by Mina Carter
Feral shrugged, rocking the baby in his arms. “Mind tricks, remember? What else am I supposed to do? We don’t photograph and I don’t have a birth certificate. Not easy to get a license without those.”
She nibbled her lip, caught once again at making assumptions. She hadn’t had a lot to do with the kyn. In fact, Feral was pretty much the only one she’d done more than nod at.
“I think he’s gone back to sleep.”
Feral’s deep voice was still quieter than normal as he levered himself up from the bed, his posture rigid to keep the little boy held in his arms in the same position with a look of contentment on his tiny face. She watched as Feral carefully placed him in the travel cot, making sure he was tucked in nice and cozy.
Her heart melted again, a sense of amazement filling her at the gentleness he showed toward the baby. She knew he had issues with pixies. There was an edge in his voice at times, a flash of anger in his eyes when he spoke about them, that tipped her off. It wasn’t surprising. The pixie race wasn’t nice. It was one of the reasons the women were peeling off, choosing to live and marry among the humans. It was a better life.
Feral straightened, watching the baby for a moment and then turning to her. “He’s asleep,” he announced, a smile spreading over his face.
The smile hit Tessa like a speeding bullet, her heart fluttering in her chest. Feral was dangerous, not just physically in that “mess with me and I’ll rip your limbs off” sort of way, but dangerous in other ways too. Something deep inside her, something inherently feminine, told her he was dangerous emotionally as well. Without much effort, she could fall for him and fall badly.
She tried to ignore the feeling as they settled in on the double bed to watch an old film Feral found on one of the channels. It was strange, but, despite the day she’d had, followed by all the excitement of the evening, she wasn’t tired yet. But it didn’t matter. They could sleep in late in the morning. Until the sun went down they were pretty much trapped, so they might as well make the most of it.
“This is terrible,” she commented, indicating the screen, “and I’m bored.”
He slid her a sideways glance, arching an eyebrow. “Bored? You can’t be...this is a classic!” he said, his voice aghast even as his eyes twinkled with laughter. Tessa studied the screen again, displaying a car chase that never seemed to end.
“Yeah, right,” she muttered, “classic my ass... Bloody typical action film, all car chases and explosions, no plot.”
“That’s it! You can’t diss action films. It’s just not done!”
Tessa giggled, their conversation conducted in whispers as they tried to avoid waking the sleeping baby. “Not done huh? Seems to me I just did...so what are you going to do about it, fang-boy?” she challenged, grabbing a pillow to defend herself and scooting to the edge of the bed.
“Fang-boy? Well aren’t you Queen of the Original Insults?” Feral asked, arming himself and advancing on her. Trouble was, the fierce expression on his face was completely ruined by the pale lavender pillow he brandished threateningly. “You have insulted my honor! Prepare to... get battered!”
With that, he launched his attack, pummeling her with the feather pillow as she frantically tried to defend herself with her own. Queen of pillow fights when she was a kid, she was pleased to discover she’d lost none of her skill, easily holding him off as she made a move for his pillow. Then she had both, rising to her knees to hit him back, forcing him to block. He did so with lightening quick movements. They both laughed so hard she was surprised the noise hadn’t woken the baby.
Her half-second glance cost her dearly. In a sneaky move, Feral flicked both pillows out of her hands and rolled over, pinning her under him in a lightning-quick movement. She giggled and tried to wriggle from under him, her fingers straining for the pillow while teetering on the edge of the bed, just for the chance to whack him over the head again.
Then she caught his gaze and the amusement drained from her face. The mood between them flipped from light and teasing to aware and fraught with sexual tension in a heartbeat. Holding her gaze, he moved, sliding a hand into her hair, strong fingers caressing the nape of her neck.
She swallowed, realizing she was pinned on the bed under him. His large, muscled body covered hers, blocking her view of the rest of the room, trapping the two of them in their own little world. One heavy leg covered hers, his broad chest pressing against the softness of her breasts. Pressed against her stomach was the hard evidence of his mood.
