by JL Madore
“I’m too wound up about Rhylan for site-seeing at the moment,” I mutter under my breath.
“Easy,” Doc whispers. “Don’t take your mood out on our girl.”
“Sorry. She doesn’t understand. She doesn’t have the same connection with Rhy as I do.”
Doc chuckles. “It’s not that. It’s you who doesn’t understand. We’ve been around healings with Calli’s tears enough to realize the moment they are in play, there’s no danger. He’s good. The danger is over.”
I want to believe that, but my heart is still hammering hard in my chest. “I hope you’re right.”
Doc finishes cleaning the singed skin on Rhylan’s ass and then points to the wound. “I am. A couple of drops here and he’ll be as good as new.”
With only his shoulder left, the two of us make quick work of finishing off the healing. When we’re done, Doc spreads a blanket out on the floor of the van, and we move him and cover him up.
“I’ll stay with him,” Doc says. “You go see what we got in that briefcase.”
I hesitate for a moment, but the reassurance in Doc’s smile spurs me on. “All right but let me know when he wakes up.”
“Will do.”
Shuffling to the back of the van, I drop down and look around to where Jaxx and Brant are spreading papers and bound folders across a patch of grass with Keyla. “What did we get?”
“We’re still sorting that out,” Jaxx says. “A lot of names and notes.”
“You’ll probably know better than us what some of this means,” Brant says.
“Incoming,” Keyla says, reaching forward and laying her arms across the papers.
Calli’s mighty wingspan churns the air around us as the phoenix drops from the sky and shifts back to human. Unlike the other wildlings I know, she doesn’t flash clothes on and, instead, stands at the back of the van totally naked.
Keyla catches me looking and smiles. “You’ll live longer if you keep your eyes front, my prince.”
My cheeks flush hot and I’m not sure if she’s suggesting that she’s the danger or Calli’s mates, but it’s not worth me asking. “Calliope is a beautiful woman, but I was actually wondering why she doesn’t flash on clothes like the rest of you.”
“Calli was born human,” Jaxx says. “She missed out on the genetic lottery with heightened senses and the magic to manifest clothing.”
Hawk grabs a backpack from the van and pulls out a t-shirt, yoga pants, and a pair of sneakers. “She has an entire wardrobe of fire-resistant clothing but has almost mastered regulating her body temperature to not need it anymore.”
Kotah trots in to join us and shifts back looking content after his run. “How’s Rhylan?”
“Nothing some Calli tears couldn’t handle,” Keyla says. “Are we all clear?”
Hawk nods. “The queen’s men evacuated her and raced off as soon as Calli started laying down a blanket of fire.”
“Where’s Lukas?”
“Here.” The military man scans the files and frowns. “What are we looking at?”
Jaxx sits back on his heels. “From a first look-see, Laryssa has a few travelers on the payroll to keep tabs on key players in our realm. One of which is your baby brother, hotness.”
Hawk’s expression darkens. “She’s in communication with Hunter?”
“Uh-huh. And by the messages she’s been passing, it seems like she’s probing to find out if the plans she made with daddy dearest are still viable.”
Hawk arches an imperious brow. “Not if I find Hunter first.”
“This is interesting,” Keyla says, opening a blue folder. “These correspondences are all about building a lead vault. There are material requisitions, and schematics, and notes about securing the thickest sheets of metal she can find. What do you think she’d store in a lead vault?”
“Kryptonite?” Brant asks.
“What’s kryptonite?” I ask, confused.
“Ignore him,” Hawk says. “He’s spouting off and cracking wise.”
“Then if that wasn’t a real guess, I have one.”
“What’s that?”
“My sister. During the Wars of Power, locking mind fae within lead-lined rooms was considered the most effective way to hold them prisoner.”
Keyla hands me the folder and I skim through the specifications. “The timing matches up with when Rhylan says Honor was recaptured.”
Calli shuffles in and looks over my shoulder. “Is there a manifest for delivery? A drop-off address? Anything that could tell us where she’s being held?”
