Remington: Queen’s Birds of Prey: Paranormal Shape Shifter Romance

by Kathi S. Barton

  Walking back to the castle from the new restaurant building, she thought about what she might name the place. She’d had a couple of ideas but had tossed them out as silly. She did want something that would make her stand out. As there wasn’t much competition in New Town for her to try and drum up business, she thought if she just named it Come and Get It that no one would care.

  Everywhere she looked, people were putting things out for spring. It was still cold out, enough of a cold spike in the air to make a person shiver. But she could see signs of spring right around the corner. She paused in front of the house that Esme was having built.

  It was a beautiful structure. Remi could see it finished in her mind. There were five bedrooms on the topmost floor and three more on the second level that included a master suite. She had wanted it small, one bedroom and the rest of the house, including the bathroom, all open. Personally, Remi thought Esme was doing that to piss off Mercy. But she had relented when she had it pointed out to her that she’d need more room simply to be able to paint. Esme was a very famous painter.

  “Mistress? Do you have a moment?” She told Patch, the faerie in charge of the greenhouse in town, that she had lots of time. “Oh, good. You see, I was working with the others, and I swear to you I only stepped away for a few moments. But you know how our kind work. Busy, busy, busy.” She asked him to get to the point, please. “Yes. I only stepped away for a moment. When I returned, the others had planted thrice the amount of herbs you’d asked for. So instead of having just ten plants of basil, we have thirty. You can see my worry, can you not?”

  “I do. Is it only herbs, Patch?” He nodded. “That’s all right then. When I have my home finished up, when I find someplace, I’ll want them in my yard too. I was thinking that instead of wholly flowers, I’d mix in a few herbs with them for the powerful smell they give.” He said it sounded heavenly. “Thank you. So you go ahead and take care of the extra, and when I get me a house, they’ll be good for me to use. In the meantime, I’ll pick out a place for them to be around the restaurant too. That’ll be a win-win for me.”

  She made her way to the castle just as Duncan was pulling into the driveway. He was a very nice man and kind to all his people. Remi couldn’t have been happier with the man if she’d picked him out on her own to be king.

  ~*~

  Rose couldn’t read, so why she was looking at the magazine when she was in the doctor’s office was beyond her. Putting it down with a huff, she looked around the waiting room. She hated waiting more than she did having to find something to eat that was fun and delightful for herself.

  “Mrs. Herb? The doctor is ready to see you.” She nodded and gathered up her things to entertain herself with. Even though she’d been told that he would see her now, she also knew it would be at least another hour or so before he would actually see her. “If you’ll tell me what’s brought you in today, I can get the doctor prepared to speak to you.”

  “I’m having some issues with being able to rest properly. Also, I have trouble concentrating. On anything.” The nurse asked if she was depressed. Laughing, she answered her. “No, never that. I have everything I’ve ever wanted right at my fingertips.”

  That reminded her that she needed to contact the bank about the message left to her and Juniper this morning. They had told her she had overdrawn her checking account. That wasn’t possible. They had more money than she could count most of the time. Not that she could have, but there had to be something wrong.

  The nurse took her vitals, and then she was weighed. Rose was confused as to why she was suddenly putting on some extra pounds. That hadn’t ever happened to her before. She’d also noticed that Juniper was graying more too. Thinking about that, she missed not only the doctor’s knock to come see her but also his greeting.

  “I’m sorry. I was thinking about something that had occurred to me this morning.” Dr. Williamson told her it was fine, then looked at her chart. Rose did wonder if he’d be able to tell anyone what she was wearing if asked, for as much effort he’d put into making eye contact with her.

  “Thinking hard on something that deeply could be why you’re not sleeping, Mrs. Herb.” She told him she’d not thought of it until just now. “I’m sorry. I can give you a little something to relax you enough to get to sleep. However, I’d like for you to try and keep track of what little things you think of during the day. That way, you can compare things to your thoughts at bedtime. It might just be something small, like if you’d paid your water bill or something. Little things can add up to something larger in the dark.”

  Taking the prescription, deciding he didn’t know what the hell he was talking about, Rose decided to go to the bank while in town rather than walking home and coming back later. She hated to be carted around everywhere, but with money, one had to make a showing of it. Or at least that’s what Juniper was forever telling her. It made her smile when she thought of the fun they’d had just a week ago.

  They’d only just gotten back from her home she had shared with Basil. Not that he’d seen her or his brother, but she had had a good time sorting through the things in the vault, or safe as it was called around here, and taking the most beautiful things she could lay her hands on. With the exception of a few things she’d been wearing out of the thing, she had only taken things she wanted. Juniper had pulled out bag after bag of coins and gems that they’d made love on. The gems had been a painful thing to have sex on, but it was also exciting. Basil had never excited her like his brother did.

  “Or how he used to.” She’d been thinking of Juniper a great deal of late. He was getting heavier too. “A fat immortal is something I don’t need right now.”