She caught her breath, a thrill shooting through her as he leaned forward. “I’ve wanted to do this again since earlier,” he confessed as his lips claimed hers, hot and hard.
Without preamble, he coaxed her lips apart and her body turned to jelly as his tongue swept in, exploring the silken depths of her mouth relentlessly. Endlessly. By the time he lifted his head, a lifetime later, they were both breathing raggedly.
“Don’t turn me away, Tess.” He kissed her between the words, hard kisses clearly conveying the need surging through his large body. “Please don’t turn me away.”
“Don’t worry. I don’t intend to.” Her hand smoothed over the nape of his neck, brushing against the stubble there. The silky pelt teased her fingers. He moaned, his head dropping again to devour her lips as he moved over her, the movement of his hips against hers mimicking what they both wanted to happen... what was going to happen shortly.
She parted her thighs, cradling him with the softness of her body as his hand smoothed down her side. He pulled her t-shirt up, his movements hurried, almost desperate. As though he couldn’t wait to touch her, as though he needed, craved the touch of her skin against his. As he did, his large hand fit into the curve of her waist, a sigh escaping him. One she could swear was of relief, as his lips trailed fire down her neck.
Tessa’s breath caught in her throat. Does he really feel that way about me? Desperate to touch me? She could understand it if he did, a similar desperation crawled through her, settling deep within her and taking up residence. She ran her hands over his shoulders and down his back, feeling the hard muscle that rippled under his skin until she had a handful of the hard ass Jane had admired earlier.
Almost as though thinking of her aunt had conjured her up, there was a rapid knock on the door and Jane’s voice filtered through the wood. “Guys, wake up! We’ve got pixie company, and it doesn’t look friendly.”
CHAPTER 5
F eral closed his eyes and dropped his head down to rest against Tessa’s shoulder. Frustration and disappointment surged through him, fighting a battle for dominance. He couldn’t believe this…not again.
“I fucking hate pixies,” he breathed vehemently. His fist bunched instinctively under the pillow with the need to hit something.
“Tell me about it.” Disappointment and frustration colored Tessa’s voice as she pushed at his shoulders. He rolled away, already looking for his boots as she headed for the door. “And I am one.”
Feral didn’t answer, just nodded as he jammed his feet into his boots and grabbed his shirt. Behind him, Jane barreled through the door as soon as Tessa opened it, gaze sweeping the room and latching onto his semi-nakedness immediately. It was something Feral was used to. Sometimes kyn warriors had that effect on other races, particularly women...something about their demon blood. The fact that most of them stood over six feet and were ripped as all hell didn’t hurt one bit.
“Put it away, lover boy. We don’t have the time,” Jane told him as he pulled his shirt over his head, the material stretching over his broad shoulders. He pulled it down, emerging from the fabric to give her a look, but didn’t reply. From the pale look on her face she’d already had one hell of a shock. Worry was etched into the features so like Tessa’s. Must be where she got the attitude as well, he mused, grabbing his weapons belt and buckling it quickly around his hips.
“Grab your bags,” Jane ordered as she headed to the cot to pick up the sleeping baby. Wrapping him tightly in the blanket, she cradled him
against her, heading back to the door.
“We’ve got pixies downstairs looking for you, and they aren’t taking ‘no’ for an answer. You need to get out of here and now!”
Neither of them needed to be told twice, grabbing their belongings and stuffing them into the bags as quickly as they possibly could.
“How the hell did they find us so quickly?” Feral demanded. He zipped his bag up with a quick flick of his wrist and held it out to Tessa. She glared back at him, a “carry your own damn bag, buddy” look on her face. It wasn’t until he pulled one of the heavy blades from the back of his belt that her expression cleared. Nodding, she took the bag and looped the strap across her body, the fabric sitting diagonally between her breasts as she picked up the other two.
