Chest of Stone — Vicki Stiefel

A Daring Mage. A Damaged Monster. A Deathly Mission. Mage Clea Reese hunts a deadly Creature that ritually slaughtered three shifter children. In order to unearth the beast, she needs the aid of her broken lover, James Larrimer. Together, they aim to smoke out the killer while pursuing Clea's quest for the magical Chest of Stone and preventing the Magical and the Mundane worlds from splintering.  Their hunt for the beast drags them from the Mundane realm to the Magic one, where a lethal sorceress seeks to destroy Clea and procure the chest for herself. The race for the Chest is on, but time's against Clea and Larrimer when the Creature kidnaps another child and seeks Clea for its own dark purposes.