Grave Intentions has released!

In the aftermath of being kidnapped by crazed mercury dragons, Kirani Kinsley Ramons dusts off her rusty skills and takes up the mantle of private investigator. With the dead growing more restless by the day and the fear of missing women in need of rescue looming before her, Kinsley dives into the case.

With her fiancé, her trusty carbunclo, and her hummingbird familiar at her side, Kinsley is ready for anything the world might toss at her.

As Kinsley unveils the identities of the missing and begins unraveling the mystery of their disappearances, she discovers there might be something far worse than a necromancer lurking within Dragon Heights. Uncertain of who to trust or where to turn, she seeks out the unlikeliest of allies: the restless dead.

To save those lost in the darkness, Kinsley will have to put everything on the line, embracing the full power of her line, no matter the cost.

Purchase Grave Intentions now at the following retailers:

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Chapter One

Wednesday, May 13, 2167

The Fringe

Dragon Heights, Wyoming

A woman darted out in front of my SUV, and I slammed the brakes, bracing for impact. The vehicle’s tires squealed, but I managed to skid to a halt without hitting anyone or anything. Sometime between my heart attempting to beat its way out of my chest and remembering I needed to breathe, the figure wavered, pointed at something off the side of the road, and then disappeared.

Before my venture into Death Mile, I wouldn’t have put much thought into the possibility of ghosts being real. I would have blamed the incident on a lack of sleep, as Erik had been called to a rather nasty crime scene in the evening, leaving Citrine in my care.

His carbunclo hadn’t handled separation well, although I’d managed to calm her with some help from Garnet and Tourmaline. However, as he hadn’t managed to come home until three in the morning, we all operated on fumes. As such, we’d changed our game plan, intending on driving three hours outside of Dragon Heights before calling it a day, finding a hotel, and crashing, leaving the entirety of Thursday to investigate the case of the missing women.

Death Mile and its ghosts had left a mark on me, one I doubted would ever fade. My brush with the dead through a Scrabble board and the disconcerting reality of possessions had done an excellent job of changing my opinion and perspective about death.

“Please tell me you saw her and didn’t just brake to wake me,” Erik whispered.

Early in our relationship, I’d done that a few times, keeping him on his toes and reminding him to pay more attention while a passenger. “She seemed rather substantial until she proved otherwise.” I took my time inhaling, counting to twenty before releasing my breath and counting to twenty once more. A quick check of the back seat revealed that Garnet and Citrine had somehow slept through the fuss. A sleepy Tourmaline clicked at me, but his nest had somehow remained fixed into place.

“Go back to sleep, baby. I’m sorry I woke you.” Whatever magic influenced the back seat had protected our furred and feathered children, and I would offer gratitude to my parents upon our return. “I have no idea how I didn’t wake the carbunclo with that stunt.”

“They’re tired from last night, and they’re kittens. Any other day, we would have had a chorus of protests from the back.”

The hummingbird clicked a few more times before settling back in his nest to resume his rest. No matter how many times someone told me it might be up to a month before my familiar fully woke up and became active, I worried for him.

I wanted the kittens and my bird to be happy and healthy.

I sighed. “I hate slamming the brakes like that.”

“The stop wasn’t all that violent. You felt the car skid, eased up on the brake, and resumed pressure to prevent a slide. You probably did it automatically. And anyway, you had at least twenty feet. You did fine. However, I’ll be enrolling you in a refresher course for evasive driving. You need it.”

While I appreciated the reassurance, I scowled. “You’re only saying that because you want to enroll and taunt me the entire time.”

“I do want to take a refresher, but not to taunt you. Dragon Heights has some pretty gnarly streets, and I want to handle them better at high speeds. I’m going to use this as an excuse to force you to take the class with me.”

If taking a driving course made him happy, I would take a driving course, just like I’d be taking a plethora of general self-defense and shooting courses to appease his protective ways. “I will accept this only if you’re paying me upon returning home from my lessons. You will have the choice of making dinner or serving me in bed.”

Erik chuckled. “That’s a small price to pay. Better now?”

I nodded, and I turned my attention to where the ghost had pointed, discovering an overgrown path large enough for the SUV to navigate with minimal issues, leading deep into a gnarled wood forest. While Wyoming had forests, very few of them reminded me of something best left for horror flicks on Halloween. “It looks like we’ll be going off the beaten path for this.” I checked the navigation system to discover we were close to the edge of the Fringe. “Please mark this location so we can get back to it later.”

Erik picked up his phone from the tray below the navigation system, tapped at the screen, and replied, “Done.”

