by Kaye Draper
Easing back in my chair, I gestured at the screen as if I was granting them a wonderful favor. "In the meantime," I said. "Oisin has sheltered his dear sister from their father's madness for a century. She was forced to strip herself of her magic and go into hiding as a human."
The crowd muttered at this. The thought of living like a human was abhorrent.
"It was partially through Evalyn's assistance that the Lionheart pride was able to rescue our mate and avert disaster for the Silverleaf clan." I smiled for Evalyn's benefit, hoping she really understood what I meant here—your fucking problem for the time being, chick. Oisin's done enough for you fuckers.
"Because of this," I continued, "Oisin has appointed Evalyn as his seneschal—to rule in his place and carry out his orders until such time as he sees fit to return to the fae lands."
Evalyn's jaw dropped. She looked ridiculous. I smiled even wider, then glanced over my shoulder as if someone was calling me away. "Oh! I’m sorry, but we have to go now." I gave the crowd one last warning glare. "I hope that when we next meet, the fae have made strides to redeem their character. Remember, the evil that was allowed to grow like a cancerous tumor in your midst has not gone unnoticed by the other supernatural clans." I thought of one more weapon and threw it out there like a live grenade, without thought of the consequences. "And it has not gone unnoticed by the guardian of the territory where Oisin currently resides."
Invoking Derek fucking White seemed to put the fear of the Gods in them. The crowd quieted, and I watched as a hundred sets of jewel-bright eyes looked up at the screen in horror at the implications.
Good. Maybe they'd leave us all alone for a while so Oisin could recover. I hit end call before Evalyn could respond to my words.
Leaning back in my chair, I let out a massive sigh. "Fuck."
Kai was leaning against the door frame, wiping tears from her eyes. She'd been laughing quietly over there for the last minute or so. She finally let out a bark of laughter.
Hisashi shifted back to human form and shook his head at me. "You know, I should be pissed at you for using my clan to start shit with the fae," he told me sternly. But one corner of his mouth twitched. "But fuck them."
Con handed me a steaming mug, turned and took another off a tray on a nearby end table and handed it to Hisashi.
The fox made a face, and I groaned.
"Drink up," the human-turned-plant-witch demanded. "Especially if you're going to be picking interspecies fights."
I lifted my mug to my lips and inhaled, smiling in bliss. Con had promised the last herb tea was it for me. The human was true to his words. My mug held some amazing coffee concoction that smelled of caramel and chocolate.
Hisashi glared at me and grimaced as he chugged whatever was in his cup. "Tastes like catnip."
I sat up and pulled Con down for a quick kiss. "Thank the fucking Gods it's not more tea," I said as I sat back again. "But what are those other cups for?" I glanced at the tray, which still contained two more mugs.
Con bit his bottom lip and picked up one mug. "Oh...this one is mine."
I raised an eyebrow at him. "And the other one?"
Hisashi clapped me on the shoulder and made straight for the door. "I'm out of here."
Kai followed him while Con continued to squirm under my glare. "You have a visitor. I tried to send him away but," he gestured at himself in illustration, "just human and all."
Gods damn it, what now?
Chapter 20
In strolled Derek fucking White.
I took a big drink of my coffee and glared at the demon as he strode into my office in his thousand-dollar suit, like he owned the place. He was back to looking completely unruffled and suave, so I assumed he and Orion made it home okay the day before.
"How's your incubus?" I said with a smirk.
White raised an eyebrow as he picked up the remaining coffee mug from the tray and settled into the wing backed chair on the opposite side of my desk. "Mr. Black is perfectly well," he said blandly. "A little tired from stretching his magic across realms, but nothing he can't sleep off."
I grinned. "Oh good. And whose bed is he 'sleeping it off' in?"
White gave me a bored look. "Miss Lionheart, really. If you wanted to add my secretary to your pride, you certainly had the chance. And I've much too much work for him now to send him back here." His eyes sparked red around the edges as he sipped his coffee. "Especially now that a certain gryphon has implied I have a vendetta against the fae."
I set my coffee cup down and started unbuttoning my pink silk blouse. That got me a curious look and a raised eyebrow, until I threw the damned thing in the corner, leaving me in a tank top and pajama pants. "Desperate times call for desperate measures," I told him. "They put me in front of a fucking crowd. I panicked."
He laughed. Derek fucking White laughed. It was unsettling. "I imagine that was horrible," he said with a chuckle. "Just awful."
I glared. "Oh, laugh it up, asshole. But if you keep putting your nose in my business, this is what happens. Everyone knows you and me are tight. We're best friends now. So, I will throw your fucking name around every time someone so much as looks at me the wrong way. They've gotta stay on my good side or old uncle Derek will get out the concrete shoes!"
He pressed his lips together and I wasn't sure if he was trying not to laugh or trying not to swear.
I didn't give a fuck which one it was. I was serious. If he was going to keep inserting himself into my life for his own nefarious purposes, then I was going to use him right back.
