But she’d be lying if she said there wasn’t another man on her mind as well. The man who’d kissed her. Man, fae, whatever he was. She rolled her eyes. If she wanted a memory to take to prison, she’d certainly gotten herself one.
Why on earth had she decided to pick a guy who was fae? Silly female hormones. Sure, what she’d been able to see of him—and feel of him—had been undeniably amazing, but fae? His kiss had poured emotions into her she’d never expected to feel. The way his desire to possess her had just poured into her veins… she shivered at the memory, trying unsuccessfully to shut it out. To make matters worse, she’d dreamed of him, her bare hands gripping those horns of his while he—she blew out a hard breath in an attempt to alleviate the rising flush of warmth.
At least she’d never have to see him again. Whether her mother said yes or no about the money, she was going home today. If the CCU found out she’d left the state, she’d be in worse trouble than she already was.
A soft inhale brought her head up. Olivia stood on the porch, eyes liquid in a way Harlow hoped meant good things. “Harlow?”
She stood, her heart bumping against her rib cage in an attempt to break free. Her gut said run. Instead, she pushed her sunglasses up onto her head. “Hi. Mom.” The word tasted so strange. “It’s nice to see you.” It was. She hadn’t seen Olivia in a long time.
Olivia’s hair was silver-white now, making her look older than Harlow remembered, but she still looked healthy and full of life. Something Harlow had always envied.
Olivia’s knuckles tightened around the head of the cane she was using. “What brings you here after all these years?”
Harlow exhaled a soft, whooshing breath and began. There was no good place, really, so she just jumped in and prayed it made sense. “The work I do, with computers, I had a client who hired me to do some backdoor stuff, except I didn’t know it was backdoor stuff until I got in there and then I got out too late and the CCU tracked me—or someone did—and—”
“CCU?” Olivia’s brow wrinkled.
“Cyber Crimes Unit.” That put a label on things, didn’t it? “They… prosecuted me and so now I have this fine I can’t pay and I didn’t know where else to turn and…” Harlow took a breath, her mouth dry with anxiety. “I’m sorry that this is what’s brought me here. I know how that makes me look.”
“Do you?” Olivia planted her cane in front of her and put both hands on the crystal capping the end. “You don’t answer the phone when I call. You barely answer the emails I send.”
“I know and I’ll try to be better, I really will—”
“It’s been years since I last saw you and then you granted me a grand total of forty-five minutes for lunch with the excuse that you had things to do and now you show up on my door asking for money? This is why you’ve finally come to see me?”
Harlow swallowed down her embarrassment. “I know, Mom, I know. But you know why things are like this between us. Why I don’t answer your calls or your emails. All I’ve ever asked is to know who my father—”
“How much is this fine?”
Harlow blinked into the sunlight, on the verge of tears she’d sworn she wouldn’t shed. That’s always how it was when the subject of her father came around. A screeching dead end. “Eight hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”
Olivia’s expression never faltered. “That is quite a sum of money. What happens if you don’t pay it?”
“It’s a huge sum of money.” Harlow’s sense of hope spiraled downward. “But without it, I go to prison.”
“For how long?”
Harlow’s answer was soft, her voice verging on a tremor that reflected what was going on inside her. “Two years.” Speaking things had such a way of making them real.
Olivia was quiet a long moment. Then her brows rose, the look on her face far less horrified than Harlow imagined it would be. “Just think, I’d know exactly where you were, and exactly when I could come visit you. I’d probably see you more in those two years than I have in the last twenty.”
“You’d let me… go to prison?” A chill dropped through Harlow, leaving her numb and desperate. “I’m willing to stop asking about my father.” As the words left her mouth, part of Harlow’s soul cried out.
“Are you willing to move here, too?”
Harlow swallowed. “Maybe. We could… talk about it. I guess.”
“Somehow I doubt that.” Olivia’s mouth bent in disbelief. “I haven’t decided anything yet. I need time to take this all in.” Olivia turned toward the door. “I’ll give you my answer at breakfast tomorrow. Eight a.m.”
