A Family Oath

by Auburn Tempest

Garnet arches a brow and sends me a warning look. His breath is warm against the shell of my ear as he whispers close. “As a guest, remember that your footing in the community is tenuous at best. Inciting a civil uprising would be unwise for you and your family. I hope you’ll win a few members over with your presence, not alienate more.”

  “Right. Sorry. No filter, remember?” He straightens and points at two empty seats near the front of the ship. “What? We aren’t together either?”

  “I’m the Grand Governor of the Lakeshore Guild. You’re a druid only months into training. No, we don’t sit together.” He escorts me to my seat and pulls out my chair. When he tucks me under the table, he leans close once again. “Not yet, anyway, but at the rate you’re progressing, who knows.”

  Chapter Three

  I’m seated fourth from the end on one of the long tables, between the human representative for the rugaru and a hairy man with a unibrow that I can only guess is a troll.

  Both seem disinterested in striking up a convo, so I nibble on my breadstick and study the other guests as the servers lay plates in front of us.

  I soon figure out the governors are the ones with the platinum pins of what looks like a lightning bolt. It’s very Harry Potter-esque, and I look forward to telling Garnet I think so. Garnet’s pin is on the lapel of his black suit jacket, some wear them on their ties, and one woman has hers on the tail of her silk neck scarf where she’s tacked it to her bolero jacket.

  Contrary to what I thought, the Guild Governors don’t fill the tables in the power seats to my left. They sit either on or near the left, but others apparently outrank them—in power if not guild position.

  At the center of the left table sits the emo goth god sans his guitar. Great bone structure. While burgundy lipstick and black guyliner isn’t normally my thing, in a game of Marry, Fuck, or Kill, I know where he’d go.

  Nope. I wouldn’t kick him out of my bed.

  He doesn’t look like the marrying kind, and he’s a god, so I’m not going to try to kill him.

  He looks as bored as he did before, and I take pity on him. If I were immortal, I’d think coming to these meetings to measure the size of my dick would suck too.

  Suede said he’s the all-powerful one in the crowd, so the hierarchy of power must begin there.

  Beside him to his right is Garnet. Makes sense. The man is the Grand Governor and Alpha of the Moon Called. I’m sure that’s a big deal in these circles.

  Beside emo god guy to his left is a rake of a woman with a weird aura. I’m pretty sure she’s a witch. When I try to look at her, my shield tingles, and my back itches.

  I recognize the sensation.

  Having been through illusion bullshit with a bitch of a witch before, I decide to look under the hood. I slide my hand into the pocket of my pants and focus on seeing through her veil of illusion.

  As I call on the ambient power in the air, her visual deception melts away and I yelp.

  All conversation stops, and everyone turns to stare.

  Okay, not my smoothest moment.

  I raise my hand and wave. “Sorry. Thought I saw a spider. Big one. My mistake. S’all good.”

  I slink back in my chair and make a big deal about chewing my breadstick. Mmm, so yummy. Garnet gives me a suggestive look, and I realize I shouldn’t be so engrossed with gnawing on my breadstick in a room full of men.

  I stop that immediately and scratch the side of my face with my middle finger.

  He covers his laughter with a cough.

  I focus on eating my salad for a while, and when the room goes back to ignoring me, I give the top woman a cursory glance while pretending to study the seagulls flapping and squawking outside.

  Man, someone seriously whacked her with the ugly stick—a lot—like, a real beating. What the hell happened to her face? It’s not nice to stare, but I’m mesmerized.

  It looks like she stood too close to the radiator, and half her face melted and hangs down past her collarbone.

  How does that happen?

  Although she looks like a survivor of a nuclear meltdown, I give her the benefit of the doubt and assume she’s a very nice person.

  Ehhh! Wrong answer.

  I blink at the voice in my head. Bruin? Was that you?

  Was what me?

  Didn’t you hear someone talking in my head?

  No.

  Okay, weird. I pick up my wine and give it a suspicious glance. Am I being drugged? Dammit, again?

  The laughter in my head isn’t mine, and it isn’t Bruin’s.

