
    “Can he catch up at highway speeds?”
    “Yes.” She watched the dark blur streak across the road. “If he’d run from San Francisco instead taking the plane with me to New York, he would have arrived before I did.”
    “He’d have . . . Bollocks.”
    Maggie met her own flat stare in the rearview mirror. “Do I look like I’m joking?”
    “I don’t know. I’m with him. And he’s running . . . very fast.” Blake reached forward, braced his hand on the dash. “It’s a bad amusement park ride. Oh, hell. He’s purposefully running in front of oncoming vehicles.”
    He probably was. Maggie pulled back onto the road and headed after the hellhound. And hoped that whatever chaos Sir Pup left in his path didn’t delay them too long.
    And that he didn’t interpret “detaining James” as “eating his legs.”
    At least, not yet.

Chapter Seven

    James is a lucky man, Maggie thought. He’d stopped at a beachfront park, a location too public for Sir Pup to do anything more than lie in the sand a hundred yards away and stare at him.
    Maggie parked and turned to Blake. “You can see him?”
    “At one of the tables. He looks to be on the phone.” He held up his hands, moved his thumbs. “Not talking. Texting.”
    And she would have to cross an open expanse to reach him. After a quick check of her gun, she said, “You’ll stay with Sir Pup while I talk to him.”
    “Not a chance.”
    She knew he’d say that. “He won’t talk with you there.”
    “We don’t need him to talk. Just to point out the house.”
    “Geoff, I need you to trust me.” And to be out of James’s line of fire. She couldn’t trust James, not until she knew what his role was.
    And even then, it would be difficult.
    A muscle in his jaw twitched. “This isn’t about trusting you, Maggie.”
    “No. You’re angry on behalf of your sister, so it’s about you wanting to break your fist on his face.” She touched his hand, the tight, white-knuckled clench. “We can’t charge blindly into the house. We can’t take that risk.”
    The fingers beneath hers loosened slightly.
    “You can start punching after we get her out.”
    He released a heavy breath and nodded. “All right, then.”
    The relief that swept through her was too strong, she thought as she spotted James at the table. Relief like that came from caring.
    And she wasn’t going to be careless with Geoff.
    She knew the moment James spotted her. The expression on his boy-next-door face didn’t change, but beneath the table, his booted feet shifted slightly wider. Getting ready to dive to one side or the other.
    She didn’t sit on the bench and offer an easy gut shot below the table. She leaned her hip against the tabletop instead, her arms casually folded beneath her breasts, her right hand on her weapon and concealed by her jacket.
    “This can be easy,” she said. “But it’s up to you.”
    He laid the phone down and placed both hands flat on the table. “I’ll make it easy.” With his chin, he gestured at the phone. “I sent you another