There'll be Hell to Pay (Hellcat Series Book 6) by Sharon Hannaford

broke the fugue that had fallen over
Gabi.
    “ It’s still an hour to sunset, but he might be,” Kyle’s voice
responded. He was close to her, just to her left. She was sitting
in a chair, her head bent down with a cold-pack pressed to the back
of her neck. Slinky wound worried around her right leg, his own
anxiety like a dark cloud hovering over him. She shook herself,
mentally and physically, then reached down to stroke the agitated
ferret and send an artificial ribbon of reassurance to calm him.
Once he settled, she sat up, grabbing the cold-pack off her
neck.
    “ I’ll go back to the Estate and rouse Julius,” she said. She
had managed to shove the fear, anxiety and guilt haphazardly in a
box in the back of her consciousness. Instead she found the
simmering pool of anger and outrage bubbling inside her. She stoked
the fire beneath the pool and bathed her mind in their armour.
“Wolf, can you get to where my mom was taken, check if the car is
still there, and try to scent anything useful?”
    Kyle was
already reaching for his keys.
    “ Trish, will you work on tracking that van? I don’t think it’ll
get us anywhere, these guys look like they know exactly what
they’re doing, but you never know.”
    “ Of course, Gabi,” Trish said, her voice thick with
emotion.
    Gabi stood and
put her hands on her friend’s shoulders. “Stay strong for me,
Trish. Keep me posted with anything, even the tiniest bit of
news.”
    “ I will, you know I will,” Trish assured her, trying to smile,
blinking rapidly. “Stay strong yourself.”
    Gabi nodded,
but she knew she was the personification of grim. When she caught
up with whomever had taken her mother, she would be the
personification of vengeance. There would be hell to pay.
     
    As always,
Julius’s face looked years younger in sleep, the weight of
responsibility that he wore when conscious vanquished by a sleep so
deep and dreamless that nothing could wake him. Well, almost
nothing. Gabi paused for only a moment, for once unable to
appreciate the sculpted lines of his honed body stretched out
against the dark sheets. She stripped off her jacket, dropping it
on the floor as the overly large tabby cat roused from his doze on
the foot of the bed to take in her appearance with a yellow-eyed
blink. In an instant he was on the floor, hackles raised and eyes
fiery. Gabi cursed, she’d thought she had her raging emotions
safely under lock and key, but Razor’s fine-tuned empathy had cut
right through her carefully built facade. She took a moment to send
calming thoughts his way, assuring him that the threat wasn’t
imminent. His fur settled back into place, but his stance didn’t
relax. He was on high alert and nothing she said or did would
change his attitude. He knew her life too well. Gabi reached down
to stroke his head before moving to the far side of the bed to sit
near Julius’s head.
    She mentally
steeled herself as she reached to withdraw one of the butterfly
swords from the sheath on her leg. They were closer to daggers than
swords, handmade to her specific measurements, and treated with the
very special protective coating that also protected her cars and
battle clothing. Not even demon blood would corrode it. The coating
was a true godsend; her main sword, Nex, had once been protected by
a magic ward to make it immune to demon blood, but that ward
required a large expenditure of energy by a very experienced Magus.
With the Magi Council understaffed and their people in turmoil,
there was no chance Nex’s ward would be renewed once it wore off
this time. The magical warding only lasted a few months at best;
Savanna’s special coating was good for a full year. Julius sure
knew the right people.
    Biting her lip,
she stopped procrastinating and dug the tip of the blade into the
fleshy part at the base of her left thumb. It only stung a little,
less than slicing a fingertip, she’d found. As the blood welled,
she used her right hand to pry Julius’s lips apart