Cimmerian Shade: A Limited Edition Paranormal Romance & Urban Fantasy Collection

by Kiki Howell

  The count pricked his finger with a small pin, and then placed a drop of his blood on the Sheerra’s weaving. A bright light burst from the fibers, and Laurel swore that Mrs. McKenzie stared right at her, and winked.

  Seconds later, Jayden tensed – everyone tensed – as if waiting for something to occur.

  But nothing happened.

  As they waited, Laurel’s cheek began to pound in time with her heart. Her head was aching now, her blood pulsing through her in agonizing waves. Heat surged up from her chest, through to her throat, and she clutched at her ribs.

  What is happening?

  The pain kept building, until Laurel couldn’t take it anymore and dropped to her knees on the stone floor. Each breath felt like her lungs would explode, her eyes burned, and her blood was boiling. Dimly, she heard someone screaming.

  The agony dragged on for weeks, or it may have only been a few minutes. Then a cool cloth was pressed against her forehead, and Laurel blinked open watery eyes. It was over.

  Where am I?

  The Sheerra was looking down at Laurel, her wrinkled face kind. “There, you are awake now. You are in a small room off to the side of the audience chamber.”

  Can she read minds?

  The woman patted Laurel’s cheek.

  “What the fuck just happened?” the count roared, and Laurel whimpered at the sound of his voice.

  The Sheerra straightened. “It looks like the spell found your firstborn.”

  “Nothing happened to Jayden, so I think not. You screwed this up. That’s why you wanted me to make the oath!”

  “I didn’t screw anything up. You wanted me to say your firstborn, not your firstborn son.”

  Silence.

  Then Laurel’s chin was grabbed roughly and her head jerked to the side. “Look at me, girl.”

  Shaking, Laurel pried open her eyes and met the cold blue gaze of the count.

  “What is your name?”

  “L-laurel, sir.”

  “When were you born?”

  “Te-ten years ago.”

  “Who is your mother?”

  Laurel stayed quiet.

  He shook her. “Who?”

  “Don’t know!”

  The count shoved her back against the soft cushions.

  “You fucking transferred my family’s magic to a bastard?”

  Calmly the Sheerra said, “I asked you about the phrasing. And she isn’t just anyone’s bastard. She’s yours.”

  “Fine. I’ll kill her and you will repeat the spell. I will say she didn’t survive the transfer.”

  Laurel wanted to melt into the floor.

  He is my father?

  Horror swamped her, tightening her throat.

  “Uh-uh.” Mrs. McKenzie wagged a finger. “You’ve forgotten the six fae rules. Children cannot kill their parents, and parents cannot kill their children. I will have no part of that. When the Hunter comes for you, be ready.”

  “He won’t know.”

  “You’re willing to bet your life on that? I’m not.”

  “Fuck.”

  “Look at it this way. You’ve gained a brand new daughter today.”

  No. He is not my father.

  The count’s gaze burned Laurel like the pain of the Transfer Spell. “A halfbreed mutt.” He strode closer, grabbing her chin again, forcing her to meet his stare. “Your life is mine now, gel. May you regret the day you were born.”

  Chapter One

  “THE NAME’S DEATH. CONRAD Death.” – Conrad Death, Assassin Cleaner for the White Queen

  The Dawn Court, now-ish

  Conrad Death didn’t really like the term ‘assassin’.

  He much preferred the human word ‘cleaner’. After all, that’s what he’d spent most of his adult life doing: cleaning up other people’s messes. Namely, the messes left over after people had pissed off the White Queen, Gwyndolen Dubois.

  His liege.

  More like his slave mistress.

  But that was just semantics, or so the court chamberlain liked to tell him.

  The White Queen solved her problems with clandestine murder. The Black and Red Queens were also renowned for their capricious natures, but were a little more...blunt about it. Because of that, they tended to nurture their reputations as complete and utter hard-asses, at least, that’s what Conrad figured. The human media loved it: the intrigue alone kept several of their magazines in business.

