Belador Cosaint

by Sherrilyn Kenyon

  Everything Reese knew about Quinn said he would never have offered money for an abortion, as her baby daddy had done.

  Of course, abortion wouldn't have been needed in Kizira's case, since she could have ended the life of a child with her majik alone, but still.

  She wouldn't compare the two men.

  Quinn would never consider aborting his baby. She knew that deep in her gut.

  Whatever Kizira's reason had been for hiding her newborn, Reese did not believe it was because of fear over how Quinn would react. He might not have been planning on a family, but he was a fierce protector who would have cared for any child he created.

  Reese envied Kizira that.

  She would never have a protector like Quinn as her own, but neither should she project one man's faults onto another man.

  Phoedra's father was honorable and wanted his daughter.

  What would Phoedra think when she met Quinn?

  Reese hoped the enthusiasm she'd seen the girl exhibit at the psychic's office meant she'd be thrilled about Quinn.

  Okay, maybe thrilled wouldn't be a reality at first, given that Phoedra would need some time to understand that Quinn hadn't been around because he hadn't known about his daughter.

  If Reese did nothing else in this life, she would be sure to bring Phoedra and Quinn together once she showed Yaahl how important Quinn was for Phoedra.

  That shouldn't be difficult. The girl deserved a parent who loved her. Phoedra had been so ready to find out anything on her mother, and then the psychic had tried to send Kizira's spirit away.

  That had clearly upset Kizira and Phoedra, but where had Kizira gone?

  Had Kizira's spirit actually crossed over?

  Something told Reese that Kizira would not rest until her child was safe. That one moment when Reese had faced the angry ghost of the dead Medb priestess would give her nightmares.

  Reese still hadn't decided if Kizira had been telling her to watch over Phoedra or to stay away.

  For that matter, where had Kizira been back in Tulsa when they were trying to free Phoedra from the kidnappers? Reese and Quinn could have used a little motherly fury to slap those guys around.

  Every time Reese answered one question, she gained three more.

  Whack-a-mole investigation technique.

  Story of my life.

  She packed her bloody, torn clothes into a plastic garbage bag and stepped out of the lavatory. She was at the back of the plane, but the view between her and the cockpit amazed her. Lush furnishings with comfortable seating, deep carpet and blinds on the windows looked more like a living room than an aircraft cabin.

  Quinn stood halfway between her and the cockpit, studying something on his phone. He paused and turned her way as soon as she shut the door behind her.

  Shoving the phone in the pocket of his hoodie, he covered the distance between them quickly, slowing to touch her face. "You still have scratches. I thought you could heal with the medallion."

  She winced even though his touch was soft. "These scratches are from being shot out of the bolthole. I don't know why they aren't healing quickly, but they just haven't gone away."

  He seemed stuck in the moment, unsure what to say or do. What was going on in that amazing mind of his?

  Unable to take the tension that wound her up whenever he was this close to her, she said, "Back off, Jack. You're nasty and I'm clean."

  "Yes, you are. You clean up exceptionally well."

  She fought back a smile. After expending so much energy going halfway into a bolthole that spit her out, she was physically spent, which put her mental state at low-discipline level. With a little encouragement, like that compliment, she'd go over the edge and do something insane like wrap her arms around him, because she could live with a little grime when it was on him.

  She really wanted to hold him.

  Instead, she cocked her head toward the bathroom end of the plane and gave him a clear signal to go on.

  He didn't move.

  In fact, he looked like he wanted to kiss her, which had to be a malfunction in her brain or her out-of-control imagination in charge. She was damned glad he would not enter her mind uninvited or she'd embarrass herself with the random I-want-you thoughts circling her brain.

  This was his fault, all of it. There could be no other explanation for why she'd become a hormonal idiot now after managing to keep her icy distance from other men for years.

  She could probably get into the Guinness Book of World Records for women her age with the least amount of booty time.

  If Quinn didn't move soon, she would lose any chance at that record. Her body was sending loud blasts to her brain with the signal that jumping him on a Learjet sofa would heal all her aches.

  Her mind had run roughshod over her body for years, disregarding her own physical needs, but no more, evidently. Every female part she possessed wanted to feel Quinn against her, skin to skin.

  Clearing his throat, he said, "I'll be just a moment cleaning up."

  Breathe. "Right, uh, take your time."

  He stepped to the side to allow her to pass, but as she did he reached for the plastic bag. "I've got this."

  That was another silly thing that turned her on.

  Quinn could go from fierce warrior, bleeding out everything in his path, to total gentleman in a nanosecond. In fact, he was more of a gentleman in dirty clothes than the rest of the male population all decked out in tuxes.

  Before Reese could find a seat, the male flight attendant, whose name she'd missed in all the bustle of getting onboard and airborne, stepped out from the galley and asked if she'd like something to drink.

  He was as efficient as he was silent, bringing her a bottle of water by the time her butt hit the beautiful cream-colored sofa. She took a sip and watched clouds float past, finally allowing herself a chance to process a few things.

  Such as the fact that evidently neither Phoedra nor Donella was human and that Yaahl had been pulling their strings, too. There were a lot of things that didn't fit together at the moment.

