To Kiss A Kringle (Southern Sanctuary Book 13)

by Jane Cousins

  Unfortunately, the timing couldn’t have been worse, given her workload and the fact she had just fired off the first salvo in her battle with Cullen. Yes, but that was Alma’s stock in trade matchmaking approach, wasn’t it? She waited until her targets were distracted and then, wham. A half naked, gorgeous warrior walks into their Library.

  And it wasn’t like she could avoid Zartel or put him off, the special project scroll guaranteed that. Another sneaky tactic by Alma no doubt, given she was on the High Council, she’d want to throw Patricia and Zartel together as much as possible.

  Okay, yes, the man was annoying, but think about those gorgeous, piercing, dark eyes. All those muscles on display. Once the warrior was schooled in respecting women, well, hmmm, maybe she wasn’t too old for this matchmaking stuff after all.

  * * *

  Cullen tapped away as quietly as he could on the keyboard. Noting that several Annexe patrons were creeping around, doing their best to also keep the noise down. Somehow though, Cullen got the feeling it would take more than the sound of a dropped book to wake Bridie Collins.

  She had turned up this morning, declaring herself a library volunteer and that she was here to work. She’d managed to re-shelf three books before promptly falling asleep at the customer service desk. Which wasn’t a big deal, her snoring was rather soothing and rhythmic. And all anyone wanting to check out a book had to do was grab the electronic wand and run it over the barcodes of the books they were wishing to borrow themselves.

  Nope, Bridie Collins didn’t faze Cullen. Just like Leon Torrent, who had turned up yesterday hadn’t perturbed him. Equally elderly, but a little more spry. Leon had a tendency to speak loudly and tell the same stories over and over again. Nice enough fellow, friendly, but more interested in being social than actually doing any work.

  Interesting tactic on Patricia Bennett’s part. Oh, sure, she was living up to her end of the bargain by providing him with staff to help with Cullen’s sudden increase in workload. The actual level of help being provided by that staff was so far questionable, but he got the distinct impression that was the desired result.

  He called up his calendar, tamping down on the urge to laugh as he noted his very full schedule for the next several weeks. Ouch. He couldn’t afford to laugh, or do much of anything right now. His side hurt too much, a good reminder he wasn’t infallible.

  A few short hours ago he’d been discretely tailing a possible lead from the safety of the rooftops above Bucharest. But even he, with his sharp mind and attention to detail, couldn’t foretell when an aging roof would all but collapse under his weight. Luckily he’d been able to leap to the nearest brick retaining wall, but it had a useless decorative ledge running around it. One cracked rib later being the result.

  It was frustrating, following one worthless lead after another. Yet what alternative did he have but to wait and watch?

  But just sitting back, monitoring hours and hours of CCTV footage of his three main suspects and their associates wasn’t enough. He felt he should be doing something constructive.

  Over the last two years, as the scrutiny on MI12 and their missing top analyst began to wane, Cullen had commenced laying the groundwork for baiting his trap. Dropping information here. Laying a false trail there. Tailing suspected henchmen. Gathering intel. Letting the news circulate in particular circles that maybe, just maybe, The Professor hadn’t disappeared completely.

  He wanted who ever was behind the attempted hit on him to start to sweat. Start to worry. Start to make mistakes.

  They had to wonder what had happened that day. Their only clue was the seven dead Russian hitmen. Their first thought would be that Cullen had either been hurt and gone to ground or seen the writing on the wall and run. Though who ever the Mastermind behind the hit was, they hadn’t panicked. Had yet to put a foot wrong and reveal their identity. More than likely they were waiting patiently for the The Professor to come in from the cold. A trap of their own ready to spring shut.

  But except for rumours of sightings that Cullen had started, he hadn’t surfaced. His bank accounts lay untouched. There was no movement at his house. No sign of anything missing. They would have tapped the phones and computers of his family, his acquaintances. But there was no contact made. No coded messages. Or, so they thought.

  There were longstanding communication arrangements in place when it came to his family. And thanks to the Southern Sanctuary Transportal system, he still managed to attend the monthly family dinners held at his parents very isolated estate in the wilds of Wales.

  His relatives had eagerly offered their assistance in his quest for vengeance. But they understood when Cullen declared his need to do this alone. That it was personal. That he had questions that he wanted answered.

  Why the need to get Cullen out of the way? What had he seen or heard that made him a threat? And the most important question of all, why was the Mastermind willing to betray his… or perhaps her country?

  For the moment Cullen pushed all that aside and focused on the full calendar before him. This was seriously going to cut into his surveillance time, but somehow he couldn’t bring himself to care. His blood didn’t run hot to bring the Mastermind to justice. No, that was a necessity, nothing more to him. His blood ran hot at the idea of going head to head with Patricia Bennett.

  Two years he’d been waiting for her to make her move against him. Two frustrating years. But from the moment the verdict had been announced in court and he’d assessed her ramrod proud stance and the way the copper flecks in her gorgeous hazel eyes all but spat fire in his directions, Cullen had instinctively known that Patricia could not be rushed. That she would want to study her adversary. Take Cullen’s measure as it were.