I turned off onto the unpaved trail, wincing at the branches and leaves brushing against the side of our new baby. “We’re going to have to give her a new paint job, and we haven’t even had her a week.”

I blamed the past few years spent living a frugal life for my comment.

With a little help from my parents, should I be brave enough to accept their help, I could have my new baby repainted if we damaged her during the venture.

Erik dared to laugh at me. “She’s an SUV. She can have some battle scars. You’re already expecting to haul bodies in her, so what’s a few scratches?”

I sighed. “I wasn’t serious about hauling bodies. I would call the ME and have them haul the bodies.”

“So practical.” My fiancé reached over and patted my leg. “Once we’re farther from the main road, you can stop and take a breather if you need. You didn’t get much sleep, either. Sure, you got more than me, but the kittens didn’t exactly let you get a whole lot of rest until I got home.”

“We’re going to have to take turns adapting our babies to separation. Citrine did not handle you at work by yourself well at all.” I did as he instructed, going roughly a quarter of a mile before putting the SUV into park and taking a few moments to steady my nerves.

The only trouble I wished to court involved Erik and a bed, and if we courted more than a good time, we were armed with family members willing to babysit our children while we worked. I foresaw Erik’s family helping more than mine.

They had my family beat in numbers to a horrific degree.

While my fiancé wrinkled his nose, he nodded. “We’ll take turns once a week while the other runs errands. That should ease them into it. I think we just need to convince them we aren’t abandoning them, especially Garnet. Citrine is closer to the average for a carbunclo. They tend to have severe separation anxiety for the first month, and then they get better about staying home or having a babysitter. Garnet’s remarkable in her willingness to stay with me or your parents.”

“If you try to steal my kitten, you will pay for all eternity,” I warned him.

He laughed. “I’m not going to steal your kitten. At least we don’t have Peridot with us. If he’d gotten woken up from that, he would have lost his mind, and we would have had to call your parents to come get him.”

In a few months, I expected my parents’ kitten would be more willing to leave my father’s side, but much like Citrine, Peridot needed my father to reassure him every five minutes that he wouldn’t be displaced. “Why are carbunclo so anxious about their new people?”

“I’m not sure. Garnet’s situation makes sense. She’d been passed around. Citrine might have become like Garnet, but Mr. Acri put an end to that fiasco in a hurry. I’m not sure why Peridot is anxious. Your parents took him from his mother and father after proper introductions. Maybe it’s a carbunclo thing. The legends have them getting tossed a lot, and if I were a carbunclo, I wouldn’t like that.”

I would need to put some serious thought into the myths and legends surrounding the carbunclo. “Maybe they need time to realize they are the treasure? I wouldn’t give Garnet or Tourmaline up for anything. I’m sure you feel the same about Citrine.”

“I do,” he confirmed. “You’re in the same category, so should you try to run away again, I will chase you, I will throw you over my shoulder, and I will drag you back to our house, where I will indulge until confident you’re too tired to move for at least a few days.”

With his status as a yellow hatchling out of the bag, I had zero doubt of his willingness to implement such a plan. Should I be foolish enough to run, his plan would inevitably lead to children, and it would be a coin flip if we would have many or one. As such, I took his warning seriously. “I will wait until after we engage in unholy matrimony to run away.”

“Holy.”

I snickered, as we’d had numerous playful debates over the subject of marriage and my stance. As I believed matrimony led to many sinful and pleasant things, there was nothing holy about it. He preferred believing his worship of my person counted as the holiest of acts. Once confident I could drive without crashing into anything, I put the vehicle back into drive and resumed navigating down the trail, which consisted of two ruts large enough to accommodate a pickup. “It’s been used often enough the weeds haven’t taken it over.”

That could be problematic.

“We’re both armed, and we’re still within Dragon Heights,” he reminded me. “We’re also close enough help is a call away. We have parents, and we are willing to use them.”

“That seems like overkill. My mother is still fuming over the mercury dragons. Honestly, she’s going to take that grudge with her to her grave, and I pity any mercury foolish enough to cross her at this point. She isn’t going to be kind. She’s erased that entire concept from her personal dictionary.”

“I’m more worried about my mother. I saw clips of what she did to the one she caught, and it was horrifying.” Erik made a show of shuddering at the memory.

“She used his corpse as a landing pad, and then she skated on the body until she came to a halt.” I joined him in shuddering over the memory of the video, something I regretted watching. “The poor bastard who caught it on film gagged. I’m impressed he didn’t vomit. I’ve seen some nasty shit as a homicide detective, and I almost threw up.”

