Elisabeth Writing

---

Hey friends, I’ve been quiet for too long. The truth is I was in a major writer’s block and I was very busy in my personal life (getting married, planning, house hunting, mental health stuff). And then one day, BAM, this totally new version of my current WIP hit me like lightning and I knew I had to rewrite the entire thing with a new take. I’ve kept some of the characters but I’ve certainly changed things around, including names. So welcome to my strange new world! Here you will find Demons, Witches, Fey, Mer-people, Witches, Selkies, librarians, sassy old ladies, cute animals, blood, romance, and more… so will you stay with me and come to my new world? 🌎 I hope you do!

---

“Please don’t kill me,” the woman begged, her gaze flicking between the two men before her. Her honey blond hair clung to the tear streaks on her face as she looked up at him with large, pleading eyes. Jasper felt his stomach twist, a sour feeling of uncertainty overtaking him. As if she sensed this, she focused on him alone and widened her baby blues. “Please. Do you want money? I- I can get some. Whatever you want. Just… just let me go and I won’t tell anyone this happened. I won’t say a word. Please just let me go.”

Jasper started to lower the gun, which had been pointed at the middle of the woman’s forehead. “G, maybe we got it wrong… I think she might be innocent.”

Gabe didn’t even look at him. “Don’t be a sucker. We don’t make a move until we’re all here. And that includes not letting her go.” He opened his mouth to argue but his brother quickly tossed him a scowl, golden eyes snapping with fire. “Do not argue. These are the rules. Remember?”

He barely resisted the urge to sock Gabe in the jaw. “Fine.”

Dark brows flicked up. “Something to say?”

Nothing that wouldn’t cause a fight and my fist in your face. “Nope.”

Gabe snorted, hearing the subtext. He was about to say something snotty, Jasper could just tell, when his phone rang (“When Satan Rules His World” by Deicide – a bit of an inside joke). That ringtone meant it was important: information. This particular caller was not the kind of person you called. He called you, and then destroyed the phone he’d used. They could go weeks or sometimes months without hearing from the anonymous insider, and that was time they couldn’t waste. Gabe clearly looked torn, wanting to take the call but fearing that Jasper couldn’t handle himself with the unarmed woman. Which, fine, did he maybe think they’d gotten the wrong girl? Yes. Did that suddenly make him an idiot who hadn’t ever done this before? No. He raised the gun again and the woman squeaked in fear. He jerked his head towards Gabe’s buzzing phone. “Answer it. I’ve got her covered.”

Gabe looked torn. “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“Ok… I’ll only be a minute. Don’t be a fucking idiot. Don’t let her out of your sight. Don’t get too close.”

Jasper growled, “I know. Go.”

His brother chuckled and hurried from the room, answering at the last possible second: “What have you got for us?”

Please god let him have something, Jasper thought. It had been too long without anything and the clock was ticking. What happened if they couldn’t…? What if they didn’t …? He couldn’t even finish that thought. The woman shifted and he whipped the gun towards her chest.

She shrieked and bent over her knees, trembling. She started to mumble under her breath:. “Why is this happening to me, why me, why me, why me…” The broken sound of that mantra made pity swell in his heart. But he knew not to let even a flicker of that remorse show. She softly sobbed for a few moments, and he let her. There was nothing to say, nothing he could do. But god, he hated this part.

It had all started earlier that night with a text in the groupchat from Zane: I lost a dog while walking again, the female golden retriever this time. Help me look? With a dropped location pin. Zane didn’t have a dog and he didn’t walk dogs. It was code, and they all knew what it meant: Come now, I’m hunting a female with blonde hair. Jasper and Gabe had found their way to a small park outside an office. Through the glass a woman was on the phone: blonde, blue eyed, and freckled, she seemed like the last person anyone would suspect. Zane had said this was the girl, though. And… he had to admit, something about her made his “spidey senses” tingle. To be sure, he’d snapped a photo and sent it to Zane who confirmed that yes, that was the girl, and he was running a bit behind so could they start on the hunt and he’d join in? He’d wanted to wait but Gabe wasn’t known for his patience. And so, here they were.

“Can you at least explain why I’m here?” Her voice was hoarse from crying. “Please?”

Jasper cringed. “I can’t. Not yet. I’m sorry. It’s… nothing personal. And we won’t… hurt you.”

She laughed, a bit hysterically, gesturing to the ropes tying her to a chair “You don’t call this hurting me? What the hell are these even made of? I’ve never seen anything like it. And by the way, it hurts.” Like hell was he going to tell her what it was made of. When he merely gave her stoic silence she sighed. “Could you at least loosen them, a little bit? Or give me some water, at the very least?”

