by Kathy Lyons
“Please,” Josh said. “This from the man who stalked me after a family dinner, took fairy fruit, and then turned himself into a werewolf, all so we could talk? You’ve never bailed on anything in your life. I didn’t believe for a second that you’d let go of your own son.”
Bruce stared at him, shock rolling through his system. “You knew? The whole time?”
“Of course I knew. I thought you’d get that when I said it was your style. It’s never been your style.”
“I know!”
“They why would you think I wouldn’t know?”
It was a fair question, but honestly, he had no idea what his brother thought of him now. Certainly he knew what he thought when they were kids, and even a couple of days ago, when Josh said that Bruce ruined everything. But now?
He slowed to a stop to look at his brother. Josh mirrored his movement until they were standing face-to-face.
One by one, the others of their group stopped as well.
“Josh,” Bruce said as he fumbled for words.
Laddin stepped up beside him and translated. “What that means is that he’s so sorry for being a dick when you were kids, but your father made him do it and he was a kid. He even tried to protect you.”
“I know,” Josh said, his voice subdued.
“You know?”
“Yeah, of course I know. While you were off being interrogated, I called Ivy.”
Their sister? “But—”
“She’s not as stupid as she looks,” Josh said.
“She looks like she’s sharp,” Bruce answered. “A sharpshooter, a sharp observer, and a really sharp Army nurse. They run the hospitals over there, you know.”
Again, Josh rolled his eyes. “I know. That’s what I said. She’s smarter than she looks, and she looks like she’s on the ball.” He took a deep breath. “And she told me things about what Dad did to you. She knows about the vasectomy.”
Bruce’s head snapped up. “What? I never told her.”
“You never told anyone, but she knew. And she said I was an idiot for not looking closer, but that I was forgiven because I’m the youngest and really not that bright.”
Bruce snorted. That was Ivy for you, smarter than them both. So smart she’d apparently escaped their toxic home life unscathed. Or at least, less scathed.
But none of that excused all the shit he’d done to Josh over the years. “I’m sorry,” he repeated. “Really damn sorry.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. And I’m sorry I blamed you all those years for my own inability to get off my ass and get on with my life.” Josh looked at Nero, and then his gaze swept wide to include all of them. “I’ve got a purpose now. And I’ve got a new family—a family I love.” He looked back to Bruce. “And we’d be thrilled if you could join us. You and my new nephew.”
“I’d like that,” Bruce said. “I’d like that a lot.”
“Great!” Josh said as he hauled Bruce into a hug. Bruce returned it, suddenly blinking back tears. Josh seemed to be doing the same thing, because when they separated, they both ducked their heads as if something had flown into their eyes.
“And speaking of my new nephew,” Josh said when they started back to the house. “Where exactly is he?”
“Wulfric’s got him,” the director whispered. When Bruce looked at him in surprise, he snorted. “Don’t think that anything goes on with my people that I don’t know about. And that includes my people’s new baby boy.” Then he looked at both Bruce and Laddin. “Now listen up. You both are going to take housing near the mansion in Michigan. It’s right next to the state park and is an easy run to work.” He pointed at Laddin. “You’re on duty with Captain M until I say different. She’s been getting five times the work done since you were recruited, and I know that’s you. So no more talk about going back to Hollywood. We need you, and now you have a magic baby that we need to protect.”
Laddin tilted his head. “Tell me about this housing. Are we talking an apartment or—”
“They’re townhomes.”
“Two stories,” Laddin exclaimed as he made a fist of joy. “Yes!”
Then the director turned back to Bruce. “I’d like you to stay on as our medic. You can rotate through the combat packs and pick the one you want. But if Nero okays it, I’d like you to stay on with him. The pack is based in the mansion, and that would allow you to go home to see the kid. We’re completely understaffed, and we need advice on exactly what and how to get new people in.”
Josh piped up. “We’re revamping the recruitment policy because—”
“Yes, Josh, I heard you the first hundred times. And now you get to help your brother do that. If there’s a better way to recruit new people, then find it and do it, because this little dance in Wisconsin doesn’t feel like the end. It seems more like a shift from the beginning to the middle. There’s more weird stuff coming, and we need to be prepared to deal with it.” He paused a moment to look at them both. “Agreed?”
Josh snapped an “Agreed” like it was “Yes, sir!”
Bruce was slower as he watched his brother. When Josh looked back, Bruce said the words aloud. “I’d like that,” he said. “Us working together.”
“Then say ‘agreed,’ you idiot.”
Bruce turned back to the director. “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”
“Finally,” the director said with a grin. “Someone who knows how to respond properly!” And then he didn’t say anything at all, and no one else did either. Because walking slowly toward them were Wulfric and his mother… as well as an adorable bundle held tightly in Wulfric’s arms.
Bruce looked at Laddin, whose face was split into a huge grin. A moment later they ran together toward their son.
Within minutes, Aaron—the real Aaron—was tucked safely into Bruce’s arms. Laddin was fussing with the kid’s clothing, making sure he was bundled up tight in the chilly morning air. And Uncle Josh came up beside them and started talking about all the chemistry-inspired practical jokes he was going to teach the boy.
