The brothers shared a silent look.
“Inside. In the cells.”
“You brought them here and slapped them in jail?’ I asked, my tone incredulous. “With Liam?”
“They are not in the same cell as the werewolf. And it was for their own good. If the fey king is so interested in them, then we cannot let him have them. Especially now that we know that the golems are immune to their magic—at least the magic they tried on them today. Until we know that they can keep themselves safe, I see no other way.”
I swallowed hard. “So you’re going to keep them here? In the mansion?” Flashes of my childhood tore through my mind. I could feel my fight-or-flight response kick in, even though there was no threat. The reaction was so easily triggered—so hardwired from those years—that it took a lot of deep stomach breathing to break out of it.
“Piper, I know this is not easy for you, but—”
“No, it’s fine. I get it,” I said, brushing off his concern, “and you’re right. We can’t let him get his hands on them, no matter what.”
“They didn’t go after the wolves at all,” Knox noted. “I’m a bit surprised, given our connection to him.”
“Maybe it’s the witches’ power itself? Maybe it does something different to Faerie?” Jase said. I had been wondering the same thing myself—if the land needed a particular brand of magic to heal it, if only temporarily.
And if warlock magic would work as well.
“Or perhaps the fey king wants us to believe that,” Merc said, his expression more grim than I’d seen it in a while. “The fey are tricky and cunning, and never to be underestimated. We need to get to the bottom of this before it gets more out of hand than it is now.”
“That’s going to be hard with your coronation coming up,” Jase said. Knox and I turned to him, confused.
“Coronation?” I asked. Merc and his brothers nodded.
“He has to be publicly announced, and given the current unrest, it needs to happen sooner than later. He needs the vampires to pledge their fealty to him. Without it, he won’t be recognized as the true leader, and we’ll be in more chaos than ever.”
“Not a good time for that,” Knox said under his breath.
“It is a formality that cannot be avoided—not even under the threat of the fey king’s creatures.”
“When is this going down?” I asked, my heart racing for the third time that night. A coronation that all vampires would be made to attend sounded like exactly what we didn’t need at the moment. We needed to be planning for the fey king, not a party.
“In two days,” Jase replied.
“Perhaps sooner, if necessary. It need not be the opulent soirée that Father would have thrown. We just need it to be done.”
The air was heavy with unspoken concerns and uncertainties. I hated seeing them in the eyes of the males around me. Each had a burden to bear in this war, not to mention its new twists and turns. Selfishly, I missed the days of old, when my biggest concerns had been avoiding the warlocks on my daytime excursions and not getting too drunk when I’d partied with Jase and Dean.
“Well I, for one, am thrilled to hear that this isn’t going to be some ridiculous party like I used to be subjected to,” I said, trying to break the tension. “I knew I loved you for a reason, Merc.” His tight features softened slightly at my comment.
“I got the sense that you were not a fan,” he said, stepping closer to me, “but you did seem to enjoy taking your clothes off at them—and that is an opportunity I’ll gladly create for you whenever possible.”
“So that wasn’t a one-time thing, huh?” Knox asked. He leaned closer to me as Merc approached. Whether it was instinct or not, I couldn’t tell.
“Nah, Piper whipped off her dress and threw her shoes at one of the socialites at the party before that,” Dean said with a laugh. “It was pretty fucking epic.”
“It really was,” Jase agreed. “You showed that bitch Sylvia. You showed them all.”
“I showed them my pale ass and my scars, you guys,” I replied, brushing off their praise. “It wasn’t one of my finer moments.”
“I disagree,” Merc said, stopping before me. “I’d never seen anything like it before.”
“Yeah, well, Piper is pretty stellar at putting on a show,” Knox agreed.
“Yes, yes, I know how to cause a scene. Glad we all agree on that. Now, about those witches…”
“This way,” Merc said, leading us toward the basement. With every step down to the dungeon, I could feel my chest tighten. Liam was already being held down there. Now the witches. I wondered how many more wayward supernaturals we’d have to take in by the time we figured out how to destroy the fey king. Who else we’d be forced to shelter until our enemies in Faerie were neutralized.
I’d soon learn the answer.
I’d soon wish for almost any other fate.
Chapter Seven
I followed Merc and Knox to the stairwell but stopped short when a familiar set of heavy footsteps walked up behind me. I turned to find Grizz there, in human form; the look on his face told me everything I needed to know. His hard-set jaw spoke to his anger at being left behind, and the fire in his brown eyes let me know it wouldn’t be happening again.
“I’ll be there in a minute,” I told Merc and Knox. They looked at the man-bear and nodded before disappearing down the stairs to speak with the witches about what had happened. I hoped that, by the time they finished, the truce would still exist.
“Hey Grizz,” I said, turning back to him. “What’s up?” He looked unimpressed by my casual question, probably because he knew I knew why he was stalking me. “I’m fine, buddy. Everyone else is fine. Our meeting went to shit, but we all made it out unharmed. No need to worry.”
His low growl rumbled through the hallway. He clearly disagreed.