“I don’t know how I didn’t. A few cops did upon reviewing the evidence. The coroner is not happy with her over the whole thing. He had to at least attempt to figure out what killed him. He finally wrote dismemberment on the death certificate. You might have been able to figure out precisely how he died, but I suggested we not ask you or any of the other purples to check. Dismemberment was accurate enough.”

“Understatement,” I muttered. “We should get therapy over that. We can get therapy for our other issues at the same time. But I need therapy after watching that video. I don’t know how your mother doesn’t need therapy.”

“My mother would do it again without hesitation. If they hadn’t messed with one of her babies, she wouldn’t have had to give a demonstration of why you don’t screw around with a momma dragon. Nobody has been brave enough to tell her that you’re not technically one of her babies yet.”

Despite everything, I laughed at the insanity of it all. “It’s close enough. I already indicated I would accept whatever gaudy proposal you have in mind if your mother happens to defeat my mother in a cage fight.”

“They’re going to beat each other senseless over that. Your mother is going to destroy my mother because your mother will absolutely want to torment you and make you propose to me. She lives to embarrass you.”

“I’d just order you to get on your knees and beg like you mean it,” I confessed, shrugging. “Then you get to do your gaudy proposal anyway.”

Erik narrowed his eyes and considered me with interest. “But will you wear that leather outfit?”

“I could.”

“Please do not tell my mother this, but I want your mother to win now. That sounds like a great deal of fun, and I’ve been hoping you’ll wear that outfit again.”

My father had tried to warn me about yellow dragons, but I hadn’t listened. I foresaw many hopeful hints I should wear the leather shirt that had done an excellent job of making Erik’s common sense dribble out of his ears. “After we check out this lead, we can discuss that. I’m sure you can convince me to wear my leathers at our engagement party later tonight. But for now, it’s time to focus on learning what we can. With luck, there’ll be a few live bodies at the end of this trail.”

“I wish I could be optimistic, but the fact a ghost pointed us in the right direction tells me there aren’t.”

I sighed, wondering how many bodies we’d uncover before learning the full truth of the mercury dragons and the attacks on those within Dragon Heights. While I feared where the road would take us, I put the SUV into drive and hoped for the best despite the multitude of worries nipping away at me.

* * *

Wednesday, May 13, 2167

The Valley of Thorns, The Fringe

Dragon Heights, Wyoming

The sign, which was covered in red roses, informed us we entered the Valley of Thorns and warned against trespassing. The roses dropped their petals, covering the trail with puddles reminiscent of red blood, reminding me we investigated the murders of many and would be haunted by rather literal ghosts if we failed to solve the mystery of their deaths.

I got out of the SUV and investigated the gate, which had a chain someone had left unsecured. While there was no way to avoid leaving evidence behind, I still put on a pair of gloves to mitigate the damage I did to the site before going to work hauling the damned thing open while Erik photographed the scene.

“She’s back,” my fiancé murmured, and I turned in time to spot him taking pictures of something off to my right. Sure enough, the ghost from the road stood and waited, disturbing in her stillness.

“Check on the kittens and the bird while I make sure this doesn’t close on me while we’re driving through.”

He did as told, and after looping the chain around a nearby tree, I secured it with the padlock, careful to keep from engaging the mechanism.

The ghost waited, showing no sign of impatience while I steeled my nerves and prepared for what might come. I expected bodies—and my magic would have a field day should I endure the misfortune of needing to touch any of them.

Rather than complain, I got behind the wheel, waited for Erik to buckle in, and eased the vehicle through the gate. As we passed her, the ghost disappeared.

“Do you think this counts as a haunting?” I kept an eye on the mirrors to see if the woman returned, but all remained still and quiet.

“I wouldn’t call it one in the traditional sense. You slept properly, and I haven’t seen any signs of psychic haunting. However, I feel that they might have done something to you while you were on your little adventure without me.”

Erik would rib me for months to come over having gone to Death Mile alone, and I would tolerate it with a smile. The next time he engaged in some foolishness, I would turn the tables, giving him a taste of his own medicine. And like me, he would tolerate it with a smile. “A mark of some sort to make me easier for them to find?” I suggested, as it was the least harmful of the possibilities I’d conjured thus far.

“I think so. There are records of such a thing happening, usually when a ghost isn’t able to break through the person’s defenses. Rather than infiltrate their subconscious, they follow the victim around until their final wishes are granted.” Erik held up his phone and gave it a wave. “I’ve been doing a lot of reading about ghosts in my spare time.”

