by Mina Carter
“Right, the rest of you,” she turned on her heel and glared at the huddled group in the corner as the others were dragged away, “get out there and get that damn baby, I don’t care how you do it. Just do it!” She barked her orders, a warning in her voice alluding to their fate should they fail her again. The atmosphere in the room grew cold, as though the very building were affected by her mood.
“Now go!” she snapped, turning in a flurry of skirts to stalk up the length of the hall. Movement broke out behind her as the Pixies made their escape, followed by the measured tread of her guard. A small sigh escaped her as she approached the dais at the end of the large hall. She paused at the bottom of the steps and looked at the throne.
Made of stone, it was one of seven, each sitting in a hall of its own around the Court. Or, when required, pulled by the Court itself into the Queen’s hall to sit flanked around Mab. One throne for each of the Seven Sisters. The Seven Fae princesses. Beloved by the land, all powerful amongst the Fae, and all that crap…but she wanted to be more powerful. She wanted, needed…
* * *
“What are you, some sort of one man army?” Tessa asked, leaning in the doorway of the main bedroom and watching Feral pull a multitude of weapons from a case. Ten minutes had seen a rapid exit from her sister’s now trashed apartment, Feral only allowing enough of a delay for her to grab her weekend bag and one for the baby. She knew her sister was going to kill her for the state of the place, but right at the moment, Tessa couldn’t bring herself to worry.
She shrugged the skinny fitting t-shirt she’d pulled on into place, smoothing it automatically over her now denim-clad hips, as she watched him with interest. She’d known he was dangerous from the moment she’d seen him on her doorstep. She knew enough about the Kyn to know the heavy tattoo-like marks across the side of his body and down his arm marked him as a Kyn warrior. Baddest of the bad-type dude. But it was one thing to know that intellectually, and quite another to see him kitting up.
Gone were the well washed jeans hanging low on his hips, the slight “V” of hair on his washboard stomach that disappeared into his waistband, teasing her beyond belief. They were replaced by a near identical pair in black denim over heavy black boots, teamed with a polo that clung lovingly to the heavy muscles of his chest and shoulders. The clothing, combined with the “badass” attitude that surrounded him, was undoubtedly enough to make old ladies crossing the street move to avoid him. And that was before the weaponry was considered.
His lips quirked as he continued arming up.
“Yup, pretty much so. Have to be when fighting the Rogue. We patrol in pairs but there’s always the chance your partner could fall. Then you’re on your own,” he said shortly, his face tight.
A brief flash of anger, a rage so complete, crossed his face and it took Tessa’s breath away. She didn’t need him to spell it out to tell her that something bad had happened in the past, that a partner had gone down. Curiosity filled her, but the forbidding look on his face warned her off.
His movements were deft, appearing to move with the ease of long experience as he strapped knives and blades over what seemed like every available body surface. Sheaths on the inside of his wrists, more in the heavy boots.
“You need all that for what you do?” she asked, her curiosity about him increasing. He moved with a grace she found fascinating, retrieving a heavy belt from across the back of a chair in the corner and buckling it around his lean hips. This was a different man from the one she’d been laughing and joking with back in her sister’s apartment.
*
“Not really, no. They’re mostly backup,” Feral replied, wondering idly if she ever stopped talking. Not that it bothered him like it usually would. He liked working with his patrol partner, Vixen, for one reason—she wasn’t into idle chatter. Women had a reputation for gossiping, but had nothing on men when they got together. Some of his previous partners had chattered so much he’d given serious consideration to killing them and hiding their bodies in a dumpster. But Tessa’s questions didn’t bother him at all.
“These are my main weapons.”
He shifted the heavy belt on his hips and reached to the small of his back. Without thinking, his fingers sought and found the guards of the blades in the sheaths fitted against his lower back. The next second, the blades were in his hands and he doubled his fists, moving easily into a guard position. Flexing his muscles, he showed off in a way he hadn’t done since he was a teenager, when he’d begun bulking up to warrior weight.
