by Mindy Klasky
So, I’d done what any reasonable fae princess would do under the circumstances.
I’d gobbled down three chestnut buns. And then I slept.
When I woke—at 15:47, according to the military clock on the wall—I immediately tested the well of my powers. Sleep had worked its usual wonders. I could change from gnome to fae with a flicker of thought. But I decided to hold my current form a little longer. I might need its brutish strength if I wanted to rescue myself from my prison.
First things first then: I polished off the last of my fae food. No reason to work on an empty stomach.
I glared at that clock on the wall, a reminder that I wasn’t in the Thousand-Oak Grove any longer. Of course it displayed military time, the better to protect any vampires who might be ill enough or absent-minded enough to mistake twelve noon for twelve midnight.
My neat fae world was far behind, and it was up to me to figure out how to get out of this cell. Drawing on my gnomish stamina, I centered the wheeled supply cart in front the door and rammed it hard against the metal barrier—approximately fifty times.
I was under no delusion that I could break my way to freedom. But I hoped someone would investigate the source of the noise. I could plead my case then, convince them I had been wrongly imprisoned.
Or, you know. I could bribe them with Jonathan Weaver’s hundred-dollar bill.
No such luck. The vampires who surrounded me were dead to the world. Dead. Get it?
And the hospital staff clearly remained under instructions to ignore me. I finally abandoned my assault on the door when the supply cart’s handle snapped off in my hand.
Well, if my gnomish strength was no longer an advantage, I might as well dismiss my glamour.
It felt glorious to stretch my fae arms above my head, pulling my fingers toward the ceiling like a tree seeking sunlight in the middle of the Grove. My legs trembled, aching as if I’d walked a dozen leagues—which, of course, I had. I ran my hands over my face, rejoicing in my hairless, itch-free chin and throat.
And then, I settled in to wait.
I quickly realized that I should have rationed my chestnut buns. There wasn’t any food in the hospital room—an understandable omission, given the fact that regular patients on this ward dined exclusively on blood. I couldn’t have eaten any food there, anyway. Consuming anything grown locally would bind me to the Eastern Empire forever—the same way that mortal wanderers got locked into the Thousand-Oak Grove by eating fae cakes and drinking fae mead.
If—when—I got out of this prison, I’d be sticking to packaged foods, the way I’d guaranteed my safety on field trips to London. Sea salt and vinegar crisps were a traveling fae’s best friend. Aero bars as well. I’d even settle for a packet of dry digestive biscuits.
After I’d confirmed there wasn’t a stray candy bar hiding anywhere in the room, I picked up a pamphlet from the nightstand beside my bed. It had a moonlit picture of the obelisk I’d passed on my way from the airport, with the hilltop white temple gleaming in the distance. Welcome the Night, it said in bold letters. It seemed to be some sort of handbook for newly turned vampires.
That was one problem I didn’t need to face. Boredom, on the other hand…
I passed my hands over the slick paper, forcing a glamour on the brochure. With my powers restored by sleep, it took little effort to turn the pages into a pack of playing cards. Crossing my legs on the tangle of sheets, I settled in to wait for darkness to fall and, presumably, my vampire jailer to return.
I occupied my time by practicing palming cards and dealing out consecutive royal flushes. Hand after hand, I stoked my dry anger against Jonathan Weaver. He’d had no right to lock me up. He deserved every Game Oberon wanted to play against him. He’d pay for daring to cross a fae princess; my father would level all the might of the Seelie Court against his puny hospital.
But he had caught me red-handed, pilfering his cash. And no one deserved Oberon’s abuse. And I lacked all confidence that the Seelie King would even acknowledge me as his daughter, much less send knights errant to rescue me, after I’d embarrassed him by running away from my wedding.
I did my best to banish those thoughts. I was Princess Titania. I was perfectly capable of rescuing myself.