"What do you even get out of all of this, anyway?" I asked, spreading my hands wide to indicate my fucked-up life. "You sent us in there with only minimal assistance. Transportation and—oh, fuck sorry about your two guys by the way. But seriously only two fucking men against the entire fae wild hunt? You made us wait, citing some crap about having to train. Then we get there, and I find out they've been torturing Oisin this entire time. You say you can't get too involved, but then you use your magic demon powers to yank us out of...wherever the fuck we were. And, by the way, you never even gave a thought to the other fae—the ones helping us out. Oisin's sister could have been killed and you didn't give a fuck. 'We'll talk tomorrow, gryphon.' Like you should care if people die. Cause you're a demon, right? No soul or some damned thing. What the ever-loving fuck do you want?"
I sat back to catch my breath. White sipped his coffee calmly. "My, that was a lot of words for you, Miss Lionheart. I thought you were more of a bite first, word later sort of creature."
I growled.
He set his coffee aside and sat back, interlacing his perfectly manicured hands over his belly. "It might help you to realize," he said calmly, as if speaking to a child, "that I see things you can't see with your limited mortal scope. I knew all would turn out as it has. There was no need for me to interfere. In fact," he said with a slight frown, "I broke the rules of the game by pulling you all out of the otherworld there." Then his face smoothed, and he shrugged, "but sometimes rules must be stretched."
I breathed. In and out. Forcing back the urge to shift and disembowel him. Reminding myself he was a demon. This was an opponent we couldn't fight.
"You...you fucking knew how this was all going to turn out and you let it fucking happen?"
He tilted his head at me. "There you go with your irrational anger again, Miss Lionheart. I really don't understand the emotions that rule you sometimes."
I gripped the edge of the desk to keep from flinging myself at him. "You let Oisin be taken...be fucking tortured. You let your own men die. You let us engage in a battle where any one of us could have been killed. You...you...fucking what the hell are you playing at?"
White smiled fondly at me. "Oh, Miss Lionheart. In order to win any game of strategy, one must risk some losses. But in the end, it is important to look at the bigger picture."
I stared at him, seething as moments ticked by. He was absolutely insane. What had he gained by any of this?
; "Good job, by the way," he said, picking his mug back up and finishing it. "I knew I could count on you to come to some solution whereby you kept your fae, but they gained a more competent ruler."
I blinked at him. No. No, no, no. Gods, we had all been used. Again.
This was never about my pride. He had said it himself. The fae had stolen one of his assets. But it was more than that.
"You just did this all so you could overthrow the fae ruler and destabilize the oldest fae clan in the U.S."
He beamed at me as if I was a prized pupil in his little school for idiots. "You see? I knew I liked you for a reason, Miss Lionheart."
I rubbed my forehead, fighting a massive fucking headache. "Get the fuck out of my house."
He set his mug down and stood, pausing to smooth out his perfect, pinstriped gray suit. "I do have things to attend to. Agreements to reach with the new acting fae leader, you know how it is."
I folded my arms on my desk and dropped my head on them, wishing I could just block out the whole world. Fucking demons.
Fucking gullible idiot gryphons.
What kind of game was he playing?
"Oh, Gesa?" White said, pausing at the doorway.
I lifted my head. "What?" I groaned. What the fuck now? And why was he using my first name?
"Since we are 'best friends' now, I thought I should help you out."
I sat up straighter. "I don't want your fucking help." That was what started this whole dammed shit-fest in the first place!
He tilted his head. "Oh? Are you certain? I thought you might want to know more about mage contracts. Useful knowledge to have, you know?"
I watched him watch me for a full minute before I answered. "Oh, just spit it the fuck out already."
One corner of his mouth lifted, and his black eyes glittered. "Well...I do have a mage contract in my possession...one that will expire soon unless I renew it. But they are so expensive. And I am a businessman after all. I'm just not sure it's worth the expense to renew the contract." He shook his head at me and lifted one shoulder in a what-can-you-do sort of gesture. "My mage will go back to the mage guild to be...recirculated. Given recent circumstances, I could see where you might want to beef up your security around this...lovely establishment." He gave the creaky old bookstore a once-over with that black gaze. "I could certainly help you negotiate a new contract with the mage guild, if you were interested."
I clutched the desk. Halstad. "And you'd show me how that all worked, just out of the goodness of your non-existent, shriveled up, black heart. Because we're friends."
He nodded. "Of course. But...there is the little matter of the cost of the mage contract. And let me tell you, the better the mage, the more expensive they are to buy. Personally, I only use the best."
I glared at him. Halstad had roasted the other mages we had encountered. So what White was saying was the mage was very expensive.
"What do you want?" I asked through clenched teeth.
He smiled. "Well, now that you ask, I do need some help with a little matter. Your team of miscreants would be the perfect fit for this little endeavor."
I dropped my head back onto my arms. "Fuck you, White. Fuck you so hard."
"So, it's a deal then?" he said happily. "Good. I'll send my assistant over to iron out the details once he's up and about."
Then the demon walked out the door, leaving me alone with my bad decisions.
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