Green-Eyed Envy

Table of Contents

 

 

“Urban fantasy readers looking for something new will thrill to this exhilarating debut, populated with creatures from Greek myth . . . Riss is the perfect urban fantasy heroine—fresh, sassy, smart, and determined—and a cavalcade of fully developed side characters keeps this twisty tale moving quickly.”

—
Publishers Weekly
(starred review)

“I loved it. Kasey Mackenzie is a brilliant new talent, and
Red Hot Fury
is fun, inventive, and has an awesome heroine. Easily the best book I’ve read this year.”

—Karen Chance,
New York Times
bestselling author of the Cassie Palmer series

“A fantastic, wild ride of a debut. I couldn’t put it down!”

—Nalini Singh,
New York Times
bestselling author of the Guild Hunter series

“Pulls you in from page one, and the action doesn’t stop there. Marissa is a Fury with sass, skills, and leather . . . not to mention a sexy Irish Warhound by her side. If you’re ready for a unique spin on all things paranormal—and you’re ready to stay up a little too late reading—grab
Red Hot Fury
and prepare to dive in. Kasey Mackenzie’s first Shades of Fury novel sets a new standard for urban fantasy.”

—Chloe Neill, author of the Chicagoland Vampires series

“Warning to readers: You may become hooked and gain little sleep while reading
Red Hot Fury
. Debut author Kasey Mackenzie really knows how to weave an action scene to pull on readers’ emotions. Fans of Laurell K. Hamilton, Charlaine Harris, and Karen Chance will keep on the lookout for Ms. Mackenzie and the Shades of Fury novels!”

—
Romance Reviews Today

“The bright start to a new series,
Red Hot Fury
is a constant maze of excellently realized twists and turns combined with a sharp sense of humor.”

—
Fresh Fiction

RED HOT FURY
GREEN-EYED ENVY

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Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

 

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

 

GREEN-EYED ENVY

 

An Ace Book / published by arrangement with the author

 

PRINTING HISTORY

Ace mass-market edition / July 2011

Copyright © 2011 by Heather Faucher.

 

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

 

ISBN : 978-1-101-52917-1

 

ACE

Ace Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014. ACE and the “A” design are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

 

 

 

This one’s for you, baby.
Thank you for being my best friend
and
my soul mate;
not to mention putting up with me.

I love you, Shawn.

I’m keeping it brief this time—promise!

I have to thank my fabulous husband, Shawn, and my beautiful baby boy, Zack, first and foremost once more. You both mean the world to me, and I am so blessed to have you in my life. I thank God every day that I get to be your wife and mother.

Thanks again to my family and friends, both real-life and online, for always being supportive and understanding when I’m going through a deadline crunch. Julie: I know I can call you up any time of day or night and you will be there for me, and that means so much to me!

Of course, I have to thank my agent, Ginger Clark; my editor, Jessica Wade; my publicist, Rosanne Romanello; my cover artist, Judy York; and the art department at Ace. You all truly rock!

To the readers, booksellers, and librarians: Without you, I wouldn’t get to live out my dreams of writing for a living, and I owe you more than words can adequately express. So I’ll just keep it simple: Thank you.

EVERYONE KNEW THAT CATS GOT
WAY
MORE than their fair share of lives, but the poor guy spread-eagle on the alley floor would have called BS on that. Well, if his life hadn’t been permanently snuffed out—not an easy thing to do to one of the shape-shifting children of the Egyptian goddess Bast. I had to give his killer an A for effort. He (or she) had gone to extreme measures to put an early end to this Cat’s ninety-nine lives.

Yeah, ninety-nine. The Bastai, also known as Cats, weren’t confined to a measly nine lives like Garfield; unless, of course, someone hastened them to an early grave—as with the dark-haired man on the ground. Usually, the only way to
keep
a Cat six feet under involved decapitation or incineration. But while the corpse sprawled on the ugly concrete
had
taken a beating, his head and skin were still present and accounted for. Mostly.

Which left little ole me, Fury and Chief Magical Investigator, puzzling over why tall, dark, and deceased wasn’t pulling the usual feline resurrection routine.

