“I’ve got my own, thanks.” Colin blinked in a bottle of a popular teen bodywash and shampoo, along with a pair of black sweats and a T-shirt featuring a death-metal band. “Mom, trust me—I can shower all on my own.”
All the women laughed and let the poor boy make his own way into the bathroom.
“We’ll be in the kitchen if you need us,” Mairead said as she and Bronwyn turned back toward the stairs. “Just push zero on the bedside phone and it will ring in there.”
***
“I’ll take the hall.” Lana leaned against a wall beside Aidan’s bedroom door and crossed her arms over her chest. “Fee can stay out here with me. The rest of you can hang out in the bedrooms—maybe get some sleep.”
Meagan followed Elise into Aidan’s room, giving a soft whistle as they passed through toward the bathroom. Subtle touches marked it as the master suite—including a framed picture of Emery of Rose—Meagan’s birth father. There was also an exquisitely detailed wooden model of a sloop called the Faerie Queene. Elise wondered if Meagan knew about that part of Aidan’s past. Might be fun to be there when she heard about it.
Meagan hummed as she looked around. “Nice. Hadn’t seen this room before. Makes me wonder when you did.”
Elise felt her skin heat. She was nowhere near ready to talk about her tangled-up relationship—or non-relationship—with Aidan, especially to his cousin, even though Meagan had been her friend before the cousin thing had been discovered.
“Okay, okay, I’m backing off.” With a wry chuckle Meagan set the basket down beside the tub and dropped into a wicker chair in another corner. “But you know I’m going to find out sooner or later.”
Elise shook her head at the comment and at the opulence around her—even though she’d used this bathroom this morning. Or was it yesterday? Her family wasn’t exactly poor—the Wyndewin League had paid well for many generations—but she’d never had a bathroom big enough to boast its own seating area.
“Hand me the kiddo while you get the water ready.” Meagan seemed willing to allow the subject to change.
“Thanks.” Elise reluctantly set her daughter down into Meagan’s lap, and tried not to be hurt when Dina didn’t complain, just snuggled into Meagan’s arms. Meanwhile, Elise adjusted the taps and poured in a generous dollop of strawberry-scented bubble bath.
Once the tub was nearly full, Meagan used her powers to ’port off Aidan’s grungy fisherman’s sweater and Dina’s tattered pajamas so Elise could help Dina into the tub.
“God, this magic stuff is still so cool. I don’t know how you all manage to keep it a secret. It’s so tempting to use it all the time.” Meagan spoke softly as Elise began to gently wash Dina’s tender skin, healing small bruises and scrapes as she went. “So why didn’t I ever know you were a witch?”
Elise shook her head. “After Dina was born, I didn’t want anything to do with it any more.” She glanced down at the top of her daughter’s head. “I can’t go into it now. But I basically turned my back on magic altogether, except for protection and a tiny bit of emergency healing. Oh—and suppressing Dina’s powers in public. That, my friend, is a trick you’re going to need within the year, if you plan to spend any time this side of the portal. Little ones don’t know enough not to show their magic in front of strangers. It takes a fair bit of the parents’ power to keep them under control without suffocating their abilities.” Though there were times she had been tempted to tamp down Dina’s altogether.
“Belinda warned me about that too.” Meagan made a face. “And Sinead. She—umm—works for me, I guess, though she likes to pretend she’s the boss. You didn’t meet her Underhill and consider yourself lucky. Give her a habit and she’d be scarier than any of the nuns at St. Francis High School.”
“She isn’t one of the elves who doesn’t like humans, is she? Or halflings?” It was so easy to forget that Meagan was really half Fae, after being raised with her powers completely blocked until a few months ago.
“No, she doesn’t approve of anybody.” Meagan grinned. “When it came down to it, though, she put herself between me and the bad guys. She’s loyal as all hell to my family, just your classic grumpy schoolmarm with pointy ears.”
“Okay, I believe you.”
Dina yawned and blinked as Elise gently rinsed her skin. She even obediently dipped her head into the water to wet her hair, something she normally didn’t like. “Is Daddy home?”
