Brack, the dragon from earlier, was there with another two men who looked remarkably like him. Other dragons, she assumed. He took one of the three seats along the end of the table. She assumed he either owned the place or his family did.
Chuck sat next to two other power people, alphas she didn’t know, a mated pair with matching scars.
Cawli squirmed in her head.
Dammit, Dexx. He needed to be at this meeting so Hattie could push back. Everyone here was an alpha in their own way.
Bal and Bastet were even there, regal and commanding from where they stood near the corner.
It appeared as though many of the paranormal races were gathered.
Time to get this party started. “What are we discussing now? Are we hoping to accomplish something today?”
The older version of Brack sank into a green chair. He had salt-and-pepper hair that was mostly salt. He rested his ankle on his knee and draped one arm over his leg. “We’re here because Merry gathered us.”
That didn’t help. “And your reason for showing up?”
He put both feet on the floor and leaned on the table. “She pulled a favor.”
He talked like the kind of person who knew what power was. Real power. Not this fly-by-night, oh-we-have-unbreakable-wards-and-a-pack. He didn’t seem like the kind of guy who needed his ego constantly inflated. So, she didn’t buy it. “So, you’re telling me you came all the way out here just because Merry-Merry-Quite-Contradictory—” Which she wasn’t, but Paige was certain Dexx would approve of her attempt at snarky humor. “—snapped her fingers? You don’t look like a lap dog to me.”
He raised an eyebrow.
The scarred mated pair who had been talking with Chuck by the baby grand piano turned toward her, interest lighting their eyes with a distant amber glow.
Chuck raised an eyebrow as if trying to tell her to calm her jets.
There was entirely too much going on to calm her jets. “You’re not here out of charity or favors. You’re here because DoDO and the government pushed us into a situation. So, let’s stop posturing and get to business.”
“The situation you put us in,” Ryo said, his dark hair moving with a breeze Paige didn’t feel. His silver business jacket pulled away from his slim hips as if the air itself was having a love affair with him right there on the spot.
Paige couldn’t refute his statement, so she shrugged. “I could have just let Sven destroy the world, I guess. That’s what he was intent on doing.”
“What happened to the days of caution?” the curvaceous, dark-haired earth elemental asked. Her dark skin gave a whole new meaning to the term healthy glow.
“You try hiding someone intent on separating the Earth from the gates of both Heaven and Hell.”
Duglas tipped his red head to the side as he took a seat in one of the uncomfortable looking grey-blue chairs. “I did wonder what they were doin’.”
Paige didn’t know if any of them knew why they were even there besides the brewing war. So, maybe filling them in on how it’d started wouldn’t be a horrible idea. “Sven Seven tails was a demon who sought power, a lot of it. He got it and found a way to tear the gates from Earth. He would have made a kingdom all his own with absolute control over everything.”
“Which would have destroyed everything,” the earth elemental said, her voice low. It sounded like seductive pillow talk, even though there was nothing hot or sexy about what she said.
“Exactly.” Now if only Paige remembered the woman’s name, but honestly when she thought of the earth elemental, names were the last thing on her mind. “As it stands, he nearly succeeded. The gates are…” She didn’t even know how to explain what they had been able to do. “Tethered, I guess? It’s temporary. How temporary? I don’t know. But it’s handled for now.”
“For now?” a woman demanded, walking toward her, her bright red hair rising and cascading from her in flames.
It wasn’t hard to guess that she was the fire elemental. “I don’t know if it’s done.”
The older dragon stood and went to a table along the side wall, pouring himself a drink. “We are here to decide as a nation instead of as a region if we are going to war?” He took a sip and sat down in his spot.
Oh. National high alphas and leaders. That made sense. “What options do we have? I’m tired of fighting.”
A tall, lithe fairy woman stepped into the room. “Daenys said you would try a path of peace. How is this working?”
Realistically? “It’s too early to tell, but we’re putting a good face out there. Popular opinion is shifting. That can only be a good thing.”
“You do not win a war with opinions.”
“You obviously don’t know the American people,” Paige shot back, feeling the woman’s power rise within her. Paige didn’t feel the need to call on her own. “Opinions are our greatest strength.”
The fairy queen frowned slightly and raised her chin. “We can’t all flee like the elves. We don’t all have places to hide where the humans won’t find us.”
Would they want to if they could? “True. We can’t hide like them. So, we have to deal with this head-on. DoDO has been spying on us for a long time.” Paige told them about the recovered surveillance cameras throughout the town. “We don’t know what they do or do not know.”
The older dragon steepled his fingers and shook his head. “Tell us about your wards.”
Paige filled them in about those as well. “As far as we can tell, they are sentient. I’ll draw up a plan to see if we can get enough of these set up around all or most of the paranormal communities.”
The female half of the power shifter couple strode toward them with the look and feel of a lioness. She stood beside the older dragon.
Didn’t his name also start with a “k”? Paige needed to get better at this.
“That would paint a target on each of them,” the lioness said.
