She's No Faerie Princess

by Christine Warren

  "Oh, don't trouble yourself, Uncle—"

  "It's no trouble, I assure you. After all, I will need to use the gate when I'm ready to return, as well. As amusing as the mortal realm may be, I doubt I'll be anxious to remain once my business here is done."

  "Business?" Fiona laughed again and settled back in her seat as the brownie who had opened the door to them earlier bustled in with a tea tray loaded with covered dishes and small silver pots. "What business could you possibly have here?"

  Dionnu leaned forward and lifted one of the pots, pouring a stream of amber liquid into two cups. Discreetly, Walker sniffed and detected the scents of tea, apples, spices, and the kick of a potent spirit that smelled of flowers and fire. Faerie wine, if he wasn't mistaken.

  "I would have thought the Council had mentioned it to you." The king handed one of the cups to Fiona and lifted the lid off of several plates of tiny delicacies, both human and Fae. His voice was casual as he offered his niece a snack. "I came for the negotiations with the humans. Just because your aunt couldn't be bothered to make time for them doesn't discount their importance."

  Fiona helped herself to two chocolate cookies, balancing one on the edge of her saucer while she nibbled the other. "The Council did mention something about you working on some sort of political cause, but I admit I didn't pay much attention. Aunt Mab never mentioned anything, and you know diplomacy has never been my forte."

  "Which is such a shame, considering your family connections. I could help you go far, you know." His black eyes sparked. "But I suppose one needs desire as well."

  "Which I altogether lack."

  "So you say. In any case, the purpose of our negotiations is quite simple. The Others of this world have determined the time has come to alert the humans to their presence, and it's up to folk like me to make sure they don't put themselves in an untenable position by doing so. If we want the Others to have rights in this world, we're going to have to secure them now, before the human public has time to protest."

  "Uncle, that sounds positively philanthropic."

  Dionnu laughed. "Hardly. I just want to be sure that if any of our people decide to take a sojourn among the primitives here, they do so without risking some sort of witch hunt. You know how these humans can be. They've done it before. I think it's in the best interest of the Fae that they not do so again."

  Fiona sipped her drink. "Mm. Maybe that's why Aunt Mab didn't mention it. You know how she feels about members of her court visiting the human realm. Even her own nieces and nephews have to sneak around to do it."

  "Perhaps. Either way, it's a shame. After all, there is always strength in numbers, isn't there?"

  The king's eyes glinted over the rim of his cup and Walker's hackles stood up even straighter. This Fae was even creepier than he'd originally thought. He had to beat back the urge to place himself between Fiona and the king. Walker doubted that would go over well with either member of the royal family. Besides, Fiona seemed to have a plan. She hadn't shared it with Walker, and damned if he quite knew what it was, but he knew her well enough to know she'd get pissed if he interfered with it. He would do so without hesitation the moment he sensed she was in real danger, but until then, he bided his time.

  "If you say so." Fiona grinned, biting into her second cookie. "Personally, I've always been more of the self-reliant type."

  "Another of my own traits I see in you. You and I have much in common, Fiona." Dionnu smiled that skin-crawling smile. "So much that I still regret your lack of interest in accepting my offer."

  Walker fought to keep from frowning. What offer?

  Fiona shook her head. "I'm happy just as I am, Uncle. The last thing I want infringing on my free time is the responsibility that comes with being anyone's heir. Even yours."

  A dull buzzing droned in Walker's ears. Dionnu had offered to name Fiona his heir? And she hadn't felt it necessary to mention that earlier?

  "Besides," she continued, "if I accepted, I'd have to officially declare allegiance to a single court, and that would be just miserable. Right now, I can move freely between the two, which is a privilege I'm not eager to give up." She smiled archly at her uncle. "You have no idea how many interesting things I hear when I travel between the courts."

  "No," Dionnu agreed, eyebrows arching, "but I would dearly love to. Have another sip of hal, my dear, and tell your uncle Dionnu all about it."