“Dina, honey, you’ve got to quit calling him that,” Elise said. “I’ve told you before…”
Dina shook her head, sending shampoo suds flying. “It’s okay, Mommy. He doesn’t mind.”
“No, but…” Elise looked over her shoulder and saw Meagan watching with a frankly curious tilt of her coppery head. “Never mind. We’ll talk about it in the morning.”
***
The dead goblins had vanished—so had one orc. One of the most powerful spells ever cast by a joint team of various races was that dead sidhe immediately disappeared from this realm and reappeared in the morgue—or some kind of equivalent—of their respective race. The advent of modern forensics meant that non-humans couldn’t risk their DNA being documented by a human medical examiner. Even their spilled blood disappeared. Unfortunately, it only worked for the dead ones, not the injured. Desmond and Cynric Willow now moved quietly around the factory, removing all traces of the battle, while Wallis and Toby supervised the loading of goblin, orc and lupine prisoners into the van.
Aidan and the other former captives moved over to investigate the prison area. The cell block would hold any answers they were likely to find—along with Aidan’s wallet and all the other possessions his captors had stolen from the prisoners.
The arrangement was simple—a long straight corridor with eight cells off to one side. Where a ninth and tenth could have been at the front was an open space, holding some cheap plastic chairs and an old stainless steel desk. There was a battered avocado refrigerator from the seventies and a small microwave, with a stack of the yellow plastic plates beside it on a card table. The fridge proved to have a selection of cheap frozen entrees and some eight-ounce bottles of water, as well as a dozen or so whole raw chickens. Bones were scattered about the floor, but at least they looked like chicken legs and animal ribs—probably from half a dozen sides of beef, judging by the gnawed-on partial one in another corner. Not human or elven, at any rate. The cloud of flies buzzing about didn’t seem to mind, making Aidan wish he hadn’t eaten at the convenience store.
Kayla and Lachlan walked the length of the hallway, checking the cells, while Michael stood watch with his rifle and Aidan began to search the desk. In the top drawer he found four wallets and a small silvery evening bag. He flipped through his own. Cash was gone, but everything else was intact. He stuffed Colin’s—the chains and silver studs gave it away—into his pocket and set the others on the desktop.
“Cells are all empty. No signs that any but ours have been occupied.” Kayla sauntered up to the desk and picked up her purse after rifling through the contents. “Huh. Good thing I only had about twenty bucks in cash. I’m surprised they didn’t take the credit cards.” Afterward, she scooped a pair of silver high-heeled sandals out from a pile under the desk.
Michael and Lachlan took turns reclaiming their wallets and their shoes while Aidan searched the other drawers. All he found was a list of names, with five checked off and four, including Meagan’s, remaining. A sticky note on the wall, however, did yield a couple of phone numbers. One was prefaced with an O—for Oswald?—and the other an A. The third had no label at all. Aidan pocketed both the note and the list of names. “Make sure we check any of the remaining prisoners for cell phones,” he said. Since there was no land line in this room, that had to be their means of communication. Of course any that had been on any of the dead bodies had vanished along with them.
“Out here,” Ric called from the other room right when Aidan had completely given up finding anything in the so-called office. “We found the werewolves
’ clothes. There’s a phone in each of their pockets. Guys say none on any of the goblins. No wallets or IDs either, though there are some small bits of cash.”
Aidan tipped his head at his fellow captives and they all rejoined the group in the warehouse. Ric held up two smart phones and two wallets. “I’m guessing the werewolves were in charge. Orcs aren’t smart enough.”
“Agreed. We’ll see what Wallis can do with the phones.” Aidan smiled grimly. “Well, folks, it’s been fun, but let’s get the hell out of this place.”
***
Dina had refused to go across the hall to sleep in the room assigned to Elise, so Elise gave in and tucked the sleepy child into Aidan’s bed, leaving the extra room for Belinda and Morwynna, so they could stay close to Colin. Meagan fetched the stuffed Pegasus from the other room and Dina squealed happily when Meagan leaned over the bed to hand it over.
