Hunter Undone

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Hunter Undone

Copyright 2018 by Eden Ashe

ISBN: 978-1-68361-277-3

Cover art by Fantasia Frog Designs

Smashwords Edition

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Published by Decadent Publishing Company, LLC

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Hunter Undone

Choosing him could cost her everything.

A psychic gypsy. A demon hunter living in the shadows.

Tyler Wade’s entire life revolves around hunting and killing the things that go bump in the night.

Shay Evernight embraces everything Tyler fights against. She talks to ghosts, she has terrifying visions of his future, and she’s determined to help Tyler's mother. His long-dead mother.

When the truth of his mother’s disappearance comes to light, demons start popping up around town, and Shay’s visions grow more terrifying. Can two people who have spent their lives in the shadows of their secrets come into the light together as war clouds gather?

I wrote Tyler and Shay on a deadline for a box set. They came out of nowhere, armed and ready for battle. Ready for each other. They had secrets and scars, and danger coming at them from every angle. But they knew what they wanted, and would let nothing stop them from getting it. And what they wanted most was each other.

Ty and Shay aren’t just from two separate worlds, they have nothing in common. Tyler spent most of his life fighting the dark things in the world, and Shay spent every day just trying to survive her stifling life. But what they found together was the one thing neither of them had ever known—home.

I love these two. Through it all, they became one of my favorite couples, and I loved the way they love each other. I can’t wait to see their story evolve in the rest of the series. I hope you love them, too.

Eden

[email protected]

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Dedication

For Pam, for loving this story.

Hunter Undone

By

Eden Ashe

Chapter One

Twenty years after clawing his way out, Tyler Wade crawled back inside the belly of the beast.

In the passenger seat next to him, Malia dropped her bare feet from his old truck’s dashboard and straightened, popping her gum as she pushed her sunglasses to the top of her head.

This is it? This is the hellmouth you’ve been avoiding for two decades? She rolled her window down and peered at the quaint Michigan lakeside town. Smack. She blew a bubble and glanced over at him. "You sure it isn’t a forgotten Gilmore Girls set?"

I don’t know what that means. Pulling his truck to a stop at one of the town’s three stoplights, Tyler leaned forward, ignoring the people on the sidewalk staring at them. It didn’t seem right that the sun was shining, the sky cloudless and the perfect blue of summer, when this place represented all of his nightmares. But dusk would set in soon, which didn’t give Malia and him much time to get their shit done and get the hell out of dodge.

Malia twisted in her seat to look behind them then shook her head. Everyone’s waving at us. That can’t be normal.

Like I said. Hellmouth. Reaching over her, he opened the glove box and pulled out a piece of pink folded paper along with his handgun. He shoved the note into his front pocket and the weapon into the waist of his jeans at the base of his spine. Popping his door open, he lifted his brow at her. You know what you’re doing?

Her answer was to blow another bubble while shoving her feet into flowered—for fuck’s sake—combat boots. Of course. Sweet talk the case file off the record’s clerk.

She hopped out of his truck and bounced around it until she stood next to him on the sidewalk. Thanks to the sheer amount of energy in her, he’d developed a cheek twitch two months into their working together. Four years later, he’d accepted the twitch was there to stay.

She planted her hands on her hips and tilted her head, waiting for him to bend over so she could meet his gaze without hurting her neck. You sure you want to open this particular can of worms?

Hell-fucking-no he wasn’t sure. He didn’t like a goddamn thing about this, but the note in his pocket may as well have been an anchor for the difficulty it caused him. It had been three months since he’d first seen it, and it had been weighing him down since.

Tyler,

My name is Shay. You don’t know me, but you need my help. I live in a town called Willow Springs, Michigan. I was recently…contacted by a deceased woman who says she’s your mother. She said you’re too stubborn to find peace until you solve her murder, so you need to come home. She has made me promise to help you.

P.S. Just so you know, I’m not cracked because she is certain you will think I am. She said to tell you Wilfred is buried underneath the porch steps. He’s still there, waiting for you.

P.S.S. I am really hoping Wilfred isn’t a dead dog or cat or something. Or a person. Because deal’s off, then.

Shay Evernight

For three months, the name had convinced him the woman was just off-her-rocker bonkers. He didn’t even care how she knew about Wilfred. And then, in the end, her name had driven him crazy with doubt. The Evernight family were crackpots, had been for centuries. But that knowledge didn’t make the one little niggle of doubt continuing to gnaw at his brain every day go away. He didn’t have time for this shit. While the authorities had searched for his mother, and the other women who’d gone missing around the same time, they’d never found anything to indicate her death.

The annoying cracking of Malia’s gum snapped him into the present again. He ground his teeth in frustration. She was capable enough, but four years into their partnership her irritating quirks still made him want to lock her in a closet somewhere until she finally—fucking finally—ran out of words.

He shook his head, then turned and headed in the other direction. Jail is around the corner, and one block down. I’ll meet you in the coffee shop across the street in an hour.

He made it twenty feet before a little, gnarled old lady with a pouf of lilac-colored hair stepped in his path and crossed her arms over her chest.

He nodded and started to move around her, but she lifted her cane and nailed him in the gut with it. I don’t know you.

Obviously. He lifted a brow. But while he’d been raised and living in fighter mode for the last twenty years, he still had an ingrained sense of respect for his elders. Mostly.

No, ma’am, you don’t. He nodded again and took a step around her. Have a nice day. When she moved with him, blocking his escape, he cleared his throat. Can I help you?