Jonathan appeared outside my room at half past seven, 19:30 by the clock on the wall. I wasn’t accustomed to sunrise and sunset here in the capital of the Eastern Empire, but I was willing to bet my best ivy crown that he’d come straight from his vampire lair. He didn’t bother bringing his gargoyle lackey. Instead, he opened each lock on my cell himself.
My throat went dry as a lightning-struck branch the instant Jonathan Weaver stepped into the room.
It wasn’t just his eyes—glinting like new spring leaves. It wasn’t his forearms either—hard and muscled beneath the rolled-back sleeves of his starched white dress shirt. I couldn’t even blame his broad shoulders, filling the doorway before he entered my domain.
It was the totality of him, the complete package, more commanding than any fae I’d ever met.
I took a little pleasure in the startled look on his face. He was expecting to meet a common gnome woman. He’d had no idea that he’d be facing Titania Silveroak. I pointed my toes, stretching my long legs before I climbed off the bed.
No one could blame me. Not after I realized he was studying each twitch of every muscle in my body. And I was pretty sure he wasn’t just brushing up for a med school class on anatomy.
“Dr. Weaver,” I said, purposely pitching my voice to a low murmur. He took a step closer, and a surge of victory flooded my body. I spread my glamoured playing cards into a fan between us. “Pick a card,” I urged. “Any card.”
He ignored my suggestive come-on. “You’re a fae,” he said. If he’d been human, I suspect his face would have paled to the color of fresh milk. As it was, his voice conveyed his shock.
I collapsed the cards into a deck before I raised my right hand at a calculated angle. He wouldn’t know whether to shake like a boring mortal or kiss like a proper lord. “Titania Silveroak,” I said. “Princess of the Seelie Court.”
Jonathan refused to take my bait. Instead, he reached for the clipboard at the foot of my bed.
Just as well. I had no desire to shake hands. And his lips would have been chilled, unless he’d fed directly before reporting to work.
Of course, the form on the clipboard he studied so closely was absolutely blank. Despite my confinement, I wasn’t a patient in this hospital. As the good doctor had likely commanded, no nurse had checked on me during the day, asking embarrassing questions about my bodily functions, poking, prodding, demanding a gift of my fae blood for the vampires on the ward.
Still, the official form gave Dr. Weaver something to do with his fingers. And what fascinating fingers they were… Long and lean, they’d already tended to Oberon’s self-inflicted wound. I could only imagine what else those hands might do. And, fae princess that I was, I had a very active imagination.
“What the hell are you doing here?” he demanded.
“I seem to recall you locking me up for the night.”
His eyes flicked toward my waist, where he’d last seen the gnome woman’s leather pouch. Now, I wore a pearled reticule of spider-silk, a brilliant white to complement my now-bedraggled bridal dress. When he realized his gaze had lingered on my hips, his voice grew rough. “You stole my money.”
I wasn’t above swaying on my feet. Just a bit, to make his eyes linger on my waist. “I’ll make that up to you,” I promised. I threaded the words with a hint of lure, just enough to bend a human to my will.
He shook his head, as if he were annoyed by the buzz of a mayfly. “There are no fae in the Eastern Empire,” he said. I should have realized my lure would fail. Oberon’s had, the night before. I’d been prideful enough to think I could succeed where the Unseelie Prince had failed. I wouldn’t make that mistake again.
“My people seldom travel from the Thousand-Oak Grove,” I agreed.
&nbs
p; “Your people—” He made us sound like leaf rot. “Are banned from entering the Eastern Empire.”
“Perhaps it’s time to change that outmoded rule. Thomas Jefferson died almost two hundred years ago. We should let bygones be bygones.”
His eyes narrowed. “I’m not the man to make that decision.”
I looked up at him through my lashes, softening my voice to a seductive lilt. “Who better?”
“The Empire Bureau of Investigation.” His voice was flat. He’d threatened me with them the night before, when he’d caught my hand in his pocket. Now, he looked like he’d just bitten down on a chunk of raw turnip.
I was a princess, not a common milkmaid. And I wasn’t accustomed to having my most flirtatious glance ignored. I raised my chin and said, “Fine, then. I claim Debt.”
