by Lexi Blake
I was on some weird plane and there were undead people and Zoey clones and armies who wanted to steal the Zoey clone.
“Calm down, Kelsey.”
I could feel Marcus’s persuasion playing at the edges of my mind. I could shove him out or let him in. Panic, irrational and overwhelming, threatened, and I needed to breathe so I opened myself up to him.
I could do this. I was ready. This was a wonderful thing to happen.
Marcus sent those thoughts my way along with a lovely sense of warmth. Like a hug for my brain. He was happy for me. He was proud of me. Damn, if that didn’t make me tear up.
I couldn’t help but smile at my former mentor. “You’re not the one who has to shove a baby through her hoo haw. Gray’s baby. Do you know how big he is?”
My man was not of average height and muscle. Grayson Sloane was a big hunk of demon, and I was betting he hadn’t been a tiny baby.
“I am well aware,” Marcus replied. “I think somehow you will handle it. You’re better?”
I nodded and felt him recede, but he’d done his job and I was calmer now.
It was then I realized we’d lost Summer again. I groaned. “She ran.”
Bris shook his head. “She walked and I can track her. She’s an odd child. The trees follow her. Look.”
I glanced up and sure enough, the branches of the trees were gently moving in the same direction, as if there was a strong breeze making them sway. But the air around me was still.
Who the hell was this chick?
“Are you sure they’re following her?” I asked.
Ancient eyes turned on me.
“You know what the trees think, don’t you?” It brought up a couple of questions, but at least we didn’t have to run screaming after Summer. Apparently all we had to do was follow the trees.
“They don’t think, exactly, but all living things have some feeling, though you wouldn’t recognize it as actual thought,” Bris explained.
I knew it. I couldn’t wait to throw that in my vegan friends’ faces. They were eating carrots and the carrots probably felt that shit. At least my burger was dead before I took that first bite.
Marcus started walking. “She’s in danger. She shouldn’t be alone.”
“Marcus, we don’t know who she is,” Bris said, sounding far more reasonable than either Marcus or his host. “I know Devinshea believes she is the child Daniel and Zoey created when they primed the transference box, but there is something off about her. She’s not the magical creature she should be.”
I had to run to keep up with them. “What is a transference box and how the hell is that chick a vampire’s child? Did the queen have a secret baby before the king turned? I need deets, guys. And I also need to know how we’re going to get home. My son is there.”
“My children are there, too, Hunter,” Bris said. “And my host is panicked about it. As for the transference box, it is a container in which the Fae place their tribal magics to share with other tribes. The tribe receiving the box works a sort of communal magic and creates a magical creature that will bless the tribe for many years. Usually they create a cat or a dog. More often than not it is a tree that is formed, and the tree becomes sacred.”
“How did the king end up…” The answer hit me. “Ah, Zoey stole it.”
“She did indeed,” Marcus replied. “According to what Daniel told me, it was the night they wed, and they managed to prime the box from sexual magic. They created a magical child but didn’t truly understand she was theirs. They allowed the faeries they’d stolen the box from to take her back to their plane. It was only later they understood who she was, and that was when they began looking for her.”
That kind of blew my mind. They’d made a magical baby? It made me think of my own and how I needed to get back to the one I had and tell my husbands about the one I was carrying. I couldn’t fight effectively if I was pregnant. I needed to protect my child. I got my ass kicked regularly. Even when I won, I usually took some serious damage.
Bris simply kept walking. “We have to keep a cool head about all of this. We made it to this plane. We can make it back. I believe we will find Summer is the key to why we were brought here, and she will be the key to getting back.”
Marcus stopped suddenly, rounding on Bris. I have rarely seen Marcus get truly angry, but it looked like my former trainer was having a day. “You need to understand that Summer is mine. I agreed with Devinshea about Evangeline. I allowed his fear that I might one day take his daughter as my companion to push me out of a family I loved. I would never have taken Evangeline as my companion. I attempted to make sure I couldn’t. That was how sure I was.”
I winced but couldn’t get too upset. I knew what he meant. When we’d first started our Hunter/trainer relationship, there had been a whole lot of nasty, glorious sex, and it had felt like love to me. What I hadn’t realized at the time was the love was all coming from Marcus, and it was more like deep affection. At one point he’d even declared he was ready to marry me when I wanted to.
But my human self had been in love with Gray Sloane and my wolf had wanted Trent Wilcox. As I’d gotten stronger, I’d pulled away from Marcus, though I still cared deeply for him. He’d tried so hard to use me as a shield against one day falling for a woman he’d known as a girl.
I’d always known I wasn’t the one for Marcus. Marcus had a prophesized love—one woman who he would love so much their souls meshed and he would die with her. He’d known it would be a woman of the queen’s line, and I’d heard at one point he’d thought it might be the queen herself. Turns out there was another Zoey walking the planes, and Marcus was going to claim her.
Although it seemed she didn’t want to be claimed and Marcus and I might need to discuss the word consent. Vampires can go crazy over a truly bright companion, and though I couldn’t see a companion’s light, I was betting Summer Donovan was off the charts.
“I saw her.” They should know that I had vague memories of possible futures where Marcus was with a companion. I hadn’t thought about it then since I’d had about a million possible futures shoved into my brainpan at the time, but now I knew it deep in my gut that it had been Summer I’d seen. “Can I talk to Dev? Or will he immediately attempt to murder Marcus?”
“He can do as he wishes,” Marcus said with a frown. “But he should know I will fight back this time. I’m going to find Summer. She’s in danger and I won’t leave her alone to face it.”
