Mad, Bad & Dangerous

by Cat Marsters

  He trailed around the house for a while, checking out the now-spotless ballroom and looking out fondly over the terrace where Kett had completely nailed those three asshole kids. What a gorgeous girl she really was. Strong, brave, loyal, smart and impossible to break. She rescued silly girls from stupid boys and wrestled dragons with equal aplomb. She was an absolute miracle in bed. And she looked really, really hot in a dress.

  He had absolutely no idea how he was going to explain her presence to Albhar—or vice versa—but right then he didn’t really care.

  The sun was up, the air was clear, he’d found his mate and she was really, truly perfect for him.

  Inside, his nose led him to a salon decorated with roses and full of people serving themselves breakfast, only about half of whom he recognized. Kett was there, looking delicious and smelling—different, slightly, although he couldn’t put his finger on it.

  No, it wasn’t her scent, it was something else. There was something different about her. Last night Verrick had told him a few things about Kett, but they’d been whispered like legends. That once Kett had been married, but her husband cheated on her so she stabbed him with a kitchen knife. That she’d been flogged in the army, hard enough to kill a normal person, but she’d survived. That she had once been killed and brought back to life again.

  Verrick had even, wide-eyed, related the story of the sabertooth tiger, which had given Bael pause. If that one was true, what about the rest? Had his mate really done all those things?

  Those scars on her back. Someone had flogged her, hard enough to kill.

  Her prickly self-defensiveness. Someone had hurt her, badly enough for it to still smart.

  If she hadn’t already stabbed the bastard, I’d do it myself.

  He smiled at her and she scowled at him.

  “Morning, gorgeous,” he said, sweeping her to him by the waist and planting a big kiss on her mouth.

  “Bugger off,” she said, yanking herself away and grabbing the coffeepot, her expression telling him that if he tried that again she’d pour its contents all over him.

  Bael grinned and turned away to get his own breakfast.

  Kett picked a seat between Beyla and Nuala, deliberately it seemed, so Bael sat down opposite her, all the better to enjoy the view. Unlike her elegant stepmother and sister, she attacked her food, stabbing it with her fork and hacking away with her knife. She attacked everything, he realized—food, men, opinions, life in general. It was as if she had a grudge against the entire world. It wasn’t something he expected to find sexy, but with Kett, he was finding everything sexy.

  Chance and Dark came in and, as she stood pouring some pink juice into a glass, he touched her waist and said something in her ear that made her smile, sparkling up at him with love and affection. It was sweet, touching and totally the opposite of the way Kett had reacted to him.

  And yet, he found himself preferring her that way.

  “I’m sorry you missed so much of the ball,” Nuala said to Bael. “But it was so very sweet of you to accompany Verrick like that.”

  He smiled back, unsure what to say to someone who was actively trying to approve of him, and was grateful when Eithne came in, her eyes bright and her cheeks pink.

  “Nice walk, sweetheart?” Tyrnan asked, and she smiled prettily and nodded.

  This time Bael snorted. It sure as hell hadn’t been walking that had put that sparkle into her eyes. “Somebody got some last night,” he said, and immediately both Kett and Beyla snapped their heads up, eyes wide with warning.

  Bael was too busy being struck for the first time by how similar they were to actually pay attention to what they were trying to tell him, but when Tane loudly cleared his throat and said, “I don’t think what Giselle and I got up to last night is any of your business,” Bael actually laughed.

  Then he realized they were serious.

  Tane was sitting there with his arm around Giselle and Bael didn’t need Nasc senses or Mage powers to know they hadn’t been playing tiddlywinks all night. But there was Eithne, looking like a frightened rabbit, and Kett and Beyla were shaking their heads frantically at him, and it made no sense.

  He doesn’t want her turning out like Kett.

  Kett, who had panic in her eyes as she tried to warn him off. Tried to protect her sister. Brave, beautiful, incredible Kett.

  The man was a moron.

  “Eithne,” Tyrnan said, warning in his voice. “Where were you last night?”