Her wrinkled brow furrowed as she continued to study him.

Welcome to Willow Creek. She shook her head. For a moment, he worried the sheer amount of hair on the top of her head might break her neck with the movement, but she didn’t seem fazed by it. Can I help you?

Deciding not to point out he’d just asked her the same thing, he started to tell her no, and then thought better of it. He hated wasting time, and she appeared stubborn enough to wait him out. He wanted to get the hell out of this town now. People didn’t leave often, and it wouldn’t be the first town he’d come across that refused to let its citizens leave. So he nodded instead. I’m looking for Shay Evernight. Do you know where I could find her?

The friendliness in her face disappeared as she narrowed her eyes at him. Her spine snapped as straight as her old bones would allow, putting her at a full four-and-a-half feet tall.

I don’t know you, she said again.

She had to be fucking with him. He crossed his arms over his chest. Fuck, he hated this town. No, ma’am.

She canted her head and seemed to measure his worth.

In that case, she said, nodding once, so firmly he wondered if the motion had been what turned her brain to mush, I don’t know where she is.

He bent nearly in half to bring them nose to nose, to stop her from cranking her neck. Are you sure?

Wait a minute. Her cloudy blue gaze studied him. Are you sure I don’t know you? I never forget a face, and I know I’ve seen yours.

I’m sure, ma’am. Shay?

Her brows drew together. It took her a moment, but then she scowled at him and stepped away, pointing toward the end of the downtown area. You could try the….

She moved in closer, her bun nearly falling as she craned her neck to peer at him. Realization sparked in her faded pupils.

He caught the faintest hint of baby powder and roses.

And you say you’re here for Shay? she asked.

For the love of bacon. Yes, but I’m not—

She batted at the air. Yes, she’s definitely in the body shop. Try there.

He didn’t have time to figure out why she’d decided to be helpful when mistrust filled her face, she glared at him then turned and walked away, her head held high.

Swearing under his breath, he jogged across traffic—what the town considered traffic, at least—and headed toward the only body shop he’d passed on the way in, a small, rundown place that had been old when he’d been a kid. He played what he knew of the Evernight family in his head. Phoenix Evernight, now in her eighties, had a small amount of fame as a psychic, in the most absurd form of the word. Convinced she possessed magical powers as a child, she’d never outgrown the belief and still flaunted her abilities. Raven Evernight, her daughter, rumored to have been a black magic witch, had been the town’s one murder casualty, while her daughter, Shay, remained an enigma. He’d found nothing on her outside of school transcripts, a credit report, and an arrest record longer than his arm.

None of which made sense. She’d gotten straight As in school, was brilliant enough to graduate at sixteen with honors, she had a flawless credit score with not even a single contested doctor bill on it, and, despite the mile-long rap sheet, he couldn’t find record of a single charge ever being brought against her. He didn’t understand how a woman who’d been arrested on what looked like a monthly basis for disorderly conduct and assaulting an officer, never spent more than an afternoon in jail.

It didn’t matter, really. The woman had been raised by her bat-shit crazy grandmother, and, after reading the charges that had been brought against her mother before her murder, which were pretty freaky, he expected nothing other than a flamboyant, obnoxious shrew of a woman.

Despite its age, the small lobby was ruthlessly clean. Sounds of power tools and men laughing came from the garage, and the scent of motor oil hung heavy in the air. With nowhere else to start, he stepped to the counter and rested his arms on the scraped Formica countertop then lifted a brow at the scrawny man behind it. I’m trying to find Shay Evernight. I was told she’d be here.

Young, with the name Garret sewn onto the breast of his dirty gray coveralls, the kid gaped at him. Someone sent you here? To look for Shay? He grinned. Yeah, man, she doesn’t come here. Shay, I mean.

Gritting his teeth, Tyler dropped his head and took a deep breath. Do you know where I could find her?

Garret’s smile disappeared, suspicion darkening his freckled face. Who’s asking?

Tyler decided to go a different route this time and forced himself to smile. A friend.

Nah, I don’t believe you. The kid said it easily, like Tyler’s six-foot-five frame, which put him a good eight inches over the brat, meant nothing to him. You said a nosy woman with purple hair and blue eyes sent you here?

Tyler’s jaw started to ache from clenching his teeth. I did not say nosy, but yes. Short. Gray-purple hair. Blue eyes.

The kid shrugged then offered him a smile. Okay, then, if Celia sent you here, I’d check her grandmother’s place. She’s probably there.

Tyler studied him for a moment then raised a brow. You’re messing with me, aren’t you?

Nope.

Fine. He didn’t believe the kid for a heartbeat, but having her grandmother’s address couldn’t hurt. Where does Phoenix live?

Go to the south edge of town. If you hit the river, you’ve gone too far.

Jesus. He hated this town. Yeah, thanks, kid.

Garret grinned at him. No problem, man.

Tyler glared at him on his way out the door. He had no doubt this Shay chick was anywhere in this town but at her grandmother’s. He couldn’t even be amused by their obvious loyalty to the woman. He’d come here because she’d contacted him, not to make her life hell.

On his way out of the body shop, he pulled out his phone and did an address search for the grandmother. At least her place would be a start for information. In his experience, most grandparents lived to talk about their grandkids, and he hoped Phoenix Evernight wouldn’t be an exception. His grandparents were, but that was its own story.

Do I know you?

He staggered to a stop at the soft, feminine voice coming from directly in front of him. Not in the mood for any more games, he glanced up