  Hello? Who’s there?

  I’ll give you three guesses, and the first two don’t count. In a game of marry, fuck, kill, I’m the bored emo guy you invited into your bed.

  My eyes flick to the center of the head table, and he’s smiling. He lifts his wine glass, and for the first time in the past hour, he looks less bored.

  Eavesdropping is rude, and I didn’t invite you into my bed. I simply said if you were there, I wouldn’t kick you out.

  Then tell me where you live, and you can expect a visit. Oh, and will it be the two of us, or do you have a man warming your sheets already?

  Laughter bursts up my throat, and I cover my mouth to stifle my nerves. Unbidden, images of Sloan come to mind.

  Nice. I wouldn’t kick him out of my bed either. I’m game.

  I roll my eyes. Okay, enough talk about horizontal hijinks and magical ménages. Not happening.

  Disappointing. Talk about a bait and switch.

  I laugh. This isn’t a bait and switch. I can’t be held accountable since you were infiltrating my cranium at the time of the supposed offer to do the dance of twenty toes.

  Or thirty. You forget the male model. His laughter echoes inside my mind, but nothing shows on his face.

  Do you have a name, or should I call you Tom?

  Tom?

  You know...Peeping Tom.

  Oh, I like that, but my given name is Nikon of the island of Rhodes.

  You’re from Rhode Island?

  No, the island of Rhodes.

  Isn’t that the same thing?

  No.

  Nikon, like the camera?

  It was my name first.

  Can I call you Nikky?

  No.

  “Lady Druid?” Garnet’s voice invades my focus and tears me from my mental chat session with Nikon. “Is everything all right?”

  I bat my eyes and take in the disdainful looks I’m getting from all around the rectangle of rebuke. “I’m sorry, what?”

  “Emperor Kartak of the Narrows expressed his discontent about you and your family holding magic hostage, and I asked if you would like to counter.”

  “Sure. Who’s Emperor Kartak?” By the way the room stiffens, and Nikon smirks, I’m pretty sure that was another one of those “wrong question” moments.

  I follow the startled gazes to the man at the corner of the short table of power. He’s fourth to Nick’s right and three positions away from where I sit on the opposite side of the room. Man, it would help if I knew how the ranking of this seating system works.

  Emperor Kartak looks like a character out of one of my brother’s role-playing modules. He’s decked out in a blue and gold tunic with a leather chest plate beneath, and even with his weapons checked at the door, he looks the part of the fearsome warrior.

  His face is almost animalistic, his nose wide and flat, his ears extend off the side of his head to a four-inch point, and his long, straight hair is slicked back into a samurai topknot.

  When I meet his cold gaze, I lock down my reaction and give him a little wave. “Hey, there. Sorry about that. We haven’t met yet.”

  “Are you not smart enough to learn the faces of the men you scorn?” Droghun snaps.

  “Men I scorn? Seriously? You were so pee-your-pants scared about another group of druids moving in on your turf, you sicced your creepy subway-dwelling minions on us, and we mopped the floor with them. You can’t blame us. If anyone has the right to wave the scorn
flag, it’s us.”

  “Enough,” the drippy-faced witch says. “The matter of the Vow of Vengeance is not up for discussion. You were asked to answer to the fact that your family possesses the ability to take the ambient power from everyone in the city. How do you speak to that point?”

  I shrug. “We wouldn’t do that.”

  “But you did do that,” someone with a raspy voice shouts to my right. “You stole the ambient power.”

  I lean forward, but the speaker is on my side, and I can’t see who it was. “That was an accident…and we only borrowed it. As you all may or may not know, our family has some of the longest and deepest roots in the druid world, but we’re new to the game. When we realized we impacted the city’s magic, we rectified—and improved—the situation within days.”

  “How did you do it?” Droghun snaps. “How do you explain a family of startups sashaying in and releasing enough magic into the air to fuel an entire city?”

  “She’s made a pact with demons,” the raspy heckler from the far end shouts.

  The room looks appalled, and I take it that demons are as undesirable in the magical world as they are in the human world.

