Highland Son (Highland Sorcery: A New Dawn) by Clover Autrey Page A

would take those guys, instead of Tapper or some of the others.
    A low tremor rolled through her.
    Mae turned her arms in Jewel’s grasp, grabbing on her. “You’re shaking. What is it? What’s wrong?”
    “Mae.” Jewel shook her head, scared out of her mind for the strangers, afraid of her own reaction to what she suspected Sheppard was up to. “Please don’t ask me. I can’t tell you. Not yet.”
    “Okay. You’re scaring me a bit. What are you up to?”
    “Can you cover for me? Tell anyone who asks that I’m sick and staying in here?”
    “Yeah, sure. Okay.” Mae’s grip tightened on her. “You’re not going after them? Not on your own.”
    “Just…cover for me, okay?”
    Mae stared at her, creases of worry bracketing her mouth.
    “Mae…”
    “All right. Just be careful.”
    Jewel didn’t feel the half-hearted smile she tried to assure Mae with, and shrugged. “You know me.”
    Not giving Mae another moment to protest, she dashed out of the room, ran down the stairwell and toward the rear exit. She knew what she had to do although a spike of fear lodged in her lungs, making it hard to breathe.
    She couldn’t be too late.
    Miles and Carl were on guard. Without Sheppard’s say so, they wouldn’t allow anyone past them, not without a good reason.
    But Jewel wasn’t just anyone.
     
    ~~~
     
     
    They came to an old park at the edge of the small town and filed between a raggedy chain link fence to what was once a baseball field, overgrown with weeds. The tall rusted backstop fence behind the home plate area held remnants of tattered ropes hanging from the links.
    “What’s going on?” Alexander turned to Sheppard. “This doesn’t look like a place Sifts would gather.”
    The smile on Sheppard’s face turned hard. “Wait. They’ll be here.”
    “Flubbies don’t run on a schedule,” Ethan drawled. “If they’re not here—“ He cut off at the muzzle of Hank’s Taurus suddenly shoved hard under his chin.
    “The hell?” Dez lunged at Hank but went down beneath the butt of Sheppard’s rifle clocking him in the temple. The same rifle that instantly swung up to point at Alexander’s chest as he moved forward. Ethan growled and two more of the men grabbed his arms from behind to hold him back as though the gun wasn’t deterrent enough. By the scowl on his face, maybe it wasn’t.
    “Stop,” Sheppard growled at Alexander. “Stop now or Hank blows a hole through his jaw.”
    Alexander stopped, anger churning through his belly. “What do you want?”
    “World peace,” Sheppard snapped. “What do you think I want? A world where your kind doesn’t exist.”
    “My kind?” Alexander flicked his gaze at Dez, down for the count in the flattened weeds. He didn’t see any blood from where he was at, but that didn’t mean anything They’d hit him in the head. Angry, he reached deep into his core, drawing forth the magic within him.
    “Abominations. The way I see it, magic brought the creatures to our world, destroyed it.”
    “He’s human, asshole,” Ethan ground out and Hank shoved the muzzle harder into his flesh. He bristled further when Hank took his prized unloaded Jericho from his holster and shoved in his own inside jacket pocket.
    Sheppard shook his head, his eyes never leaving Alexander. “You think I didn’t notice the way these guys protected you? You’re their ace in the hole. Who needs firepower with what you have inside of you? Correct? Their own magical little arsenal. What can you do?”
    “I’ll be happy to show you.” His jaw clenched so tightly the words grinded through his teeth.
    “Don’t as much as think about it. I’ll have your men cut down before you can bat your pretty little eyelashes. We didn’t ask for your kind to destroy our world. Magic is an abomination. You… are an abomination. It’s time the world is rid of you. Ashes to ashes. Leave monsters to the monsters.”
    Alexander drew his magic along his veins, his fingertips tingled with