  ‘Night Court: Deadly After Dark’.

  ‘Day Court: Suns of Anarchy’.

  He’d read those two headlines in just the last week.

  The White Queen, however, liked to have a positive and – ugh – chirpy public image, all the while tidying up her court when the mood struck her. And it seemed to have been striking her a lot more frequently of late.

  Conrad was currently kicking his heels in an antechamber to the chamberlain’s office. The waiting room was full of priceless artifacts, gold-filigree hangings and the occasional rare human antiquity, mostly of the Egyptian kind. And all about cats. The chamberlain had a thing for them. Put the whole ‘crazy cat lady’ thing into a new sphere.

  “Death, there you are.”

  “Lady Whisky.”

  She hated the nickname he’d given her – it was really Countess Whiskertine – but he couldn’t be bothered with the formalities, and she had to tolerate him.

  The chamberlain stood in the doorway to her office, hair tied up in an elaborate bun. Her slit-pupilled stare bored through him, but he didn’t so much as blink. Staring contests with Cait Sídhe were important to win.

  Eventually, she blinked and waved a hand at him. Following her into the office, he took a seat without invitation. The room was spacious, and was probably the size of an entire human apartment. It had a wall of books on the north side, and then a wall of glass on the south. In the very middle – he’d bet money on its exactness – was a large mahogany desk, with two red leather chairs in front. Incongruously, to the far left, there was a cat scratcher and plush rug made of sheep hide.

  Conrad didn’t want to picture the chamberlain kicking back in her cat form, playing with mice. Come to think of it, he’d never seen a rodent within a hundred yards of this area. Gross. He did a lot of disgusting stuff, but eating rats was beyond even him.

  He settled back into the red leather chair, then crossed an ankle over a knee and tried to look bored. He was only ever invited to Lady Whisky’s rooms for two reasons: to be told of a job, and to report back on the outcome of said job. They didn’t exactly socialize, what with him being a subordinate and all.

  “You called?” he drawled, then listened as her teeth ground. He smothered a grin.

  Lady Whisky sat, perched on the edge of her chair, and gave him a look. “I have a job for you.”

  “Really? I thought you just wanted to see me.”

  “Shut up.”

  He sat back.

  “Well?” she demanded.

  “Sorry, I thought I was meant to be shutting up.”

  Whisky narrowed her eyes. “Why the White Queen tolerates you, I will never know.”

  “It’s my charming personality and stunning good looks.” He wasn’t lying. Conrad was both ridiculously charming and handsome as sin. Although, modesty wasn’t really his thing.

  She snorted. “It’s really too bad you can’t ‘clean’ yourself.”

  “Is that some kind of sexual innuendo?”

  “No!”

  “Pity.”

  “For the love of—”

  “Now, now. You don’t want to go cursing a divinity. You never know when they’ll be listening.”

  “Must we do this?” She waved a clawed hand.

  “What?”

  “This banter.”

  “No. But you started it.”

  “I did not!”

  She very much did. And well, Conrad wasn’t really looking forward to the next job. Killing people had grown boring; it was rarely a challenge. It was all about court toffs who annoyed the queen and
so off went their heads. And most of the Dawn Court’s followers were seelie – light fae – and so they didn’t have particularly nasty defensive powers. Now, if he had to go work in the Night Court...well, his job would be a hell of a lot more challenging there.

  Especially with his special little ability.

  Come to think of it, he’d always found it relatively easy to control his gift around the chamberlain. Maybe that was why he enjoyed annoying her so much. She was too calm. Collected.

  “One of these days I’m going to—”

  He leaned forward. “What?”

  No response.

  “Come on, you got me all excited, thinking of what you were planning to do to my body.”

  She ignored him. “So, your next job has been assigned to you by the White Queen herself.”

  Interesting that Whisky had decided to gloss over her threat – she was usually more inventive than that.