  By the time he followed Fiona out of the apartment, Walker's jaw had clenched so tight, he figured he had molars in his sinus cavities.

  Doing an impression of wallpaper while the princess dabbled in palace intrigue had nearly driven him out of his mind. At least he retained enough common sense not to call her on it the second they stepped into the elevator. He knew a building like this would have cameras, and he wasn't dumb enough to break character where there might be witnesses. He also wasn't in any mood at the moment to ask her to tamper with the surveillance equipment. He played dumb and silent all the way to the building's front doors, where the same doorman who had let them in barely glanced up from his newspaper when they strolled past.

  Walker's frown deepened. "What happened to Mr. Eager-to-Please?"

  "The glamour wore off. It wasn't a very strong one, but it only needed to last long enough to get us in. Which it did. No one cares much when someone leaves a building, as long as they're not carrying someone else's stereo."

  He felt a muscle twitch in his temple. "Did you do a spell on your clothes, too?"

  "Well, yeah." She pushed out the building doors and turned to stride down the sidewalk. "I told you, it would not have been a good idea to show up in his sitting room wearing your cast-offs. Very bad form."

  Walker had no trouble matching his gait to hers. What he had trouble with was keeping his hands from wrapping around her throat. Or her hips. "Last night you said you'd used up all your magic. You said you couldn't even bring back our clothes after you made them disappear."

  "And I couldn't. I wasn't lying." She glanced over at him and frowned. "I wouldn't lie about something like that."

  "Then how did you get enough magic back today to cast two spells when just last night you couldn't even do one?"

  He saw her wince and wondered if calculating square roots in his head would keep him from tearing out his hair in the middle of Park Avenue. Or maybe just pinning her against the wall and pushing that flirtatious skirt up around her waist.

  She pursed her lips and kept her eyes straight ahead. "I recharged."

  "How?"

  She sighed. "Look, can we possibly wait to talk about this until we don't have an audience of eight million watching us fight?"

  He put his hand on the back of her neck beneath the fall of her hair and squeezed in warning. "Don't think of them as eight million strangers watching us fight. Think of them as eight million eyewitnesses keeping me from choking you for fear of state prosecution."

  "Well, when you put it that way," she muttered. She stepped out of the flow of pedestrian traffic and into the alley created by the service entrance behind the building.

  "Look," she said, "I wasn't lying to you last night, and I wasn't playing games. I did burn out my magic last night, and I did get a recharge this morning."

  He leaned over her and fought not to growl something insulting. "When? You haven't been out of my sight since I woke up."

  She made a face. "I didn't need to be out of your sight. In fact… you kinda helped."

  Oh, he suddenly really didn't like where this was headed. Forcing himself to take a deep breath, he demanded, "How? How did I help you recharge your magical battery? I thought you said you couldn't use the magic here?"

  "I can't. Not the way I can use what's in Faerie. But if the magic is… changed a little, things are different."

  "Changed?"

  "Filtered."

  Her meaning came through as clear as tar. He shook his head. "Filtered how? And even if that's true, where did you get it? I've been with you all day. I would have noticed if you'd sudde
nly collected a shitload of energy that hadn't been there a second—"

  He froze.

  The truth hit him with the impact of a meteor landing smack-dab in the middle of his forehead and bouncing twice for good luck. Him. He was the "filter." Their kiss in front of her uncle's building was what had charged up her battery. Even Walker had known their embrace had been electric, but he hadn't guessed she could literally gather the energy that flared between them and use it to do magic. She had fed off of him, like a vampire. Only somehow what she'd taken bothered him more than a couple of tooth marks on his jugular.

  His back stiffened and his hand fell from her neck. He didn't even realize he'd taken a step away from her until he saw the look on her face. She gazed back at him with a mix of bravado, hurt, and disappointment.

  "I didn't mean to," she said when he continued to stare at her. "I wasn't planning it. I just needed to see my uncle, and when the doorman wouldn't let us up… I panicked. I'm not used to having to deal without magic. I guess I'm spoiled. I couldn't think of anything else to do. And then I looked at you and you looked so mad and irritated and sexy… and…" She broke off and looked down at the cement beneath her feet. "I'm sorry."

