"No, no, no, Tess. Leave my gun right where it is, or I'll have to cut your aunt. You don't want that, do you? And tell your shifter friends that if they make a single motion toward me, I'll kill her."

  The eagle, however, dove at my former teacher's head. Mr. Washington ducked, and his grasp on Aunt Ruby must have loosened, because she tore herself free and ran to me.

  And then ran right past me.

  I glanced over my shoulder to see her standing behind the tiger who was backing me up. Smart. I would have picked the tiger over me too, usually.

  But not this time. I dove for the gun, but Logan, now suddenly human, was there just before me. He snatched it before I could grab it and pointed it at Mr. Washington.

  When I stood up, Logan pointed the gun at me. "I'm sorry, Tess. I was starting to like you very much, almost in spite of myself. In fact, if it weren't for Jack, I could have convinced you to fall in love with me."

  My lip curled. "Not a chance, in this or any other world."

  He laughed. "No matter. I need that dagger."

  Mr. Washington still brandished it, eyes wild with madness. "Never! You will never have it."

  Behind me, the deep rumble of a tiger about to go truly feral sounded, echoing in the underground space like thunder.

  Logan never even glanced Jack's way. "I just needed to find Iona and convince her to sign up for another Bargain. Another year and a day of service to the Fae, and I'd be out of my current jam. But either she's hiding from me or dead, and I can't find her. I need that dagger."

  I stared at him in shock. "That's the only reason you want to find your sister? To use her? You really are a monster."

  Logan sneered at me, but just then Mr. Washington started backing away, still shouting "never!" and also mumbling incomprehensible things, and Logan glanced over at him and sighed.

  "Fine. Have it your way."

  Then the eagle shifter shot my chemistry teacher.

  When Mr. Washington fell, the dagger clattered to the ground and skidded away from him. Logan, focused entirely on this prize, didn't notice Jack gathering himself to leap until it was almost too late. But he turned at the last second and shot Jack in the leg, and I screamed and watched a quarter-ton of tiger crash into Logan, who was still in human shape.

  "Stay there," I yelled at Aunt Ruby, and then I raced over to retrieve both the dagger and the gun, which had flown out of Logan's hand when Jack rammed into him.

  Somehow, even after hitting the floor with a tiger on top of him, Logan shoved Jack's wounded body off himself and jumped to his feet. He snarled at me and grabbed for the dagger, but I pushed him—hard—with my other hand.

  Then he made his first big mistake: he grabbed my hand with his.

  I screamed in his ear—so loud and so long that my banshee grandmother would have been proud of me. And then, while he was trying to throw off the shock and pain of a possibly perforated eardrum, I stabbed him in the stomach with the dagger.

  Then it was his turn to scream.

  I yanked the dagger out of his body and he fell to the floor, bleeding. I stared down at him without feeling an ounce of pity and told him exactly what I'd seen when I touched him.

  "You will die alone, in a prison cell made of rock, on a windswept plain. You will be old and broken, and you will have lived in that cell for a very, very long time."

  Then something inside me, something hard and cold and unforgiving, shattered, and I raced over to Jack's side, fell to the floor, threw my jacket aside, pulled my sweater off, and wadded it up to press to the bleeding wound in his leg.

  "Jack! Are you okay?" I felt tears running down my face, but didn't even know when they'd started. "Aunt Ruby! Help me!"

  But Aunt Ruby walked up and retrieved the dagger from where I'd dropped it, instead. She moved back to the center of the room and took a deep breath. "Right. That's entirely enough of that."

  And then she waved the dagger in the air, pointing it at each of the four walls, and spoke an invocation that is so confidential I cannot put it in this report.

  Turns out Aunt Ruby knew the secret after all.

  37

  Tess

  Albert, who it turned out was still alive, moaned and rolled over to watch the golden portal, round and different in feel, at least to me, from the portal to Atlantis, appear in the center of the room.

  Two of Queen Viviette's honor guards stepped through, looked around, and nodded, and then the queen followed them into the room, accompanied by a very pretty woman who looked a lot like Logan. She was holding the queen's hand.

  "Iona," Logan cried out, pointing at me. "That woman stabbed me!"

  Iona gave him a cool look. "You undoubtedly deserved it."

  "Help me," he groaned, but his sister shook her head.

  "I will not be used by you ever again," she told him. "You've treated me like property to be traded for our entire lives. It ends here and now."

  "Take him," the queen said, and her guards obeyed with alacrity. The last I saw of Logan Mackenzie, he was being carried through the portal, screaming.

  Good riddance.

  "And the thief?" The queen ignored my Aunt Ruby and looked at me, where I sat on the floor in my bloody T-shirt.

  "First, you need to heal Jack," I told her, raising my chin. I didn't care if I was being rude to royalty. She could stuff it. She'd caused all this.

  Ice touched her expression, but Iona put a hand on her arm, and the queen's expression softened. "Ah, yes," she said. "We will forgive much for love."