  He, who was rarely social, had forced himself to accept every invite that came his way over the years when he knew Patricia would be present.

  The feeling of her gaze resting on him. Critiquing. Judging. Watching. It had made the wait bearable. He had never courted anyone’s attention before. Always staying in the shadows. It had been a novel and interesting lesson for him. Better still. It had opened up social avenues in the community that had kept him occupied while he waited. And he found himself genuinely liking the residents of the Southern Sanctuary. Making friends, not just mere acquaintances.

  It had been strange to find himself in a place where magic was openly accepted as the norm. Oh, no one was gauche enough to enquire directly as to what he was capable of. But when he showed glimpses of what he could do on the gun and archery ranges, his skills were applauded, yet at the same time taken in stride. He wasn’t identified as different or an anomaly here. He didn’t have to watch every move and every word every moment of the day to protect his heritage.

  Here, bold Enforcers strode down the main street with swords strapped to their backs. And the elderly lady currently snoring at his front desk could potentially have lethal skills, able to shoot icicles from her fingers. Or, she might have more benign magics, such as control of the elements, make flowers grow or be-spell animals. You never knew. And for Cullen, who always knew… well, everything, it wasn’t just novel, he found it intriguing. Not since he had left the high walls of the family estate had he found a place like this, a place he could relax.

  He’d felt it the moment he’d arrived. It was why he found himself operating on instinct. He’d gone before the High Council Members intending to request temporary residency. Figuring he’d need six months for the dust to settle before returning to the UK to track down the MI12 mole.

  But there had been photos of available properties in the official welcome folder he’d been provided, and there had been something about the lines of the house on Lily Pily Lane. Its proportions and well laid out extensive gardens instantly called to him. Cullen hadn’t intended to start putting permanent roots down here, but it was almost as if it was beyond his control. Which should have worried him, but didn’t. Which should have worried him even more, but still didn’t.

  And then Patricia Benne
tt had stomped into his life. And here he was now, staring at a laughably full calendar. Hmmm, Monday and Tuesday she had assigned him to the Research Department. Wednesday she’d cut him a break, merely scheduling a Fire Code Inspection. Commencing at six am. Thursday was another six am start time, this time with an Occupational Health and Safety Inspector. Friday and Saturday she’d assigned him to something called Vault Restoration duty. Whatever the hell that might be.

  Damn, he found himself laughing, then groaned softly, clutching at his sore rib. Across the room several patrons shushed him as Bridie Collins’ snoring changed into a loud snorting snuffle for a moment. The entire room seemed to hold their collective breath before the regular snoring resumed. Phew, that was a close call, didn’t want to wake his employee of the day from her morning nap.

  Okay, so it looked like he was going to have a very busy weekend, getting the Potting Shed up to code. And he highly doubted any of the so-called staff that would be turning up either of those days would be of any practical use in that direction. Just like Patricia had no doubt plotted and planned.

  Damn, and there he went again, his blood heating up at the thought of being front and centre in Trix’s crosshairs. Hell, he was having fun already and the challenge had barely begun. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been this excited at the thought of matching wits with an adversary. Though, in the past, he’d never wanted to see any of his opponents writhing naked beneath him, copper flecks sparkling with desire in gorgeous hazel eyes.

  Yes. That made Patricia Bennett a very rare, very special target. And he was an Archer. And Archers never missed.

  Chapter Four

  It wasn’t a race, but if it was, then Cullen would be officially getting his butt kicked.

  How was it possible that some young man who had only recently received his university qualifications was outstripping him by four to one? Him, code named The Professor? Renown for his analytical skills and ability to gather data.

  Reporting to the Research Department, first thing Monday morning, Cullen found the large cavernous room to be surprisingly intriguing. Since he’d studied the floor plan of the Library, the dimensions were literally not possible.

  Research was located at the rear of the Historical Wing. When you entered you were immediately confronted with six massive desks, a top of the range computer sitting on each. Then you noticed the floor to ceiling bookcases. Each shelf containing row upon row of reference books. Rolling metal ladders allowing the researchers to access the lofty upper shelves that reached upwards to an impressive, logically not possible, soaring ceiling.

  Larson, his co-researcher for the day, had advised Cullen of the process when he’d first arrived. Pick a desk. Turn on the computer, log in to the Research system and take the next request in the queue. Use the search feature to narrow down what reference books would be needed. Grab those books down from the shelf. Each book contained roughly over two thousand texts magically bound to them. If possible cite at least two references in providing an answer. Sign off or forward the query to a more senior staff member for verification and sign off. Move onto the next request in the queue. Simple.

  He’d been advised to ignore the three phones sitting in the corner of the room that never seemed to stop ringing. They would just be people wanting progress updates. And for the same reason the door to the room was always kept locked, otherwise they’d have people popping by all day. Though that didn’t stop them from futilely pounding on the door occasionally.

  There was nothing more Cullen loved than pulling together information. And it was kind of nice to be back in a role that required his analytical skill set. And the queries, even the most inane had turned out to be surprisingly involved and rather interesting.

