Page 4 of Truthfinder’s Promise

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Valkyrie’s Jeep Wrangler bounced over yet another bump in the alternately rutted and lumpy dirt road. In the passenger seat, Meredith’s teeth clacked together. She needed one of those mouth guards boxers wore, so she could come out of this drive without cracking a tooth.

“Are you sure we’re headed in the right direction?” Valkyrie asked.

Meredith didn’t open her eyes to even confirm what direction they were traveling in. Tracking long-distance was most easily done with her eyes closed, following the steady tug of her Aspect without regular sight clouding her magical sight.

“Would I have driven halfway across the state in this hulking behemoth you call a vehicle if I wasn’t sure?” Meredith missed the gorgeous purr of her Porsche Spyder’s engine, the smooth shift of gears and the way it hugged the road’s curves.

“I’m not questioning your superior Tracking prowess, Mer, no need to get in a snit.”

“All I’m saying, Val,” Meredith replied, a smile tugging at her lips, “is that if you drag someone out of bed with the excuse that they’re the only person who could possibly Track the shit you need Tracked, maybe don’t insultingly question their results.”

“You were already awake, and it’s the lack of results I’m questioning.”

“Do I need to separate you two?” Siren asked from the backseat.

“No, Mom,” Val shot back.

At twenty-three, red-headed Siren was the youngest—and shortest—of the three women. She was also inarguably the most mature, and therefore got stuck with the mom jokes. Well, maturity, and the fact she was probably the only one of the three of them capable of raising a child and not completely screwing it up. Meredith herself was certainly never procreating.

Valkyrie sighed. “How much longer do you think—”

“Stop the Jeep.”

Val stood on the brakes hard enough to make the seatbelt catch. Meredith opened her eyes and glared at her. “Really?”

Valkyrie grinned. “You know you’re having fun.”

She might be having fun, but damn if she was going to admit to it. “It’s up ahead on the left.” She could just make out the start of a black metal fence behind the thick layer of trees and the ubiquitous kudzu that covered so much of Arkansas.

The Jeep ambled down the road, the kind of slow meandering one might do if lost on a backroad. The trees cleared for a ten foot stretch to reveal a set of Victorian-era style wrought iron gates, behind which she could just make out a building that could double as a gothic cathedral. Or an insane asylum. The name worked into the gate—Blackthorn Manor—did little to sway Meredith much in one direction or the other.

“See signs of anyone?” Valkyrie asked once they’d driven down the road, past both the gate and the end of the fencing.

Meredith shook her head. “Siren?”

“No.” Siren sounded bothered by the fact, and Meredith couldn’t blame her. Every other one of Elijah’s compounds had been well-guarded. “Pull off the road up ahead and I’ll call the backup team.”

Valkyrie huffed out a breath. “We left them back a town. It’ll take them half an hour to get here. Besides, I’m insulted you think I need backup.”

Siren smiled sweetly. “Need I remind you that the last time you tried to do everything without backup you would have died if it weren’t for my awesome healing powers? We don’t know what’s waiting for us in there. It’s a large building. Given who it belonged to, we’re waiting for a full backup team.”

Valkyrie didn’t argue further. Her blue eyes turned dark at the mention of her father. Siren caught the change in mood and hastened to lighten it. “Besides, if you would just get your husband to figure out how to teleport on command, maybe he could, say, teach the backup teams to do it.”

Meredith snorted and did her best friend duty of helping to drag Valkyrie back from the memories of her sadistically psychotic dead dad. “Oh please, Random can only summon the powers of teleportation when his One Twue Wuv Kyrie is in mortal danger.”

“Shove off,” Valkyrie grumbled without heat, the tension in her shoulders relaxing. “And only Random gets to call me Kyrie.”

“Whatever. Between you and Random, and Siren and Jace, there’s so much nauseating happiness in the air all the time I’m constantly on the verge of vomiting.”

“Clearly, the solution is for you to be nauseatingly happy too.” Siren turned to Val. “Should we start husband hunting for her?”

“I do not need a husband,” Meredith said flatly, even as Jensen King’s annoyingly handsome face surfaced in her memory.

She’d met him seven months ago in Fayetteville and he’d been everything she hadn’t realized she was looking for. Handsome, funny, sweet. Normal. Absolutely scorching in bed.

Their one-night stand had turned into multiple nights, and then pretty much every night for the better part of a month. Rationally, she’d known it would never turn into anything more. Sometimes, when he’d looked at her, she’d seen guilt mingled in with the desire. Like he thought he shouldn’t want her.