Feral wrestled his attention from her delectable body, one he’d nearly had his hands on and was having trouble wrestling his mind away from even now. Images of what she would look like naked flashed across his mind’s eye, causing a very predictable response lower down in his body. He shook his head.
If the pixies caught up to them, he would need a clear mind, as well as his hands free, to deal with them. Rampant erotic fantasies of Tessa were just going to distract him. Well… distract him more than her presence and that delicate scent that was all hers did. A scent that had wound itself around him, creeping into his nostrils and crawling under his skin until it was a part of him.
He hardened his features as he settled his blades more comfortably in his hands. Any pixie stupid or unlucky enough to catch up to them was going to wish he’d never been born. They’d interrupted him and Tessa twice now. Not once, but twice…right as he was about to get some action. Which was not something he would forgive lightly; not when he had the worst case of blue balls this damn century.
He nodded to the two women when he was ready, both watching him with that wide-eyed look that said they half-expected violence to just occur all around him, without him needing to lift a finger. He sighed. Civilian women got that look. Vixen would’ve just slapped him upside the head for showing off and flexing his muscles because Tessa was watching, right before she’d demand to know why he wasn’t out in that corridor already.
Casting a quick glance about the room to make sure they had everything, he moved past the two women to the door. With control hard won over the years, he blocked out all other distractions and concentrated on the corridor.
It was empty. His keen senses picked up nothing. No breathing, no heartbeat, zilch. He’d heard of some people holding their breath to avoid detection, but he’d yet to meet anyone who could shield a heartbeat from a kyn. Especially one that hadn’t fed for a while.
“Okay, we’re all clear.” Pulling the door open, he headed out into the hall.
Progress through the corridors was quick, with Feral hurrying the two women along as fast as he could. He didn’t even have to remind them to keep quiet, which was a minor miracle considering how they’d been chattering away down in reception earlier. Even the baby was down with the deal, watching the proceedings wide-eyed and silent. The little one must have picked up on the sense of urgency shrouding the adults.
It was the time of night when the corridors were deserted. The sort of time any clock-watching insomniacs had finally succumbed to exhaustion and before any early bird had yet to spring to life. Even so, dawn approached, the telltale heaviness settling into his limbs as Jane led them further into the depths of the hotel, down through the kitchens and beyond into the darkness of the basement.
Feral breathed a sigh of relief, feeling the comfort of the ground closing around him and shielding him from the worst effects of the approaching sunrise. Of all the facts humanity had picked up, or made up, about vampires, their habit of seeking the earth was the most accurate. The human books and films each gave their own reasons, of course, but the reason was simple. The layers of dirt between him and the rising sun lifted some of the heaviness trying to settle into his muscles, paralyzing and crushing him. But the earth stopped that. He chuckled to himself in amusement. Good old dirt—SPF factor, one billion.
“Well, here we are,” Jane announced as the two women stood at the bottom of the stairs, Feral joining them a moment or so later. The barred door at the top of the stairs might not stall a determined pixie for long—hell, by the looks of it, it might not stop a determined Chihuahua for long—but sometimes a person had to make do with what they had. At the moment, Feral was taking every half-second he could lay his hands on.
The basement wasn’t what he expected, the musty odor of age and mildew combining to attack his sensitive nostrils. At first glance it looked like an average, clutter-filled basement with the random cast of paraphernalia from running a hotel lining the walls. Like the dining room chair to his left, resplendent in all its faded glory, the seat ripped to spill its fabric guts out onto the floor. Next to it sat a cot with three broken slats, filled with what looked to be ripped up old sheets…and so on. Half formed shapes in the shadows were cast by the single bare bulb overhead, all pretty standard basement-type stuff.
Until he turned and saw the huge magic circle painted across the floor. It continued in a sprawl across the wall as though the painter had realized halfway through he’d run out of space and had just carried on along the next available surface.
