by Mina Carter
Maaaaaybe…. If you get me a pastry. She closed her eyes and pulled strength from her beast to bolster her knees. All the time she whispered a little prayer to Hegra that he’d take the bait. Go back and get her a pastry, giving her time to sort out their visitors.
A pastry? You’re kidding me, right? His mental voice was incredulous. You want me to go back—
Please. Shit, she shouldn’t beg. It wasn’t her and would tip him off something was wrong. I really like them. And I’m hungry. Really hungry. Being injured and all….
Okay, okay. He huffed, but she could hear the smile in his voice. Pastry it is. Any particular kind?
The magic built to fever pitch, vibrations raising all the fine hairs on her skin as it raced over her to locate the collar. To her left, the door burst inwards, Red Caps flowing through the entry like beads poured from a container. High-pitched cursing shattered the peace and solitude of the apartment.
Not really. Her lips compressed into a thin line she laid about with the skillet, clobbering Red Caps with abandon. Just something sweet and sticky.
Sweet and sticky, got it.
Within seconds, the room rang with death-chimes and became shrouded in green smoke. It didn’t matter how hard she hit them, not with iron. All she had to do was touch them and poof there was one less to battle. The little bastards folded in on themselves, their own magic attacking them at the touch of the iron.
Less than a minute later, she stood in the middle of a clear room, the last of the haze clearing. She snapped her head up at the sound of someone clapping to see Rat leaning in the doorway. Tall and lean, he’d have been handsome without the sneer across his lips. She lifted the skillet threateningly.
“Oh no, sweetheart.” He shook his head and pushed off from the door to saunter forward. “That won’t do anything against me.”
She curled her lip, lifting the pan higher. “Should work just as well against Pixies as it does Red Caps. You’re both Fae, aren’t you?”
“Well, you see. That might work….” He stopped to run a hand through his shoulder-length black hair. “If I wasn’t just half-pixie. The other half?”
He looked up, grinned and the sudden flash of something darker in his blue eyes took her by surprise. Locked her into place so completely that she could barely breathe, and had no chance of reaching for her other form.
“Well, let’s just say it’ll be a cold day in hell before what else I am succumbs to the mere touch of iron.”
***
A pastry. She wanted a pastry.
Duke sighed and turned around, almost running down an old woman carrying a pet Chihuahua under one arm.
“I’m so sorry,” he said, moving quickly to avoid spilling hot coffee all over her. She looked as human as her dog was canine, but she gave him the gimlet eye anyway. He scanned her with his non-human senses, no sense in getting sloppy. There was always the possibility she was a skin-changer under the layers of a human disguise.
They were harder to spot than most paranormals since they were human. At least until someone looked deeper and saw the evil that lay hidden at the core. Skin-changers were invariably on the dark side. Something about the magic that had wrought the original enchantment. Bad mojo like that could infect a bloodline for generations.
“Grrrrrrr….”
The woman might have been all human and unable to sense what he was, but no such luck with the dog. Not only could most canines and felines sense something beyond his human form, but small dogs, like this one, had that small man syndrome thing going on. It curled its lips back from its teeth in warning, madness in its beady little eyes.
“Oh, shush up, Caesar.” Its owner ordered, running a heavily be-ringed hand over the tiny furry head. “The nice man didn’t mean any harm, so you leave him be.”
Caesar. She’d called it after an emperor. No wonder the furry little runt had delusions of grandeur.
“Grrrrrr…yap yap yap!”
The thing started to bark, standing up in its owner’s arms to yap at him. It had murder in its eyes. Duke had no doubt that, if it got free, it would try to sharpen its teeth on whatever part of him it could get to. Probably his ankle, before he kicked it into next week.
“Caesar! Bad dog!” The woman chided, trying to pull the tiny little muzzle around so she could look the dog in the eyes. Try as she might, its gaze remained fixed to Duke. He smiled, baring his own teeth, and for a split second, let the fangs of his dragon form punch through his gums. At the same time he slid into the creature’s mind, which turned out to be a roiling mass of doggy insanity, and fed it images of what he really looked like.