  “Here, Daddy,” she said, smiling in the most unconvincing manner Bael had ever seen.

  “Because that soldier boy was hanging around you like flies on honey last night, and I—”

  “He’s a garda, Daddy, not a soldier,” Eithne said quietly. “And he’s a good—”

  “I don’t care,” Tyrnan said, and he put down the toast he was buttering. “Eithne, we’ve had this conversation before—and this goes for you too, Beyla. You’re too young—”

  Bael lost his patience. “Hold on a minute,” he said, and Tyrnan gave him a look he was sure might have incinerated a lesser man. But there was being polite to his prospective father-in-law, and there was letting him get away with being an ass. “You three are triplets, right?”

  “Bael,” Kett muttered, her tone pained.

  “This don’t concern you,” Tyrnan said, his voice tight.

  “Yes, but they are triplets? Tane and Beyla and Eithne? All exactly the same age?”

  “You know we are,” Tane said, not looking happy. Beside him, Giselle appeared to be trying to disappear into her chair.

  “So how come you’re more than happy to let your son bring his girlfriend to breakfast, but you won’t let your daughter stay the night with her boyfriend? I mean, he’s a garda, a sergeant in fact—fine, upstanding citizen, helped us all out last night when he didn’t have to, and I can vouch he’s a good kid. It’s not like he’s a highwayman or something.”

  A sudden intake of breath at the table reminded Bael that Tyrnan of Emreland had made his name infamous by the ignoble trade of highway robbery.

  Then someone at the end of the table laughed. She was brunette and looked vaguely familiar, and she said, “He’s right, Prowler. You can’t set one standard for Tane and another for the girls. Besides, you know as well as I do that Kett was screwing around when she was years younger than the triplets, and you never batted an eyelid.”

  “Cheers,” Kett said, taking a swig of coffee.

  “That’s different,” Tyrnan said, his face like thunder. And before anyone could ask why it was different, he added, “Look, I don’t need parenting advice from someone whose daughter grew up to be a whore and an assassin.”

  “I’m sitting right here,” Chance said, and Bael opened his mouth then shut it again, because there was no way the brunette could have been Chance’s mother. They looked alike—which was why she seemed familiar, he guessed—but she couldn’t have been more than ten years Chance’s senior.

  “Those were entirely her own choices,” the brunette said, unruffled. “And besides, I reckon she turned out pretty well, considering.”

  “If you think I’m going to let my daughter—”

  “What the bloody hell is all this noise?” snapped a voice as the door slammed open—and the devil walked in.

  The devil, a tall man dressed in black with pale blond hair and eyes like holes in ice. He moved like a predator, sneered at the assembled company, and had an aura of power and death that strangled the breath in Bael’s throat.

  This man…

  Flashes of red-hot anger and brilliant purple lust shot through the darkness blanketing the man, and the air was full of screams, the scent of charred flesh, rivers of blood and pain and fear.

  This man…

  The devil stalked up to the brunette, caressed her face, and Bael actually did choke, because he was standing between the brunette and Chance and he was the link between them. Those eyes and that hair and the aura of power, lust and death. There were answering sparks from hi
s queen and he knew—

  The devil was Chance’s father.

  “Bael?” someone said, a faraway voice, and he scrambled to his feet, knocking over his chair, tripping over the legs and racing from the room, slamming through the door and hiding, sliding down the wall with his hands on his face against the horror.

  “Bael?” said that voice again, and there was comfort in it but not enough.

  “He killed them,” he said, his voice shaking, his eyes seeing nothing but blood and death. “He slaughtered them, my people, Nasc, he did it for fun, he massacred them—”

  “I know,” Kett said, and her hand touched his shoulder.

  “He killed so many of them,” Bael said, the awfulness of it burning his eyes. “And he’s her father.”

  “I know,” Kett said again, and he felt her sitting beside him on the floor. Her hand moved across his chest tentatively and he turned to her, pressing his face against her neck and holding her to him. Her skin was soft and her body was strong and she was warm, and she was his, and gradually his heart rate and his breathing slowed.