Great. One parent teaching him explosives and an uncle teaching him chemistry. Good thing Bruce was a medic. He had the feeling they were going to need one at their house.
Their house. The idea was so wonderful that he had to share it. So he looked to Laddin. There were so many things he wanted to say, so many astonishing thoughts crowded into his brain, but none of them came through. All he could manage to utter were three little words, words Laddin spoke as well.
“I love you.”
Epilogue
FAIRY FAIRYLAND IS NOT WHAT IT USED TO BE
“THE TEMPERATURE in the dragon cages has been lowered five degrees. Is there any other way that I may serve you?”
Emma Davis (code name Mother) looked at the vaguely human-shaped fluff of light that had spoken to her and shook her head. “Nothing, minion. Thank you for your help.” She knew that the sparkly lights were more like drones than real people, but she couldn’t help treating them as living creatures.
“It is my pleasure to serve the Dragon Mother,” the fluff said before it zipped away.
Emma considered calling it back. She was dying for someone to talk to, but conversing with a minion was like talking to Siri. Sure, it was fun for a bit, but eventually it got old.
She let it go, then walked down the line of cages, checking on her charges. They were all there, coiled around heated rocks and blinking jewel-bright eyes at her when she passed. She could talk to them too, and she sure as hell had in the past two months, since beginning her service to Bitterroot. Another ten and she’d be going home with her own dragon. Though what a werewolf like her was going to do with a dragon, she hadn’t a clue. At least she had ten months to figure it out.
She was just admiring the blue dragon she called Beau because, well, he was a beauty, when Bitterroot came into the nursery. He appeared as he always did in this place—tall, dark, and arrogantly handsome. And damn if he didn’t make her knees go weak when he smiled at her like a little boy with an ice
cream treat.
“What have you got there?” she asked, referring to a bundle wrapped in silk that he carried in his arms.
“The salvation of my realm.” Then, at her surprised look, he extended it to her. “Also, a present for you.”
He was always giving her presents, some of them sweet, some of them downright silly, and a couple that were really bad ideas. The fae did not understand the human mind, that was for sure, but Bitterroot was trying, and for that she gave him a smile, all while bracing herself for whatever it was he held. It was roughly the size of a piglet and squirming, so she wondered if she was about to be both dragon and pig keeper.
Until she looked down and saw a human face. A human face on a baby.
“What is that?” she gasped.
“A human child. You said you wanted children, so I got you one.”
“You what?” she cried, backing up against the dragon cages. “You can’t go get a child the way you’d pick up a loaf of bread at the grocery store.”
“I did not go to a grocery store!” Bitterroot said with indignation. “I had to barter very hard for this one. It was very expensive.” Then he frowned down at the squirming bundle in his arms. “But I didn’t think it would be so twisty. Or smell so bad.”
Now that he mentioned it, there was a very foul scent coming from the bundle. And he was having a terrible time holding on to it. But her mind was still back on the fact that he had a child. And he thought he could give it to her!
“Are you serious?” she said, gaping at him. “You bartered? For a baby?”
“Yes,” he said, irritation in his tone. “For you!” He offered her the squirming baby. “I don’t understand your reaction—”
“No kidding! Who would give up their child?”
His expression sobered. “They didn’t want to, but that was the arrangement. A firstborn child. Very standard.”
She shook her head. “I don’t care if it’s the law, you give that child back! You can’t go trading for children!”
His expression tightened and he shot her a furious glare. “You do not understand. I need a human child. My realm, my home—” He made an expansive gesture with his hand. “All of this will disappear unless I have one.”
“I don’t care!” she snapped back.
She would have said more. She would have said a lot more. But at that moment, Bitterroot lost control of the baby. It was squirming so much, he couldn’t hold on, and it began to fall.
Emma dove forward to catch it. She might be horrified by what Bitterroot had done, but she wasn’t going to let a child plummet to the ground. Thank God for werewolf reflexes. She caught it just before the infant brained itself on the floor.
Except what she caught didn’t feel like a baby. It seemed to squirm and disintegrate right through the silk wrapping. She gasped, thinking she had hurt it. Then she thought it was deformed. Then she didn’t know what she thought, because it started sprouting people—tiny people jumping out of it and running in all directions.
This was no baby—it was a piñata filled with tiny fairy creatures.
“It was a joke,” she realized, completely appalled. “This was a stupid practical joke! How could you? I thought you’d dropped a baby!”
“If it is a joke,” Bitterroot said, his voice low and angry, “then I am not its author.”
She frowned. “What?” She pointed to the dozens of leaping, huddling, squealing creatures dashing around the place almost too fast for the eye to catch. “What are they?” And why did they smell like cheese?
Suddenly Bitterroot straightened up, his spine nearly cracking with the sudden tight cast to his entire body. “Earth sprites!” he hissed, revulsion in every word. “Pixies!”
It took a moment for her to process this. She’d seen many strange sights in Fairyland. Enough to make her seriously doubt her senses. But before her eyes were little girl fairies cavorting about screaming “whee!” And beside them were little boy… she didn’t know what. But they smelled like cheese. Like really old, really rancid cheese. And all of them were growing.