“Peggy!” She reached up and threw her arms around Meagan’s neck. “Thank you, Aunt Meagan. Love you.”
Elise managed not to chuckle at the bewildered expression on Meagan’s face. Dina had only met the other woman once or twice before the wedding—but once Dina decided someone was part of her family, the idea was stuck. Elise shrugged and shook her head.
“Love you too, sweetie.” Meagan grinned, taking her new “aunt” status in stride.
Dina smiled. “I can’t wait to play with my new cousin.”
Meagan’s eyes flew wide, but after a moment they started to dance with suppressed laughter. “I bet he’ll like that too, Dina. But you might as well go to sleep now. He’s not going to be here until next spring.”
“Summer,” Dina corrected with a yawn. “Good night.” She turned to Elise, who had stretched out above the covers on the other half of the bed. “Good night, Mommy. Don’t worry. Daddy’s okay. He’ll be home in a while.”
Her certainty was convincing enough that Elise believed her. “How about Uncle Ric?” she asked, phrasing it that way to tease Meagan a bit. It felt good to loosen up a little with her friend. She’d been avoiding personal connections her whole life. Had she missed out on how rewarding friendship could be?
“He’s fine too. And Uncle Des. They’re all okay and on their way home.” She leaned over and gave Elise a hug and a kiss. “Love you.” She snuggled down into her pillow with her toy in her arms and was almost instantly asleep.
Meagan stood across the room shaking her head. “Wow. Scary kid. But cute—and sweet. I’m so glad we got her back okay.”
“Yeah, me too.” Elise grinned at her friend. “Just wait until you have your own little magical—and I mean that literally in our cases—bundle of joy. They keep you on your toes, believe me.”
“Yeah, looking forward to that—not.” Meagan settled into a chair and patted her tummy, which wasn’t even starting to show yet. “But I am kind of excited about meeting him face to face. With everything happening so fast in the last two months, it hasn’t really sunk in yet.”
Elise didn’t reply, she simply gazed down at Adina, sleeping so peacefully after all the horror of the last twenty-four hours. Elise would probably have nightmares about this for the rest of her life—she hoped Dina wouldn’t.
She’d killed a living being today and injured another. Yes, both had been intent on killing her and no, it wasn’t the first time. She’d never gotten used to it, though, even when she was an active enforcer, which was one of the reasons she’d retired. Today, though, all she had to do was look over at her daughter and all the guilt vanished. They’d kidnapped Dina, planning to kill her and frame Aidan, from what Colin had told them after Dina fell asleep in the limo. No, she didn’t feel guilty about killing them at all, which was rather unsettling in its own right.
Then there was Aidan. Goddess, what was she going to do about him? Whatever Elise had felt for him before, now it was even more complicated by the tenderness he’d shown Dina and the lengths he’d gone to in order to save her, even though he knew she wasn’t his. Honestly, Elise was about ready to quit trying to make him accept that fact. Maybe it would be good for Dina to have a father like Aidan, even if they weren’t biologically related. Goddess knew, Elise would never marry. One thing she had realized today was that Aidan was the one and only love of her life. There would never be anyone else, not for her. She had no idea how the hell she was supposed to deal with that realization. She leaned back against the headboard and sighed.
Chapter Nine
Elise didn’t know how long she’d been lounging there, zoning out and worrying, when she heard a sharp sound from the doorway, which had been left partially open so their ersatz guards could keep an eye on things.
“Psst.” The hiss came again.
Elise looked up to see Fianna Meadows poking her head around the door.
The former elf worried her lower lip between her teeth and cast Elise a look of supplication. “Can I speak to you for a moment?”
“Go ahead.” Meagan waved a hand toward the door when Elise glanced over to where she lounged in the chair. “I’ll stay with the munchkin. I’m not going to be able to sleep until I see Ric with my own eyes anyway.”
Elise knew the feeling. She hoped Dina knew what she was talking about, but until Aidan returned, she wouldn’t truly believe that he was all right. Love could certainly be a pain in the butt.
