Risky Business

by J B Trepagnier

  Eiltan looked like he really wanted to ask her where she was getting her information. It hadn’t even crossed his mind his halfling daughter would have a guardian. I wondered if it ever would. But I could see the confusion on his face. He did not understand what she was talking about.

  “Something I need to look into. That’s not a Sunshadow holding. We make plays on our names, but never that. We would never have a shadow eclipse the sun in an alias. It’s evil luck. If I don’t know about this, how do you?”

  “Warden Skinner was stealing all the money meant for prison upgrades. She was barely paying the guards, and she was stealing from the food budget, so we ate the same nasty thing for three meals. All the paperwork has you as the mastermind behind all the embezzling.”

  Eiltan’s mouth fell open, and he started stammering.

  “Warden Skinner was stealing and trying to frame me? How long has this been going on?”

  Serafina just laughed in his face. Really, he might be full Fae and a prince at that, but my Ena held all the cards right now. She was magnificent.

  “Let me put it to you this way. Your little shithole prison had no heat, cold showers, and zero things to entertain us with. There wasn’t a library to read, and we didn’t even have windows to look out of. We were stuck in that icy prison with nothing to do and nothing to look at except each other. Warden Skinner staffed her guards with people she had found and blackmailed. I was framed, and so were the other elementals in this house. Are you shocked your dog bit back and framed you too?”

  “You have to believe me, Serafina. I didn’t know. I thought they had updated Scorchwood with modern amenities over the years. I guess that explained why Warden Skinner kept putting me off when I told her she needed cameras instead of audio surveillance. She didn’t want anyone getting her hands on the tapes and seeing what the inside was like. If I knew it was that bad, I would have gotten you out of there, even if I thought you were guilty. I wasn’t planning on leaving you there to rot, anyway. I hired an attorney to investigate the charges and appeal if necessary.”

  “I thought the Fae were supposed to be clever and make unbreakable deals? How did you manage to come up with this stupid idea and get fucked over so badly?”

  “Because I fucked up, Serafina. Is that what you want to hear? I fucked up, and now the Fae may die out. I tried to make it right with no one finding out and bringing shame to my family, and I just made things even worse. Do you know how rare it is for a Fae birth now? I find out I’m a father, and everything I’ve done to make this right has just ended up hurting my own child. I’m sorry, Serafina. I was stupid for trying to make a deal with Zepar and was even dumber for believing Warden Skinner. I’m trying to make this right, and I know you may always hate me.

  “You’re smart and fierce. You wouldn’t have figured all of this out if you weren’t. If anyone can save the Fae and stop Zepar from taking over Hell, it’s you. I know it means nothing to you, but in the brief time I’ve known about you, I’m proud to call you my daughter.”

  Insults and screaming, my Ena could handle. She was getting used to words of love from all of us, but she wasn’t ready to hear that her father was proud of her. Eiltan might very well be proud of her, but he fucked up. He fucked up significantly, and it wasn’t just Serafina he hurt.

  She looked like she wanted to punch him again.

  “Let Bael and your father deal with you. I’ve had enough of this,” she snapped.

  She stomped off to find Skoll, who still hadn’t come downstairs from trying to convince the other elementals we needed to go to Hell.

  Eiltan had come clean to Serafina, but it was high time he spoke to his father. He didn’t want to bring dishonor to his family, but the more he tried to fix this, the worse it got. He needed to confess what he did so that the demons and the Fae could correct his mistake.

  I just hoped Ior had softened towards elementals now that the Fae were having trouble conceiving. It was the law that Serafina should die. She didn’t want the Fae throne. She was even uncomfortable with being a Duchess of Hell.

  Surely, Ior wouldn’t execute his own granddaughter. Especially when she had no intention of claiming her birthright and making trouble for him.

  Chapter 3

  Amduscias

  I

  had no idea what was going on upstairs with our elementals, but Eiltan Sunshadow pissed her off, and she had gone to join Skoll to convince them we couldn’t stay here. I knew Zepar didn’t offer his estate out of the kindness of his heart. As soon as we left, he would have swooped them up and tried to use them as leverage with Eiltan. If he could have grabbed Serafina without having all of Hell after him, he would have stolen her from me.