She wasn’t wrong. “But if we—"
The woman slashed her hand and shook her head violently. “You think too small, something Chuck tried to warn us about.”
Paige gave Chuck a what-the-fuck look.
His expression read, What did you want me to do? Lie? and he shrugged.
She is our High Alpha, Cawli said inside her head. She and her husband are a mated pair. They govern the North American continent. So, tread carefully.
Oh. Well… she swallowed. Shit. Dexx really needed to be there instead of her.
Kat and Hadwin Wilcher, Cawli added.
Oh. Finally, names. “I hate to disappoint, Kat.” Paige smiled tightly. “But those wards are the only things keeping DoDO from running around and kidnapping people off the street. Let’s say we create wards in random locations, on private land that we have access to.”
“Like the Whiskey property,” Chuck offered.
Okay, maybe this wasn’t a great idea. She suddenly pictured people invading the sanctuary of her home. But they couldn’t use federal property unless they went to really remote federal property. They still paid taxes, registered or not. “Yeah. Like that. But we put the wards up and invite paranormals to come to us.”
“Create our own concentration camps, you mean,” the earth elemental said, stroking her own leg with dark seduction.
Paige hadn’t thought of that. And why was that so damned sexy?
Neither had Kat. It looked like she’d been slapped in the face.
“This is not a bad idea,” Hadwin said, coming to stand beside his mate. “Small, but not bad.” He raised his blond eyebrows at his mate and silenced her with a wide-eyed look. “We claim a territory and then rule it.”
“The government did that with the natives,” Kat said, her blonde hair almost rising as it darkened.
Was her shifter spirit a male lion?
No. She is a lioness, but there are times when she chooses to invoke a mane when in half-form to subdue the wills of others.
Interesting. Paige focused on what he said. A territory they could rule? “Wh
ere are you going to go? Canada? There is no unclaimed land in the U.S.” Was there in Canada either?
“Nor in the world,” Hadwin said, turning toward her. “But were we to secede, we would no longer need to worry about the federal government. We’d have a country of our own.”
“Sece—” What? Paige’s brain just…stopped.
The older dragon—
Ken Waugh. Cawli filled in information as she looked at the gathering. He’s a dragon shifter and leader of the mythos.
Mythos? One day, he was going to have to tell her the difference between mythos and ancients. But now wasn’t the time.
Brack nodded. “Many of us would lose investments. Properties.”
“We’d gain new ones,” Kat said.
“What of the dryads?” Paige asked. They were entire forests. Uprooting was hard on the grove.
“Or the fae?” the fairy queen asked, nodding with respect in Paige’s direction.
“Or anyone bloody else?” Duglas demanded. “This is our home.”
Kat stared him in the eye and shook her head. “Not any longer. The only question you have to ask yourselves is how you wish to live?”
Secession wasn’t a light topic. It would invite civil war—
Maybe not.
Other states had tried to secede, and there’d been no war.
But they’d also failed. “Who do we have who can research the reality of this?”
Brack opened his mouth to speak, but the door crashed open, and Daenys stumbled through, blue blood trickling down her front.
Ken’s butler came into the room, calmly stating, “The elf queen has arrived, sir.”
A dozen other elves, equally bleeding and battered, filled the room.
The butler looked over at Ken, his hands folded in front of him. “Should I start a pot of tea?”
These people were ridiculous.
16
Paige went to Daenys and helped her to one of the couches.
Brack didn’t even complain about the blood. He nodded to his butler, who disappeared, and then watched the elf queen settle herself. She recovered way faster than Paige would have.
She is very old, Cawli said.
Whatever that meant.
Paige went to the couch too, getting a better look at the queen. Elves were powerful. Very powerful. And hidden in Underhill.
Eldora went to one of the other elves. Merry went to another and the two of them helped the wounded.
Which, okay, Paige could be doing too. But it felt like her other skills were needed here. “What happened?”
“We were attacked,” Daenys said harshly, blue spittle flying.
“What did you think would happen when you ran like cowards?” the fairy queen demanded, stepping into view, her hands fisted on either side of her.
“I was trying to protect my people. What would you know of that, Llyntomi?”
Well, that certainly sounded like a raging cat fight of entertainment, but they didn’t have time for popcorn. “Where are your people?”
“Our fortress,” Daenys said, expelling a long breath.
“Who did this?” Paige was hoping she’d get particulars on where the fortress was later.
“DoDO.”
“How?” Llyntomi asked derisively. “You hide Underhill.”
Daenys stared up at the other queen, her green eyes filled with sorrow. “Not as hidden as we thought. They came with doors.”
Eldora whipped her head around. “What?”
Right. Paige hadn’t gotten to that part yet. “They have door magick of some kind.”
“How?” Eldora demanded.
Paige shrugged. “I don’t know all the particulars, but they’re mages. They use ley lines?”
A dark realization crashed over Ken’s features. He rose to his feet as the butler came in with tea. “Gather everyone.”
The butler set down the tea calmly. “What should I say is the reason?”
“Mages,” Ken growled.
The butler blinked, but no other real emotion flitted across his face. “Drink your tea, sir.” And then he left.
