Risky Business

by J B Trepagnier

  I danced with a few other Fae and my father. All I knew about the Fae were that they were snobs, but this visit proved that wrong. They were all so lovely to me. They were humble and grateful to me for what I had done with Zepar. They weren’t huge ass kissers, and I liked that. They were able to thank me in a way that I wasn’t totally uncomfortable.

  By the time the night wound down, I was exhausted and had had a blast. Eiltan led me to my quarters. Ior must have done this while we were in Hell, and I had no idea when he had the time. They decked my suite out almost like a topside bedroom, and the bed was big enough for all of us.

  “I didn’t know what kind of music you listened to, but the television gets all Fae and topside channels.”

  “Actually, I loved the Fae music that played at the celebration. Is there any way I could get copies of some music?”

  Eiltan beamed at me.

  “I’ll get you a flash drive full of the best Fae music. Deal?”

  “Deal. How did you have time to propose with everything going on?” I said, smacking his arm.

  Eiltan looked embarrassed.

  “I met Teafa fifteen years ago. I proposed to her ten years ago. We made a promise. When I became king, we would wed. I told her about you as soon as I found out you were in Scorchwood. We tried to figure a way to get you out together, but that was when we thought you were guilty.”

  “I’m happy for you. She looks like she loves you.”

  “She’ll love you too, Serafina. She’s a gentle woman with a lot of love in her heart.”

  “I expect lots of baby brothers and sisters to corrupt.”

  He grinned at me.

  “Watch it, or you’ll be babysitting the little hellions.”

  Was it wrong that I actually wanted to?

  Chapter 45

  Serafina

  O

  kay, the Fae realm was absolutely gorgeous. It looked like a cross between a fantasy movie and a vacation brochure to some paradise island. They made the houses out of some stone that shone iridescent silver and blue in the light, and the trees all had purple leaves. Eiltan brought us all over the place, and the people were so lovely to us. Fergus said the Fae could be snobby, but I didn’t see that at all.

  I got my day alone with Fergus in the Fae realm. Amduscias, Skoll, and Roman spent a day at the beach while Fergus took me on this tour. He took me to this little Fae restaurant where they served the most fantastic food, and then he took me to get some version of Fae gelato. It wasn’t ice cream, and it wasn’t gelato. I just knew it was cold, creamy goodness, and I wanted every flavor in the shop.

  We made love for hours when we got back to the castle, and it was even more amazing than in my dreams. He was mine now. They were all mine.

  By the time we left, Ior had passed several laws to open the door to topside, and I’d gotten to know my family better. I liked Teafa, and I thought we would get along just fine. My father was so different than I thought he would be. He was a total hardass when I watched him in meetings about passing laws, but when we were alone, he was funny and a little goofy. He had a nasty sense of humor that spoke to my inner psychopath. The guys liked him too, and Eiltan always made everyone feel included.

  I felt a little sad when we left. I’d made a few friends here, and I loved the food and music. Amduscias had visited with the chef at Ior’s castle to get recipes to bring back, and Eiltan gave me a flash drive full of music and an e-reader full of books by Fae authors. He also gave me two little devices to plug into the laptop and television that would allow us to access Fae televisions shows in Hell. I’d started watching some series on the Fae version of Netflix, and I was dying to know how it ended.

  When we got back to Hell, we reported straight to Bael. I asked about Warden Skinner because I was still pissed about getting shot, even if the water demon healed me quickly, and it didn’t hurt anymore.

  “I think she’s told us everything she knows. We’ve gone through everything at her apartment and what was left at the castle. Their coven is gone. I’m letting Solron blow off some steam, and then I will kill her slowly.”

  “Can I blow off some steam too?” I asked.

  “No, dear. You had your fun with the rest of the coven. It’s Solron’s turn to play, but I do have a gift for you, my dear. We all feel bad Zepar’s execution was ruined when you went through the trouble of planning something so fitting. Solron likes you and wants to get to know you better. She wants to plan an execution with you because she likes your style. What do you say? Can Solron get her jollies torturing the Warden, then you can both have fun planning her execution? There won’t be a sniper there to ruin it this time.”

  I said I was putting Elemental Batwoman behind me after the coven was dead, but Warden Skinner was their High Priestess, and I didn’t think I would ever stop being mad they fucking shot me. Who brought guns to a magic fight, anyway? Evil witches and warlocks who framed people and experimented on them, that’s who.

  “Is Solron a twisted fuck?” I asked.

  Bael gave me this wicked grin.

  “She’s such a twisted fuck, I’m probably going to make her my queen.”

  “Excellent. Then I like your idea, and I can see us becoming great friends.”

  “Good. Maybe you can rein her in a little.”

  Not likely, but Bael could believe that all he wanted.

  “How was the Fae realm? Are treatments going well?”

  Fergus snapped to attention. Like I was the new halfling ambassador since Fergus was currently the only full Fae resident in Hell, he was Hell’s new ambassador to the Fae realm. I wasn’t all that sure about it until we got to the Fae realm and I saw no one would kill him. It warmed my little black heart that all the Fae accepted him, and some of them were kissing his ass because they heard the stories about his heroics when he was alive. Those Fae men and women who were hitting on him needed to step off though.