  I had Eiltan Sunshadow pegged as this big, evil mastermind, but now that I was sitting in the same room as him, he reminded me of some scared little boy. Sure, maybe he really was worried about bringing dishonor to his family, but I doubted it. I saw the way his gaze followed Serafina when she stormed out. He craved her forgiveness and approval, and it was probably the same with his father.

  I didn’t think his father would kill his only heir for what he had done, but he would never have looked at him the same, and Eiltan knew that. He didn’t want to confess his big secret until he had a solution, and that was his hubris. Eiltan Sunshadow needed as much help as he could get to fix this mess.

  Hell could get Zepar’s blood to cure the Fae. Zepar would die for this. Bael would torture Zepar himself. If the Fae needed his blood to heal what he did, Bael would hang him from his feet, slit his throat, and collect every drop to give to them. It wasn’t just Eiltan looking bad to the Fae. Zepar made all of Hell look bad, making the Fae women barren.

  It was fucked up. Eiltan grew up royalty, and Serafina grew up on the streets. Eiltan was doing everything to make sure he didn’t offend daddy, and if I knew Serafina, she would not stop with that beating she gave him. She was probably still deciding if she would kill him or not. As much as I wanted Eiltan Sunshadow to pay, it sounded more like he was a man who fucked up then continued to fuck up trying to fix it. Serafina just got caught in the crosshairs.

  I would not urge her to forgive him. Her feelings were legitimate, and she had every right to them. If she wanted to hate him for the rest of her life, he earned it. But I would try to talk her out of killing her father.

  Eiltan deserved to be punished, but not by Serafina, even if it was her right. As a halfling, she already had a death sentence looming over her head. If she killed the only legitimate heir to the Fae throne, no matter what Eiltan’s crimes were, the Fae would never let her live in peace.

  I could see her grandfather possibly letting her live her life out in Hell if she was his blood and instrumental in fixing Eiltan’s mistakes. Ior Sunshadow couldn’t be totally unreasonable, right? It wasn’t like Serafina would ever show up in the Fae realm and demand to be a princess. She could barely handle my servants waiting on her. She would be horrified with a bunch of Fae kissing her ass, and I think she would punch someone for calling her a princess, even if that was her official title.

  Roman and I were awkwardly sitting with Eiltan while Serafina and Skoll dealt with a bunch of scared elementals. Eiltan had explained himself to Serafina, but he needed to explain things to me too.

  “Did you have anything to do with me ending up in Scorchwood? You wanted a demon. Demons are normally turned over to Hell for justice.”

  Eiltan shook his head.

  “I swear to you, I didn’t. I’m only six hundred years old. I didn’t cross the portal and make a deal with Zepar until two hundred years ago. You were already in Scorchwood. My father had nothing to do with it either. We are on the board and make decisions about the prison itself, but we don’t have any say about the prisoners that end up here.”

  “How long has Warden Skinner been in charge? Did you appoint her?”

  “She hasn’t been in charge that long. The previous warden was supposed to be putting indoor plumbing in the prison. It ended up be
ing this monumental mess. I know he got the showers in and the plumbing system, but the hot water wasn’t working. The contractors he hired wanted to get out of there and didn’t do a very good job. He kept insisting no one wanted to do the work. He was fired, and the entire board voted to bring Luciana Skinner in.”

  “She didn’t fix the plumbing either. We didn’t even know the showers were supposed to be hot until people started getting incarcerated that’d had hot showers.”

  “I never even had a hot shower until Serafina heated the water when she invited us to her shower,” Roman said.

  His hands were all over the place. I knew what it was. He wanted his shiv. He always played with his shiv when he was nervous in prison. Eiltan just growled at him.

  “Watch it. That’s my daughter you’re talking about.”