  The raven god had a lot to answer for.

  He'd known Reese for ten years.

  He'd known Phoedra longer than that.

  Reese had gone to Yaahl when the man she thought she loved had gotten her pregnant and walked away. She'd been a willing participant, so it wasn't as though she blamed the guy for more than fifty percent of what happened.

  But she did blame the rat-bastard for tricking her, then leaving.

  With the cursed blood she carried, she'd been told she couldn't give birth to children. She'd gone to Yaahl, the one person who could protect her from demons while she and her child were vulnerable.

  Reese had been a shaky young woman back then. She'd asked for protection.

  And that's exactly what Yaahl had given her. No more.

  He hadn't lifted a finger to save her child, who'd died before he ever drew a breath.

  Yaahl claimed he did not have the right to choose a person's destiny.

  To this day, she did not accept that excuse.

  She barely remembered those months after the birth when she'd thrashed around, blaming the raven god and everyone else she could think of for losing her baby.

  Finally she had to grow up and accept that the fault was all hers.

  Her mother had warned Reese about her demonic paternal genetics.

  At nineteen, Reese had been foolish, in love and with stars in her eyes.

  Until she wasn't, when the man she loved had offered to pay to deal with it. As though the person growing inside her was not his child, but an it.

  She'd never met her own father.

  Correction--the man whose blood she carried, since that's all he was to her. But that blood acted as a magnet for demons and cursed her children to die upon birth.

  Those two men had taught her all she needed to know about love. It didn't exist. Since then, she'd decided to live in the moment. To take what she could from life.

  Shutting her eyes
, she gave in to the grief tightening her chest. Fighting it never helped. The pain would hit her at the most unexpected times. When it did, she opened her heart to allow it space, because the memory of her baby lived there.

  The agony washed over her until slowly, it eased until she could think again.

  Blinking, she wiped the hint of dampness off her cheeks, took a deep breath and forced her mind back to unanswered questions.

  How long had Yaahl been toying with her?

  It sounded as if Kizira had gone to him with her child once Phoedra was born, unlike Reese who had shown up pregnant and asking for sanctuary.

  Why would someone as powerful as Kizira need anyone's help when she'd been next in line behind the Medb queen?

  At least, that had been the case according to the darknet.

  Reese snorted with a sarcastic chuckle, because everyone knew if something was on the internet it had to be true, right?

  If only the internet had all the answers, like why Kizira had hidden her child.

  Had she feared the Medb would figure out her child was part Belador?

  That made the most sense.

  Yaahl had to have known where Phoedra was during her entire life, which meant he also knew that Reese had moved in next door to Phoedra and Donella.

  He'd probably orchestrated that.

  What about Donella? Who was she in all of this or ... what type of being was she?

  "Have you solved the problems of the universe yet?" Quinn asked, causing her to jump. "My apologies. Did I startle you? Or is that reaction the sign of a guilty mind?"

  "It's the sign you're annoying me when I'm deep in thought," she snapped, but there was no heat to her words.

  She leaned back and dropped a blank mask over her face to hide just how close Quinn had come with his question.

  When she took him in from bottom to top, she forgave him for catching her off guard.

  Her gaze climbed up his snug jeans and deep green pullover, pausing to appreciate the muscles shaping all that. Water drops clung to a few tips of his still-damp blond hair. He couldn't have done more than rinse the dirt out in the sink, but he managed to look refreshed and clean.

  She drew in a breath and teased her senses with a scent her body apparently remembered from six weeks ago. She'd been chest-to-back against him in a tree with demons coming at them from all sides.

  She silently shook her head at how easily he distracted her. That scent was starting to cook her brain now. Add that to the muscles playing beneath his pullover every time he moved and she lost a few more chips of gray matter. She crossed her arms in case her nipples decided to give away just how much she enjoyed the scenery.

  Her body showed little regard for her sanity any time Quinn was close. She'd have to be on top of her game to stay out of trouble around him, because he would be the kind of trouble that could get her in over her head.

  Quinn swung around, providing an optimum view of his backside before he sat down. Of course, that butt ranked ridiculously high on her sexy-man derriere scale.

  When he dropped down beside her, he swung an arm along the top of the sofa behind her head.

  Every cell in her body took notice.

  The nerves along the side of her body closest to him paid even more attention due to the heat rolling off of him.

  "Reese?"

  "Hmm?"

  "Stop looking at me that way unless you want to end up horizontal on this couch."

  Her eyes flew wide open. She looked up to see that, yes, she'd been busted for ogling.

  If there was a penalty, she hoped it involved getting naked.

  Too far, imagination, way too far.

  Shifting around to sit more upright, she realized what he'd said and backed up mentally.

  Did that mean Quinn wanted to get horizontal with her?

  And how was this helping her rein in her overactive sex drive, which had clawed its way back to life after meeting him in Atlanta?

  His gaze hadn't moved from hers.

  She searched for something to say. "What time is it?"

  He gave her a look that said he knew where her mind had been and it had nothing to do with time. But he said, "Around midnight. We'll arrive at two in the morning local time. I've been thinking about New Orleans."