“Unfortunately, no,” I say, flipping through the pages. “Nothing like that.”
Something about the mental energy of Lukas catches my attention. “What are you thinking?”
Lukas points toward the buildings. “If this is where the traveler equipment is located and where Honor spent almost a year during her escape from Laryssa, someone must’ve been helping her and keeping her whereabouts a secret. I’m thinking that while Hawk and the quint go through those folders, you, Keyla, Calli, and I go try to find out who.”
“I’m game,” Calli says. “If it helps to find Riley, I’m game for anything.”
I look back at the van. “Give me two minutes to check on Rhylan first. If Doc thinks he’s improving and is stable, we’ll go.”
Keyla
After Doc assures Creed that Rhylan will survive, we cross the grounds of the StoneHaven Citadel. He’s still shaken and torn about leaving but he’s equally anxious to find his sister. I slide my hand against Creed’s palm and squeeze. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. I know you and Doc say the phoenix tears will heal Rhy right up, but he hasn’t woken up yet.”
Calli chuckles. “Hey, there aren’t too many things I rock at in the supernatural world, but healing I can do. Trust us. He’ll be fine.”
I squeeze his palm and open our mental connection to speak to him mind-to-mind. Hear my words and feel the truth in them. Rhy will be fine. Between the tears and Doc taking care of him, there’s nothing to worry about.
Then why hasn’t he woken up?
Living and healing doesn’t negate the fact that he lost a lot of blood. He’s been through a great deal of trauma lately, not only physically but emotionally as well. Maybe he needs a moment to regroup.
I hope you’re right.
I am. And hey, once he wakes up, he might need to replenish some of that blood. He might need to feed on his mate.
I chuckle as a surge of his sexual arousal bursts into the air. Mmm, like that idea, do you?
He ducks his head, his pale cheeks pink. Sorry.
Don’t apologize. Rhylan sucking on your neck while palming you is hand’s down one of the most erotic images I’ve ever seen.
To punctuate my point, I call up the picture of the two of them in my mind. His footing falters and I laugh. I told you.
He pulls himself up and stops walking, gathering my wrists in his hands as he closes his eyes. I... uh, didn’t realize the show was so...
Hot?
Now I’m back to being mortified your family witnessed that.
I laugh and call up the memory of the naked nacho fiasco for him to see. Jaxx in his apron. Brant naked and punching Hawk. Kotah holding Calli’s hair as she puked into the sink. Mother’s face as she took in the sights. See. Nothing to panic about.
“How are you showing me these things, Little Wolf?” he asks.
“What do you mean? It’s your gift.”
He shakes his head, his silver hair catching in the sunlight. “No. My gift allows me to open a channel of communication and show you things, but you opened that channel and showed me images. It’s not a two-way street.”
“I don’t know what to tell you. I didn’t do it until you did it first with me. Now, it just happens when I think about it.” I shrug and catch Lukas and Calli, milling around waiting to continue. “Oh, sorry. Yep. We’re ready.”
The four of us are heading toward the building with the towering dome on t
op when a tiny man flutters down from a third-story window and lands in the grass in front of us. He’s only three feet tall, but he’s almost as broad as he is tall and his muscles roll and bulge as much as Brant’s. He’s also got a full beard that hangs to his belly and bushy eyebrows that look like fuzzy caterpillars.
Lukas draws his gun and Calli steps in front of us, but the man doesn’t seem to notice. His attention is solidly focused on—
“Prince Creed? Is that you, Highness?”
Creed raises a hand to ward off Lukas and Calli’s concern. “It’s fine. He means me no harm.”
That seems to bring his attention to the danger he was in a moment ago had his actions been deemed hostile. “Oh, no, sire. No harm to you or yours. Apologies. Brizbin is just so thankful you’ve finally come.”
“Finally?” he asks.
“Yes. Your sister said you would… and Brizbin waited. When weeks and then months passed, I wondered if you might never come, but a promise made is a promise kept, she said.”
