Fae Captive (The Mage Shifter War Book 1)

by Elle Middaugh

  Speak of the devil…

  Aaron—Tee’s mate—was a siren with a voice that could make you stop, turn, and drop your pants from a block away. Literally. Siren song could make people into puppets. So, while their mind might fight a siren, their body couldn’t. Not that anyone would want to resist dropping their pants for Aaron. His smile wasn't anything to scoff at. Before I'd learned he and Tee were an item, I might have had a little bit of a crush on him.

  He gave me a smile and Tee an even wider one. Then he pulled off his black police hat and ran a hand through his silky sable hair. "Hey, we got the others. Clean up crew is on the way. You all ready to go?"

  I nodded as the itchy, prickling sensation spread out across my neck and back. I undid the top button of my collar and reached around so I could dig my nails in and ease the sensation. "Yeah, let's get out of here before I end up scratching my skin off."

  "You had to use glamour?" Aaron asked.

  "Yeah, and it feels like fucking poison ivy now." The itch came on stronger as the adrenaline from the fight wore off.

  Aaron shook his head. "Nothing I can do about that one. But…"

  As he bent down and sang a little ditty, I had to turn my head away. Siren songs were seductive, and I did not want to get all hot and bothered by Tee’s man. But the song did the trick. The wounds on my leg and back healed instantly.

  For some reason, sirens could heal bleeding wounds. But internal injuries, rashes, anything else? Nope. Their power cut off. I’d always wondered if it was an evolutionary adaptation, a protection from underwater predators such as sharks who could sense blood in the water. I suspected as much, but asking people about their powers in detail was rude. Asking employees when you were the boss was twice as bad. So, I kept my theories in theory-land.

  "Thanks," I said to Aaron, even as I scratched under my armpits like an ape.

  Damn, this was turning into a full body tingle. I’d never glamoured into an animal before. That shit was for shifters. I was even more sure of it now.

  I glanced between him and Tee. "Can I meet you guys back at the station for debrief and reports? Think you can tell the press I’ll hold a conference in an hour to announce this takedown? I gotta—"

  I scratched my chest and rubbed my thighs together so hard they chafed. After a glamour, clothes were a fucking nuisance. I could end this itch so much faster if I was naked. And showered.

  "Go. Get outta here." Tee waved me off and turned to Aaron. "You take the dead shifter over to the council morgue. I'll take the jewel."

  I practically sprinted out of the place. As soon as I was outside, I had no choice but to glamour myself again, so that the humans couldn’t see me flying home.

  Well, not no choice. But sitting in an uber and not scratching my cooch in public for the fifty-minute car ride just wasn’t much of a choice at all.

  Luckily, in L.A., most people didn’t look past the tips of their surgically altered noses. Or, if they did, it was only to scan their phones. Hopefully that meant no one would see me as I altered my appearance to look more like a shadow, just a barely discernible silhouette against the nighttime sky.

  I leapt into the air and flew through the light-polluted night back to my apartment, a small box of a living space on the other side of town. I landed on the front porch and walked easily through the wards my best friend had set up to protect me, unlocking the door and relocking it behind me.

  As soon as I was inside, I shucked off my shirt and bra, not even bothering to turn on the light. I had zero shame, and once my back was free to the air, I rubbed up against my couch like a fucking bear, crushing my wings and not even caring. I struggled to safely remove my gun and my magical sleep grenades without setting one off and putting myself into a three-hour coma. Finally, I set the belt aside and slid down my pants until they got stuck on my ankles, tangled up in my work boots.

  But even that was sweet relief.

  The cool air kissed my irritated skin and made the awful itching recede a bit. I took a breath and just let my tense muscles relax, trying to meditate the itch away. If I could do that, I wouldn’t have to take an hour-long ice-cold shower, standing there as the frigid drops pelted my skin.

  You fucking nailed it tonight, I told myself.

  Affirmation mantras were good for the soul. My soul liked them with a side of swear words. Somehow it made them more impactful.