“Listen, I didn’t want to leave you out of it, but Merc could only bring four of us, and you didn’t make the cut. You can take it up with him, okay?” He smirked at me, and I immediately wished I hadn’t said that. The man-bear would have no issues with going toe-to-toe with the vampire king.
Grizz gave zero fucks.
Instead of arguing with him, I walked over and wrapped my arms around his waist. His rigid body softened as he hugged me back. “I always knew you were a lover, not a fighter,” I said, laughing into his chest. While he held me tight, my phone buzzed in my pocket. I managed to pull it out to glance at the screen.
Drake was calling—probably not a great sign.
“Shit,” I mumbled, “it’s Drake. I need to take this.” Grizz let me go and followed me as I paced the foyer. There’d be no shaking him at that point, so I just let it go. “Hello?”
“Meet me outside,” my uncle said before hanging up.
“Good talk, Drake,” I said, tucking my phone into my pocket. Grizz looked at me curiously, and I shrugged. “Well, let’s get going. Drake isn’t known for his patience.”
I ran to my room to retrieve Drake’s amulet, then Grizz and I made our way outside to find him standing in the middle of the driveway.
“You know you’re actually allowed inside the house now, right?” I said as I approached. It earned me the slightest of smiles.
“Not if I want to be alone with you for five minutes.” He looked beyond me to where Grizz lingered, his arms folded over his chest like a bouncer. “I suppose this is as close as I’m going to get.”
He was right about that. “Hey, I wanted to give this back before something else crazy happened and I forgot.”
“Something else?” he asked with a quirked brow. I handed him the amulet and pretended I hadn’t heard his question. I knew we were going to get into it eventually, but first, I wanted to know why he’d summoned me.
“So what’s up? What’s with the ‘meet me outside’ bit?”
The suspicion in his expression grew. “Walk with me,” he said, leading the way to the backyard and, ultimately, the wooded area beyond. I followed him, looking back to
see if any of the others had decided to come outside and join our impromptu meeting, but thankfully, they hadn’t. I didn’t need any more drama in my life.
We walked to the rickety bridge that spanned the gorge cutting through the property and gazed down at it in silence for a moment.
“Tell me you magically reinforced this thing,” I said. When he didn’t reply, I ribbed him with my elbow. Still nothing from my enigmatic warlock uncle. “So, are you going to say anything, or are we just going to stand out here in the middle of this shitty bridge? Because I really have to pee—”
“Tell me what happened in Faerie,” he finally said. I looked over at his profile, but it gave nothing away.
“Because you need to know for some strategic reason, or—”
“Because your disappearance scared the shit out of me,” he said under his breath. “I got a call from Kat, rambling about you being taken by the assassin along with Knox and the bear. By the time I’d grasped the ramifications of what she was saying, you were already back.” Fucking weird Faerie time… “I didn’t have a chance to talk to you about it when I arrived, thanks to your now-vampire-king mate—”
“He’s not my mate anymore, remember?”
Drake shot me a sidelong glance, then continued. “And after that, I wanted to give you space to deal with Knox and Merc.”
“But now you want answers…”
He nodded. “I know everything except what actually happened while you were there. For whatever reason, I need to hear how you escaped. How you made it back here alive…”
I took a deep breath and did as he asked. I told him about the fey king’s attempt to use Knox to kill me—and how it had backfired and nearly cost Knox his life. About Liam’s sacrifice and the fey queen’s aid. And then I told him of our deal. His expression soured but he said nothing, as though he had been half-expecting to hear something like that.
“Anything else?” he asked, gripping the rail tightly.
I took another deep breath. “Yeah…I learned that I’m more than just born of the fey queen’s line,” I said, looking out over the gorge I’d nearly flung myself into once upon a time. “I’m her daughter.”
The wood in Drake’s grasp groaned in protest as he squeezed what little life it still had left out of it. The bridge buckled as the handrail snapped, nearly sending me face-first into the gorge below.
Again.
Drake’s hand on my shoulder yanked me back, saving me from that fate.
“Seriously, dude! You can ward the whole damn property but you can’t fix this piece-of-shit bridge?” I yelled, clinging to the other handrail—the one that was still intact. “By the way, we have to discuss those shitty wards since the fey queen and Liam showed up unhindered…”
“So the queen knows for certain now who you are?” he asked, ignoring me entirely.
“Yep. She got the memo loud and clear.”
“How did she take it?”
“I don’t know, Drake. I was busy trying to barter my soul away to save Knox and get out of that stupid realm.”
“I suppose the fact that she didn’t attempt to imprison you at that moment is a small win.”
“Only because she wants something else from me, I’m sure,” I countered. “She’s not going to just lock me away in a Faerie prison—or lop my head off and be done with me.”
“Because she can’t. And even if there weren’t a spell keeping her from doing it directly, you’re too powerful for her to chance an attack in her realm, and she knows it. No, she will have to play her cards very carefully now—”
“Like, I don’t know, maybe call in a debt that puts my head in the noose and kicks out the chair for her?”
He turned his stormy eyes to me, pinning me in place with the anger they held.
“Let her try…”
“I’m sure she will soon enough. It’s only a matter of time before she comes to cash in her favor.”