“I kind of need to go home today—”
Olivia paused, her eyes sharp with something dark. “Then I can give you my answer right now, but you’re not going to like it.”
“But, as I was going to say, I would be happy to change my plans so I can make breakfast.” Happy wasn’t exactly what she’d be, but she didn’t see any other choice. Besides, it was the right thing to do. A little personal time in exchange for whatever Olivia was willing to give her… that was fair.
“Good.” Olivia nodded, her look of disapproval fading.
Unable to stop herself, Harlow reached out and grabbed her mother’s hand. Her voice came out a broken whisper. “Please, Mom. Just give me a hint about my father? Anything, his initials, his place of birth—”
“He’s dead.” Olivia’s gaze softened as if she suddenly realized the impact of her words. “I’m sorry. But it’s time to let the past go, Harlow.” She squeezed Harlow’s hand, then released it.
Barely breathing from the shock of her mother’s confession, Harlow stood there openmouthed and numb. “Dead?”
“Yes, and don’t ask for details. Just let it go. Please.” Olivia sighed. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” Then she walked back into the house and shut the door, leaving Harlow alone.
Harlow wanted desperately to get back to her car, but for two or three minutes she stood there, frozen to the spot. Her emotions warred over what was worse—the death of a father she’d never known or her mother about to let her go to prison. The news about her father was such a shock she couldn’t process it. The possibility that her mother might actually let her go to jail was a reality she’d expected, but then again, maybe she hadn’t. Not really.
How could her father be dead when she’d never had a chance to know him? Her heart hurt so much she thought she might vomit right there on the porch. How could her mother just drop that kind of news on her? What was so awful about her father that Olivia didn’t want Harlow to even know his initials? The ache in her chest expanded throughout her body. She’d never had a father and she’d barely had a mother and now she was about to go to prison.
The hollowness inside her swelled to fill the space where her hope had once lived. Queasy with emotions she never wanted to feel again, she shuffled to her car and drove back to the hotel and her ghastly expensive room, where she sat, lights off, and stared out the window seeing very little but the bleakness of her future.
Olivia wept into her coffee, her appetite gone. Lally sat beside her, their plates untouched, the food cold. “After all these years, she comes to me for money.”
Lally squeezed her hand. “I know, Miss Olivia. That child has some nerve.”
Olivia blew her nose into a handkerchief. “Of course, I’m going to give it to her. I can’t let her go to prison, but she has to know how this hurts me. And does she care? Does she act like she cares? No.” She shook her head and sniffed. “I don’t know what to do, Lally. All my hard work to protect her and she still doesn’t understand. It’s like her father influenced her despite my best efforts.”
“Maybe you could explain to her what she needed protecting against?”
“And tell her what a monster her father really is? I told Harlow he was dead. I’m not sure what came over me. I should have done it years ago after—” Olivia stilled, realizing how much she’d just revealed. “Thank the dear sainted Elizabeth Taylor that Augie wasn’t awake to
see that nonsense.”
Lally made a derisive noise. “That child sleep through a hurricane if you let him.”
Olivia smiled a tiny bit as the doorbell rang. Her smile faded. “If she’s come back to try to talk me into telling her who her father is again or to get out of coming to breakfast, I swear I will let her go to jail.”
“No, you won’t.” Lally got up. “I’ll take care of this. You get some of that breakfast into you.” A few minutes later, she returned. “You have a visitor, Miss Olivia. He says it’s real important, so I put him in the library.”
“He?”
“Says his name is Fenton Welch. Looks fae to me.”
“Elektos,” she muttered as she pushed up from the table. They were the only ones bold enough to call at this hour. She went into the library and took the chair across from her visitor, glaring at the cypher fae who’d had the bad luck to call on her on this particular morning.