  A blissed-out smile came over my face when the air conditioner flipped on and shot cold air right at my ass from the vent next to my couch. I sat down on the floor, enjoying the chill before yanking off my boots.

  That was when the door to my apartment slammed open. I nearly jumped out of my skin when a backlit silhouette appeared in my doorway. I scrambled for my utility belt, tits smacking my arms and getting in the way.

  A woman’s voice rang out. "Aubry, you fucked up big time."

  2

  Aubry

  There were only four people who had a key to this apartment. My parents, my ex, and me. So, unless my ex had undergone a sex-change to match his pussy-assed attitude, or some random chick had picked the lock, then that could mean only one thing—it was my mother. And based on the condescension in the intruder's tone, I had a bad feeling I was right on the money.

  I sighed in annoyance and got right back to scratching, not bothering to dress or greet her at the door. "What do you want, Mother?"

  The queen of the summer fae stormed into my living room and tore off her sunglasses, fluffing the furry red boa draped around her scrawny little neck. Her tiara twinkled in the nightlight I always kept on in the bathroom. I kinda wished mom would have caught her damn boa on something and strangled herself when she was marching her pompous ass through my front hall.

  "What do I want?" she cried theatrically. "You just ruined the bust of the year, and you're worried about what I want? Darling, you should be asking what the council wants. And they want you—preferably on a skewer and roasting over the flames."

  I rolled my eyes at her dramatic antics. "Well, call me Wilber and put an apple in my mouth," I snapped. "I got the fire; I can roast myself. But honestly, when they hear it was El Fuego that I took out tonight, I’m sure they'll be singing a different tune."

  "They know it was El Fuego," she deadpanned. "It's The Shadow that they're angry about. Why must you always piss the mages off? Just like your grandfather."

  I froze, mid-scratch. "The Shadow wasn't there. I would have known if he was."

  "Would you?" she asked haughtily, tapping her stilettoed toes on the stone tiles of my floor. "Just get dressed, Aubry. And wear your damned tiara for once. This is a formal fucking hearing. The council is waiting."

  I stood, the itch suppressed by worry as a wave of cold sweat moved across my body. I crossed my arms to appear more aloof, but deep down, her words had gotten to me. I’d caught El Fuego. But had I missed someone even bigger? Thoughts of the man who had stood in the doorway crossed my mind and I shook my head. No. This couldn’t be happening. This was my biggest success, not my greatest failure. I couldn't have possibly fucked it up like that.

  "Now? As in, now now?" I asked with a raised brow.

  "Yes!" she cried in exasperation, tossing the ends of her boa. "I got called away from the Annual Imp Fundraiser for this! So unless you want me to drag you in there buck-ass naked, I suggest you get. Fucking. Dressed."

  "Okay, hold your saggy tits!" I threw my hands up and spun out of the room, all but dashing to my closet.

  "No, you hold yours!" she shouted after me. "They’re on display for the whole god-forsaken world to see… what kind of fae royal…"

  I rolled my eyes and ignored her, quickly skimming through my clothes.

  This is not happening. This is not happening!

  But it was.

  I inhaled deeply through my nose, and exhaled slowly through my mouth, mentally commanding my body and brain to calm down. There was no way The Shadow—enemy number one on the mage's shit list—had been there. This was obviously just a
test. Maybe even just a cover: bring me in on false pretenses, then congratulate me and give me a raise? Yeah, that must've been it. I took a deep breath and cracked my neck, trying to calm down. I needed to chill the fuck out.

  Pulling a dark training outfit off the hanger, I struggled to hop into it quickly. I wanted something nice-ish, but also practical. You never knew what to expect with the council. They were like the Tyler Durdens of our little mage fight-club—half insane, half genius, but completely in control. Even though Dad had a seat on the council, it was a minor seat. Everyone knew that the senior mages held all the cards, and the deck was loaded against anyone they decided to beat.

  I had to be ready for anything.

  I grabbed a duffel and a change of clothes—tossing my tiara in, just in case—but I refused to wear the damn thing on principle. I was Chief-fucking-Enforcer, a title I’d earned. Princess Aubry was just a title I’d been born with. It wasn’t who I was. And if I was going in front of the council, I wanted to feel like myself, not a damn facade.