  “Treatments are going well. The Fae physicians synthesized it and turn it into an aerosol. We can administer it as a simple nostril spray. They are working on getting it out to the more rural areas of the Fae realm now. The women who have already received the treatment are already trying to conceive.”

  “Wonderful. Demons love babies, and what Zepar did was incomprehensible. What about opening the door to the Fae realm?”

  “The law passed, but all of that has to be worked out with topside. Times have changed since the last time the door was open. People don’t even like immigrants from other countries nowadays. Opening up a door to another realm may cause riots if it’s not done correctly. The Fae could be in danger when they come through if we do not introduce them in the right way. It won’t be like last time where they were new and interesting. There will be people who are suspicious of their motives for returning this time.”

  I knew that, and so did Fergus, but it was Eiltan who brought all that to the table. Before I met him and started finding out about him, I thought he was some asshole playboy who kept tripping and ending up with his dick in women while he was framing elementals and experimenting on them.

  That ended up totally wrong. While I was in the Fae realm, I spent some time alone with him. He told me all about my mother, and he really loved her. He even showed me pictures of her. Aside from my ears, I looked just like my father, but he was able to tell me little things I got from her.

  It seems as if even though I never met her, we had the same taste in food. She liked to soothe her nerves with heavy metal too. He told me we laughed the same, and he wished I would laugh more because he enjoyed the sound from both of us. He kept apologizing for not coming back sooner before she disappeared off the grid.

  Eiltan wasn’t like the way I thought. When he was topside trying to figure out how to fix his mistake, he wasn’t just trying to figure out how to defeat Zepar and falling in love. He was networking and watching, trying to figure the best way to open the door when he became king. He just had no idea Ior had been thinking the same thing.

  As soo
n as Eiltan mention that there may be push back, he whipped out this entire presentation on how to introduce the Fae back to the world, so no one thought they had ill intentions coming back. I was pretty impressed. I even had a that’s my dad moment I was so proud of him.

  Fergus was pretty impressed with him too. Fergus wasn’t around Fae court when Eiltan was growing up. All he ever heard were rumors that he was irresponsible and would make a rotten king. Fergus was glad to be proved wrong, too, and not just because he was my dad. Fergus was still a Fae, and he wanted what was best for his people.

  Bael was just sitting there, nodding.

  “How do the Fae intend to spin the Scorchwood angle before they come back? That will be a huge stain on their reputation if people found out they imprisoned their own kind for not coming home, then everything Warden Skinner’s coven did.”

  “There is full transparency in the Fae realm about what Scorchwood started out for. People are understandably upset, but they also understand that it was under a different king. There’s no point in punishing Ior for the sins of his ancestors, and we can’t bring those Fae back to life. It was decided to keep Scorchwood’s origins among the Fae, but go public with everything that happened afterward.

  “The Fae will admit fault for not having better oversight in the prison to make sure all the work was actually being done, and that part is true. While Warden Skinner came highly recommended and was voted to her position by an entire board of various supernaturals, the Fae should have been more involved as majority shareholders, and we should have had demons involved. There’s a lot of wrong mythos about demons topside, and the Fae were apparently outvoted about demon involvement. We are all horribly sorry, and we should have overridden them.”

  I held my breath while I waited for Bael to respond. I knew all the kings of Hell were pretty pissed off Scorchwood turned into a commercial enterprise, and they got left out, but I didn’t know if that explanation would be good enough for them. Demons had some weird honor code and found the strangest things offensive, considering they unleashed someone like me and put me in charge of two executions. Bael was just like, hey, you can kill these people in whatever manner you want, and the more fucked up it was, the more they liked it. But they got offended if you used the wrong fork at dinner or did a business deal dishonorably.

  Bael just nodded.

  “I can understand that. We pass misinformation for a reason, and it was bound to bite us in the ass, eventually.”

  Amduscias looked like he was dying to speak, but he was waiting for Bael to finish. He finally just blurted it out.

  “What about Finn’s intel? It still doesn’t sit right with me that Saleos died to prove a point. I don’t want him to die in vain, especially since his mate was taken from him so horrifically. He is right. What’s being done to protect our smoke and flame demons now that Saleos was willing to die for them?”

  “It’s already in the works, son. Finn had a wonderful idea, and he will make an excellent addition to Hell. Solron is excellent with hacking. She’s been locating any sources of Bitter Woundwort around the world. It’s notoriously tricky to grow. Only experienced botanists have been able to manage it, and it’s usually done in greenhouses no one knows about. Most witches and warlocks look down on demon summoning too, and they don’t want it grown either.

  “Finn has offered to assemble a team of sympathetic witches and warlocks to use Solron’s intel to wipe all traces of that foul herb off the earth. Charley has offered to help. She might be small, but she’s quite a powerful witch. Those two will make quite the power couple in Hell. Finn has already joined their coven, and I gave them a house for helping with the rebellion. Finn is quite the inventor. I heard about the device he used in Romania. I’ve already given him a job.”