  “Aren’t all of my ‘jobs’ assigned by the White Queen herself?”

  He was, after all, her personal cleaner.

  Eww. That sounded icky.

  Not that Conrad ever actually spent any time with his boss. He’d probably met her a dozen times that he could remember, and that had only been for assignments that were too delicate to be relayed through her staff.

  “Yes.”

  “Then why do you always start with that? Why not just, ‘Here’s the next job’?”

  The chamberlain sniffed.

  Guess that was all the answer he was going to get. But really. Unless Whisky was assigning him jobs off her own bat, he didn’t see the reason for the repeated protocol.

  This is a court, they are all about protocol.

  Well, Inner Conrad had him there.

  “So, what is my next divine mission?”

  “You are to find and eliminate the bastard daughter of the Count of Tears.”

  His eyebrow rose and he uncrossed his legs. “The Count of Tears, as in the White Queen’s former executioner?”

  The man had been a legend. A scary one that people told their children in order to try and force good behavior. But still, a legend. Rumor was he could boil a person’s blood in their veins, pluck your innermost nightmares from your mind and force you to relive them, cause your—

  A hiss. “Are you just listing all the things that the Count of Tears can do to hurt people?”

  “Wait, was I saying that out loud?”

  My bad.

  But really. The guy was a monster, and just the type of person someone like Conrad had been taught to idolize.

  “Do you ever take anything seriously?”

  “I take plenty of things seriously.” Like always. Mostly. Okay, sometimes.

  Occasionally?

  It was hard to be a toe-the-line kinda guy, because he’d been brought up to cross the line, kick the line in the guts, and then set it on fire. The fact that he’d developed a rather robust sense of humor had probably been a coping mechanism to deal with all the...murder.

  “Name one thing you take seriously.”

  “Killing people.”

  “Wasn’t your last eliminee—”

  “Is that even a word?”

  “—found bent over a palace garden bench, with his pants around his ankles?” She tapped a claw on the wooden desk.

  “What? It was a full moon.”

  That glare. Oh, how it made him glad he’d decided to mirror the evening sky in his presentation. Plus, it now had a bunch of courtiers sitting very uncomfortably. He’d heard a few even wore three pairs of underpants, just in case.

  “As I was saying. You are to find and eliminate the bastard daughter of the Count of Tears.”

  “Does he know about this?” Conrad asked. While he played by nobody’s rules but his own, he did actually abide by the six laws of the fae courts:

  - Every knight had to have a quest;

  - A blood oath could only be severed through death;

  - A parent couldn’t kill their offspring;

  - A child couldn’t kill their parent;

  - A monarch of a court could not depose another; and

  - The Hunter could not be killed by any monarch.

  To not follow them was to die, and Conrad had seen – and meted out – enough death to know that he wanted to live. He was just grateful that because of his activities, he wasn’t classified as a knight of the Dawn Court. Otherwise he’d have to go on some stupid quest – and get it televised. That was the big craze at the moment: follow the knight as he travels the dangerous path assigned to him/her and learn of the mystery world of the Hills.

  It made him want to vomit.

  But that was humans for you. They loved the fae, and the fae loved human technology and food. Go figure.

  “So where is the bastard child?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What do you mean? Where’s the dossier?”

  “It is rather slim, I’m afraid.”

  From a drawer, Whisky plucked out a cream folder and pushed it across the desk. Leaning forward, he swiped it up and opened it. There wasn’t even a photograph of the girl. “If she’s a child, deal’s off.”

  He didn’t ‘clean’ kids. His refusal had enraged the White Queen a time or ten, but he didn’t care. You had to set your own personal code, and that was one he stuck by. He wasn’t a child-killer and he wasn’t about to become one.

  “She’s fifty.”

  “Oh, you actually have her birthdate?”

  “No.”

  “What the hell do you have?” He didn’t look up, just kept skimming the file. She was fifty, her name was Laurel Paynters, and had been working as a servant in the Tears estate when a Transfer Spell had selected her as the recipient of the count’s magical abilities.