Faced with the very real possibility that this was a larger predator that could actually eat it whole, rather than a product of its own tiny, mad little brain, the Chihuahua yelped in surprise and backed up under its owners armpit. If it could have disappeared up its own asshole, it would have.
“I’m so sorry,” the woman babbled, trying to hold onto the struggling dog and smile up at Duke at the same time. “He’s not normally like this. He’s a real people person.”
“No problem at all.” He gave her a reassuring smile and put a hand out to stroke Caesar, and got a whimper from under her arm. “Usually they take to me right away.”
“I wonder if he’s getting sick….” She rooted him out from under her arm, and the dog curled around her hand as if trying to make itself as small as possible.
“Possibly. He looks tired. Perhaps get him checked out?” Feeling sorry for it, Duke reached out, and eased the creature into sleep with a quick mental touch.
“Oh, yes. He does. And I’ll do that, thank you.” With a smile, the woman tucked the dog into her arms like a baby and turned away.
Duke breathed a sigh of relief and carried on himself. His sweetness wanted a pastry, and good mate that he was, he would fetch one. Glancing at the disposable mugs on the tray he held in one hand, he grimaced. They’d be cold before he got back. With a sigh, he dropped them into the trash and carried on walking.
He hadn’t gotten more than a couple of steps when he slowed, a frown creasing his brow. Something was wrong. At first he’d thought his mate had simply gotten shy after their flirting, but the more he thought about it, the more that didn’t fit. Not at all.
His footsteps stopped, and he turned to look back the way he’d come. People passed him by with nothing more than an irritated glance if he happened to be standing in their path. He ignored them.
Admittedly, he didn’t know much about his mate. But he did know she wasn’t the shy sort of female. She worked for Sellers, was a capable female in a fight and claimed to be some Queen’s bodyguard. A warrior-knight from somewhere…in the past, maybe? She’d asked him if he was born in this time. Which indicated perhaps that she hadn’t been?
And if she had been born in the past, a noble-woman who’d become a knight, then she was not the sort of woman to get flustered over a little light flirtation….
Sweetness, they’re all out of pastries…will a donut do instead?
There was no answer to his mental enquiry. Worse, there wasn’t even the ‘static’ he’d come to realize meant that she could hear him but had declined to reply. Shit. He picked up speed, half-jogging as he wove through the now thinning crowds, his pace increasing until he was at a flat out run.
He hit the main doors of his building’s lobby at full speed, crashing through them and almost flattening Ris, coming the other way, at the same time. The Seer’s face was pale, and grew even paler when he spotted Duke.
“Holy shit, please tell me you didn’t leave Chase on her own?”
Duke didn’t even manage to get a word out in reply before Ris grabbed his upper arms and shook him, his expression one of panic. “It’s not a focus. It’s a control collar. Which means she’s not working for Sellers. She’s his slave.”
Chapter Seven
Whatever Rat had hit her with, there was nothing Chase could do to combat it. Even calling on the strength of her dragon to throw
everything the beast had to offer did nothing. As soon as he clicked his fingers and beckoned, her body obeyed. Screaming inside, she followed him like a puppy as he turned and walked out of Duke’s apartment.
He led her down the corridor toward the elevator. All she could see was his broad back, the fabric of the wife-beater vest he wore straining over the heavy muscles of his shoulders.
No one they passed gave either of them a second glance. Not even with Rat dressed as he was, jeans tucked into battered combat boots and his hair loose around his shoulders. She studied the color. It was flat, obviously dyed. No doubt to hide the Day-Glo hair his race was known for. Although why would he bother to hide it with the tattoos that were scrawled all over his arms, pixie tattoos for those who knew what they were looking at, on display for everyone to see?
Her eyes were the only thing she could move of her own volition, so she tried to catch the attention of everyone they passed, but no one looked at her. Their gazes skittered sideways, as though she and Rat weren’t there at all. As though there was some kind of invisibility spell around them.