His mother’s good manners kicked in and he stepped forward before he could stop himself. Luckily his other instincts kicked in and he froze. And yet he didn’t see a gleam of triumph in her eyes: merely resignation. That, more than anything, convinced him. “Fine. I’ll get you water and loosen these – slightly. But if you try anything…” He gestured to the gun with his head, and gestured to the knife tucked into the waistband of his jeans. Her eyes widened and she only nodded, mute. Jasper, the gun still trained on her, reached into a mini-fridge nearby and grabbed a bottle. With a practiced move he used his teeth to uncap the bottle and cautiously walked over and raised it to her lips. She didn’t complain, only guzzled it down as if she hadn’t had a drink in years. When she indicated she was done, he set it down on a table nearby.

She seemed calmer, which was good, he thought; more amenable to future questioning. She stared at him, her brow furrowed. “How the hell did a guy like you end up doing something like this?” She finally asked.

He frowned. “I’m not answering that.”

“Fine. Could you loosen these a little bit? I can’t even feel my hands.” Her gaze seemed flat. Jasper flexed his own hands and considered. The spider senses weren’t tingling now. Maybe they had made a mistake? It happened. Rarely, but it did. And they’d been more overzealous lately, that was for sure. So what could it hurt? He was armed. She was tied up.

Jasper stuck the gun into the holster at his hip. “Don’t think that just because I don’t have a gun that I can’t kill you with my bare hands. Do not make that mistake.” She nodded, grave. Now this is probably a mistake, he thought, but he felt compelled to help the woman, for whatever reason. He went behind her and began to loosen some of the knots, and she was very still, quiet, barely even breathing.

When he was done, she breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you. Could you, possibly, get this one around my chest in the front? I have asthma and it’s really hurting me. Please? Please.” Her blue eyes were so large, so sad, and it did something to him. Dammit.

Jasper grumbled and went to work at the knot. He tugged at it, frowning. Shit, Gideon did the double fisherman’s knot? What the fuck. Not messing around, I guess. “Well, shit, this might take a minute-”

“Jasper, duck!”

Without a thought, because of years of training, Jasper rolled to the ground. He felt something sharp sting his neck. He heard the bang and pop of a gunshot, and then felt warm blood on his hands. “Gabe, what the fuck!” He whipped his head to Gabe, standing with a smoking gun in the corner of the room, his face like granite. Jasper roared: “What the hell was that?”

Gabe just jerked his chin. “Shut up and look at her.”

Jasper turned his head and forced the vomit down. The bullet had gone clean through the side of her head, and he could see bits of gore and blood every which way. A chunk of her face was missing. But he wasn’t looking at her remaining lifeless eye or the brain tissue. He was looking at the black blood trickling out of her and the fangs that had somehow lengthened in her mouth. “Son of a fucking bitch!”

“She was about to tear out your fucking throat, you idiot! Why would you get that close? Don’t you remember anything we were taught? Jesus fucking Christ! There could have been two corpses tonight!” He roared into the dead air, and Jasper nearly snapped back when he saw his brother’s arm shaking ever so slightly. Gabe was scared, for him. And he could admit, now, that he had been a fool. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d made such an elementary mistake. At least 10 years, he thought. He knew better. He’d fucked up, and Gabe had saved him.

Man. He was going to hold this over him for at least another 10 years. “I’m sorry,” Jasper grumbled.

Gabe’s harsh demeanor melted into a smirk. “What was that? I didn’t quite hear you.”

“I said I’m sorry, you asshat!” Jasper snapped, running a hand through his dark hair in frustration. “And thank you. I guess. Even though you only saved me to blackmail me later.”

His brother’s eyes twinkled. “You know me so well, little brother.”

“Oh shut up.” He toed the woman’s leg, to make sure she was really dead; predictably, she didn’t move. He looked to the ceiling and scratched his chin. “They’re getting better at hiding their signatures. I really didn’t think she was a Demon. She had me fooled.”

“It was the blue eyes,” Gabe commented, digging into his pockets for a lighter to light his cigarette. “You’re a sucker for those. Even when they lead you into more harm than good, like that chick Rachyl.”

He opened his mouth to defend himself but stopped. His brother was baiting him, probably to distract him from the very real situation at hand. Typical Gabe, he thought. People tended to forget how intelligent and kind Gabe actually was. If you didn’t know him, he just seemed like a gruff asshole with a superiority complex. Which was also true, Jasper admitted to himself, but didn’t cover the half of who he was at his core. Still, he didn’t want to fight. He was just… tired. “What did Roach say?” Roach was their name for the man with all the intel, the only name they’d ever been given. When Jasper had asked him why that name, on a night when he’d been wasted and less afraid of the shady character, Roach’s cackle had crackled over the phone. ‘Coz they keep trying to kill me, and I’m still here.’ Well, then. Jasper hadn’t asked for more of an explanation than that.

Gabe inhaled greedily and expelled it into the cool, damp air of the basement. “He’s got another one for us. Two, possibly. And he thinks they’re high ranking, possibly even in the King’s inner circle.”

Jasper rocked back onto his heels, shocked. In all their years hunting, they’d never encountered a Demon that high in the pecking order. This could be the answer to everything, if they played it right. “When do we start?”