  “They did a Transfer Spell?”

  Those things cost money. Like, huge money. Plus, you had to get a Sheerra to weave one for you, and that wasn’t exactly easy. They made recluses look positively social.

  “Mrs. McKenzie herself did it.”

  He whistled. The Sheerra of Sheerras. The last White Queen had tried to force the woman to work for her. It hadn’t ended well for the monarch – who was now interred in the royal crypt.

  “So the queen doesn’t want this girl inheriting the count’s powers?”

  While the County of Tears was in the Borderlands, it was an important ally for the Dawn Court. To have the count’s considerable powers go to an unapproved heir...

  It was surprising the girl had lasted this long.

  Conrad read on. “It says here she's a halfbreed. With what?”

  Whisky shrugged and then gave him a sharp-toothed smile. “No idea.”

  “So you want me to find a woman with no physical description, no known location, and an unknown pedigree?”

  May as well look for a needle in a haystack.

  Whisky stood, the usual signal she was dismissing him. “Oh, and Her Majesty says time is of the essence.”

  Of course it is.

  Chapter Two

  “CAN I HAVE A GIN AND tonic? But easy on the tonic...”

  – Lori Hardcastle, formerly known as Thorne Paynters and Laurel NoOne

  New Vegas, the Borderlands, now-ish

  Lori Hardcastle was a dead woman walking.

  Death just hadn’t caught up to her yet.

  She swirled the glass tumbler of gin and ice, and then took a long sip, the burn welcome as the alcohol slid down her throat. All around her, people were laughing, flirting, having fun – or at least, pretending to have fun. She was in a casino, after all. Well, a bar in a casino. The people in here all wore expensive gowns and were a strange mix of fae and human. Most of the clientele were fae, although they were – as the courts called it – lower fae, as opposed to upper.

  The class system at its finest. Or worst.

  Too bad she had no idea where she fit on that scale.

  One of the Kobolds at the bar raised his drink, his hair the same fiery red as his skin when enraged. “Santé!�
��

  Cheers surrounded him, and a tall nymph with more skin on display than covered approached the short man with a smile. Good will – even the predatory kind – abounded in the bar. Everyone was having a grand old time, except for her. But it was difficult to be happy when you knew your father wanted you dead.

  Although, to be fair, Lori had known that since not long after her tenth birthday.

  She’d been relatively safe though, up until her slimy half-brother Jayden had realized that he could kill her, and there’d be no real consequences. That’s when she’d moved out of the castle, and she’d been on the run ever since.

  Jayden hadn’t ever been interested in hard work though, and so when he’d attempted to find her after she’d vanished, he’d done a rather lackluster job of it. Their father hadn’t been able to help, because that would then get him in trouble with the Hunter.

  But now there was no Hunter, and there hadn’t been for a decade.

  And that was the issue. People had started talking about the Hunter’s lack of heir, and how the Wild Hunt no longer ran. That meant the six laws that governed the Hills and the Borderlands were now being treated more as a set of...guidelines.

  Which sucked, because it was only those laws that had kept her alive until now.

  Lori had long since memorized the list, especially the two most important points:

  - A parent couldn’t kill their offspring;

  - A child couldn’t kill their parent.

  If her father now thought there were no repercussions to his actions, he’d be more than happy to end her life. Worst of all, he wasn’t incompetent like her half-brother. If Melvyn Paynters wanted someone dead, then they were dead. Simple. That was the benefit of having served under the White Queen as her executioner.

  But while her father had enjoyed his job, he’d been power-hungry, and there was only one ruler in a court: its queen. So he’d gone to the Borderlands and murdered the former Count of Tears. There’d been no reprisals, because everyone knew he had the might of the Dawn Court behind him.

  The alliance had been all too precious.

  Unlike Lori’s life.

  Would he feel different if he knew you actually had magic?