  “Your daughter is with all of us and someone you don’t see. You may or may not find out about him, depending on if she ever trusts you. You’d better get used to it because if she thinks you are judging her, she’ll break your nose again. Isn’t that what you wanted, anyway?”

  “I wanted Serafina safe. If I had known they were all innocent, I would have gotten them out. Especially her.”

  “You need to call your father,” I pointed out.

  Eiltan ran his fingers through his blond curls.

  “I can’t just yet. I’m getting Luciana fired, but I can’t bring this to him yet. I have to tell him about Serafina face to face, or he’ll order her death. I can take care of Warden Skinner,” Eiltan said, whipping out his phone.

  I put my hand over his. I didn’t want to touch him. It was because of him two people I loved were hurt. Maybe he didn’t know about it, but I was still pissed.

  “Why don’t you get her fired, but tell them to let Hell take care of her punishment?”

  Eiltan gulped. Yeah, we were pretty legendary in Hell for torture.

  “Isn’t that worse than death?”

  “Man up, Fae man!” Roman grinned. “This woman framed your daughter and tried to frame you. She tortured me and let a mad warlock experiment on your daughter instead of giving her the vaccines you wanted. Don’t you want her tortured?”

  Eiltan went a deathly shade of white.

  “The Fae don’t torture.”

  I snorted.

  “Really? We know Scorchwood started out as a Fae prison, and you locked up the Fae that didn’t want to go back home,” Roman said.

  “How do you—how is Serafina getting this information?”

  “Someone you won’t find out about until she can trust you.”

  Just then, Skoll and Serafina came down with our elementals. I guess they were finally ready to leave. It was about time.

  Bael needed to know what Zepar was doing.

  Chapter 4

  Skoll

  T

  here were several reasons I went upstairs to talk to our elementals. Someone needed to, and Serafina needed to speak with her father instead of the elementals. Also, I was having trouble controlling my wolf. I wanted to shift and rip that fucking Fae prince’s throat out for what he did to Serafina.

  I had no idea what he said to her, but she came storming upstairs right as I was convincing Kestrel to come. She was the last one on board, and Serafina helped me convince her to come, even if she was clearly pissed off at her father.

  Eiltan was looking at Serafina like some lost puppy when we all came back downstairs so Amduscias could open a portal to Hell. Amduscias and Roman looked a lot calmer than I felt. Maybe something was said while I was upstairs that they didn’t want to kill him as much as I did.

  Amduscias rarely brought us to Bael’s estate without announcing us or calling first, but this time, when we jumped through the portal, we were straight in his sitting room. Bael was lounging on a sofa drinking cognac surrounded by the demons that were at Zepar’s estate, and Solron was sitting at a desk glued to a laptop.

  Bael bolted to his feet when he realized we had five elementals and a full Fae with us.

  “Amduscias, what is the meaning of this? It was reported that all the elementals were safely at Zepar’s estate. Who is this Fae?”

  “Eiltan Sunshadow. He’s been watching Zepar and thought he was the one that took the elementals. Zepar has betrayed us all. It’s because of him this is all happening. He risks starting a war with the Fae,” Amduscias said.

  “The Fae still have a lot to answer for. Someone better tell me what the fuck is going on.”

  “The gist of it is that Eiltan Sunshadow here was on a mission from the Fae to try to make a deal with Hell for a cure for the Fae like they helped us. He took a shortcut, and instead of coming to you, he met with Zepar. Zepar gave them a remedy with his blood, and now most Fae women are barren. Zepar’s help came with a call-in favor later. Zepar’s favor was Eiltan sending a Fae army to overthrow the kings so he could be king of Hell.

  “Eiltan had no idea what the conditions in Scorchwood were. Zepar fucked him over, and so did Warden Skinner. She’s been embezzling money from the prison and making it look like Eiltan in case she got caught.”

  I didn’t know a lot about that because I left the room, so I didn’t kill Eiltan. It hadn’t seemed to sink in to Bael yet that Zepar was plotting to kill him. He was still glaring at Eiltan like he wanted to maim him. Fuck, I still wanted to kill him too.