The blades weren’t knives, daggers, or anything that resembled a human weapon. More like heavy knuckle dusters, they fit across his hands, the razor sharp blades across his knuckles glinting in the beam cast from the hallway light. They were ancient weapons. Kyn weapons that had come with their race when they’d crossed from their home dimension.
“Hmm, those little things?” Tessa’s frown and the slight smile on her lips both appeared skeptical.
“That’s it, just diss the blades! Typical woman!” he huffed, pretending to be insulted as he slid the weapons away with a flourish.
“Oh no, after earlier, believe me, I’m more than happy with whatever you’re packing, sweetheart,” she said, the tone in her voice honest. Feral grinned as his mind made a dive for the gutter. This was just too easy.
“Whatever I’m packing huh? You sure you can handle it honey?”
The smile that curved her lips fired his blood, but not as much as the look of challenge in her eyes as she fell easily into the game. “Oh, you’d better believe it…and if we didn’t need to get out of here, like pronto, Mister Boss Man, I’d be proving it to you.” She reminded him they needed to move.
His chest expanded in a sigh of frustration. “Ok, I’m done. Grab the kid and let’s get gone.”
* * *
“Mikal, it’s Feral. Oh fuck it! I hate these damn things,” he muttered as he slid out of the seat of his truck, phone against his ear. He waited impatiently for the beep to start again. “Mikal, Feral. Got a bit of a situation. Bunch of Pixies broke in and trashed my neighbour’s place. I got her out and we’re at the Grey Lady. Give me a call when you’re free, would ya mate? Catch you later.”
He flipped the phone shut and reached for the bags Tessa held. “You sure we’re going to be able to get a room?” He eyed the front of the building dubiously. Don’t these places need bookings or something?
She looked up at him as she slid from the passenger seat, Spud in her arms. She hadn’t been too happy about travelling without a proper baby seat. She’d argued with him halfway to the hotel, but then resorted to glares the rest of the way. Feral hid his smile, she was even prettier mad. He’d have to wind her up more often.
“We’re lucky to be here at all! What would have happened if the cops had stopped us?” She gritted her teeth. “You’d have gotten a ticket or something and they’d have taken Spud from us…we’re not his parents, they’d find that out straight away and then where would we be?”
Feral shrugged, the handles of both bags caught easily in one large hand, the other free, just in case they got jumped again. “I’m Kyn remember? I’d just have pulled a Jedi mind trick on them… ‘These aren’t the droids you’re looking for.’” He grinned as he waved his hand ala Obi-Wan Kenobi.
Her lips quirked a little, despite the glare she treated him to.
“I see my subtle charm is working as planned. So, what about it? You reckon we’ll get a room here? Not that many paranormal places…”
And there weren’t. Feral could count the number of paranormal-friendly hotels in the city on one hand.
Tessa shrugged, setting off toward the door, winking at him over her shoulder. “Bet you dinner I can get us a room.”
He walked with her to the door, his stride shortened to match hers, where he held it open for her before stepping through. As he did, he felt a distinctive shiver down his back, like someone had dumped a bucket of cold water over him. The place was warded. He’d know that feeli
ng anywhere.
“Wards, protection spells, daylight shutters. You name it, we got it.” A voice at his side announced, almost as though she’d read his thoughts. He turned swiftly, his hand already halfway to the small of his back, to find a woman watching him with a smile on her lips.
A woman that looked so much like Tessa, he had to check she was still on the other side of him. Short and slender, she was nearly identical; the same height, build, and similar facial features. She only differed in her fashion sense. Whereas Tessa was casually dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, this woman could have stepped right out of an Audrey Hepburn film.
He shot Tessa a look. “No bet missy. You get to buy dinner,” he muttered in a low voice before turning to the other woman. She held out her hand.
“Jane Grey, owner of the Grey Lady and Tessa’s aunt,” she said with a bright smile.
A few minutes later, Feral nudged open the door to their room with his shoulder—once Tessa had completed the complex procedure that involved both hands—twisting the key one way and the doorknob the other.
