by Lexi Blake
Stealing Summer
Hunter: A Thieves Novel, Book 5
Lexi Blake
Stealing Summer
Hunter: A Thieves Novel, Book 5
Lexi Blake
Published by DLZ Entertainment LLC
Copyright 2020 DLZ Entertainment LLC
Edited by Chloe Vale
eBook ISBN: 978-1-942297-40-6
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights.
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination and are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or establishments is solely coincidental.
Acknowledgments
Now more than ever I am grateful to have this place to run to. As I’ve said before, Thieves is my happy place. Stealing Summer is a book I’ve always known I would write. Coming full circle and reuniting my original heroine with that tiny baby she was willing to risk her soul for back in Steal the Light is an event that’s rattled around in my head for years. This is what I like to call a transition book. It wraps up some storylines and prepares us all for what is to come. I want to thank all the readers who’ve stuck with me to this point and hope you’ll stick around for all the new stories to come in this little world I created all those years ago.
Thanks to the usual suspects—Kim Guidroz, Maria Monroy, Stormy Pate, Riane Holt, Kori Smith, Sara Buell. Thanks to Karen Cox for sharing her infinite knowledge of this world with me. I’m serious. I think she knows it better than I do. Thanks to Liz Berry for listening to me obsess about this book for years. I mean years. Thanks to the amazing Jillian Stein for her social media magic. Thanks to Jenn Watson and the whole Social Butterfly team. Thanks to Denise Lacavalla for guiding me through all of Marcus’s Italian. Thanks to my son for formatting and my husband for proofing and doing everything he can to make my writing life possible.
This book is being published one day before my youngest’s birthday—a date I claim as a rebirth for myself as well. My Z will be twelve tomorrow and she’s just as smart and stubborn and fierce as the character I named after her. Twelve years ago my life got the jump start it needed. This book—like all the Thieves books—is for you. I hope I make you as proud as you make me every single day, my daughter.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Author’s Note
Explore Faery Story – Bound, Beast and Beauty, now available
No Love Lost, coming soon from Lexi Blake
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Chapter One
A trick and a trap. You’ll solve the mystery and never see the evil coming for you. The world will fold and bend in on itself and you will be left on the wrong side. Years will pass. Your wolf will howl but he will remain steadfast. Hell will come and you will weep, but never leave the path. Hold fast. The magician will rule but you can win. Take back the plane. Don’t believe the myth that there can be only one. There is strength in numbers. So much strength in the blood. Don’t let them forget. History plays itself out again and again, mothers and fathers giving more than mere advice to their children. They give blood so the story continues. The path is set.
Summer is almost here.
Grayson Sloane, Dark Prophet
Zoey
I’ve been through a lot in my time. Losing Daniel—first to death and then to the old Vampire Council—signing a contract with a demon, killing said demon, taking down the same Council and becoming the Queen of all Vampire. Hell, I’ve survived my children, so when I tell you that realizing Devinshea was missing was one of the worst moments of my life, you should understand I was beyond scared.
I sat around the conference table that morning the day after Dev disappeared, my heart in my throat as I realized how bad the situation was. It was only a few of us—Zack, Daniel, and that other one who wouldn’t have been there if I’d had any say in it. Myrddin Emrys had been sitting in the conference room when we walked in, almost as though he’d known we would gather here.
Or Daniel had called him back from the Hell plane where he’d been acting as Daniel’s emissary. That was the likeliest of scenarios.
“I’ve got some security footage of Dev. He came into the building. I’ve tracked him by scent from the front door to Daniel’s office. At some point after that, we started having some trouble with the cameras.” Zack Owens was up early. Or rather he hadn’t gone to sleep at all. None of us had. If it had been a normal day, we would have been happily sleeping in since the supernatural world tends to be pretty nocturnal. “I’ve got someone looking into what’s going on with the whole system, but it seems to be electrical. The super says we blew a couple of fuses because of the party last night, and he hasn’t gotten them back up and running completely yet. So it’s possible we missed Dev walking back out of the building. I can’t be sure.”
We’d stayed up celebrating a wedding long after the newlyweds had left for their hotel, taking Dev with them to perform fertility rites. While the newlyweds had been trying to conceive their first child, everyone in the Council building had been dancing and drinking and basically enjoying the night. The party had been to celebrate the wedding of my friend and Zack’s niece, Kelsey Owens, to her chosen men, the dark prophet and half demon, Grayson Sloane, and the alpha werewolf who’d been my bodyguard for years, Trent Wilcox. Yes, she married them both. What can I say? I’m a trendsetter. I’m married to two men—Daniel Donovan, the King of all Vampire, and my faery prince, the High Priest of the Fae, Devinshea Quinn.