I’d caught him more than a few times rotting his eyes using his device, and I sighed. “We should get proper ereaders if we’re going to be reading a lot.”

“Says the woman who is attached at the hip to her tablet,” he replied, and he laughed at me. “We can go get ereaders for book materials and similar after we investigate here. It can be our reward for surviving this.”

“Are we setting the bar that low today? As long as everyone currently living gets out of here alive, we get to go shopping?”

“Absolutely, and I’m going to foot the entire bill in the hopes you throw off all your clothes tonight in a display of gratitude for my generosity.” Erik referred to his phone. “We’re on the edge of cellular service for the area. I had no idea that this was here. There are public records for the property, however.”

“Owned by a mercury dragon by any chance?”

“That was, at one point, the case. However, the owner passed away before either one of us was born, which explains why nobody has paid it any attention.”

“Nobody owns it right now?”

“Correct. The deed was cleared of ownership a decade ago, and the property can be purchased for its assessment value from the city.” Erik narrowed his eyes. “That’s only two hundred thousand, and the place has six hundred acres. Apparently, it’s an unacceptable distance from the city proper, the house was collapsing when it was appraised, and it has no basic luxuries dragons like, including running water.”

Interesting. My savings account, which I had discovered my parents had meddled with, had sufficient funds to make the purchase. “Let’s say crimes were committed on the property and we bought it, what would the situation be? I did not pay sufficient attention to land ownership details when working homicide cases unless the owner happened to be the one committing the crime.”

“It would be the same for any owner with a crime committed on their property. As long as we cooperate with authorities, it won’t be a problem.”

“How long would it take to make the purchase?”

“About three hours, assuming we have the funds.”

“My asshole parents kept depositing money in my savings account when I wasn’t around to chaperone them,” I informed him. “I have the money available.”

“It has six hundred acres, and the kittens would love to explore every acre of it. Tourmaline will adore investigating every flower. There are probably some gem deposits in the waterways here, too. It’d make a good getaway property. It’s close to home, it has a lot of space, and there is access to cellular. We can coerce our parents into helping with the electricity and running water issues.” Erik frowned, and he tapped at his screen. “I also have a suspicious amount of money available in one of my accounts, as it seems I also have meddling parents. I could process the purchase online. It’s available for online acquisition, and I have all the info needed to do it with me.”

“You do?”

My fiancé waved his phone at me. “I take pictures of everything important and keep it on here.”

“I thought you didn’t have sufficient funds to repair our house in the Tower Ward,” I stated, wondering when his parents had started pulling their tricks.

“I’ve been pretty frugal lately,” he admitted. “And I wanted those assholes to repair our house after destroying it. It’s easy to tell myself no. It’s not easy to tell my parents no. But according to the account, my father deposited an excessive amount of money recently without telling me. I don’t usually check these accounts because they’re for large purchases.”

“Our parents need to learn how to behave,” I muttered, shaking my head. “We’ll split it fifty-fifty, and I’ll pay you back for my share. That way, I’ll feel better about being impulsive and reckless. If we own the property, we have a good reason to come back here often, and we can work on solving the mystery without drawing unwanted attention.”

“You’re owed restitution from the mercury dragons, too. It wouldn’t surprise me if they offer you the mansion as part of what you’re owed.”

“That’s a bit much, isn’t it?” On what planet was a kidnapping worth them compensating me with an entire mansion? “And what do you mean that’s only part? That place is huge!”

“We were both traumatized into shifting for the first time, that’s why. Apparently, there are a bunch of rules about compensating baby dragons if an act of violence leads to their first shift. As we were both forced into shifting outside of the natural order of things, we’re owed. Dragons are responsible for members of their clan; it helps with general policing. As nobody wants to pay for the idiocy of another dragon, clans tend to be really strict with their members’ behavior.”

“You mean like how your dad punishes his kids extra if they screw up as a cop?”

“Exactly. Your parents are responsible for themselves and for you; while they have related dragons in the area, they are not officially part of the main clan. My father is responsible for all the Millson dragons in Dragon Heights as well as a few other yellow dragons who are part of the clan but weren’t born into it. Dad still holds responsibility for me and will unless we officially form our own clan. Your parents will hold responsibility for you until we’re married, and our marriage documents will determine who gets to hold responsibility. Honestly, I expect we’ll form our own little clan, as we both are the kind to hate having others hold additional responsibility over us. In bad news, having our own little clan means our punishments are harsher because we don’t have the backing of other dragons. It’s something we’ll have to talk about later.”