  She thanked the stars that he had something to talk about that would shake her mind loose from visuals of naked Quinn with naked Reese.

  She tried not to sound breathless when she said, "What about New Orleans?"

  "I did some research while you were cleaning up. One of my resources confirmed the name of the person to help us there."

  "Really?" She sat up, looking him straight in the eyes. "You know him? Who?"

  "I know of him. He's called the Keith. He's a major kingpin in the preternatural world in NOLA. His family was among the first French to settle in Louisiana, but their ancestors go back to the fourteenth century in Europe. It's the family of Inchkeith wizards."

  "Never heard of them."

  "They're not all wizards, but the majority of the males carry that power and are trained to wield it."

  "What kind of name is Inchkeith?"

  "It's not their actual name. It has to do with the Island of Inchkeith, which is in a firth in Scotland."

  "What's a firth?"

  "A narrow sea inlet. There's an interesting history involved. Back during the Scottish Wars of Independence it was used as a strategic military location as well as a place to quarantine those with disease. King James IV was known for his strange experimentations and for working with an alchemist, and his men either revered or feared him."

  Reese shook her head. "How is that related?"

  "Listen and you'll find out."

  Her glare affected him not one bit. He went on. "One of the king's most loyal generals had a son whose mother did not survive childbirth. This son caught syphilis while in the military and was sent to the island to be put under quarantine until he healed."

  Reese snorted. "How'd that work out for him?"

  Quinn gave her a droll glance.

  She pantomimed zipping her mouth shut and throwing away the key.

  "As if," he muttered, then shifted, moving closer to her side.

  Moving away would interrupt his story again.

  That would be rude.

  She didn't want to be rude, right? Made sense to her.

  He said, "Anyhow, this next part is known only among our kind. The general knew his son would not survive, because doctors then had no way to cure that disease. Being one of the king's more open-minded followers, this general was willing to try less-traditional methods. He searched everywhere for a witch who could help him, and found one in France where rumors indicated that she was part Fae and part witch. He offered her anything to save his only child."

  "Bad move." Reese slapped a hand over her mouth, but Quinn's smile quirked, then he shook his head and continued.

  "The witch said she'd try, and if she succeeded that she wanted a child by the general."

  "See?" Reese said. "That's why you don't make a deal with a witch."

  "Hush. The general had no intention of impregnating the witch, but he agreed and took her to the island. He put her and his son in a private space. She spent ten days working her majik, which the general later said was horrifying. At the end of it, she declared his son healed and stronger than his father would ever be. When the general took his son and the witch back to the mainland, he told her he'd pay any amount she wished, but he did not want to have more children."

  Reese lifted her eyebrows to say what else?

  Quinn finally smiled at her, full-on, and the world became a happy place. He said, "The son left the military without notice, tarnishing the general's reputation, but that wasn't the worst of it. The general soon discovered the witch had transferred syphilis from his son to him. It had to be the witch, and she'd used majik to do it, according to his diary, because he hadn't been with a woman in almost a year. As the story goes, the witch had drawn power fr
om the island, which she used to save the son--"

  "That's the reason for the Inchkeith name," Reese interrupted. He rolled his eyes and she said, "Oh, sorry, Mr. Grimm, please finish your fairy tale."

  "Anyway, then she charmed the general's son into following her home to France where he gave her many gifted children."

  "Can I talk now?"

  "Would it matter if I said no?"

  "Not a bit." She laughed. "So this NOLA wizard has Fae blood?"

  "Possibly. If he does, he won't admit it to us."

  "But he will help us, right?"

  For the first time since driving to the Tulsa airport and lifting off, Quinn's confidence seemed to slip. "That will depend upon whether I can convince him to agree to see us. It's a little complicated getting in to meet with the Keith."

  Chapter 20

  --------

  Bloody hell. Quinn frowned as he peered out the cabin window as the Learjet parked after landing at New Orleans Lakefront Airport. This put them closer to downtown than if they'd flown into the major international hub.

  Rain pounded the exterior from a nonstop downpour. A weather front was moving across New Orleans, which could take only so much water at any given time since the city was actually below sea level.

  Quinn lifted a rain poncho he'd retrieved from the flight attendant and offered Reese a hand to stand. "Go time."

  "I'm ready." She popped up from the sofa, eyes alert. Everything about her said she was on edge, but obviously, nothing would hold her back.

  "We'll likely be drenched even with umbrellas." Lifting the clear poncho above her head, he straightened it until the plastic covered enough to satisfy him. This was a change.

  He'd spent most of the flight thinking about pulling clothes off of Reese. If she knew that, she'd probably unleash her demon energy on him.

  She stepped away. "Thank you. You'll make Phoedra a great dad."

  Considering how he'd failed her so far, he shouldn't welcome that vote of confidence, but he did. "I owe it to Kizira to do my best."

  Reese's face fell for a second, then she gave him an empty smile. "Yes, you do." Then she got busy gathering up the magazine she'd been reading and returning it to the end table.

  What had he said to draw that odd reaction?

  He'd spent too much time watching Reese, and not enough of that time looking closely. But the woman could sigh and pull his attention away from everything except her bright blue eyes and sweet mouth.