He followed the design, half expecting it to continue over the clutter, painted across more broken chairs and the like. But it didn’t. That area of the basement was completely clear to allow the circle to continue unbroken. In the middle, stood a door. Well, it looked like a door… if doors didn’t have doors and led to raw dirt instead. Absently, he wondered how the dirt was being held up and why it hadn’t just fallen into the room.
“Err, silly question, but aren’t magic circles supposed to be drawn on the floor?” he ventured, noting that not only was the floor space the circle was drawn on clear of clutter, but someone had swept it recently. Their housekeeping efforts only extended as far as the circle, leaving a ridge of dirt and dust around the clean area. Not randomly, as though the wielder of the brush couldn’t be bothered, but very precisely. Too precisely to be anything other than deliberate. A circle within a circle, he realized with a start. Old, old magic. So old, most people didn’t realize it was actually magic.
“Well aren’t we Mister Picky? Do you see enough floor space in here for a proper circle?” Jane demanded. “No, we had to adapt things slightly. Use what we had.”
She handed the baby over to Tessa, who was beginning to resemble a packhorse. An amused quirk of her lips told Feral she was thinking the same thing, as an understanding look passed between them. Hiding his surprise at how in sync they were, he went back to studying the circle.
Painted with what looked to be a domestic decorating brush and leftover emulsion, the designs seemed crude at first. But then, his attention was drawn inward. The lines weren’t as rough as he’d thought after all. Yes, they’d been done with less than ideal equipment, and that had thrown him at first. It was like giving a concert pianist a child’s keyboard. But something beautiful had been created despite it. The lines had been drawn confidently and with a flourish. A labor of skill and love he’d not seen in a long time.
“This was done by a warden. A good one,” he breathed as he opened his hand and passed his palm over the nearest marks.
The Witching flared violet, the symbols etching themselves into the air itself and hanging there for a second before falling away like purple fairy dust. He frowned for a moment. He didn’t know of any warden families that cast in purple. Not in the local area anyway. Jane must have shipped someone in.
Jane chuckled. “Someone give the boy a prize!” She cast a look at Tessa and then winked. “You sure can pick the bright ones, can’t you, sweetie?”
Feral colored a little, unsure why he’d become the butt of jokes around here. He’d noticed that about women. Get a woman on her own and she was fine, but get them in packs of two or more, and suddenly everything a guy said or did was wrong.
&n
bsp; He caught the baby’s eye, looking for some moral support from the only other male in the room. The baby just blinked back at him, a look that plainly said, “You’re on your own, buddy. I’m cute and milking it for all it’s worth.”
Sighing, he turned back to the matter at hand, ignoring Jane’s comment. “Okay, what I don’t understand is why you got a warden to recreate a Faery gate? Why not just apply to them for a licensed one? I hear they relaxed the rules. Even nightclubs are getting them now…”
Jane arched an eyebrow, turning to look at him fully, her expression clearly telling him she didn’t think he was playing with a full deck.
“Err, perhaps because I don’t want them to know it’s here? You know, like…keep it a secret?” she replied, scathingly. “Not exactly a secret anymore, is it? If half the court admin knows about it. And there’s no sense in expecting a Brownie to keep its mouth shut when there’s some gossip to share.”
He had to admit she had a point. Brownies had to be the worst gossips, often making things up if the real news wasn’t spicy enough. If something was said within earshot, guaranteed the rest would know by lunchtime. He shuddered. And they gave him the creeps. Because of his paranormal blood, he could see through the weak glamour they cast to fool human minds. A glamour that made them appear to be small, neat men of indeterminable middle age. Underneath though, Brownies were wizened, spindly creatures with bulbous eyes and overlong fingers. They reminded him of spiders, with their quick movements and thin limbs.
“I see what you mean,” he conceded, curious as to why an aunt of Tessa’s needed a secret back door into the Faery realm. He didn’t get to ask that question, however, as the next moment a heavy thud sounded against the door at the top of the stairs.