I wasn’t willing to lose either one of them. It came as something of a shock because I’d gotten used to things being relatively calm. Yes, we had the odd coup attempt, but for the most part, we’d found a wary peace in our kingdom. We didn’t have our guard up, and that would prove to be a big problem because when you’re the royal family of the supernatural world, someone is always, always gunning for you.
The door opened and I had another ally.
“What’s going on?” Neil Roberts, my bestie, slid into the seat beside me. He yawned and looked generally annoyed to have bee
n dragged out of bed, though he’d definitely been known to do that to me. “Someone told me Dev got lost. I thought he was going over to the hotel to do the fertility thing for the newlyweds. Did anyone check the hotel bar?”
I would normally have laughed. But I had checked the bar, and my vodka-loving husband hadn’t even stopped in for a drink. I know that because the security cameras at the hotel hadn’t malfunctioned. They plainly showed my faery prince walking out of the lobby and onto Main Street ten hours before.
“This isn’t a joke.” Daniel looked grim in the morning light. Despite the fact that he’s the ultimate vampire in our world, he’s not inhibited by the normal daylight issues. Most vampires would go poof in the light of day and leave behind nothing more than a pile of ash for our butler to vacuum up, but Daniel didn’t worry about UV rays. Feeding off Devinshea’s unique blood and sexual energy had given him the ability to daywalk. “Dev’s been missing for half a day now.”
“Missing is a very specific word, Your Highness,” a silky voice said.
I forced myself not to shudder at the sound of Myrddin Emrys speaking. The centuries-old wizard had once gone by another name. He’d been known as Merlin and he’d served as the advisor and teacher of a king named Arthur. There had been others who’d wielded the legendary sword, Excalibur, but Arthur was the most famous of them. Myrddin was tied to the sword. When the Lady of the Lake had given my husband Excalibur, Myrddin had become Daniel’s mentor, though he’d ignored us for almost a decade. I’d been perfectly happy with his absence.
When he’d walked through the doors of the Council building, into my home, I realized those years had been nothing more than a pause. Someone had hit play again, and I had to deal with a man who had far too much power over my husband.
I had to deal with the fact that Myrddin Emrys was dangerous, and no one believed me with the exception of Kelsey and my eleven-year-old son, Lee.
The good news was Kelsey is a badass. She serves as the sheriff of the supernatural world, though her technical title is Nex Apparatus. She’s a Hunter, which basically means her human momma got busy with a lone wolf who forgot to wear a condom. Her father had been one of the greatest men I’d ever met, and now I understood Myrddin had a hand in his death. He’d set up my former bodyguard to die because of a prophecy that claimed he could kill the wizard.
What he didn’t know—what Myrddin couldn’t ever know—was that Lee Owens’s soul now resided in his namesake. My son. My reckless, wonderful son was one of two beings in all the planes who might be able to kill the wizard.
According to Kelsey, Myrddin had gotten rid of the other potential slayer by sending him off the plane along with his mother. So my son was now the only person on the Earth plane who could harm the wizard. It made my Lee a big target.
“I’m not sure what other word I would use. Devinshea didn’t come home last night.” Daniel had turned to his mentor. “We know he left the hotel after the fertility ceremony. He stayed in the suite with Kelsey, Gray, and Trent for a couple of hours and then he left. It took him roughly fifteen minutes to walk back to our building.”
“Dev’s really missing?” Neil’s blue eyes went wide and he turned to me. “I saw him before he left with Kelsey and the guys. He seemed perfectly fine.”
“I’m surprised he didn’t have a driver,” Myrddin murmured. “At that time of night there are any number of criminal elements about. He didn’t have a bodyguard with him?”
That last question came with a sly look Zack’s way. Zack was in charge of the Council’s security. It was often a thankless job, especially when it came to the royal family.
“I offered to go with him,” Zack said.
“Dev didn’t want to stop the party.” I’d been there when Dev left. I’d kissed him and he’d promised he would be ready to play some fertility games with me when he got back. I wasn’t about to throw Zack under a bus. He hadn’t done anything wrong. “And this is a safe part of town. Dev knows how to handle himself. He doesn’t have a bodyguard on him twenty-four seven. He made it back to the building according to the security cameras. They didn’t go out until after he walked in.”
Even if he’d had trouble on the streets, he wasn’t exactly an easy target. My faery prince hubby is pretty much a demigod. Years before he’d taken the ancient Irish deity Bris into his body, and the fertility god gave Dev supercharged powers that went beyond the ability to make people horny. Though don’t discount that. It can be difficult to focus on battle when you suddenly want to get down and dirty with the enemy. But beyond the powers of lust, Dev can call all things green to his aid. It might sound like a minor power, but it can freak out a bad guy when the trees start attacking or they find themselves wrapped up so tightly in rose bushes they can’t breathe. And what that man can do with poison ivy would make most baddies think twice about facing down my honey.