  I strolled back into the living room, grabbing my belt and reequipping my weapons, then added extra ammo from a stash I kept hidden behind my hall mirror.

  My mother’s face turned chartreuse when she saw that I still wore my combat boots and she clenched her fists. But we’d had the same damn argument for too many years for her to actually believe she’d win.

  "We taking your town car?" I asked, shoving past her on my way to the door, duffel in hand. I was kinda hoping she'd lose her balance on those skinny high heels and land face first in my sweaty pile of work clothes. But she didn't, because apparently fate preferred to fuck snarky fae like me instead of stuck up brunettes.

  She scoffed and followed me down the hall, reapplying her shades as I locked up. "Please, Darling. We could have, if someone hadn't taken so long to get ready. Now we'll be forced to glamour and fly."

  "Are you fucking serious? Do you have any idea how long it takes you to get ready for anything?" My mother was the queen of primping. If it had been a sport, she would have won every trophy.

  "Of course, I do. Which is why I always allot at least two hours for my beauty regimen, and why I'm never caught dead looking less than perfect. One must always be prepared."

  I felt like slapping her sunglasses right off her perfect face and drawing a massive cock on her forehead in red lipstick. Your beauty regimen can suck a big red dick, Katrina. She’d always been a hardass on me. She was probably glad that she’d been the one to deliver this bad news. Sometimes I thought she took a sick, twisted sort of satisfaction in my failures.

  "Whatever." I glamoured quickly and took to the sky, not even bothering to check if she'd followed me. We whizzed through the clouds, keeping to the shadows, our wings and bodies glamoured to look like nothing more than a patch of darkness. We flew so fast that if humans looked up and blinked, we’d be gone from their line of sight.

  Touching down on the sidewalk directly in front of my precinct headquarters, I marched determinedly toward the seven-story building made of tinted glass and steel. I went up the exterior steps and through the front doors before dropping my glamour. The annoying, prickling sensation raced across my body like a herd of ants, biting me as they went. It took every ounce of control I had to keep from stripping and scratching right in the lobby.

  If I turned left, I’d enter my home away from home, the precinct. I could hear the buzz of work, phones, arguments, and chatter drifting from the precinct’s open doors. But I didn’t turn left. I took the stairs to the lobby on the second floor. That lobby had much nicer carpet than ours, a plush grey. And the secretary’s desk wasn’t scratched up like ours. It was polished for the Mage Council’s posh guests.

  "Good evening, Chief Summerset. The council members are expecting you in chamber five." Lana, a squat gnome with straw blonde hair told me. Her job was coordinating the meeting rooms above for mages who portaled in from around the world.

  I nodded in the secretary's general direction and kept moving, bypassing the elevators to take the emergency stairs instead. As a faerie, I preferred to get places fast via flying—though, having to use glamour to hide my wings sucked big time—so there was nothing quite as tedious and annoying as waiting for a slow-motion box to creep up the levels. I'd rather be winded and in motion. Besides, it helped keep me in top shape, a necessity in my line of work.

  Side bonus, I could make pissed off faces and curse my mother as I trudged upstairs because there were no cameras in the stairwells anymore. Not after it had been determined that they were the source of too many Mage Police Gone Wild leaks to social media.

  I got to the fifth floor and passed a few mages, sirens, and pixies in the dimly lit hall, each of us ignoring the other. We went about our business as if our individual tasks were the most important in the world and only we were qualified to complete them. For me, that was actually true. For everyone else, they were just arrogant dicks. I liked it though. They were my kind of people.

  Pausing outside of chamber five, I took a moment to catch my breath and collect my racing thoughts.

  No matter what goes on in there, you are strong. You're a badass bitch. And you're going to take whatever bullshit they dish out like the fucking champ that you are. No tears. No hurt feelings. Just cold-hard confidence and cold-hearted determination.

  I'd barely taken a single step inside the doorway when Citrine Pierce’s voice assaulted me from her high and mighty pedestal in the apex of the circular council room.

