Total pages in book: 125
Estimated words: 117510 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 588(@200wpm)___ 470(@250wpm)___ 392(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 117510 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 588(@200wpm)___ 470(@250wpm)___ 392(@300wpm)
Drew gave her a wan smile. “Congratulations. But I gotta wonder what happened to your ‘no-dating-demons’ rule.”
Harper shrugged. “I guess I broke it.” A hard weight slammed into her leg. She looked down to see her younger cousin. “Hey, Heidi-ho.” Harper stroked a hand over the little girl’s bright blonde hair. “What you up to?”
“Helping Ciaran set up the dining room for the clown,” she said.
“There’s a clown?” Harper turned to see Ciaran, Khloë’s twin, heading their way … with the freakiest-looking clown she’d ever seen in her life.
Raini gasped. “Oh, my God. He’ll terrify the kids.”
He skipped past them and planted himself in front of the bouncy castle. “Hey little people, ready for your magic show?”
“Yeah!” they shouted in delight. They then followed the creepy clown into the house like he was the damn Pied Piper.
Ciaran was at the back of the line with Asher in his arms, who was chewing his thumb. “I’ll take him inside, so he can watch the show.”
Tanner’s brows drew together. “You don’t find that clown even the slightest bit creepy?”
Ciaran blinked. “In what sense?”
Tanner shook his head. “Never mind.”
Mouth twitching, Harper followed Ciaran into the house, who then headed into the dining room and sat on the floor with Asher between his legs. Standing just outside the doorway, Harper spoke quietly to Jolene. “About Heidi … Any news on who hired the demon to snatch her?” It had happened when Harper was pregnant, but they’d had no luck tracking the culprit.
Jolene’s lips tightened. “No. If anyone knows anything, they’re not talking.”
“Devon told me what happened,” began Drew, face sober. “Do you think the person behind it will send someone else after Heidi?”
“I’d like to think that if that was their intention, they would have tried it by now,” said Jolene.
“Nora could have been lying when she said that it wasn’t her,” said Harper.
Keenan nodded. “I agree. Nora hired the hunters who went after you, Harper. She contacted them anonymously using an encrypted, self-deleting email. Heidi’s kidnapper was contacted in the exact same way. It seems too much of a coincidence that two different people would use the same technique to hire demons in such a short space of time.”
“Unless this person is somehow linked to Nora,” said Raini. “I doubt I’m alone in thinking it was the fourth Horseman.”
“But Nora said that they weren’t working together at the time because he/she wanted to keep a low profile for a while,” Harper pointed out. “Sending someone after Heidi isn’t maintaining a low profile.”
“So maybe it wasn’t that they cared about keeping a low profile; maybe it was that they simply didn’t want to work with Nora anymore,” Drew suggested.
There was a distinct pop followed by the hiss of air. Harper popped her head into the dining room and glanced out of the window that overlooked the backyard. “Oh, shit, the bouncy castle’s deflating.” And Khloë and Martina were struggling to get off it.
They all hurried outside. Keenan grabbed Khloë’s wrist and literally hauled her out of the collapsing castle while Tanner did the same to Martina.
Jolene sighed. “Khloë, what did you do?”
“It wasn’t me!” the small, olive-skinned imp insisted. “We were just lying there, relaxing.”
Martina nodded. “It was weird, the thing just … popped. Then it was caving in, and we were scrambling like idiots to get—”
The air compressor spluttered loudly, and then there was an ominous rattle. The guys all moved to switch it off, but they didn’t appear to be having much luck with it at all.
“Everything all right out here?”
Hearing Ciaran’s voice, Harper twisted to see him peeking out of the back door. “Not really,” she replied. “It burst, and now the air compressor’s having a nervous breakdown.”
Jolene threw up her arms. “I can’t understand what’s wrong with it.”
Feeling Asher’s mind touch hers to get her attention, Harper said, “I’ll just be a sec.” As she headed back into the house, Ciaran went out into the yard to help.
She walked into the dining room. And skidded to a halt, heart jumping into her throat. The kids were still watching the clown, rapt, aside from Asher. He was surrounded by his shield of embers, sparks, and ashes … staring curiously up at the woman a few feet away from him, who was cooing and telling him it was time to go home—a woman who was a carbon copy of Harper.
“What the fuck?” Harper burst out.
Her replica stilled. A surge of glacial energy abruptly whipped across the space, freezing everything and everyone that it touched. Except for Harper. The biting chill only slid over her skin, leaving goosebumps in its wake.
Snarling, she charged at the bitch, but a bitterly cold wind swept up Harper and flung her out of the room like she was no more than a ragdoll. The breath gusted out of her lungs in a heavy rush as she hit the hallway wall, slamming her head hard.