She should have had Lally toss him out. The woman took a strange joy in telling people to leave, but continuing to refuse the Elektos wouldn’t keep them from her door. They were a stubborn lot. At least they’d sent one of their less intimidating members. The slender, freckled fae in spectacles looked about as threatening as your average accountant. A suitable image considering his freckles were actually tiny numbers. Legend said if you could add up a cypher’s freckles and get their total, that cypher would be forever in your power. But she also knew not to touch him. She wasn’t about to give up her account and password information that easily. “What do you want at this uncivilized hour, Elektos?”
“I want to know the whereabouts of Augustine Robelais.”
She shrugged and sat back. “He’s a free man. Comes and goes as he pleases. Hasn’t been here in months.”
“He was seen in the Quarter last night celebrating Nokturnos.”
She kept her mouth shut and just stared at him. Years of watching her agent negotiate contract terms and movie deals had taught her that the first one to speak usually lost.
He pushed his glasses up. “I have the authority to search this house, Ms. Goodwin. You’ve got fae bloodlines and as you reside in a Haven city, you receive the same protection and must abide by the same rules as every other fae within city limits.”
She tapped her cane impatiently on the library’s loblolly pine floor. “I was born here, you idiot. I retired here because it’s my home, not because I needed the protection of the Elektos.” She stifled a laugh at the thought of this bureaucrat trying to protect her from anything greater than a paper cut.
He canted his head to the side, looking up through his lenses at her. Like she was a child that needed things explained to her. The nerve. “Be that as it may, you enjoy our protection whether you actively seek it or not. Now I will ask you one more time, where is Augustine?”
“I have no idea.” Not a lie. She really didn’t know where he was and frankly, she preferred it that way.
Then the sound of boots thudding down her stairs pulled a sigh from her throat.
The fae across from her arched a brow. “No idea, Ms. Goodwin?”
“I don’t monitor his coming and going, peckerhead.”
Augustine’s voice rang out. “Livie, where are you?”
“In the library. With company,” she called back. Damn bothersome company.
Augie sauntered around the corner, the look on his face telegraphing his understanding of her inflection. He shifted his gaze to the newcomer and leaned heavily against the door frame. His horns were gone. He must have sawed them off after he’d come home last night. “I knew we’d come to this sooner or later.”
“This is…” She frowned at her visitor before introducing him. “Fartus Wanker—”
“Fenton Welch,” the man corrected sternly.
She waved his comment away with an impatient hand. “Fenton, Fartus, whatever your name is, you’re not taking Augustine away from me. I need him. I’m an old, old woman and he’s my caretaker. Without him, I’d take the wrong pills and drink drain cleaner by mistake and there’d be no one to call the doctor when I fall and break my hip. Then my death would be on your head.” It wasn’t like Harlow was going to take care of her in her dotage. All that child wanted was the name of the man most likely to kill her. And money.
“Ms. Goodwin, I don’t think—”
“Refreshments?” Lally walked in with a tray of house recipe Bloody Marys. So much for being alone. At least the drink would make Olivia feel better, especially since the house recipe was heavy on the vodka and spice.
Fenton gave Lally the eye, then cleared his throat. “Ms. Goodwin, I’m not here to take Augustine away, although considering his recent actions that would certainly be within the Elektos’s rights.”
“You’re not?” She took a Bloody Mary off the tray Lally held out and swallowed a healthy portion. Vodka was so restorative. Especially when accompanied by a large dose of good, local hot sauce.
“No.” Fenton helped himself to a drink also, but after the first sip, he coughed and set it down. Lightweight.
She patted the cushion next to her. “Augie, come here.” He walked over and settled his lanky form onto the divan with a dancer’s grace. Somehow he made the bulk of muscle he carried seem easy.
Augustine stared at the Elektos, looking unconvinced Fenton wasn’t about to cuff him. “What do you want with me then?”
Fenton put his hands together. “We’ve had some terrible news. Our current Guardian, Khell, was found dead this morning. Throat slit. Never had a chance to fight back.”