Confusion flooded her. Pixies, although nasty sons of bitches, just weren’t that powerful. Certainly not powerful enough to hold a dragon in thrall, let alone hold one in thrall while maintaining an invisibility cloak. Not many creatures were. So what the hell else was he? The magic had to be inherent, because he looked the same as he always had. No extra jewelry, nor was he carrying anything that could be focusing the power. Unless Sellers had spelled him? She dismissed the idea as soon as it occurred. Sellers might believe he was the most powerful warlock in existence, but he wasn’t anywhere near powerful enough to maintain two spells like that over this distance.
They reached the elevators at the end of the corridor and she stopped between one step and the next, left swaying like a puppet on a string. Rat reached out for the button. A slight glow on the inside of his arm caught her attention. She frowned, narrowing her eyes to bring whatever it was into focus, but she still couldn’t make it out.
Frustration rolled through her and she flicked her sight to the dragons’. Her vision lit up, like someone had shoved a billion-watt search-light right in her face. She slammed her eyelids shut, squeezing them tight but the symbols lit up on his arm felt like they were burnt into the back of her retinas.
She recognized the etchings, even though the last time she’d seen them was in a dusty tome in the Queen’s library. Demon runes. Usually found on demons. As a race, they weren’t big on pen and paper, preferring to carve their runes right into skin. Theirs, their victims, or into the very skin of the magical world itself, they didn’t much care.
Concentrating hard, she tried to recall anything that would help from her brief glance at those old books and scrolls but came up blank. She’d never been well-versed in the ways of the demon-kind, had never needed to be. Queen Megaris, Baby’s mother, had always dealt with the monarchs of the various hells, right up to their head honcho, the King of the Seven Hells.
Hegra’s tits.
What the hell was a pixie doing wearing demon runes? Her mind dragged up the memory of the look on his face and the darkness in his eyes, and thrust it right behind her eyes. He was half demon. He had to be. Nothing else would be able to pull that kind of power. What was a half-demon doing working for Sellers though? She was powerful, but demons were on a whole different scale. A half demon, hell, even a quarter-demon would piss all over Sellers’ pathetic little Dragos enchantment.
The lift pinged open and six faces looked at them in unison. Her breath left her lungs in a rush when Duke wasn’t among them. Unable to move, she cut a glance at Rat. Shit. She had to do something. But what? These were all humans and Rat…wasn’t.
“Out,” he growled, jerking a thumb over his shoulder. “Now.”
The six occupants needed no further encouragement, and fled the confines of the lift in silence with pale faces. Terror streamed from their pores like perfume, trailing after them. Vivid splashes of scent for a creature who saw the world that way.
Rat entered the lift, and when he clicked his fingers, she did as well, standing to face him. Her body automatically assumed an ‘at ease’ position, variants of which had been the default resting position for soldiers throughout the ages. She met his look with a glare, cursing him in the back of her mind.
“What’s the matter Chase?” He smirked. “Cat got your tongue?”
If she could have lifted her hand she’d have flipped him the bird, a gesture from this day and age she particularly liked. Bastard knew she couldn’t talk. The pressure that had been a tight band around her head eased up and she sighed in relief.
Bastard.
He chuckled, his smile easy and disturbingly attractive. “Why, thank you, I am.”
What are you? You’re not just a pixie, that’s for sure.
He folded his arms over his chest, muscles bulging under the tattooed skin. His expression was hard, implacable and she shivered. She’d seen people do that before. Go from laughing and joking to stone-cold emotionless in the blink of an eye. Usually they were as dangerous as hell.
“And here I was thinking you were intelligent, dragon.” He threw the last word at her with a sneer.
The door pinged and slid open but not onto the lobby she was expecting. Instead they stepped into a long corridor she hadn’t seen before. Rat pushed off, not even bothering to click his fingers any more to make her follow and she realized that he’d never needed to. The gesture had been mere showmanship.