“Worth it, though,” Meagan replied idly as Elise stood and walked toward the door.
Had she spoken out loud? Or had she dropped her mental shields without realizing it? One way or another, Elise’s brain was most certainly not firing on all cylinders, which probably made this a bad time for a tête-à-tête with one of Owain Le Faire’s followers. Nonetheless, she slipped out the gap in the doorway and moved a few feet down the hall toward Fianna, who stood in the space between the two doors of the Willows’ suite, shifting her weight from side to side. Lana waved from her position at the stair landing, a few yards down the hall.
Elise had never met Aidan’s former secretary before she’d been punished by being turned human. Fianna wore no glamour now that she’d been turned into a mortal. Though her features were still almost inhumanly delicate and her ears had a tiny hint of a point if you looked carefully, she was definitely a mortal, if an incredibly beautiful one. She was exhausted like the rest of them, though, with dark shadows under her aquamarine eyes and her pale blond hair streaked with dust and hanging limply about her shoulders. Someone had given her a black cardigan sweater, which she wore over top her light blue New Moon Bar polo shirt. The visible strip of the shirt was smudged with greasy dirt like her hair. The cell they’d rescued her from had been none too clean, but Fianna, to her credit, hadn’t complained a bit.
“I wanted to speak with you personally.” Fianna’s blue-green eyes stared down at the scuffed toe of her black boot. She glanced up and firmed her chin. “I wanted to apologize to you for ever having been part of my uncle’s plans. When he sent me here to spy on Lord Green Oak, he promised me no one would get hurt. He used me to gain access to the portal.”
“And he put a magical trap on it that killed Gunter.” Elise knew the story of what had happened before Meagan and Ric had stopped Owain. Wallis had been Aidan’s number two security man until the death of his friend and employee, Gunter, in the damaged portal. Elise remembered the troll who’d acted as driver for Aidan as well as bodyguard five years earlier.
Fianna nodded. “That’s when I knew he was wrong. My mother died when I was born and my father chose to leave me in her brother’s household—he wasn’t particularly interested in raising a child. So I grew up with Oswald and I was taught to honor my uncle as a lord among our people. He was very proud to be a cousin of the queen herself. The superiority of the Fae, particularly the true-blooded elf, was drummed into my head. Even though I have spent time now with other races, ingrained prejudice is hard to overcome.”
“I understand.” Elise did in a way. The Wyndewin League tended to disapprove of non-humans in general, as if expecting them to break the law at any opport
unity. Desmond still bought into that. It had taken Elise a while to realize that non-humans were simply people too—some good, some bad, most somewhere in between.
“I swear to you, though, that I never would have gone along with my uncle had I known it meant killing. Even though I agreed with his belief, I would not have aided him in that. And Oswald—well, my cousin is a different man entirely.” She shuddered. “I don’t think his motives are as pure as his father’s. Uncle Le Faire wanted power, but because he believed it was right. Oswald—he just wants to be in charge. He has no moral code at all. Be careful. Whatever plan he is up to, it will be of benefit to no one but himself.”
“Thank you for the warning.” Elise held out a hand to the other woman. “And I believe you. You have learned a lot in the last six weeks, haven’t you?”
Fianna actually grinned. “Besides how to wash dishes and avoid getting my ass pinched by lecherous drunks? Yes. The wolves—they are a bit uncouth, but they are good people underneath it all. I could have been given a far harsher sentence than to have to work for them.” Her translucent skin pinkened as she mentioned the wolves and her aura did as well.
Elise bit back a gasp. Had Fianna fallen for Greg? George was taken and Fianna didn’t seem to swing toward women. Oh, wow, that was an interesting development. She filed it away for future reference. “Is there anything more you can tell us about Oswald? Where he might be hiding? Who he might be working with?”
Fianna shook her head. “I know he is extremely powerful. He’s the only one of my generation who had the same level of power as the queen, which is part of the reason for his delusions of grandeur. His father told him over and over as a child that his changeable eyes were the mark of a future ruler and Oswald believed it completely.”
That stopped Elise in her tracks with a gasp. “What?”
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