“I take it you’ve had run-ins with their kind before,” Paige said dryly.
Ken glanced at his sons briefly and nodded. “You and I are going to have a discussion about your wards because if they truly are mages, then they aren’t enough.”
Well, that was mildly interesting.
The next few minutes was all about getting information from Daenys with the help of her enemy, Llyntomi. Those two mixed worse than oil and water.
It didn’t look or sound good.
Daenys no longer had control of the door leading to Underhill. Somehow, DoDO mages had cut her off. She’d barely been able to get a door open here, and the only way she’d managed that was with the help of one of Eldora’s pendants.
Paige fingered the pendant Merry had given her. There was a wealth of information both those old witches had that could come in handy.
She’d have to send Leah to learn. And try to learn herself.
Chuck came to stand next to Paige. “You’re the face of this. What do you want to do?”
Paige didn’t know exactly. If this wasn’t so huge, with so many implications, she’d— “I want to get over there, open a few doors, get as many people out of the immediate danger zone as we can, and root DoDO out like they’re termites.”
Chuck nodded. “How?”
Paige turned to Eldora. “How many doors can we open?”
“If you can open one, then we have two.”
“And the amulet that Daenys has?”
“Was good for one door.”
That was unfortunate. “What about—”
Eldora shook her head. “I am not sacrificing my family to save deserters.”
Paige wanted to be upset with that, but it was a fair statement. She turned to Daenys. “Underhill is massive.”
The elf queen nodded.
Paige also kinda remembered stories of other kingdoms and a big wooded area or something? “Are there places your people can hide until you return?”
She nodded again.
They couldn’t extract. They didn’t have those kinds of resources. But maybe—just maybe—they could relocate. She turned to Eldora and Merry. “We set up doors around the area to the wildlands of Underhill, protect them with wards—no matter what Ken says—and then leave instructions for them to lay low until their queen returns with something better.”
Merry quirked her brow. “That’s your plan?”
“In a nutshell, yes.” Why did Merry make her feel like a stupid little girl?
Daenys clamped her pink lips shut tight, her green eyes narrowed. “Thank you,” she whispered.
Paige didn’t know anything about elves. They looked a lot like people to her. “Thank me when we’ve done something. Good intentions don’t save lives.”
Maybe she’d be learning before Leah. “Eldora, teach me door magick?”
The Blackman witch rose to her considerable short stature. “If you had come to me sooner–” She shook herself. “No matter. You’re here now.”
Eldora taught Paige to open a door.
Paige tried to pick it up quickly. Really, she did. She was a terrible student. Alma had said the same thing. Repeatedly and with a lot more curse words. Eldora was short, but she still managed to pack a punch with her tongue, even without cursing.
Door magick was a lot like sending demons back, except she had to open a door to somewhere else and that was tripping Paige up.
“It’s location. It’s fighting me.” She just couldn’t figure it out in her head what that felt like. When she cast a location spell, she could usually get a general sense of location—if the spell even worked, which it didn’t always. But this time… “It’s like there’s something interfering. Like a static of some sort.”
“See if you can hear it through the static.” Though, Eldora wasn’t succeeding either.
Paige fought through the static, pulling and twis
ting at the interference. The earth rumbled.
Eldora shot her a look. “What, exactly, do you think you’re doing?”
The earth elemental rose and sashayed toward Paige, her dark eyes scoring her.
“Um.” Paige hadn’t called on earth or on fire, so she didn’t know. “Sorry?”
“Feel the land,” the earth elemental said, her silk voice caressing her like a lover. “The plants, the trees, the animals, the sky, earth. All of it. Listen.”
Paige closed her eyes to the chill of desire running through her and found her center. She stopped fighting the static and just tried to listen better. She eventually caught a very pale glimmer of what Eldora said she needed.
Opening the door wasn’t anything special. She’d done this a hundred times when sending demons back to Hell. She just hadn’t realized this was what she’d been doing.
Stepping through her own door, though. That was a trip that made her dizzy. For a brief moment, she was literally in two places at once—maybe three if she counted the doorway as a third?
When she stepped through, though, it was…
War. Elves ran, fought, and died.
DoDO surged forward.
This place didn’t have sun, but there was light. Vines were everywhere—on the ground, in the trees, overhead. They writhed with lives of their own, defending the elves as best they could. The buildings were built out of the vines and living trees and were immense. They made the downtowns of the human world pale in comparison.
Paige wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do, exactly. Well, no. She had the plan. She realized now that it was a mildly crappy plan that didn’t take into account the fact that they’d be stepping into a war zone.
“Mom!” Leah shouted behind her.
What the fuck? Paige spun on her heel and stared at her daughter and Tyler in horror. “What the hell are you doing here?”
Eldora waved her off as she turned to her small army of Blackman witches and started giving them orders.
Leah had the audacity to ignore Paige and head over to listen to Eldora instead.
No. Nonononono. That was unacceptable.
Whiskey Storm (Whiskey Witches Midnight Rising Book 1) Page 15