  She made a gesture with one hand from across the room, and Jack moved away from me and flowed into the magic of the shift. Within seconds, human Jack sat next to me, and he showed me that his leg was whole. I gave him a fierce hug, and then we both stood.

  "Your dagger," Aunt Ruby said pointedly, holding the thing out to the queen, who took it, raised an eyebrow at the blood on the blade, and then made it disappear.

  "The Bargain is fulfilled," Viviette intoned. "Dead End is safe. And now—"

  Aunt Ruby held up a hand.

  "Also, we are gifting you with the key to the city of Dead End," Mayor Ruby Callahan continued, pulling a large, silver, antique-looking key out of her pocket. "With this key, I grant you permanent guest right to all of Dead End and its domiciles."

  "That means you are officially and always our guest when you come here," I added helpfully. If my smile was a little sharp, I didn't think anybody—or at least anybody human—would really blame me.

  Iona clearly didn't, because she started laughing. "That's you told, Viv. Neatly cornered. Let's go home."

  The queen, her expression not entirely unamused, nodded and took Iona's hand. Before they entered the portal, she turned to Jack. "Your grandsire's health will continue to decline should he stay here unassisted. If he wants to return to the Fae lands, I will find him a home far from the bad memories of my Court, with my genuine apologies."

  "I doubt he'll want anything to do with you," Jack growled. "Your Highness."

  "Nevertheless. Extend the offer. And if he stays here, I have the power to return him to the age he was when … all the unpleasantness occurred."

  Jack opened his mouth to say something that probably would have started a war, so I yanked on his arm even though I sympathized and agreed. "Unpleasantness," indeed.

  "And you and Tess of the Callahan must visit us sometime and let us host you. I am sure … Frazzle … will be pleased to see you."

  I nodded, too tired to argue. "Thank—I mean, that is most gracious of you."

  Viviette threw back her head and laughed. "You're learning, child. You're learning. And I shall take the thief with me."

  She pointed at Albert, and he floated up and through the portal on his own. I didn't care enough to ask what she planned to do with him. Maybe he'd be her next garden statue. At least he'd gotten what he wanted—he was going to the Fae lands.

  Just before Iona followed the queen through the portal, she flashed an impish smile at me. "Interesting dreams, Tess. A salad monster? Really?"

  And then she was gone, and the portal winked out of existence as if it had never been there.

  Jack and Aunt Ruby looked at me.

  "What was she talking about, Tess?" Aunt Ruby asked.

  "Never mind," I said firmly. "Let's go to my place and have a pool party."

  We climbed up the ladder the firefighters handed down to us, now that they could. Susan told us that a magical force field had kept everybody from following us down into the underground space. Probably the dagger's doing.

  I was too tired to figure it out, but then I thought of something else. "Aunt Ruby. What was that key to the city you gave the queen? It looked familiar."

  She started laughing. "Oh. That was the key to the padlock on the feed shed."

  We were all still laughing when Uncle Mike and Shelley reached us.

  After a lot of hugs and reassurance, I repeated my invitation. "My place. Pool party."

  We were halfway to the car before Uncle Mike's voice rang out. "Tess? Since when do you have a pool?"

  38

  Tess

  In the end, it was me, Jack, Jed, Uncle Mike, Aunt Ruby, and Shelley at my house, instead of half the town, like I'd originally planned. After Susan sent out the text blast that Dead End was safe, I think everybody wanted to stay home, unpack, and hug the people they loved.

  I called Molly and briefly filled her in, but although I could tell she wanted to rush right over, she also understood how exhausted I was, so we settled on Friday for movie night, now that Friday evening was something to look forward to again instead of dread.

  Alejandro even texted and told us they'd found the unicorns, safe and sound, and he sent me a video of a baby unicorn that Shelley forwarded to her phone and played again and again.

  Susan called and said that the schoolkids all demanded to still be allowed to go to Orlando. Since everything was prepaid, and everyone was in shock about Mr. Washington, the Dead End school system went with it. Shelley came right out and asked Jack at one point if he'd been the anonymous donor, but he started telling her a story about "some rotten kid who'd put a live pig in the principal's office," and she giggled so hard she forgot about the donor question.

  I just sighed and wondered what a budding witch who could levitate heavy stone could do with principal's offices and livestock, but decided that was a problem for another day.

  We swam and ate—food and the cake Jack mysteriously produced—and relaxed and told each other everything that had happened to each of us. Some of it we didn't tell until after Shelley had worn herself out and fallen asleep with Lou on my couch.

  Some of it was hard to tell.

  Some of it was brutal.

  I confessed the cold cruelty that had come over me in that underground chamber, and Jack held me while I cried a little. When I wiped my eyes, Uncle Mike gave me a steady look.

  "You stood for the ones you love, Tess. And you came out of that awful experience—remember, it was just this morning that you were caught in an explosion—you came out of all of that with your soul intact. I believe the fact that you're questioning your actions means that you're still a good person and always will be."