He nods and looks at Calli. “That’s another one of her favorites.”
Calli’s grin is as bright and excited as I’ve ever seen. “Yep. Riley said that all the time. It must be her. That means, she’s alive and we’re going to find her.”
“Oh, yes, Princess Honor is alive, sire. Brizbin checks on her every day and every night. No question.”
Creed spins, his gaze widening. “My sister? You check on Honor?”
The wee man nods. “Yes, sire. Brizbin never forgot his promise. Not once. Not ever.”
“And what promise is that, Brizbin?” I ask.
The man turns his gaze to me and smiles. “You’re the Human Realm Princess. Brizbin saw you on the updates. You soul-seared with His Highness.”
I catch Creed’s growing agitation on our open mental channel and try to speed this along. “What did you promise Honor, Brizbin? Are you supposed to give Prince Creed a message? If you check that she’s all right, you must know where she is, yes?”
“Yes, and no, and sort of,” the man says.
Creed rubs his fingers over his face, and I step between him and the gnome and turn him a little to face me. “It’s time for you to fulfill your promise to Honor, Brizbin. What did she ask of you?”
“It’s up there. Come, Brizbin will show you.”
The man pushes off the ground and flies toward the open window he came out of.
When he disappears and doesn’t come back out, Creed curses. “I take it we’re supposed to follow him?”
Calli chuckles as we strike off toward the entrance of the building. “He’s an odd little guy, isn’t he?”
Creed grunts. “He’s a miner gnome. They’re all a little odd. Good people though. Hard-working. Honest people.”
“Then a good champion for your sister to enlist to her cause.”
Lukas grabs the handle of the front door and swings it for Creed to grab and then reclaims the lead up the three flights of steps and right off the landing.
I’m beginning to think we’ll need to knock on all the doors when one opens down the hall and Brizbin pokes his head out. “Hurry. Brizbin too excited for you to dally.”
Creed mutters something unkind but I forgive his frustration. He’s been desperate to find his sister for years.
The room Brizbin takes us to is an ordinary office. I scan the bookcases, desk, guest chairs, credenza. Nothing here screams anything about rescuing a kidnapped princess or how this little man got involved.
“Lock the door, please, soldier,” he says, pointing at Lukas before going to the window and closing us in. He pulls the blinds, grins, and then rolls his desk chair out from behind his desk. “Come. Brizbin shows you.”
Shifting a vase on a low shelf of the bookcase, he flicks a switch, and then the hum of hydraulics sounds. A soft vibration rumbles beneath my feet and then stops. “Come. Come.”
With more hustle than I expect from the guy, he shuffles around the desk and ducks out of sight.
“Follow that gnome,” Calli says, grinning.
Creed takes the lead, then Calli, then me, and then Lukas covers our butts.
The floor behind the desk has drifted out of the way, leaving an opening and stairs leading to the floor below. The room down there is narrow and dark and if the floorplan is similar, runs from the outside wall toward the central corridor in a narrow strip.
“I take it that’s not a dental chair,” Calli says, pointing at the beige, leather recliner hooked up to what looks like a brass satellite dish.
“No,” Creed says, examining the connections and the readout screen. “It’s a traveler’s bed but it’s been modified.”
“For long-term,” Brizbin says. “Princess Honor recalibrated it for long-term.”
“Winner!” Calli says. “Houston, we have lift off.”
Creed and Brizbin look confused.
Lukas and I chuckle.
“She’s excited for the confirmation that Honor is Riley,” I say. “So, what’s the promise you made her?”
The gnome grins. “Brizbin promised Princess Honor that Prince Creed would travel in and find her.”
I stare at the table and a wave of nausea hits me. “No. That’s a terrible idea.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Creed
I read the concern in Keyla’s gaze and feel how erratically her synapses start firing. I’m touched. She is genuinely upset at the idea of me linking up to this traveler bed. What she doesn’t understand is that I would do anything to find Honor.