  Talking to herself wasn’t something she usually did. However, Sorrel and Juniper were out scouting for a new home for them. The one they lived in now was nearly trashed. They’d done it, of course, but since they never paid for housing or the things that were in it, they didn’t care how they treated their homes. The couple that had lived in the house they were enjoying were still frozen in the deep freeze in the basement. Freezers had been a life saver in not having to dig graves, she thought. Just pop them in the freezer, and they were out of sight and out of her mind.

  Rose moved up one step when the three people ahead of her did. Waiting in line for anything was another pet peeve of hers. Not that she thought she was better than anyone else—she knew she was. But it never ceased to annoy her how there weren’t enough people working so you could get in and out of anywhere without having a que you had to wait in.

  Finally, it was her turn to talk to the teller. “I’m checking on my account.” After telling the woman all the information she asked for, including shit she didn’t think she really needed, the woman asked her to hold on. The clicking noises her nails were making irritated her. Everything seemed to irritate her of late. When the woman said she’d be right back, Rose was left standing at the now empty teller booth.

  The bank manager asked for her to follow him. She was in his office with the door closed before she could think that perhaps Juniper or even Sorrel should be with her. Looking around for some sort of exit that would get her out of there quickly, the bank manager began to speak.

  “Ms. Herb, my name is Carder Pillow. I can wait to explain this to you if you’d like to wait on your husband or son.”

  She nodded and pulled out her cell phone. When the stupid thing started ringing in her ear, she realized he knew she was married with a son. Juniper answered just as she was getting ready to ask the man how he knew all that.

  “Can I call you back, honey? I’m having some issues with the credit card company.” She said she was in the bank now and was wondering if the issues could be related. “I don’t know. I suppose I’ll have to make a trip in there to get this cleared up. In the meantime, don’t say a word until I get there. There isn’t any reason for whatever is going on. We’re pillars of the community.”

  Per
haps he was, but she certainly wasn’t. She didn’t socialize much—rarely, as a matter of fact. Rose just didn’t like people—the way they spoke, the way they walked, the way they ate a meal, sloppy and talking with their mouth full. She’d been the queen of a castle at one time when there were barbarians around. Rose still ate like a queen. There was never a time when she even put a small bite in there that she spoke around it. Christ, they were all cows.

  She realized that Mr. Pillow was speaking.

  “How is your son?” She told him he was fine. “He was in here just this morning. That was before we got a call. The call is what I’m going to explain to you and your husband. I didn’t discuss anything with your boy. I’ll tell you that right now, but then, I didn’t have the information I have now.”

  He was talking in riddles, confusing her with information she didn’t understand. Rose stood up to go into the lobby and wait for Juniper when he showed up too. Sitting down beside him, she noticed something she’d not seen before. His hands had old people marks on them. The brown and black bruises were there, as well as the dark colorations of age. She’d been a nurse once, for about a week, before she realized how very important it was to know how to read. But the people she’d been caring for in that few days had explained to her they were the marks of age. Now Juniper had them.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Herb, I received a call not ten minutes after your son left this establishment to inform me that your accounts were to be ceased.” Juniper asked what that meant. “That we’re to put a lockdown on all your spending, as well as any credit cards you might have with the bank here. I’ve contacted the company attorney, and he said he’d take care that all the merchants you might deal with would also be informed. I do believe they have some sort of contact with the Federal Bureau that can make that happen. I’m afraid all you have for the moment is what you might have on you in cash.”

  “How am I supposed to live without money, I ask you?” Rose thought it was a good question, but Mr. Pillow only said he didn’t know, but the bank would be closed to them. “I’ll just take it out of the ATM.”

  “That won’t work either, I’m afraid. You see, it’s a part of the bank, and that will also be cut off from you. There is nothing I can do about it, I’m afraid. My hands are tied when it comes to the way the government does things.” Juniper looked at her, then back at Pillow when he spoke again. “I have no information I can share with you. Not because I was told not to share, but I simply wasn’t given any hint as to what might be going on.”

  “Are you reading my mind?” Pillow nodded and grinned at him, his fangs showing now that he’d been ousted. “What are you doing to us? I can’t believe the government would want to come down on our heads. We have done nothing.”

  “As I have said to you and your wife twice now, I don’t know anything about what is going on. Even though there has been a large amount of money taken out of your accounts, all of them, I can honestly tell you that I don’t know who did it or where it went. Again, this happened just after your son left here with about five thousand dollars. He did tell me he’d be back later for more. You see, it’s not possible for us to give out more than that amount more than twice a day.” Juniper asked what he was doing with the money. “I have no idea. I didn’t have any reason to look into his mind at that time. Now with you, with the lack of information I got from the bureau, I took a look. You’ve been stealing money for a long time now, haven’t you?”

  Juniper grabbed her hand, and they left the office. The vampire was laughing loudly as they raced out the door and into the street. Stolen money. That’s all her mind could center on for the moment. If he knew the money was stolen, he would know who they were stealing it from.

  Once they were on their street to go home, Juniper finally slowed his pace. She was glad for it. Her legs, much smaller than his, were doing twice as much work to keep up.

  “We have to find Sorrel before he spends all that money. It’s going to get us out of here.” She told him she didn’t know where he was. “I’ll call his cell phone. Christ, do you think Basil has finally figured it out? I wish to god we’d killed him long ago. Now this entire thing might come back and bite us in the ass.”