  Jack shrugged. "Sometimes being a good person means making hard choices and living with the stain on your soul, so that the people you love don't have to."

  That made sense, but it was also hard to hear.

  Jed had taken Viviette up on her offer to stay in Dead End to live out the rest of his life. He'd walked out into my backyard earlier, held the dagger box up in the air, and called out his decision to the sky and trees. Moments later, a golden light had surrounded him for a full minute. When the light vanished, it took the dagger box with it.

  Afterward, he'd looked healthy, awake, and refreshed, but definitely like Jack's granddad again instead of his brother.

  Now, leaning back on a deck chair, his feet dangling in the pool, he gave his grandson a serious look. "I think you've made hard choices too often in your life. Now that you and Tess are to be married, maybe you can leave that in your past and get to work on making great, great, however-many-times-great grandchildren for me."

  Aunt Ruby looked at me and Jack and then shrieked. "What?"

  I sighed, threw my hands out to my sides, and fell backward into the pool. Moments later, an enormous tiger splashed in after me, and I decided I liked my life just fine, exactly as it was.

  An hour or so later, after everyone had gone home—Aunt Ruby and Uncle Mike took Jed with them—Jack and I snuggled into the new swing on my pool deck, lazily moving it back and forth.

  "This really is the most amazing birthday present in the world," I told him, watching the play of moonlight on the water in the pool.

  He pulled me closer and grinned. "Well. It wasn't entirely unselfish. You may have noticed that tigers love water."

  I fought a yawn, but I was just too tired. It had been both the worst and the best birthday I'd ever had, but it had been exhausting. Jack scooped me up in his arms and carried me inside.

  "To bed for you, sleepyhead," he said, kissing my forehead and putting me down outside my bedroom. "Happy birthday. It's late. I'll sack out on the couch, if that's okay."

  I took a deep breath. "Jack. You don't have to sleep on the couch."

  He glanced at me and then down the hall. "I guess you're right. Dead End is safe again. At least until the next crisis happens. I'll head home, then. I'll see you—"

  "Jack." I put my arms around him. "No. I mean, you don't have to sleep on the couch."

  His eyes widened and then flared a hot emerald green with amber sparks glowing in the centers. "Are you sure?"

  I thought about it for a moment and realized I'd never been so sure of anything in my life.

  "Absolutely."

  Suddenly, both of us were moving closer to each other, and then we were kissing, and the rest of the night was heat and laughter, fireworks and cuddling, murmured endearments and gasping for breath.

  Life was good.

  No. Life was spectacular.

  Until a few weeks later, when Santa Claus tried to shoot me.

  Respectfully Submitted,

  Tiger's Eye Investigations

  Are you dying to know what happens in Dead End at Christmas? PREORDER A Dead End Christmas NOW!

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  Note from Alyssa Day:

  I have loved Jack's character since he first showed up in my brain in 2006, surly and snarling, in the first book of my Warriors of Poseidon paranormal romances. When he was left alone and lonely at the end of that series, he kept asking me when I was going to give him a story.

  I did one better: I decided to give him his own series! And Jack needed to find a new job, and a new life, and when he went home to the craziest town in Florida, he found both. . . and he found Tess.

  I'm thrilled to announce that the Tiger's Eye Mysteries will continue for at least twenty books in total, and you'll be able to read the continuing adventures of Jack, Tess, and the gang for years to come!

  If you want the scoop on all new releases, behind-the-scenes details, and the chance to win prizes, go here https://alyssaday.com/mailing-list/ or Text ALYSSADAY to 66866 to sign up for my newsletter. I promise never to sell, fold, spindle, or mutilate your information so you will get no spam—ever—from me.

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  Thanks again for reading—you rock!

  Hugs,

  Alyssa

  THANK YOU!

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  Thanks again for reading—you rock!

  Alyssa

  BOOKS BY ALYSSA

  THE TIGER'S EYE MYSTERY SERIES:

  Dead Eye

  Private Eye

  Travelling Eye (a short story)

  Evil Eye

  Eye of Danger

  Eye of the Storm

  Apple of My Eye

  Blink of An Eye

  Eagle Eye

  A Dead End Christmas

  Eye for an Eye

  Eye on the Ball

  More Than Meets the Eye

  THE VAMPIRE MOTORCYCLE CLUB SERIES:

  Bane's Choice

  Hunter's Hope

  Redemption's Edge

  POSEIDON'S WARRIORS SERIES:

  Halloween in Atlantis

  Christmas in Atlantis

  January in Atlantis

  February in Atlantis

  March in Atlantis

  April in Atlantis

  May in Atlantis

  June in Atlantis

  July in Atlantis

  August in Atlantis

  September in Atlantis

  October in Atlantis

  November in Atlantis

  December in Atlantis

  THE CARDINAL WITCHES SERIES:

  Alejandro's Sorceress (a novella)

  William's Witch (a short story)

  Damon's Enchantress (a novella)

  Jake's Djinn (a short story)