As Erik loved everything about weddings and planning ours, I would suffer through his enthusiasm and do my best to muster some enjoyment of the process. “We can talk about it once we’re home. I know nothing about how clans are established, why we would want to establish a clan of our own, or anything like that. Would we have to change our names?”

“No, we don’t unless we want to. We could take your family name for the clan, though. If we do that, we’ll be one of six or seven clans with the same name, and that’ll drive my father absolutely wild. He leads the only Millson clan in Dragon Heights, and he means to keep it that way. The Ramons clans are flighty and egotistical and make clans whenever one of the bolder hatchlings decides he or she has had enough of their parents.”

I laughed at the thought of having a cousin or some other relative hitting the end of their rope. “I mean, I can understand it. My parents are something else.”

“Your parents are extreme, and your mom wasn’t even born a Ramons dragon. She took your father’s name because shocking everyone by doing so amused her. She’s a Scaretti dragon, and the Scarettis haven’t forgiven her yet for daring to throw in her lot with a navy. She sometimes shows up at her former clan to beat the crap out of her parents, siblings, and grandparents because she thinks it’s funny to remind them they couldn’t control her then and they can’t control her now.” Erik tapped at his phone’s screen. “There. I have put in a purchase offer for the property, and I’ve begun processing the payment. As we’re paying in cash, there’s no actual approval process; it’ll automatically become ours as soon as the payment clears.”

“Don’t we need a real estate agent to handle this?”

“Not in this case, as it’s the city that’s selling the property. They provide all the paperwork, register everything with the state, and otherwise spare us a great deal of hassle. According to this, we should have a deed ready for signing in two weeks, but the property will be ours officially as soon as they receive the money. The deed will be backdated to when the bank clears the transaction.”

If only everything in life were so simple. “What would have happened if we had needed a mortgage?”

“Suffering and a need to hire a real estate agent to help us deal with everything.”

For someone who wanted to rise through the ranks of the police force, Erik hated certain forms of paperwork, including leasing agreements and anything dealing with a bank account. In some ways, his aversion to financials had given me a chance to truly shine.

He handled the people, I handled the numbers, and together, we’d solved more than a few mysteries that had flummoxed our fellow officers.

I feared the Valley of Thorns would vex us in many ways, especially with our reckless dive into property ownership. “I’ll talk to my father about the building problems, you talk to your father about getting us a proper road in and out of here. If anyone asks, we decided to detour here after puttering around on the internet revealed this property was up for grabs. Six hundred acres for two hundred thousand is a pittance, and our parents are going to be proud of us.”

“It’s true. Our house cost a lot more, and we don’t have a yard. Once we decide to have kids, we’ll be able to set them loose in the woods to play. We might not even see them for most of the day.”

I raised a brow at my yellow dragon. “That’s how we end up with extra clutches, sir.”

“Could I talk you into actual clutches and not singlets? I’d like two or three at a time.”

“Two or three at a time is something we can discuss,” I conceded. “But first, we solve this mystery. There will be exactly zero clutches until these victims see justice. They might not get their day in court, and they might not get compensation, but at the very least, we will find the truth about their deaths.”

“I wonder what my father will do if I tell him my ability to reproduce is dependent on this case being solved. I bet we’d get a lot of extra resources that way.”

I laughed at the thought of his father being manipulated with the prospect of grandchildren. “He’ll have a temper tantrum, that’s what he’ll do. Invite me over for your next big family dinner, and if we haven’t solved the case by then, you can pitch a fit while I bask in the glow of having true power over your family.”

“Sunday night after work,” he informed me. “Most of us have off work in the evening on Sundays right now, so that’s when we do our larger family gathering for the week. I’ll make sure they know you’re coming. Our carbunclo should be enough to bring them out in force. Tourmaline, too.”

“They are the best little babies, and I will fight anyone who thinks otherwise.” I kept my eyes on the road, wincing every time I brushed up against branches or into thicker clusters of weeds. “I don’t suppose that website has any information about the house here?”

“Not really. It’s listed as in ruins, which is why the appraisal came back so low. In good news, it’s not trespassing; buyers are welcome to look at the site before making an offer, and there’s no requirement to notify the government of visitation.”

“Well, that would make using the property for murder easy.”

Erik sighed. “Unfortunately. When we get out, make sure you have your firearm ready. If there are any serial killers out here, shoot first and ask questions of the body.”

Purchase Grave Intentions now at the following retailers:

Patreon | Amazon | Smashwords | Barnes & Noble | Kobo (Kobo Plus) | Apple Books | Google Play