  “You knew,” he said, looking up at her, still shaking.

  “I thought everyone knew,” she said, concern in her silver eyes. “I thought everyone had heard of Striker.”

  “Yes, but I didn’t think he was real,” Bael said. “He’s like a story to scare small children.”

  “And why should that mean he’s not real?”

  Bael closed his eyes, but mutilated flesh reared in his vision and he snapped them open again, gasping.

  “What?” Kett asked, alarmed as he clung to her tighter.

  “I can see it,” he said. “What he did, he didn’t just kill them, he—he—”

  “Yeah,” Kett said. “He did.”

  “No, you don’t understand, he—”

  “Bael, I’ve known Striker since I was a teenager. Believe me, I understand.”

  He looked back up at her, disbelieving.

  “He’s a friend of my father’s,” she said. “He and my dad and Chalia went to school together.”

  “Chalia?”

  “Chance’s mother—my dad’s sister. Sitting next to Chance in there? She stood up for you. That’s why she called him Prowler, it’s a school nickname.”

  Bael nodded numbly. Then he said, “School? Striker was a child?”

  “So they tell me. Can’t see it myself, but there you go.”

  She held him for a while, not saying anything, just being there, being close, being what he needed. And she doubts she’s my mate, Bael thought, tracing the line of her jaw with his fingers. Her gaze searched his face, her mouth moving in what might have been a reassuring smile on someone who was more used to being kind.

  “Is that how— They said my queen was dead, that the Federación had killed her. Is that how she came back? Striker?”

  Kett’s mouth tightened into a grim line at the mention of the Federación, and she nodded. Had she heard of their atrocities too? The things they did to Nasc, to shapeshifters and psychics. The things they’d do to him if they ever found out who he was. What he was.

  He shuddered. What he was. Kett was surely going to find out sooner or later—and what if she didn’t know to keep it secret? What if she let it slip and they came for him? What if they took her too, and hurt her, and—

  Bael took a deep breath and let it out before he collapsed into hysterics again. “I have to tell you something.” Kett raised her eyebrows questioningly, and he swallowed. “And you can’t tell anyone else.”

  “I won’t tell anyone you had a nervous breakdown,” she said, and her eyes sparkled a bit as she said it.

  Bael smiled, which he guessed had been her intention, and shifted to lean back against the wall.

  “I’m a Nasc Mage,” he said.

  Her face showed a total lack of comprehension.

  “I— My animal isn’t fixed. It can be pretty much anything,” he explained.

  “So?”

  “So, every adult Nasc has a fixed animal twin. It can be anything when you’re a child, but as you get older it settles, and then one day you realize it can’t change and that’s when you know you’re an adult.”

  “Explains why you act like a child sometimes,” Kett muttered.

  “Only my animal never settled,” he went on. “And that’s the sign of a Mage.”

  She was silent a moment, then asked, “It can really be anything?”

  “Pretty much. And I have power—magical power, but it’s not…I was never trained, so most of it’s useless.” He rolled his head to look at her. “There was no one to train me. My parents were dead and Striker…”

  This time understanding dawned in her eyes. “Striker stole his power from other people,” she said. “He went rampaging and sucked magic from everyone he found with any talent.”

  Bael nodded. “And I was just a kid, I didn’t have much, so he didn’t notice me. The only people left now with any power have so little of it they can’t teach me anything.” He thought bitterly of Albhar, unable to do more than the simplest spells, barely possessing enough power to light a candle. “But sometimes…recently…I feel things or see things—”

  “Like Striker killing all those Nasc?”

  He shuddered and nodded.

  “I’m sorry,” Kett said, and there was sincerity in her voice.

  “And—is it true, about him bringing Chance back to life?” She nodded again. “The people who killed her…”

  “The Federación. Euskaran group. Lunatics. I’ve had a couple of run-ins with them myself.”

  His fingers tightened around hers. “They’re…well, they’re worse than Striker.”

  “No one’s worse than Striker,” Kett said.