  I was happy for Charley. I’d still be under Rathmore’s spell in Scorchwood if it weren’t for her, and so would Roman. I was glad she was out, and I was glad she found someone. I was also glad Finn was proving resourceful. I didn’t like the fact that Saleos died either. I understood why he had to, but I hated that it came to that.

  I didn’t know a damned thing about demon summoning because I didn’t do it, but I was learning when witches and warlocks wanted to stir up some shit, they weren’t above torturing and killing demons to get what they wanted. I’d met some friendly demons, and I didn’t want any of them killed just because some witch got greedy. This was a splendid thing.

  Bael clapped his hands.

  “Go home, all of you. Enjoy Hell and live your lives. The rebellion is over, we’ve figured out how to save our smoke and flame demons, the Fae are cured, and no one will have to experience Scorchwood the way you did ever again. Let Finn and his team handle wiping out any way to summon demons. Let the Fae handle their reemergence into the world. You’ve done enough. Focus on you for now.”

  Was this it? Was it finally over, and we could make a home now? It felt like we had been fighting for so long. I was sure going to try to relax and find out.

  Epilogue

  Serafina

  B

  ael was right. It was mostly over. That didn’t mean all of us jailbirds didn’t spend an entire year looking over our shoulders waiting for some dirty witches or demon royalty to act up again. Eventually, we all just fell into this natural pace where having a beautiful, dull day where we pigged out on food and shagged like bunnies seemed like the norm.

  I did say mostly over. All the major players in the plots and subplots were dead. Solron and I had many wonderful girl’s nights out at this little demon bar, planning how we would kill Warden Skinner. Solron was now one of my best friends right up there with Charley. Let’s just say when Solron and I decided on how Warden Skinner would die, it was explosive.

  It took a few years for Finn and his team to make it impossible for anyone to ever summon a demon again, but it happened. There was this massive block party in Hell when it did. Demons knew how to party, and we all got so drunk that night I had regrets about how much I drank for an entire week. But I had so much fun.

  Eiltan’s plan to reintroduce the Fae worked, but it ended up being a five-year campaign before most people felt okay with the Fae being back. I would have thought the Fae would have dropped it when they realized they would not be celebrated again, and they were getting pushback, but they really wanted this to work, and they just tried harder.

  When the Fae started coming through, they worked hard at integrating, and like they promised, elementals were allowed through the door if they wanted to visit and live there. From what my father told me on my visits with him, the elementals were only allowed to stay if they weren’t insufferable assholes like they were when I lived topside, and they quickly learned rules actually did apply to them in the Fae realm.

  I got to attend a Fae royal wedding when my father married Teafa. It was beautiful and unlike anything I’d ever seen before. The remedy was working quite well because I now had four half-siblings I adored to death. My little brother was the next Fae king, and I was having so much fun corrupting him. I think Teafa wanted to strangle me when he started spouting profanities and set something on fire for fun.

  Scorchwood was slowly coming along, but doing all the updates that were needed would take time. Bael appointed the one warden he could trust to keep things in order. Solron would be the new warden of Scorchwood, and I already knew there would be no hanky panky going on there under her watch.

  As for me, Elemental Batwoman was truly retired. I was still one twisted mother fucker, but I wasn’t killing the bad guys anymore. I found a more kinky outlet in Amduscias’s dungeon, and it was so much fun. Amduscias taught me how to be a Domme, and we played so many games with Roman. Roman was a bit of a brat. I think we all knew sometimes he did things just because he knew he would end up getting punished. If I was totally honest, I loved it when Roman misbehaved.

  I was closer than ever with Skoll. He might be some colossal Alpha wolf, but he was such a softie. He loved spoiling me, and I got to the point w
here I let him do it instead of feeling weird about it. I loved just soaking in the bathtub with him while he scrubbed my back and washed my hair.

  Even now, I was still getting a kick out of having Fergus real. Sometimes, I just reached out and touched him just to be sure. Waking up snuggled next to him still felt like this enormous treat. I hoped that never wore off. I hoped I always felt this same feeling in my gut when I saw his beautiful face and realized he was real and all mine.

  I’d learned so much from Amduscias. He took us on several vacations all over Hell, and we even went places topside. I did eventually become a Duchess of Hell. We had this beautiful ceremony where Bael married all of us together, then an enormous party where I was proclaimed as a Duchess. It still made me uncomfortable that I was now a part of Hell royalty, and I probably would always use the wrong fork at dinner at one of the king’s houses.

  We had started on a family. We didn’t plan on who was getting me pregnant first. We just let it happen naturally. I ended up having Amduscias’s child first. I honestly didn’t know what kind of child I would have with him since he was fire born, but I ended up with a fiery Pegasus that was just so badass. She was this amazing combination of both of us.

  It took time, but our house was soon swarming with children. Fergus helped with all the children because I didn’t know the first thing about raising a child with a fire element. They all had to help because I didn’t know the first thing about wolf, Vampire, and demon children. My son with Fergus ended up more Fae than halfling. He had pointed ears where I didn’t.

  We fought hard for it, and yes, we killed, but we were now home, and I’d finally found my family… all of them.