  Walker shook his head, not saying a word, and took another step away from her. Then he kept going, heading for the street and practically stepping in front of the first cab he spotted. When the driver squealed to a halt, Walker grabbed Fiona by the arm and hustled her into the taxi. He barked an address at the driver and walked around the hood to slide into the front seat. If he tried to get in back with the princess just then, he was afraid he'd do something stupid.

  He was also afraid to look at her face in the sedan's rearview mirror, so he kept his eyes on the streets that sped by outside his window and tried to ignore the sick feeling of knowing the kiss that had turned his world on its axis had only been the means to her end.

  Serves you right, his inner voice sneered. That's what you get for falling in lust with a princess.

  * * *

  CHAPTER 11

  Fiona huddled in the corner of the plushly upholstered sofa and hugged her knees to her chest with one hand while the other clutched a slim remote control. Her thumb pressed automatically on the button to surf through the five hundred channels, but she didn't really see what was on any of them. All her attention was focused on the sick feeling in the pit of her stomach that she felt whenever she thought about the cab ride back to Vircolac, which was pretty much constantly. So she flipped and brooded, flipped and brooded.

  Her Sunday-go-to-Dionnu's clothes had been replaced by a pair of black yoga pants and an oversize knit top. She didn't know who they belonged to or where they had come from. Someone had pressed them into her hands a few minutes after Walker had abandoned her in the club's front hall. She didn't remember who had given them to her; she didn't even remember who had let them in the front door or who it was Walker had left her with. She only remembered that Walker had refused to speak to her and that the taxi had been full of chilly silence. He hadn't even looked at her when he dropped her off—just left her standing in the hallway, growled something about taking some personal time, and disappeared again without so much as a backward glance. The man really knew how to stroke a girl's ego.

  To be fair, the doorman, or whoever it was Walker had stuck her with, had been very kind. She couldn't recall his name or even what he looked like, but she had registered his solicitous air and how he'd bustled her off to this private little den at the back of the club's second floor. He'd tried to offer her something to eat, something to drink, but the concept of swallowing remained beyond her. The clothes must have come from him, too, she guessed. He'd waited patiently outside the door while she changed and had taken her skirt and top away with him when he left. To have them laundered, she might have heard him say.

  Since then, she'd been curled up on this sofa, idly staring at the flickering television screen, unable to muster up any interest in anything. The uncomfortable, churning feeling in her stomach was as unpleasant as it was unfamiliar. She didn't quite know what to call it, but she knew Walker had put it there, and she knew she wanted it to go away. Right now.

  She just didn't understand mortals. Okay, so maybe they tended to be sort of wary of magic, but Walker was Other, not human, and it wasn't like she'd been using magic on him. She hadn't ensorcelled him; she hadn't even put him under a glamour. And she hadn't been taking his magic, either. It wasn't her fault that every time they touched, magic just happened. It took her as much by surprise as it had him. No one had ever made her feel anything like the jolt of heat and energy that hit her every time their lips met, and asking her not to absorb that magic amounted to asking her not to absorb any oxygen when she breathed. There was no way.

  But as often as Fiona tried to explain that to herself, she still huddled on the sofa, pouting and staring and feeling that horrible roiling in the pit of her stomach. She didn't even look up when the door to the den opened. The doorman-or-whoever had stuck his head in every so often to check on her, but whatever was wrong with her, he couldn't fix it.

  "You were right." Instead of the doorman-or-whoever's soothing baritone, the new voice coining from the doorway sounded husky but feminine and a little bit impatient. "It does look like an emergency."

  "Absolutely. It's intervention time, and I can see we're not a minute too soon."

  The addition of a second woman's voice stirred Fiona's curiosity enough for her to turn her head. Two women stood in the doorway, both blond, both in their early thirties, and both staring at Fiona with expressions of mixed sympathy and exasperation.