“You will apprise me the moment she does, do you understand?”
“Yes. I do speak English fluently, you know—”
“I don’t want you making any moves until I know what her end game is.”
“Good luck with that. Nobody knows what her end game is because it takes a certain level of evil genius and instability to think like her, and none of us have it.”
He eyed me tightly for a moment before a wry smile spread across his face. “Maybe you do, Piper. You are her daughter.”
“Right. And your brother was my father. Got any crazy genes on your side of the family tree that can help out, or does your DNA mess up this whole equation?”
Any hint of amusement faded from his eyes. “I fear it can’t help you much.”
I nodded. “I figured it wouldn’t be that easy.”
“Easy and you don’t seem to go hand-in-hand.”
“You can say that again,” I muttered under my breath.
He narrowed his eyes. “Something else has happened…”
A statement, not a question.
“Yep. Sure has.”
He folded his arms across his chest in expectation of my full disclosure. I figured it best to lay it everything that happened at our little meeting that night. He’d find out sooner or later.
By the time I was done, I couldn’t read his expression. It had bounced from anger to fear to shock to myriad other emotions so quickly, I’d stopped trying to follow them.
“You’d already have known all this if you’d come to the meeting.”
Anger blazed in his eyes once again. “I was not informed.” Oh. “Where are they now?”
“Merc and Knox are inside talking to the witches, trying to sort out a plan to keep them safe from these golem shits that keep stealing them.”
“To fuel the fey king’s lands.”
“Exactly,” I replied. He let out a breath and shook his head. “I know! It’s a lot to unpack…”
“They must be stopped,” he said, marching off the bridge like it wasn’t a dangling disaster waiting to happen.
“That’s the plan—kinda,” I said, chasing after him. “What are you going to do?”
“Gather the warlocks,” he replied, never breaking his stride, “because we will need them when the time comes. And since we don’t know when that will be, there’s no time to waste.”
“But you said that would be hard! That they’re scattered, and there may not be many left!”
He stopped and pinned sharp eyes on me. Overhead, I heard the familiar caw of his guardian raven.
“Hard is not impossible, Piper. They will regroup, and they will obey my order.”
The finality in his tone spoke to that likelihood.
“Okay, I’ll let Merc and Knox know—”
“Be careful with the coven queen,” he said, cutting me off. “She cannot be trusted.”
“Well I don’t know that we have much choice at the moment, since we all agreed to a temporary truce regarding the war,” I said. “And there’s the small matter of one of her witches pledging a life debt to me for saving her and her coven sisters from the golems.”
His brow creased with skepticism. “Fine. Leverage that as much as you can to keep her on the straight and narrow.”
“Don’t worry. It’s hardly like I’ve forgotten what happened with Jagger.” And that made me think of something… “I gotta go, Drake. I’ll call you soon. And do something with the damn wards!”
I took off sprinting for the mansion. In all the chaos of the evening, I’d forgotten just how poorly the coven queen’s presence would be received by the pack, and rightly so. I wanted to make sure that Jagger was all right—and that Knox didn’t have a coup on his hands.
Sensing my concern, Grizz bolted past me to the front of the mansion. He hammered in the code most inelegantly but managed to get it right. The two of us were through the breezeway and in the front door just as all hell broke loose.
Chapter Eight
In hindsight, sticking around for the meeting with the witches would have been
a good idea, given the history, but when Drake calls, you come running. And now I had a shitshow on my hands.
Jagger was down the hall, held back from barging into the meeting room by Foust and a couple of the other wolves. Shouting echoed in the foyer, and I ran toward the source of it, namely the aforementioned redheaded wolf with a suddenly fiery temper to match. But I guessed that was to be expected when he’d come face-to-face with the being that had led to his incarceration by the twisted fey queen.
“Get him out of here,” I said to Foust as I pushed past. Foust, however, didn’t budge.
“We have been over this already,” the coven queen said, annoyance thick in her voice. “I had to make a choice. I chose to sacrifice one of yours over one of my own.” I could see her staring at Knox as though her logic would surely be understood by the alpha. One low growl of warning from him told her she was wrong.
“I think we’re all done here,” I said, forcing my way through the crowd. I shoved in between Knox and the coven queen and shot her a nasty look. “Aren’t you supposed to be in a cell or something?” Her haughty expression fell a notch at my words, but that was all the reaction she gave.
“They insist they do not need our aid,” Merc replied, letting his irritation show. I knew he could have forced her to stay, but that wouldn’t have upheld the truce very well. The second her witches learned that their queen and her entourage were being held against their will—provided the cell could even do that—everything would only get worse.
“Great, then she can leave.”
“We don’t have a plan to keep them safe yet,” Knox objected. He leaned back into the wall as though nothing bad were happening before him. As though he were getting comfy to watch the inevitable show.
Because one was damn sure brewing.
“Would you offer us refuge here, I wonder…refuge that does not involve a magical cell in the bowels of this home?” There was an edge to her stare that made every hair on my neck stand on end.
“No,” I replied on Merc’s behalf. “You’re not welcome.”
“Piper—”
Beneath the Dust (Force of Nature Book 4) Page 5
