Free Wish Bound (A Grimm Agency Novel Book 3) by J. C. Nelson Page A

like a blast of cold air. “They’re not heading into the Agency proper.” Grimm’s major mojo stopped at the boundaries. “They’re headed into cargo.”
    “Mikey.” We spoke as one. Mikey, grandson of the greatest leader the wolves ever knew, survived a huntsman’s attack a few years earlier, and gave the huntsman an overbite that no amount of orthodontics could fix. I thought the other huntsmen had enough sense to let it go. The silver crossbows on their backs said I thought wrong.
    “I’m going to go help Michael,” said Rosa. “He’s such a good boy.”
    My jaw just about dropped. Rosa grabbed her sawed-off shotgun from behind the desk, loaded a couple of slugs, and limped slowly out the door.
    I ran ahead, and Ari trailed me down the stairs, out the side door, and around toward the cargo bay. As I passed the entrance to our underground garage, something came flying out of the darkness, wrapping around my legs. I crashed to the concrete.
    “The hunt is over.” From the shadows of the garage, a huntsman emerged, older, grayer than the one Mikey tore apart when they last attacked the Agency. Under the enchanted fur armor, he wore a leather vest decorated with animal teeth. In each hand, he twirled silver daggers sporting honed points on the guards.
    He strode to the side of the parking garage entrance, staying just inside the shadows. With his attention focused on me, I don’t think he ever saw Ari’s attack coming.
    She hit him with a blast of raw Seal Magic, not even bothering to twist it to an elemental form, throwing him back into the concrete wall. Then she switched her method of attack, drawing Wild Magic from the air around us.
    The huntsman rose with a cough, shaking off her spell. The skins huntsmen wore shielded them from minor details like elemental spells or ordinary bullets, so when I pulled out my nine millimeter, he didn’t even flinch. I squeezed the trigger, and the bullet ricocheted off of the concrete garage roof above him.
    I didn’t miss.
    The ruined sprinkler over him exploded, gushing water like a fountain. It drenched him, soaking his alligator skin boots so that each step he took, he sloshed. The artificial downpour cascaded down into our garage. A little water wouldn’t hurt him any worse than my bullets, something I believe we both knew.
    Ari, however, had a creative streak born from her lack of proper training. Huntsmen relied on their enchantments to stop elemental spells.
    Those enchantments could stop a blast of pure fire, or a wind colder than the last ice age. They couldn’t do a damned thing about the fact that Ari didn’t cast a spell at him. She dropped the temperature to fifteen below.
    If he’d had an ounce of sense, the huntsman would have held still. Instead, he fought to wrench a foot loose, teetered, and crashed into the ground, where his fur froze him to the wet concrete. He shrieked curses and struggled in vain to free himself while a snowstorm formed inside the parking garage, fueled by Ari’s spell.
    “Nice touch.” I unwound the bolo he’d hit me with and rose, just in time to see Ari cast “Foot-to-Head,” a classic spell that worked wonders when one wore steel-toe boots. His furs didn’t protect against that either.
    Ari hit him with another blast of cold to solidify the ice, then grabbed my hand. “I counted four on the camera. Can I borrow your keys?”
    We ran to my car, where I tossed them across to Ari, got in, and then thanked Grimm for making certain I had passenger-side air bags as Ari started the engine and peeled out of the garage, rocketing up the ramp.
    Ari, as we may have gone over, was unfortunately a princess. Natural luck, grace and charm that only got better as she aged, and everything from undead sorcerers to Inferno’s guardians loved her. The exchange principle, however, meant she gave up something.
    Ari
never
drove. It wasn’t just the eleven times she failed the driving test. Or the three Agency convertibles she totaled