“Should have had these fitted at your sister’s place. Pixie’s would have been there for months working it out.” He winked at her over his shoulder as he walked into the room.
“Oi, watch it you! Pixie in the room, remember?” She threw him a glaring look as she followed him. It was a decent sized room, a family room, with a double bed in the middle and a single set to the side. Not luxurious by any stretch of the imagination, but it was nevertheless clean and functional.
“Yeah, but you’re not just a Pixie are you?” he said quickly, digging himself out of the hole he could see looming over him, with the ease of long practice. Such skills were necessary when his patrol partner was the psychotic vamp bitch from hell at certain times of the month.
On automatic, he did a sweep of the room. As promised, the curtains concealed full daylight shutters, a necessity for a vampire traveller, and a quick swipe of his hand over the windowsill had the wards there flaring to life for a second. His eyebrow flitted up. Daylight shutters and heavy duty wards? Someone had sunk some money into the place.
“What do you mean, not just a Pixie?” Tessa settled Spud in the middle of the double bed, her voice light. Too light, the slight hesitation before she answered flashing like a neon sign. Feral opened the door to the bathroom, pausing to look inside before he answered. Like the bedroom, it was plain, simple. A fresh lemon scent assaulted his sensitive nostrils. And so clean he could’ve probably eaten a meal off the floor.
“Well, your aunt there…Jane,” satisfied the shutter was the same high quality as the one in the bedroom, he shut the door and turned to her, continuing, “if she’s a day under one hundred, I’ll eat Spud’s hat.” He flicked a finger toward the blue fleecy cap covering the baby’s day-glow locks. He leaned back, shoulder against the wall, arms folded as he considered her.
She didn’t look at him, tickling Spud and making him giggle. A delaying tactic if ever he saw one. Finally, she looked his way, not directly at him, but toward him. “Don’t be silly, Pixie’s don’t live that long.”
“I’m Kyn Tessa, not an idiot. I can sense an expanded lifespan when it’s looking me in the face,” he told her firmly. What was it with women and not giving straight answers? Vixen was just like this when she didn’t want to talk. It was like getting blood out of a damn stone!
She chucked Spud under the chin and sat back on the bed, appearing deep in thought. The tension stretched between them, an air of expectancy as Feral waited for her to say something. That was the trick. Not filling the silence with something and giving them an out. That way, they had to say something, and more often than not, the pressure of silence prompted them into revealing things they might not otherwise share.
She sighed. “Ok, Jane’s a little…special,” she admitted, bowing her head for a moment. Swivelling on the bed, she looked at him, her dark eyes earnest. “You have to keep this to yourself, okay? My family has been keeping this secret for generations.” Her focus remained intense.
Slowly, Feral nodded, intrigued. What secret were they keeping? What secret could be so important that a family of Pixies, not the most reliable beings in the world, would keep it for generations? “Ok, I promise…cross my heart and hope to die,” he offered, drawing his forefinger across his chest.
Tessa frowned, a little line forming between her brows that he thought was cute, and shook her head. “But you’re a vampire anyway…”
“And?”
“Well, aren’t you like, the living dead and all that?”
Feral laughed. Again, she’d caught him off-guard. “Now, now. You’re a Pixie, you know better than that!”
Kyn were demonic, not cursed. Well not exactly. Some would say their demonic blood cursed them, but Feral, and most other Kyn, begged to differ. They were just different, that was all.
She wrinkled her nose, a teasing light in her eyes that reminded him they hadn’t finished what they’d started in that bathroom. A bolt of desire hit him broadside, bringing a low rumble to his throat.
“And don’t try and change the subject missy!” he warned her, folding his arms across his broad chest again. “You were telling me about Jane.”
“Oh buggar it…well a gal’s gotta give these things a try! Ok…we’re not just Pixies. There’s something odd mixed into the bloodline. You know much about English royalty?”