  They were walking up the walkway, her favorite part of the house, when they saw someone they didn’t know sitting on the front porch. Whoever it was, they were rocking in one of their chairs and drinking a tall glass of what looked like iced tea. Suddenly Rose was quite thirsty.

  “Hello. Might I help you?” Juniper pushed her behind him when the woman, she could see now, stood up. “We’ve only just gotten home, but if you were to allow us to go inside for a few minutes, we’d be able to talk to you. It’s been a terrible morning thus far.”

  “You’re all sweet and sugar when it suits you, aren’t you? As for you getting into the house, go on ahead. I do think you’ll enjoy the recent updates I’ve added to it. Or not. I don’t care one way or the other, but there you have it.” The woman grinned at him. “Your son, Sorrel. I’m assuming you are aware that he’s taken out all the money you’re ever going to get from the bank, correct? You’ll also find that none of your credit cards will work. Other things too, but I think you figuring them out on your own will be a great source of entertainment for me and the others.”

  “Do you know why the bank isn’t allowing us to have the money we worked hard for?” The woman said she should know two things but didn’t explain them. “Why are you talking to us anyway if you’ve no plans to—?”

  “I could explain them to you at length, but I don’t want to. I have better things to do than sit around here with a couple of morons that thought stealing millions of dollars wasn’t going to catch up to them.” Rose asked the woman who had lied about them. “No lies, I promise you, but I am glad I got to see your faces when things started to fall apart. If you need a name to curse, I’m Remi. That’s all you need to know for now.”

  “You’re one of the queen’s birds.” It wasn’t a question, but the woman affirmed what Juniper had said. “Why would you be here when the queen has been dead for longer than anyone in this town has been alive?”

  “You fucked up.”

  The woman shifted from herself into a vulture. Then as she stepped off the porch to the sidewalk, she grew to a monstrous size. Screaming, Rose fell back and hit her head. They knew, was all she could think about as she passed out.

  Chapter 2

  Harlin Tayler tried to keep his nerves under control. This thing was about to end, and he couldn’t be happier. Four years of this man was more than he ever thought this would take. His bosses and their bosses didn’t think that Sorrel was nearly as smart as he apparently was. The man so far had eluded every kind of trap they’d set up for him before Harlin had come on the scene.

  Being an undercover agent for the Feds wasn’t what he’d wanted as part of his long-term goals. Being an agent at all hadn’t been in his mind. But here he was, not only an agent but with skill sets that made it so he could go deep undercover and no one would ever know who he was. He supposed it was because of the little extra he’d gotten one night when he’d been out too late and was just a little tipsy.

  Glancing at his watch again, he wondered where the hell Sorrel was. He said to meet him here at the diner at noon, and it was now coming up on twelve-thirty. Harlin decided he was only going to give him ten more minutes, and he was going to leave. Fuck this shit.

  The Feds knew that Sorrel was the head honcho in some of the major drug rings. There had been so many leads going back to him that Harlin was surprised he’d not been arrested. But, as he’d found when he’d started making his way into the cartel, Sorrel seemed to be one step ahead of every bust they’d made, even when Harlin knew the man had been in the building when the Feds arrived.

  That was when Harlin figured out that Sorrel wasn’t just not a human, but he was fae. Sorrel had a very special way of blending into whatever their surroundings were.
Or to simply change himself into whatever piece of furniture or other items that were close at hand so he could go undetected until it was safe again. Harlin could and did see him each time the place he was in had been raided. It was that skill set, the Feds called it, that made him a perfect candidate to find Sorrel and have him put into prison. And today was going to be the last time, he hoped, that he’d have to hang out with the monster.

  Sorrel was a sadist. He didn’t just abuse and end up killing the women he would take to his lair, what he called his playroom. But he would maim and then kill people working for him, making them suffer beyond what their crime, as he saw it, warranted. Harlin had been witness to just one of such killings, and he vowed never again. He was sick beyond anything Harlin had ever seen.

  The slap to his back had him reaching for his gun. When Sorrel sat down next to him, Harlin asked for his bill. Sorrel asked him if he’d been there long.

  “Long enough. I have shit to do today, so I’m going to have to meet up with you a little later.” Harlin stood up, well past being pissed enough that he wanted to just kill the man, but he was sick of this job. “See you later.”

  “No. Sit down.” He just stood there watching Sorrel. “Please? I’d like to talk to you. There is something going on at my house, and I might need you to help me with it. My parents are in trouble.”

  “What did they do now?” He’d heard all the stories about his parents. Not just from Sorrel, but the fae he knew, as well as the Feds he worked for. It seemed that not only had they had faked their own deaths, but Sorrel’s mother was supposed to have been married to the fae king. Not that Harlin didn’t believe the last part—he’d seen her with the other man—but Sorrel wasn’t the king’s child. “I have shit to do today, as I told you when you asked me to meet you here, Sorrel. I also explained to you that I hate having to wait on you. You either show up when you’re supposed to or—”