Augustine swore softly under his breath. Olivia grabbed his hand, her heart cold in her chest. “That poor boy. And just married, too.”
“That is a damn shame.” Augustine stroked the back of Olivia’s hand with his thumb. Always such a comfort. “Slitting his throat would take away his best defense.” Khell was part wysper and they had a scream that could kill vampires. “Good chance it was vamps.”
Fenton nodded, obviously surprised by Augustine’s knowledge. “We think so, too. Their numbers have been increasing in our city with alarming speed and with last night’s festivities it was easy for them to blend in. Can I ask how you know this?”
“I hear things. And while I’m very sorry about Khell, this news changes nothing. Like I’ve told you before, I am not interested in becoming Guardian.” He crossed his hands through the air. “Not now, not ever.”
Olivia nodded. “Khell’s murder proves how dangerous the job is. You can’t force Augie to do this.”
Fenton sat a little taller in his chair, the light in his pale eyes suddenly stern. “No, I can’t force him.” He looked at Augustine. “But if you don’t take this job, the Elektos will have no reason not to prosecute you for your crimes against fae society. Namely admitting a mortal not only to the fae plane, but to the Claustrum, a place you will become very familiar with should you turn us down again. In fact, the chance that you’ll accept is the only reason you haven’t been arrested so far.”
A muscle in Augustine’s jaw twitched and the light in his eyes went hard and icy. An image of eighteen-year-old Augie flashed before her eyes, more anger than sense and nerves like tripwires. A sudden sense of dread drifted through her.
His voice came out a low growl. “There are other candidates.”
“Yes, but none with your… background.”
Augustine snorted. “What is that supposed to mean?”
Fenton inched back in his seat, but otherwise held his position. “We know what you’re capable of, Augustine. That you killed a man when you were eight without even knowing what your powers were. How you earned your way with underground fights until no one would oppose you any longer.” Fenton paused. “We need that kind of fae for our next Guardian.”
Olivia stiffened. She’d known what Augustine was capable of, but never in such black-and-white terms.
Augustine’s face was steel and stone. “So you want a fae with a record? There are a lot of us out there.”
“No.
” Fenton held Augustine’s gaze. “We want a fae who will be as much of a threat to our enemies as our enemies are to us.”
“And one,” Augustine added, “that you won’t mourn too much when the job kills him.”
Chapter Seven
The anger arrowing through Augustine’s spine felt like it was about to split him open. It shattered the calmness he’d worked so hard for and made his muscles itch with the memory of physical violence. He tried to contain his temper, tried to push it back down, but that was not something he’d had to do in a very long time and he was out of practice. The struggle paralyzed him for a long, long moment.
“You can’t do that,” Olivia whispered, her voice rough with emotion. “You cannot take him from me. He and Lally are all I have.”
“He’s made his own choices, Ms. Goodwin. Now he must make one more.” Fenton stood. “You have a day to think it over, Augustine. Twenty-four hours.” He tipped his head at Olivia, who still sat motionless. “I’ll see myself out.”
As the cypher left, Augustine bent his head into his fists. He hated to lose control around Livie. He’d made her afraid a few times in their early days, before he’d mastered his temper and his instinct to lash out. It wasn’t something he wanted to do again. “I should never have helped Chrysabelle. Never should have taken her to the Claustrum. I knew it would come back to bite me on the ass. Damn Mortalis. He never should have sent her to me. I could kill him for—”
“Augustine.” Her quiet voice interrupted him. “Maybe you should take the job.”
He looked at Olivia. The library’s overhead light emphasized the lines on her face and for the first time, she seemed her age. “After all your protest? It’s a death sentence, Livie, you know that. That’s the second Guardian we’ve lost in three months. And how long was it before that? Two years? Besides, it would mean leaving you.”
“Just because the Guardianship comes with a house doesn’t mean you have to live there.” Her eyes were bright with unshed tears.
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