Debt. The obligation all creatures—natural and supernatural—owed to we fae. Debt was a memory of the power we’d harnessed to secure the ancient oak groves, to protect the primeval wells of power, that rampant raw magic spawned by the Green Man and Green Lady when they created our world.
I wasn’t a monster. I understood the consequences of using a word of power to force an innocent to do my bidding. Jonathan Weaver would be chained by Debt, a part of him would forever be linked to the essence of my fae power.
But despair makes the wolf eat clover. I would not—could not—be ignored. Not when the alternative was returning to Oberon Blackthorne and the altar in the Thousand-Oak Grove.
Jonathan laughed. His lips curled. His eyes closed. His cursed clipboard dropped against his thigh. He was absolutely, completely, utterly amused—all at my expense.
I set my hands on my hips—those same hips that had captivated him only moments before—and waited for him to regain his composure. “Come on,” I said at last. “It wasn’t that funny.”
“It was hysterical,” he said, finally sobering enough to speak. “You truly don’t understand. You are nothing here. Your lineage, your title, they mean nothing to me. Your quaint little custom of Debt does not apply in the Eastern Empire.”
“Fine then,” I snapped. “Protect me, and I’ll get you to your daughter’s wedding.”
It was a gamble, a calculated risk. I’d already concluded he and his daughter were estranged. The contents of his wallet, though, said he longed for reconciliation.
Jonathan Weaver looked as if I’d just pushed him from the highest branch of the tallest oak in the Grove. “How could you possibly—”
Then he remembered I’d had his wallet in my hands. His face slammed closed like the beak of a hunting hawk. Well, that was the risky part. That, and the fact that I had no idea what Game I would play to meet my obligation, if he accepted my offer.
Before he could answer, he was interrupted by the ringing of a telephone. Annoyance creased his face, but he pulled his mobile from his left pocket, the one I hadn’t picked the night before. He frowned at the screen, and I caught a glimpse of the single displayed word: “Unknown.”
He answered with a quick swipe of his index finger. “Weaver,” he barked after he brought the phone to his ear.
“Listen carefully,” came a voice from the machine, loud enough for me to hear in the still of the hospital room.
“Who is this?” Jonathan demanded.
But I knew. I recognized the voice, even though it was transmitted by electronics, flattened and jangled by a technological box.
“You have something that belongs to me,” the voice said. “And now I’ve returned the favor.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“I’ve got Abigail Weaver,” Oberon Blackthorne said. “And if you ever want to see her again, you’ll deliver Titania Silveroak to the Smithsonian Castle at midnight tomorrow.”
5
“The Abduction Game,” I said, the instant Jonathan terminated the call.
“What?” He was already running his fingers over his phone, scrolling through pages of information.
“The Abduction Game,” I repeated.
He didn’t acknowledge me. Instead, he stabbed at the screen with a determined finger, pulling up a picture of a middle-aged woman. She had glossy brown hair and sad eyes. Clarice Sanders was printed below her image. Jonathan hovered over a row of blue icons, as if uncertain whether to contact her or leave her in peace.
I covered the screen with my palm. He snarled but was forced to meet my gaze. “Oberon doesn’t actually have your daughter. This is a Game. Ordinarily, he’d ask for a ransom payment, arranging the drop-off before you discover that the so-called victim is perfectly fine. He doesn’t want money, though. He wants me.”
That finally got his attention. “You’re Titania Silveroak.”
I skipped mocking him for his slow comprehension. He’d had a shock—and the fact that he cared enough about Abigail Weaver to be knocked this far off his game spoke well to his fitness as a man. “Oberon’s working a scam as old as the first acorn. He doesn’t have your daughter. He’s probably never seen her.”
“Why the hell would he do that?”
I shrugged. “We’re fae. We play Games. That’s what supernatural creatures do.”
“Not me.”
“No, you’re a—” I bit off my too-fast reply.
“What?”
I covered quickly. I couldn’t tell him he was a mark. “You’re a vampire.”