  His first query had been titled - When is the herb rosemary at its most potent? Cullen had assumed the answer would be nothing more than a specific time in the plant’s growing cycle. No, far from it. You had to take into account the phases of the moon. Rainfall charts. And the birthdates of over fifty-five agricultural Goddesses who had influence over flora and herbs and the like.

  His final answer had been as close to accurate as he could get it – adding a footnote to advise that his timing might be off by two to three seconds. And just to be thorough, in case the requestor was busy that day, he noted three more days in the next two months that might be suitable for harvesting rosemary. Ranking them in order of potency, of course.

  His next query momentarily surprised him. Document the origin and lineage of the horse that Catherine the Great purportedly had sex with. What the hell? That had initially sounded like nothing more trivial than some obscure bet that required settling. But then Cullen had noted the requester, SRG – Southern Royal Global, the worldwide insurance and investigation company. The majority of their clients were the magical set and the Southern Sanctuary High Council sat on its Board of Directors.

  Still, this seemed a ridiculous query, until Cullen read the special information section on the electronic form. Note, several women have recently disappeared in the St Petersburg area. According to friends and work colleagues all reported having a new boyfriend just prior to their disappearance and had a glow of ‘sex’ about them. At the same time a mysterious black stallion has been seen roaming the streets. Fae? Unicorns? Furies?

  Cullen observed that the requestor had listed the query as critical and had lodged it a week ago. No wonder the three phones kept ringing off the hook. Quickly he set about investigating Catherine the Great’s equine lover. When he was done he hit the send button, noting Larson’s smirk out the corner of his eye. The younger man had been smiling to himself off and on all morning, powering through queries while Cullen had only managed to deal with two.

  Hmmm, he pulled up the completed queries list and noted all of Larson’s were currently assigned the status of pending. Weird. He skimmed each of Larson’s responses, finding them flimsy, full of holes and the grammar could use some work.

  All of the pending items were listed as being forwarded to Patricia Bennett for sign off. In fact, he noted that the researchers working yesterday also had tagged all their queries as pending sign off.

  Seriously? Trix let them get away with this? Hell, the woman was probably too busy correcting their work to find time to lay down the law and kick their collective asses.

  And from what he had personally witnessed, the woman never had a spare moment to herself once she walked into the Library. Staff, friends and family, always requesting her time and attention. Well, no more. Standing, Cullen strode over to the ringing phones and unhooked each of them.

  Larson looked surprised and then that smug smile lifted the edges of his mouth again. “Getting a headache? Research isn’t for everyone.”

  “Obviously.” Cullen took his seat again, tapped in a series of commands, calling up administration access to the system, it was past time for a few changes. “If you are incapable of actually completing a query fully and correctly, perhaps you should ask to be removed from the roster.”

  “What do you mean by that crack? Hey, what’s going on with the system? Why are all the queries being reshuffled? They’re supposed to be addressed according to the date they were lodged.”

  “We are going to start tackling them according to priority.” Cullen’s fingers flew across the keyboard. “There will be checks and balances now. Every critical request should be read and assigned to a researcher within twenty-four hours of being lodged. All medium and minor requests will be tackled on a time based scale, set up around the critical priorities.”

  Larson’s brown eyes widened. “You can’t just make changes like that. You have no authorisation.”

  “I’d like to think common sense is my authorisation. Oh, and by the way. I’m now setting it up so any items you assign the status of pending and require a sign off for will be sent to the five…” Cullen double checked the Library staff listings. “Make that six senior staff members.” He was cutting Patricia out of the process entirely. No, hold on.
She was an expert and obviously hell of a researcher. Cullen tapped a few keys and made it that only queries identified as high-critical needing sign off would ever come to her attention.

  Larson studied his screen, shaking his head slowly, his face pale. “I really don’t think you should be fooling around with the system like this.”

  “And I don’t think you get to call yourself a researcher if you only do a half-assed job and then expect your boss to save you by doing all the work but letting you take the credit.”

  “Hey. Patricia likes to stay across all aspects of what goes on here. She loves this place. Have you seen the hours she works? She practically lives here. The Library’s reputation is mega important to her. She’s always insisted upon checking my, and the other junior staff members’ work.”

  “And you never put two and two together? The reason she’s always checking up on the junior staff is because you guys are not stepping up. Look here, at the list, all of you do the minimum work required on a research request and then forward it to Patricia, knowing full well that she’ll fill in any gaps you left and won’t even bother to change the researcher’s name at the bottom. Allowing you all to take credit for work you’re not actually doing.”

  Larson’s brown eyes sparked with fury, he opened his mouth, then shut it abruptly, his eyes travelling down the long, long list of research queries marked as pending that were forwarded to Patricia. “Shit, you’re right.”

  “Sometimes this District is its own worst enemy. I suppose you are somehow related to Patricia?”

  “Sure. She’s my cousin. The Aunt thing is kind of an honorary title, since she’s a little older than the rest of us.”

  “I’m guessing that everyone working here is probably related some how, some way. You need to pass the word, stop riding on Patricia’s coat tails, step up, do your jobs and contribute.”