Easing forward, I set my hands on her hips. “It’s fine. Traveler beds are built specifically for mind fae. My natural physiology makes it as simple a process as it is for you to put bread in your poppers and toast them.”
“That’s a toaster, not a popper, and I still don’t like the idea of you attaching your brain to a computer.”
“Trust me, Little Wolf. The process poses no danger to me. I’ll be fine.”
“You mentioned finding her,” Calli says to Brizbin. “What does that mean? How does Creed connecting with this machine help find her?”
Brizbin flutters the four copper wings on his back and hovers up to tap the machine's operational screen. “The princess was connected to this machine very often for a very long time.”
“Yeah,” Calli says, “Almost a year.”
He shakes his head. “She stayed with us for almost a year, but she wasn’t always connected. When her human host was in REM sleep, she woke up here to eat and walk the grounds to stay healthy and strong.”
“Is that why Riley was impossible to wake up?” Calli asks. “I always joked the big quake would come, and California would drop off the map and she’d sleep through it.”
Brizbin nods. “That is why.”
I hop up on the table and pull the cap on. “Did she leave her imprint for me to follow?”
“She did. She remained connected to the bed always and when she stepped away, she used a mobile unit to stay connected.”
I meet Calli’s gaze and smile. “That way, if you needed her in the night, she’d be alerted that she had to wake up and she could get back here and send her consciousness back to you.”
“Or,” Calli says looking annoyed. “She could’ve just told me what was going on.”
I shake my head. “No. She was already breaking a dozen timeline protocols by interfering with your life, if she exposed who she was and why she was there, it could’ve altered how you responded to your destiny and your quint.”
“You mean like not clubbing Jaxx in the head and almost killing him? Honestly, I could live without that.”
I sense the sharp pain in her memories and my heart goes out to her. “Everything that happened brought you to where you are now. All is well.”
Calli rolls her eyes. “We’ll agree to disagree. So, here and now. You’re going to lay down, close your eyes, and then what?”
“If her imprint is intact and she was wearing a mobile unit when she was recaptured, this bed should
be able to connect with her last memories and possibly lead me to where they took her.”
“Which may or may not be where they have her now,” Lukas says. “They might have moved her.”
I nod. “But you’re forgetting that Brizbin’s been checking on her morning and night.”
The gnome nods. “That is correct, sire. Her signal is strong. She isn’t communicating, but I believe that is because something is blocking her, not because she is harmed.”
“Blocked, like her being locked in a lead vault?” Keyla asks.
I nod. “That would do it.”
Keyla looks at me and frowns. “Swear to me that this is one-hundred percent safe, and I have nothing to worry about.”
I trail my fingers along the soft line of her jaw and marvel at how her mental impulses fire with affection. Her passion and devotion to me is truly humbling. “To say it is completely safe would be a lie and you’d smell it immediately. Let’s consider it ninety percent safe, and I’ll assure you that you have nothing to worry about. These beds are made for mind fae. I’m more than that—I’m a Mind Guardian. I have far more power than anyone else using them and will be fine.”
She leans in and presses her lips against mine. “I’ll be right here, waiting for you when you get back.”
“That’s the best incentive I could ask for. I’ll return before you can miss me.”
“Too late. I already do.”
I chuckle and lie flat, closing my eyes.
“Are you ready to commence, sire?”
“Ready, Brizbin. Send me off.”
Rhylan
My consciousness rises in slow, ebbing waves. I feel oddly tingly and very tired. I shift my legs and realize I’m naked and wrapped in a coarse blanket. What the hell… I remember then. Laryssa turned on me. My eyes snap open and I pike up to sit.
“Easy, Dragon,” Doc says, holding up his hands. “You’re recovering from three laser blasts and the loss of a lot of blood.”
“Where’s Creed? He was here, wasn’t he? Did I imagine that?”
“He was here,” Doc says, claiming my arm and checking his watch to track my pulse. “He and Keyla went with Lukas and Calli to find out what the queen was doing here.”