Feral laughed. “What, you mean as in human English royalty? Hell, I have enough trouble remembering who’s the President now! You can’t expect me to know history as well, not when these humans die off every eighty years or so…um, no offense,” he said in haste, as two pairs of eyes swivelled to look at him accusingly, with Spud adding the weight of his baby stare.
She wrinkled her nose, the glare fading. “Nah, you’re okay. I’m not that easily offended. Okay, long story short. Jane was once the Queen of England. Until they chopped her head off.”
Feral nodded slowly. “I wondered what the scarf was for.”
Chapter Five
“But did you see the ass on him? Like two walnuts in a sock!” Jane grinned as she leaned back against the scatter cushions that lined the sofa, her eyes twinkling over the rim of her wineglass.
Tessa suppressed a giggle, or tried to. The two glasses of wine, two large glasses of wine she’d had, ensured she didn’t quite manage it, as some of the giggle escaped her, sneaking around the edges of her lips.
“You, madam, are far too old for thoughts like that! Why, I’m absolutely scandalized!” she exclaimed in mock indignation, wagging her finger at her aunt.
Although, technically, Jane wasn’t her aunt. She was Tessa’s great, great, great-something aunt. As Feral had instinctively known, she had a bit of a long lifespan for a Pixie. Which she wasn’t. Tess wasn’t quite sure what Jane was, none of the family did. Besides, she wasn’t sure that Jane even knew.
Jane leaned forward to put her wineglass on the coffee table. Here, in her own apartment, at the back of the hotel, she’d relaxed somewhat. The scarf she usually wore looped around her throat was lying discarded across the back of the chair Tessa was curled up in.
She’d grown up seeing the horrendous scars across Jane’s throat, knew the story, but the sight of them always took her breath away. Tessa swallowed, resisting the urge to rub her throat in sympathy. How the hell did someone survive their own beheading?
“Don’t think about it,” Jane said, her voice quieter than usual, “I don’t. Not really something I want to remember.”
Tessa blinked, colour flaring over her cheeks at being caught staring. She covered her surprise with a downward sweep of her lashes. “I’m sorry, how did you know?”
Jane shrugged as a sad smile curved her full lips. “You get used to it. The little looks, then the careful look away. The way you can just tell they’re dying to ask. People never look at me properly unless I’ve got my neck covered. Turtle necks are possibly the best invention on the planet, in my eyes.” She smiled, trying to
make a joke of it, but it fell flat, the sad tone plucking at Tessa’s heartstrings.
She hadn’t realized it was so bad for Jane, but hearing her aunt talk about it, and seeing the sadness there, brought the realisation home for her. “What about healing spells, or using glamour?” she asked. “Surely something has to work.”
Jane shook her head. “I’m not Fae or Pixie so I can’t cast glamour. Even then, most paranormals would see right through it. And healing spells don’t work. Whatever made me this way…means to keep me this way.” She sighed and shook herself, as though throwing off bad memories. “Okay, enough about me. Let’s talk about you, sex on legs, and the punk baby for a while, shall we?”
Tessa smiled in response, glad to be moving onto another topic. She hadn’t meant to upset Jane, she really should have realised how much the scars bothered her aunt. After all, most people were offered counselling these days for things like scars and the incidents that lead to them, weren’t they? So why should Jane be any different? Tessa had just assumed that, because she’d had them for so long, they’d stopped bothering her.
Idiot. She berated herself as she wriggled in the chair, reaching inside her back pocket for the note that had been left with Spud.
“Are you okay for time?” Jane asked as she took the folded paper from Tessa’s outstretched hand. “I’m sorry. I should have asked you earlier.”
“What, before you decided to get me drunk? As a role model, hate to break it to you…but you’re crap!” Tessa teased, as she reached for the wine bottle on the table.
“Pffft! Role models, who needs ‘em!” Jane dismissed with a wave of her hand, wrinkling her nose and crossing her eyes.
Tessa laughed. “Yeah, I’m fine,” she admitted. “I fed him before I came out and left them watching a game on TV. All boys together!”
“Now the question would be…you fed who?” Jane waggled her eyebrows suggestively.