“Then leave me the hell out of your fae games. Me, and mine.”
I thrilled at that word—mine. The tendons in his throat stood out when he said it. His eyes narrowed, and I saw the raw power of a vampire predator staking out his territory.
“I don’t get it,” Jonathan said, seemingly unaware of my reaction. “No one knows about Abby.” His eyes narrowed in suspicion. “No one but this Oberon. And you.” His gaze flew to grey plastic telephone that hunched on the nightstand. “Did you call him last night? Are you the one who put him up to this?”
“Hardly,” I said, gesturing at my rumpled wedding gown. “I crossed the sea to get away from him. Oberon had all day to track down information he could use. Whatever he didn’t learn from every single person you’ve ever spoken to, he found with a computer.”
“So he’s got some sort of fae superpowers?”
I grimaced at the blatant disbelief in Jonathan’s tone. “He’s the prince of the Unseelie Court—that’s superpower enough to make unsuspecting folk tell him the truth. His sidekick does the online work. Rob Goodman’s a genius with technology. He can force his way into anything, even your Empire Bureau of Investigation.”
I wasn’t positive about that last point. Before last night, I’d never even heard of the Empire Bureau of Investigation. But my basic warning was valid—Rob was a madman when it came to electronics. And the more chaos he could sow, the happier he was, like a cuckoo stashing eggs in every nest.
Finally reaching some decision, Jonathan shoved his phone back into his pocket. “How can you be sure Oberon doesn’t have her?”
“Why bother? Kidnapping is a messy business. If he takes her, he has to guard an unwilling woman, evade law enforcement, and work out a tricky prisoner exchange. If he convinces you he has her, he only has to wait for you to hand me over. Then he drags me back to the Thousand-Oak Grove.”
Jonathan gritted his teeth. “You can’t be certain.”
I jutted my chin toward his pocket. “Go ahead, then. Give Abigail a call.”
Even as I issued the challenge, I was pretty sure Jonathan wouldn’t place the call. For whatever reason, he wasn’t involved in his own daughter’s life. But I needed to hear him confirm that. I needed to hear his voice tighten with…hatred? Disgust? Regret? Even when he said it—“I can’t.”—I wasn’t sure which emotion ruled him.
But as the words lingered in the air between us, puzzle pieces shifted into place. I let my voice soften. “She doesn’t know you’re her father.”
He grunted an agreement, a shamed admission. “She doesn’t know anything about the Eastern Empire. The only thing she knows
about vampires is what she’s heard in stories.”
“That’s the same thing as knowing nothing at all.”
“Not helping,” Jonathan snapped. Then, grasping at straws, he said, “I can take my phone to the authorities. Maybe they can trace the phone number.”
I stared at him in disbelief. “I live in the middle of an oak grove, and I know that’s impossible.”
“Then why don’t I just hand you over to him?” His voice was harsh with frustration. “That way Abby’ll be safe, whether he has her or not.”
“I’m your patient, remember? What happened to ‘First, do no harm?’” My tutors would be proud to hear how well I’d mastered their lessons.
“You’re not my patient,” he pointed out. “You violated the fae’s ancient pact just by setting foot in DC. You entered my hospital under false pretenses, and you stole my wallet. And until I know my daughter is safe, I’m not letting you out of my sight.”
Wham! His animal growl as he uttered that vow sent another shiver down my spine, a ripple that swirled around my thighs and settled in the pit of my stomach.
Jonathan believed he could use me. He thought I was some sort of exotic currency, something he could trade, the same way my father had thought to barter me to Oberon.
But I heard something more in his jealous demand. Or maybe I imagined more. Because suddenly, irrevocably, the thought of being forever in Jonathan Weaver’s sight was a lot more appealing than I’d ever imagined.
Too bad that was all going to end at midnight tomorrow, when we journeyed to the Smithsonian Castle and I proved once and for all that Oberon Blackthorne had never even seen Jonathan Weaver’s daughter, much less kidnapped her.