You know, or suspect, exactly what I am. He slid into her mind with an ease that scared her. Hurriedly, she slammed mental blocks into place, locking all her thoughts and memories away from his prying eyes. Amusement pushed against her as he preceded her down the corridor. Child’s tricks, but don’t worry. I’m not after anything in your head. This method of communication is…. More secure, shall we say?
He doesn’t know what you are. She didn’t bother sugar-coating it, nor did she wipe the curiosity from her mind. There was no point. A person would have to be dead not to be curious what a half-demon was doing working for a twat like Sellers.
Never judge a book by its cover, or assume a person’s motivations. He looked back over his shoulder and, as she watched, the darkness in his eyes disappeared under the blue-gray color she was used to seeing. A lighter color, she realized suddenly, than was normal for a pixie. Might makes right, the end justifies the means. Not all that glitters is gold…and not all that is light is good.
What the hell is this? Riddle night? she snapped, trying to get a good look at the corridor they were walking down.
She hadn’t missed the slight shiver against her skin when they’d stepped from the lift; a classic sign of a teleportation spell. And all her instincts told her that they were underground, somewhere near Sellers’ lair. But these corridors had been all dank and dark. Should have been rough sewerage tunnels leading to bare rock. They’d changed, which meant Sellers was getting stronger. A lot stronger. And that was so not a good sign.
A door loomed ahead, swinging open to reveal a gaggle of Red Caps. Spotting the two walking up the corridor, they started to giggle, the high-pitched sound grating on what was left of Chase’s nerves.
“Hahahaha! Rat found the dragon-bitch!”
“Sellers is maaaaaaad!”
“Dragon gonna get it! Dragon gonna get it!”
So, you…big scary half-demon, are content to be ordered around by a little piss-ant like Sellers? You expect me to believe that?
Rat didn’t answer her, instead striding through the doors and into the main hall beyond. Whatever magic he was using yanked her along for the ride, but as soon as she got through the door, she forgot all about how he was controlling her in favor of shock.
The last time she’d seen the hall, when Sellers had beaten her, she could easily see through his little illusion spell. Now though, it was complete and rang—pulsed—with power. He had gotten stronger.
“Well, well…the prodigal daughter
returns.”
Rat’s magic turned her and Sellers came into her field of vision. Instead of the leather couch he’d manifested before, he now sat on a throne. The full on, real deal made of gold and encrusted with gemstones. Dressed head to toe in black silk, he lounged with one leg folded over the other, a goblet dangling idly from one hand.
He twisted his wrist, as though swirling liquid in the bottom but she didn’t need to smell the coppery-sweet aroma that rose into the air with the movement to know it was blood. Not when he smiled and she could see the evidence painted over his lips.
Heart in her throat, her gaze cut to Baby’s cage. Sure enough, the little dragonet lay slumped on the floor behind the bars. Her scales were almost translucent.
“You bastard,” she roared, not realizing that Rat had released his hold on her throat until her roar of fury filled the air. “If you’ve killed her I am going to end you. I’m going to fucking roast you. Slowly. I’ll cook you from the toes up, inch by inch. I’ll boil your intestines in your own fat and spit-roast your heart on my talon while you watch!”
The warlock chuckled, and lifted the glass again. As he took a sip she could see the power pulsing through him. Stolen power. Stolen life.
Guilt hit her hard and fast as she raged against Rat’s hold. If she hadn’t been so stubborn, so full of ego, she’d have given into her own instincts and followed the damn warden’s advice. She’d have had sex with her mate, broken the control spell and be facing Sellers with all her powers, not held in thrall by a bastard demon. Instead, her damn pride may have cost Baby—the baby she’d sworn to protect—her life.
A keening cry rose in the back of Chase’s throat, drawn from her very soul— Baby’s slumped form in her cage fuzzy from the tears obliterating her vision. The small female hadn’t even been old enough to shift to human and claim her own name. Like all those in the royal line, she hadn’t been born human, but had been hatched. An ancient way to prove an heir was pure-blooded enough to take the throne. A throne she’d never sit on now.