The heavenly aroma of my personal nectar—Starbucks coffee—had me spinning from the corpse and catching sight of my mortal partner on the Boston Police Department. Trinity LaRue, five feet ten inches of Southern charm and grace packed into a gorgeous body that caused all too many men to underestimate her. Criminals who made that mistake only got to make it once. When Trinity got done disabusing them of their sexist notions, they wound up either incarcerated—or dead.

I accepted the jumbo green and white paper cup—just my size—she held out, and flashed a smile. “I
knew
there was a reason I let you be my new best friend.”

She took a sip of her low-fat, no-sugar, caffeine-free cup of blandness (gods save me from mortal health kicks) and rolled her eyes. “You
let
me be your new best friend because nobody else wants to put up with your moody ass.”

I smirked. “Yeah, there’s that. Plus, you drive a bitchin’ car.”

Her eyes lit up her dark-skinned complexion at the mention of the electric-blue classic sports car her big brothers had rebuilt for her recent birthday. (Turning the big 3-0
definitely
does a number on mortals, as Trin’s new obsession with blah food and copious amounts of exercise showed.) The
bitchin’ car
made the hot pink fuzzy dice I’d gotten her as a gag gift look much snazzier than expected. Then again, just about
anything
looked good in a Porsche Spyder.

Trinity nodded toward the vic. “So?”

My breath huffed out as I finally admitted what I’d been trying to deny. “Same MO.”

This time, she drew the same word out in her signature Southern drawl. “Soooo?”

“Soooo, same killer as the other two.”

Proving that she was indeed my new best friend, she took the opportunity for a little gloating. “And?”

I shot her an annoyed look but gave her what she was digging for. “You were right and I was wrong. Boston has its first arcane serial killer.”

 

 

SHE DID HER BEST TO LOOK SOLEMN, BUT THE lips-twitching-upward thing was a dead giveaway to how she
really
felt. Not that she took pleasure in the Cat’s death—Trinity was, quite simply,
very
good people—but at the challenge we faced. I could count on one hand the number of arcane serial killers to hit the headlines over the past couple of decades. Nationwide. It wasn’t that we supernatural types were less violent than mortalkind—
far
to the contrary—we just tended to be much more in-your-face when it came to killing. We were also less prone to going batshit insane, not counting the magic-fueled Rage that gave Furies our super strength and speed and, all too often, drove the weaker-willed of us quite literally crazy.

Add that to the fact most arcanes did everything they could to avoid drawing the attention of Furies, who embodied the magical equivalent of mortal law enforcement, and it explained Trinity’s current excitement.

In the months since we’d taken out the traitorous Fury who tried to break the Peace Accord between mortals and arcanes, our caseload had been relatively mundane. Several tragic but easily solved murder cases. A few incidents of domestic violence in Boston’s magical Underbelly. A straightforward robbery of the Belly’s biggest—okay only—arcane bank. Not surprisingly, a goblin-on-goblin affair. They put the
greed
in
greedy
. All open-and-shut cases for the most part. Things had finally heated up again a couple weeks ago, when the first of two—make that three—male Cats had been discovered tortured and disemboweled in downtown alleyways.

Trinity tilted her head and looked down at the corpse. “What’s that smell?”

I raised my paper cup toward her in a mocking gesture. “
Real
coffee, not that no-taste soy crap. You probably forgot what it smells like.”

“No, seriously.” She knelt next to the corpse, slapped a latex glove on her left hand, and started prodding the odds and ends littering the patch of concrete around the Cat.

I got down to business myself and handed my coffee cup to a hovering newbie before opening myself to the stores of magical energy beneath the ground. I shifted to Fury form, blond-haired and blue-eyed mortal body morphing into charcoal-haired, emerald-eyed badass, complete with the red leather uniform that served as the immortal world’s equivalent to a police badge. My eyes were drawn to the brilliant red serpents tattooed on each arm as magic changed them from ink-on-skin portraits to living, breathing Amphisbaena: the pair of magical creatures bonded to a Fury. Part companions and part magic-boosting familiars, Nemesis and Nike were the two accessories I
never
left home without.