“We have very different definitions of the word safe, Your Highness. There seems to be nothing at all safe in this time. And I don’t trust those camera things. They can easily be manipulated by anyone who wished to trick us into believing Devinshea made it home. Certainly a man closely associated with the royal family shouldn’t be moving about after midnight by himself. There are any number of factions who would love to take down someone so close to the king. Devinshea’s unique nature alone makes him a target.” Myrddin was a handsome man who appeared to be roughly in his mid-forties. He was a man frozen in the prime of his life, with wavy dark hair and chiseled good looks. He was also crazy judgmental most of the time. He turned my way and I could feel all his judgey goodness focus on me.
“His unique nature also makes him hard to take down,” I replied.
“Dev is a badass.” My bestie always backed me up. Neil was one of the few people who knew how I felt about the wizard. He and Sarah understood. I’d left Zack out of my “We Hate Myrddin” club because he was far too close to Daniel.
“I’m sure Devinshea’s powers are formidable,” Myrddin said in that passive aggressive way of his. “But anyone can be overwhelmed, and Devinshea would be an excellent hostage to any number of forces that would seek to influence the king. He should be guarded at all times, as should the queen.”
A chill came over me as I realized how Myrddin could use this incident against me. I don’t like politics, but I’ve learned over the years how to recognize when someone is manipulating a situation to force me into a corner. Guarded at all times also meant watched at all times. It meant putting me in a position where I couldn’t make a move without Myrddin knowing.
“He wasn’t far from the Council building and I know he made it back here,” Daniel argued, but not in that crazy, “I’m going to rip your throat out for questioning me” alpha-vamp way he would with anyone else who suggested he didn’t properly take care of his precious blood.
That’s what he calls us, Dev and me. We’re Daniel’s lovers, spouses, partners. We’re his everything and he’s ours.
“Danny talked to him. He called Dev as he was entering the building, so we know he made it.” I remembered it vividly, though at the time it seemed like nothing more than a normal domestic situation. Lee had left his tablet downstairs in Danny’s office and I knew he would want it the next day. I’d asked Danny to have Dev pick it up on his way to the penthouse.
Devinshea wouldn’t have gone back out into the city without telling us. Never. He wouldn’t have up and decided to take an impromptu trip or decided that it would be cool to head up to an Oklahoma casino. He wouldn’t have tried some new bar or hooked up. If he’d been needed down in Ether, the nightclub he ran, he would have texted Daniel to let him know he wouldn’t be coming up to the penthouse yet. Dev was always thoughtful. There was no question in my mind that something bad had happened.
And every minute we didn’t find him was another minute he was taken further away from me. The fact that the security cameras hadn’t gone wonky until after Dev had made it inside raised all my alarms. Something bad had happened to him here in the building
where Myrddin had so recently taken up residence.
“Have you called in the Nex Apparatus?” Myrddin asked, and it seemed to me he was taking over this meeting in a way he shouldn’t. But then that was what he did around Daniel. He took over in small ways, never enough that he couldn’t hedge if called out about it, but enough to sway any conversation the way he wanted it to go. “I understand it’s her…what did you call it?”
Daniel leaned in as if he was thrilled to be able to help. “Honeymoon. It’s what newlyweds do in this time period. They spend a week or so off on their own. It’s their version of bonding time.”
Bonding time was what vampires had with their companions. Not that we’d had either a honeymoon or bonding time, but then when I married Danny I hadn’t exactly been aware I was doing it. Even my marriage to Dev had been something of a surprise, and it had come with a full-on public proof of sexual compatibility ceremony.
Myrddin nodded. “Ah. The couple, or threesome in this case, wants to spend time together alone. I take it this is why the young wolf is running about without his parents. Does he know he’s supposed to wear clothes? I was told this is a cultural norm in this period, despite the choices of some women.”
Like I said, he was a judgey asshole who didn’t appreciate miniskirts and tank tops.
Fenrir was the young werewolf Kelsey, Gray, and Trent adopted recently. He was a young wolf king, the werewolf equivalent of Daniel’s vampire king. He was stronger, faster, bigger than other wolves. He would one day lead them all as the alpha, but for now he was a nine-year-old boy who didn’t like pants but did adore Lee. They’d been fast friends, and in the weeks since he’d come to live here at Council headquarters, that friendship had deepened. We were watching over Fen while his parents enjoyed a couple of weeks in a tropical paradise.