As in really growing. Hand-size to knee-size to man-size and more. Thank God they’d all moved out of the nursery to start running around the outdoor grounds.
“They’re getting huge,” she murmured.
“In Fairyland, they will be as big as my house!” Bitterroot said as he scanned the area between the dragon nursery and his castle. “Or bigger,” he whispered. His eyes were wide, and his jaw went slack with horror. And then he gripped the windowsill hard enough that his hands grew white.
“They told me it was their son! They deceived me!”
“Would that be the child’s parents?”
“Yes!”
She folded her arms and grinned. “Good for them.”
He whipped around and stared at her. “What did you say?”
“Good. For. Them.” Then she looked out, watching the creatures dash around. The fairies seemed to be throwing fireworks everywhere, which exploded in colorful displays. And the others…. Well, they were forming a huge slingshot and were about to shoot something that looked like hard balls of cheese at the topmost spire on Bitterroot’s castle. “Oh my,” she breathed. “They’re going to take down your castle.”
“Not just my castle!” he exclaimed. “I need a human baby!”
“Well, what you got was….” She blinked. “What are they again?”
“Sprites!” he bellowed. “Pixies, imps! You have dozens of names for them.” He rounded on her. “And they belong on Earth, not in Fairyland.”
“Huh,” she said as she leaned back against Beau’s cage, laughter in her tone. “Well, I guess that sucks for you.”
She ought to take this more seriously, because each pixie was now the size of a bus and was happily destroying everything in sight. The fireworks were getting larger by the second, and every boom shook the foundations.
“Are we safe in here?” she asked.
Bitterroot nodded, his expression grim. “I told you before that I reinforced the nursery. The entire realm can fall to ashes and we would still be safe in here.”
Well, that was reassuring. “And the others in your realm?”
“The minions will dissolve and reform, as will everything else.”
That was true. She had seen it happen more than once. He snapped his fingers and everything disintegrated in a fall of sparkly lights, only to reform as something else. Don’t like the castle? How about a high-rise tower? Not into penthouse living? How about a beach house complete with an ocean and dolphins? Everything was constructed from Bitterroot’s will.
Everything but her and—apparently—the pixies. And that made her happy enough to grin.
“Guess we’re stuck in here for a while,” she quipped as she pulled out a chair and sat down to watch the show. The cheese-like pixies released the slingshot and… wham! Dead shot right at the nearest spire. The tower crumpled to the ground as if it had been hit by a boulder.
She chuckled. “Are you going to remake it for them?”
“Why? They will just destroy it again.”
That was likely. Especially since they were now aiming at the next tower, this one a little farther away.
“Hangnails and hobgoblins!” he suddenly spat.
“What?”
“I cannot take revenge on them.” Then he closed his eyes in the first show of weakness from him she’d ever seen. “And I cannot bargain for another child.”
“Good. You shouldn’t be trading for babies like they’re cans of beans.”
He opened his eyes and stared at her. “You do not understand. I need a human child. It is the only way to save this place. To save all of it.” His wave included everything.
She didn’t care so much about the castle or its rapidly falling spires. But she did care about the nursery and the dragons. And, of course, herself.
“I don’t understand,” she said.
“Of course you don’t. You have not tried to learn about me or the pro
blems I face while you play with my pets.”
“That’s not true!” she said. But it was true. She’d come here so angry with him for forcing her into this situation that she’d turned her back on him the second she’d arrived. She’d focused on learning her job—how to take care of the baby dragons—and had steadfastly refused his invitations to dinner, for walks, for anything except what was absolutely required of her as a mother of dragons.
Except now she wondered just how much she had missed. What didn’t she understand?
“Why do you need a human child?”
“It is the only way to preserve what I have here, but I have sworn not to get another child. I cannot go back to Earth and get one.”
She nodded. “That’s a good thing, Bitterroot. Humans shouldn’t give up their babies.”
“He would be a king in Fairyland!”
“He belongs with his human parents.”
Bitterroot turned his attention back outside. The cheesy pixies were having trouble with the second spire. They’d only half destroyed it, so they were loading up again with what looked like triple the payload.
“It’s the only thing that will save my home,” he whispered.
“Well, you’ll just have to find another way, instead of kidnapping somebody’s child.”
He nodded. “Such is the law. What I have sworn, I must obey.”
“Good.”
He turned to look at her, and his expression was calm, determined, and a little bit scary. Actually, it was more than a little scary. The way he looked at her had turned into an intense scrutiny or a desperate challenge. And she didn’t like where either of those thoughts were leading her. Or him.
“Bitterroot…,” she said, though she had no idea how to finish that sentence.
“You are a human woman,” he said.
“Er, yes. Yes, I am.”
“You can give birth to a human child,” he stated. “In fact, you said you wanted one.”
“Someday! I said someday. And with the right man.” She straightened off her chair and started backing into the cage room. Except there was nowhere to go. Not with the dragon cages behind her and Pixie Armageddon outside. “Bitterroot, I’m not having your baby.”