  "Move out of the way and let me set down this tray." The second woman spoke again, nudging the other one forward and following her into the room. The second woman's hands were full of a large wooden tray that she set on the cocktail table in front of Fiona. Then she sat on the sofa beside her and faced her with a smile. "Once we get some tea in you, we can get acquainted. Trust me. Everything seems more manageable after a cup of Tess's tea."

  "It ought to," the first woman said, settling herself on the floor in front of the coffee table and reaching for a gently steaming teapot. "This is my special 'All Men Are Blockheaded Idiots' blend."

  "Around here, we drink a lot of it." The second woman accepted two mugs of the brew and handed one to Fiona.

  "Um, thanks, but I'm really not thirsty."

  "Drink it," the woman on the floor ordered, her bright blue eyes narrowed.

  Bemused, Fiona found herself accepting the mug and sniffing the fragrant beverage. It smelled of herbs and flowers and rich earth, enticing her in spite of herself.

  "Really. It will make you feel better. Clear your head." The one beside her gave her a sweet, encouraging smile. "You'll need a clear head if you're going to find the right way to make the man pay." Fiona choked on her tea. "Oops! Careful. It's hot. By the way, I'm Missy, and this is Tess. She owns a tea and herb shop in the East Milage."

  "Nice to meet you." Tess grinned. She had a headful of rioting golden curls and innocent feminine features dominated by big blue eyes with a distinctly wicked glint. She wore a hip-hugging pair of faded blue jeans and a low-cut sweater the color of ripe berries. If it hadn't been for her lush, earthy curves, Fiona might have mistaken her for another Fae at first glance. A nymph, maybe. She definitely had her fingers in some magic. The glow of it suffused her fair skin with light and energy. She had to be one of the mortal magic users—a witch. "It's always encouraging to see new blood joining the Sisterhood."

  "The Sisterhood?"

  "The Benevolent and Protective Order of Women with Idiot Men on Their Hands. But 'The Sisterhood' fit better on the stationery."

  "Tess can get a little carried away with the solidarity imagery." Missy grinned.

  Though also blond, Missy's hair was long and fine and nearly straight, a dark ashy shade that should have looked mousy but instead acted as a perfect frame to set off the sweetness and purity of her features. Her round, rosy cheeks and wide ha
zel eyes gave her an angelic girl-next-door look that was entirely human and completely enchanting. She had pulled her hair back into a wispy ponytail in keeping with the image, and her petite, curvy form was covered by a pair of snug gray yoga pants and what looked like a man's chambray shirt. The sleeves were rolled up nearly to the shoulder seams, and the tails bounced around her knees.

  "If Tess tries to show you the secret handshake, just smile and nod until one of us slips her her medication."

  "Ah, it's nice to meet you. I'm Fiona."

  "We know," Tess said.

  "You met our husbands this morning," Missy explained. "Graham Winters and Rafe De Santos. Graham is mine."

  "Which makes Rafe my cross to bear. They told us—after many demands, glares, and threats, mind you, but whatever works—that you've spent the last twenty-four hours in the company of our own Tobias Walker, pack beta, security genius, wolf's wolf, and all around dim-witted moron."

  "We came to offer our condolences," Missy said. "At least, that was going to be why we came, but when we got to the club, Richards told us Tobias had abandoned you here and gone raging off in the worst temper he'd ever seen. So we wanted to find out what happened."

  Tess nodded. "And change the condolences to a conspiracy to commit murder, if that would be more helpful."

  Fiona winced. "Killing him seems kind of drastic. I've been thinking a lot, and he may have a point—"

  "Oh no. Nonono. Quick! Drink that tea." Tess shook her head and gave Fiona a pitying glance. "That kind of thinking is just crazy talk, not to mention asking for trouble. Remember, the man is always wrong. It's the only way to keep them in line."

  "Maybe it would help if you told us the whole story? Don't worry. We'll still be on your side. We have to stick together, after all. But I find it's always helpful to get things out in the open."