  “First off, I didn’t know demons were a thing until you said that. Second, I love how Droghun used the word sashay. Most men wouldn’t be comfortable using such a pansy-ass word. Kudos on your manhood. Third, druids are gifted to connect with and command the natural physical world. My family and I used maps we found on the internet to locate the natural ley lines beneath us and unclogged the drain so nature magic could flow freely.”

  “Bullshit.” Droghun slams his fist onto the table, and his Cornish hen flies over onto a witch’s plate beside him. “You’re lying, and we’re going to prove it.”

  “Well, have fun trying because it’s the truth. While setting up our lives, we realized we drained the limited natural magic, so we rectified it. Now, fae magic runs freely and fills all our lungs with every breath. You’re welcome.”

  “And you profess you can add to it?” Xavier, the king of the vampires asks. He didn’t seem scary when Suede pointed him out earlier, but having him focused on me makes my skin crawl. “There’s more power to be had?”

  My shield tingles against my back, and I recognize the danger without the cosmic warning. “Fae magic is like other forms of energy. It can neither be created nor destroyed. It can, however, be utilized and, if we’re not careful, abused. We replaced and stabilized the ambient magic at a greater level than before. We did that by connecting the ley lines into the water table. If you want more power, you’re welcome to draw it from there. We’re not the magic police. You are. Or at least you’re supposed to be.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” a witch across from me snaps.

  “It means that since the moment Fionn mac Cumhaill marked me as his successor and the leader of the Fianna, powerful people from within your organization have targeted my family and me with no reason and on no grounds. Why? We had done nothing except exist. That doesn’t fill me with confidence in your organization’s commitment to govern. Where’s the safety and justice for all?”

  Droghun barks a laugh. “You think you’re the chosen successor? You are so full of shit that your eyes are brown.”

  “No, they’re Irish blue, and you’re pissy because your days of calling your Barghest psychopaths druids are ending. Your connection to nature is tainted by blood sacrifice and enslaving innocent fae to siphon energy. It’s disgusting. No wonder you couldn’t increase the ambient magic. Nature doesn’t respect you.”

  Droghun stands and leans heavily into his palms on the table. “Bite your tongue, bitch. No one here believes your lies or your slander.”

  I stand and match his pose. “Well, they should. If they can read my heart rate and smell lies, they know I’ve only spoken the truth. Since the moment Fionn called on me, I’ve grown stronger with his blessings. I stand as a follower of the Ancient Order of Druids, which means a connection to nature and respecting the cycle of life. Your practices are appalling.”

  Droghun’s lips quiver behind his snarl. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  I bark a laugh. “Seriously? I was kidnapped and tortured at the druid stones a few months ago. After being strapped to that altar stone, staked down by my palms, and read the ritual for holy exsanguination with a spear tip pointed over my chest, I have a pretty clear idea about what I’m talking about.”

  “Is this true?” the leader of the mages asks.

  Droghun lifts his chin and glares. “What she describes is unbelievable.”

  “And your way of not denying it. What I describe is one hundy percent true. The altar stone is still there if any of you would like to test it for blood. Human police have found numerous bodies discarded at the bottom of the raised stones. I can get you the police reports. This isn’t an isolated occurrence. Barghest’s practices are abhorrent and threaten your anonymity living among humans. I, for one, find them holding the druid seat in an organization like this disgusting.”

  “You see?” Droghun shouts and points at me. “I told you. The bitch shows her true colors. She’s after a seat at the table.”

  I roll my eyes. “Not bloody likely. I said that you and your Black Dog assholes don’t deserve the right to hold a druid seat. You are filthy necromancers, plain and simple. Keep your damned seat, but don’t associate it with druids or what we stand for.”

  I plop down in my chair, swig back the rest of my wine, and hold my empty glass in the air. “Can I get a refill?”

  * * *

  “Wow, dinner and a show,” Suede says.

  I look up from where I’m hiding behind the dessert table and stuffing my face. “And a good time was had by all.”