  “That still doesn’t excuse what was done to these six women. You framed and experimented on your own daughter. Care to justify that to me?”

  “I had no idea they were framed. I thought they were there naturally, and nothing was supposed to be done without their consent. Serafina wasn’t supposed to be experimented on. She was supposed to be asked, and the only reason they took her was to give her Fae vaccines. I didn’t think she knew she was a halfling, and I didn’t want to put her in danger of finding out.”

  “Then why did you move us and lie to us? If what they say is true, you moved us and set us up with guards that were supposed to get us pregnant.”

  “I can answer that,” Solron said. “I’m still going through the history of messages on this phone, but Eiltan thought they moved you to a better place with someone you already had a bond with. Warden Skinner was lying through her teeth.”

  “And you just felt the need to tell me this now?” Bael snapped.

  Solron just shrugged. “I was trying to get a full picture before I made a report. Don’t you always say don’t speak until you have the full story?”

  “You. Tell me about this deal with Zepar. I thought Fae made unbreakable deals in their favor. How did you manage to fuck this one up so badly?”

  “It was my idea to approach Hell. It was my first time leaving the Fae realm. My father gave me so many lectures about not offending Hell royalty. I was so worried about fucking things up, I made a deal with Zepar and made things worse. My father has nothing but wonderful things to say about demons. I thought I could trust all of them, especially a Duke.”

  “Tell me everything you know about Zepar’s plot.”

  “This was several decades ago, but he said he had three Dukes on his side and didn’t have the numbers to take over Hell. He thought he could succeed with the aid of the Fae, but the Fae don’t want war with Hell. We are still grateful for the land you gave us.”

  Bael grunted.

  “You have a funny way of showing it. When you turned it into a jail for the supernatural community, you didn’t cut us in on the deal. What are the names of the Dukes in league with Zepar?”

  Eiltan just shook his head. “I don’t have all the names. He mentioned Agares helping him once, but he didn’t want to give me all the details of his plan until I had the Fae on his side.”

  “Does your father know what you’ve done, boy?” Bael snapped.

  Eiltan looked more like a chastised child and less like a Fae prince.

  “No, sir. I didn’t want to tell him until I had a solution.”

  “Well, you’re telling him now. We might need their help to get Zepar’s blood to
cure your woman. And someone bring me this Skinner woman. I’m in the mood to torture someone.”

  “Luciana Skinner can’t just disappear tonight. She’s too connected. Let me make some phone calls, and then you can take her,” Eiltan said.

  “You have a lot of phone calls to make, son. Ior Sunshadow needs to be made aware of what’s going on. We will have to work together to fix this. And I want a new deal on the land we gave you.”

  “I need to go back to the Fae realm. My father deserves to hear this face to face. I’d like to take Serafina with me.”

  My wolf clawed to the surface. Roman hissed and bared his fangs. Amduscias flat out told him no, but Serafina could speak for herself.

  “I’m not setting foot in the Fae realm until I know I’m not getting murdered.”

  “When you are confessing all your sins to your father, you tell him this. Serafina is under the protection of the kings of Hell. She won’t be dying because she happens to be a halfling. The Fae need to understand this if we will be working together.”

  “It’s my condition too. The Fae will not be killing my daughter.”

  “Won’t they just kill you too?” Roman asked.

  I finally saw a little of Serafina in Eiltan when he straightened his spine and met our gazes.

  “Then I’ll protect her with my dying breath.”

  That one sentence made me want to kill him slightly less.

  Chapter 5

  Roman

  B

  ael was pissed. Have you ever seen a pissed-off demon? A starved Vampire had nothing on Bael when he was angry. Eiltan opened a portal back to the Fae realm without Serafina. I was glad she refused to go because even if all of us didn’t want her to, she’d do it anyway if she wanted to. I’d never try to control her, anyway.

  We were mostly standing around awkwardly in Bael’s sitting room while he paced and ranted about Zepar’s betrayal. I didn’t know Zepar from a hole in the ground, but I was rapidly learning a lot about him.