  "Aubry Summerset." Her voice was like a whip, cracking over my head when she asked, "Do you have any idea what you’ve done?"

  Two council members perched on Citrine’s right, one on her left, all of which looking like bloodthirsty vultures.

  Grinding my teeth, I kept walking until I neared the circular inlay in the middle of the marble floor. The room was mostly dark, save for a single white light shining directly above Citrine’s head, showcasing her silvery hair. It was an intimidation tactic, one that I hated to be on the receiving end of. Despite the low light, the circle in the middle of the council room floor was easy enough to find because it glowed with undulating turquoise magic. I loathed these damn circles. But I had no choice, they were a part of every council hearing.

  At least today’s trial didn’t appear to have the full council. On Citrine’s right, sat Indigo Summerset, King of the Summer Fae, a man I was unfortunate enough to call Dad. His black-lined wings spread out on either side of his seat, his face like carved marble, showcasing disapproval, an expression I was incredibly familiar with from him. Next to him was Obidiah Jenson, a man with dark brown skin and a beautiful South African accent. On Citrine’s left, sat Lotus Mao, the woman who spoke on behalf of the Asian mages.

  I took a deep breath and stepped inside the circle. As soon as both my boots were in, they were rooted there, the Movement Restriction Spell tying the magic within my body to the magic in the floor like an electromagnet. My feet could no longer move. I hated feeling like a bleeding rat at their buzzard-like feet, but I was in no position to fight back. I would literally be held hostage until my impromptu work evaluation aka trial aka witch hunt was officially complete and they let me walk out of here.

  Lucky me.

  "I asked you a question, Chief Enforcer Summerset," Citrine snarled. Her silver hair gleamed, but it was the only part of her face even remotely attractive. Her brows overhung her eyes so that they just looked like dark pits and no amount of botox could remove the sneer her face was constantly set in. I couldn’t read her expression, but her tone said enough. She was furious.

  Beside her, my dad’s stiffened posture said the same. Which was absolutely, one-hundred and ten percent ridiculous. My nostrils flared and I took a deep breath so that I didn’t mouth off.

  In a carefully controlled tone, the kind I used for press releases, I said, "I saved an invaluable mage jewel from falling into the clawed, criminal hands of the shifters, while simultaneously eliminating Public Threat Number Nineteen who goes b
y the name of—"

  "El Fuego," one of the other council members said in a nasally voice, cutting me off. Lotus Mao watched me stoically. "Yes, we are aware."

  Then what's the damned problem? I wanted to ask, but I was supposed to wait to speak unless spoken to. Fucking bullshit chamber regulations.

  "You are decisive, Miss Summerset," Lotus said. "But also, impulsive. When you follow your gut, instead of protocol, there are always repercussions."

  My cheeks flamed. I was by-the-book most of the damn time, and only went off-book on unimportant shit. I wanted to argue with her, but she hadn’t asked a question, so I couldn't respond or deny. I simply nodded curtly and waited for the next council member to speak.

  I can’t wait to hear what other bullshit they’ve come up with.

  My father opened his mouth, but then a puff of orange and yellow smoke appeared in the corner of the room. The British member of the Mage Council, John Daggler, brushed off his grey suit and strode up to the podium, taking a seat beside my father.

  "Sorry I’m late," he offered to the other council members before turning to address me. I stared at his weak jawline with disinterest. "I’ve reviewed your body cam live feed. Not only did you act before you called for backup—a direct violation of protocol—but, you also acted before you were certain you had the proper suspect, which is just plain sloppy."

  Bullshit! I wanted to scream. I'd properly identified him as El Fuego, the mountain lion shifter from my file, and I'd caught him red-handed with a mage jewel. What more did they want? I smelled a set-up.

  "El Fuego was there, yes," Councilwoman Lotus conceded, as if reading my mind. "But you jumped the gun and missed the opportunity to take down none other than the infamous Shadow. Your recklessness has officially kept us from a massive win against the shifter gangs threatening this region."