  Suede’s gaze dances. “You did well to stand up to Droghun. There are murmurs of respect hovering throughout the whispers in the crowd that weren’t there an hour ago.”

  I pop another brownie into my mouth and put another three on my plate.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I couldn’t stomach lunch after Kartak and Droghun, but the wine went down smooth and easy. I figure I better carb-load or I’m liable to do something I’ll regret before we get back to the dock.”

  “Maybe there’s hope for the afternoon yet.” Nikon sidles up to join us. “Any chance the regrettable actions involve lewd acts of one-on-one or mortally wounding certain members of the guild governing body? Either would be acceptable.”

  I smile and plug another brownie into my mouth. “Those are exactly the two things I’m trying to avoid.”

  “Don’t fight it, lass.” He leans past me to grab a crème Brulee. “Go with your first instinct. It’s the right one.” He brushes close as he leans back, and I can’t help but notice how delicious he smells.

  Gawd. That can’t be natural.

  When Nikon leaves, I chuckle. “Is he always like that?”

  Suede blinks and picks up a blue shortbread with a red berry glaze. “I couldn’t tell you. I’ve never seen him interact beyond a yes or no answer with anyone—ever.”

  “Huh, weird. I’m not sure what that’s about. He’s pretty cool. We chatted cranium-to-cranium earlier. He’s funny.”

  “If you say so.”

  “Miss Cumhaill, a moment.” I die a little inwardly as Malachi saunters over with a plate full of sweets. “Is it true you bonded with a mythical grizzly bear?”

  Suede makes a tsking noise and scowls. “That’s a rather personal question, Malachi. Did she ask you about your tail? I don’t think so.”

  The tightening around his eyes tells me he’s not fond of talking about his tail, and that makes me all the more curious. What is he that he has one?

  “So, is that a yes or a no about the bear?” He chooses to ignore Suede’s disapproval.

  There’s no real reason not to answer. The Moon Called know about Bruin, and so do the hobgoblins. I don’t suppose it’s much of a secret. “Yes, my animal companion is a bear. You heard right.”<
br />
  “May I see him?”

  “I’m sorry, what?”

  “I’d like to see him and see what he can do.”

  I’m contemplating the political fallout of Nikon’s advice about going with my first instinct. Instead, I shove another brownie in my mouth. “Sorry. He’s not a party favor I bring out to amuse people. He’s a lethal battle warrior.”

  “You won’t show him to us?”

  I lean closer and lower my voice. “If you threaten me with bodily harm, he’ll come out for you. You’ll be dead before you see much, but yeah, you might catch a glimpse of him before your innies become outies and someone is called to swab the decks.”

  The emo god snorts across the room and raises his glass to no one in particular.

  Yeah, yeah, yuck it up Nikky.

  Garnet takes that as his hint to rescue me. “Having a nice time, Lady Druid?”

  “The best.”

  He slides that hand around my back again and whisks me away. “Come, we’re about to dock. Let’s get our jackets.”

  “Fiona.” I turn to meet the warm smile of the swarthy, blue-haired male that Suede pointed out as an ally earlier. I recognize the species traits of vertically slit eyes and pale silver skin cracked with darker tones beneath. He’s an ash tree nymph, like my boss. “I’m Zxata. It’s nice to meet you finally. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

  My smile falters a little. “I’m sure everyone here has. Why be famous when you can be infamous, amirite?”

  He waves that away. “From my sister Myra. She speaks fondly of you, and in all our years, she’s never been wrong about a person yet. You must be truly special for her to sing your praises.”

  No wonder he reminds me of Myra. They’re siblings. “I adore your sister. Best boss evah. I’m so happy to meet you.”

  Zxata bows his head and a sad look passes between him and Garnet. “I won’t keep you two. I simply wanted to introduce myself and extend a warm hello. I’m sure I’ll see you at the emporium at some point.”

  I squeeze his hand. “I look forward to it. Thanks for saying hi. Have a wonderful weekend.”

  The boat bumps against the dock, and he backs away. I have no idea what the shift in emotion between him and Garnet was about. I hope it wasn’t something I said.