  “Yeah? They kidnapped the king’s sister. They’ve taken Nasc before. Were-creatures too. Psychics. Magi. They do terrible things to them. So you can’t tell anyone I’m a Mage. Please, Kett. No one. They killed my queen—”

  “But Striker brought her back. He’s not with the Federación. Believe me.”

  It’s not him I’m worried about. Well, mostly not.

  “Why did he do it?” Bael asked. “All those Nasc. You know him, why did he—why didn’t anyone stop him?”

  “No one can,” Kett said simply. “As for the why…he did it because it was fun.”

  Bael felt sick. “Torturing and killing innocent people—children, even—that’s fun?”

  “It is to him.” Kett shrugged. “You have to understand, Striker isn’t like normal people.”

  “No shit.”

  “But look. He’s formed a sort of…well, treaty, I suppose, with Dark. He won’t harm any more Nasc. He gave his word.”

  “Oh, and he’ll keep it?”

  “Yeah,” Kett said. “He will. He might be a psychopath, but he doesn’t lie and he doesn’t break his promises. Weird but true. Besides, if he did it’d upset Chance, and that would upset her mother, and when she’s upset she withholds sex, and Striker will do anything for sex.”

  “I’m sure he could find someone else.”

  “No,” Kett said with certainty. “Believe me when I say he’ll do anything to keep her.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “I’ve seen what happens when he loses her.” Kett looked like she was going to say something else, then thought better of it and stood. “Come on. Eat breakfast. Ignore Striker.”

  “I’m not sure I can.” Those eyes, that power, it was like barbed wire—

  “Don’t be a wimp,” Kett said, and the scorn in her voice brought him back to normality.

  He smiled.

  Chapter Twelve

  Since Kett couldn’t see her father welcoming Bael back into the room, and she just didn’t want the hassle with Striker, she took him out for breakfast. There was a greasy spoon perched high above the city on the viaduct bringing the river through Elvyrn, out of the way of most tourists but in a prime spot for the men bringing their cargo along the river to the west docks.

  Wh
ile the cold wind whipped snow along the viaduct, the inside of the café was warm, the windows steamed over, the air thick with the smell of fried food.

  “Eat,” Kett said to Bael, in the mood to be kind since he’d had a fairly large shock. She ordered him a large plate of everything, then another for herself since she’d left her food congealing on Nuala’s breakfast table.

  “What is this?” he asked, poking at something big and yellow with his fork.

  “Dodo egg.”

  “Oh.” Experimentally, he dipped a finger of toast in the yolk. “Var was a dodo once. They’re pretty boring.”

  They are. I’ve been one too. Kett got stuck into her fried venroots. “I didn’t figure you for a wolf.” At his look, she explained, “Last night. You were a wolf. It didn’t seem…you.”

  Bael raised his eyebrows. “What is ‘me’?”

  “I don’t bloody know, do I?” Kett said, annoyed. “A toad or something.”

  He grinned. “Ah, see, right there. I thought you were being too nice.”

  “All right, next time you throw a hissy fit, I’ll point and laugh.” She downed some coffee. “I know what effect Striker has on people. I’ve seen it before.”

  “Have you seen what he’s done?” Bael asked, staring at his plate, his mouth grim.

  “Firsthand.” His head shot up and her eyes met his. “I’ve known him since I was sixteen, Bael. He’s the one who brought me to my father in the first place. I’ve seen him make a sword out of fire and cut a man in half with it. I’ve seen him send a whole castle into flames, incinerating everyone inside. I’ve seen him laugh while he slaughtered people, like a child playing. I’ve smelled the charred flesh. I’ve seen him take life and occasionally, when it suits him, I’ve seen him give it. Believe me when I say I know exactly what Striker’s done.”

  She started eating again but Bael was looking at her, rather disconcertingly. Kett shoved a large piece of bacon into her mouth and chewed, but he was still watching.

  “What?” she asked through the food.

  “Who flogged you?”

  She narrowed her eyes and kept on eating.