He started following the path the trees had left us, and I took a step to go after him.
Bris stopped me. “Give him a moment. We can easily catch up and I don’t sense any danger in the woods right now. I need you to talk to my host. He’s frightened and angry. He has problems with Marcus that go beyond Evangeline. It’s sad because they’d been making progress before. They’ve been here for hours and they’d managed to work together to try to figure out the problem of how to get home.”
“Do you really believe Summer is the king’s daughter?” I still didn’t understand how a baby had come out of some magical box.
“My host believes it with all of his heart, and he wants to protect her,” Bris explained. “But there’s something wrong. She is not human, Kelsey.”
“She looks pretty human to me.” She’d fought like a human, too. She was well trained, but she hadn’t shown a hint of supernatural strength or power.
“That’s exactly what’s wrong. I can summon the memories of her first day. She is not merely magical. Summer is magic, and yet I sense none coming from her. We have to discover what’s gone wrong. And we have to figure out what’s happening with the planes. I sense a deep disturbance in the fabric of the universe and it has to do with that void that opened up before us,” Bris explained. “We are here for a reason.”
Yes, Gray had said as much, though I rather thought we were here for different reasons than solving a mystery. We were here because someone—Myrddin Emrys—had set a trap. The question was why.
But before I coul
d say anything, Bris’s eyes were suddenly back to Quinn’s, and I was left with a pissed-off faery.
“Where did Summer go?” Quinn asked. “We can’t lose her. I’ll kill Marcus if he touches her.”
It was obvious why I was here. I was the ref. “And I’ll put you down if you don’t stop acting like a possessive asshole. She’s an adult, you know. You would think you and Marcus are fighting for her hand.”
Quinn’s expression turned distinctly shocked. “She is my daughter, Kelsey. I know I had no real part in her conception, but she is mine in the same way Lee and Rhys and Evangeline are Daniel’s. She is my family and she doesn’t even understand that yet. I have to protect her as I would protect Evangeline from a vampire who sought to take her.”
“She is Marcus’s fated companion.” I didn’t get it. “You know the prophecy. I would think you would be thrilled she wasn’t Evan.”
“I would prefer he kept his hands off the women of my family. She hasn’t even met her parents and yet Marcus is jumping on her.”
“He’s waited two thousand years for the woman.” I took a deep breath because maybe I didn’t understand what the guy was going through. Maybe I would get all hypercritical when the she-wolves started sniffing after Fen some day in the distant future when he hopefully had learned how to eat with a damn spoon and that it wasn’t funny to put toothpaste up his nose. Maybe I could help ease Quinn’s doubts with some universal truth. “You know I helped Gray transition, right?”
His eyes came up and he seemed to understand me. “You saw Summer when you had your vision?”
“Visions. A ton of them.” Most of the time those visions were watery and far away, but when I was confronted with one in the real world, I could often remember. “Summer is at the center of Marcus’s every potential future. Loving her or losing her or never having her is what will define who Marcus Vorenus is. I have to think it’s the same for her. Would you take that away from them? How did you feel when Zoey’s father actively campaigned against you?”
Quinn had the good grace to look away. “It was horrible to be on the outside. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, but this is different. I courted Zoey. I earned her love. He took one look at my daughter and said she was his. Zoey had a choice and I will ensure Summer does as well. Marcus was born in a time when vampires stole companions, when companions were commodities.”
Oh, he couldn’t use that argument on me. I’d studied a bit of recent history. “And he helped ensure that will never happen again.”
He was silent for a moment. “You know Marcus campaigned against me, too. He called me Lancelot and told Daniel I would ruin everything.”
Quinn could hold a mean grudge. “That was over a decade ago. You won. Move on. He’s a good guy. What does the fertility god inside you say about Marcus and Summer?”
Quinn’s features shuttered. “It doesn’t matter. I’m not going to allow him to walk in and claim my daughter. I just found her. Do you know how long I’ve looked for her? Years. I’ve done everything I possibly could to find our first daughter. Goddess, she’s grown and we missed all of it. Time is the most precious thing we have with our children, with our lives, and I’m the reason we lost it.”
“What does that mean?” I didn’t even really understand how Summer was truly their daughter, but sometimes the mystical crap goes over my head and I have to let it go.
He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. All that matters is convincing Summer to come home with me. And figuring out how to get home in the first place. Who could have guessed that painting was a doorway?”
I stared at him. “Uhm, the asshole who put it in the king’s office as a trap.”
There was zero question in my mind who the hell to blame for our current predicament.
“But that was a gift from Myrddin,” Quinn said with a shake of his midnight-black hair. It was longish, brushing the nape of his neck. He was a gorgeous man, utterly befitting his designation as a sex god, but he could be slow about some things.
“Yes, that’s my freaking point.” If anything came out of this, it would be that Donovan and Quinn would have to acknowledge that Myrddin wasn’t the kindly mentor they pretended he was. “He put that painting in there. Do you honestly believe the wizard of Camelot wouldn’t be able to see that the fucker was a magical trap?”
He might have replied back but a scream split the forest and I turned and ran.
No matter who Summer was, I wasn’t about to let her die.
* * * *
Summer
I strode away and was only the slightest bit upset that no one seemed to follow me. I made a mental note to look up what a hunter with a capital H was and how to deal with that kind of creature. I assumed she was from the Earth plane. I also needed to look up the god Bris. Or I could ask Erna. She was an expert on the old gods.
He hadn’t seemed unkind. There had been a moment when he’d addressed me as daughter that I’d wanted to walk into his arms and throw all of my problems in his lap. He was a god, or so he claimed. He should be able to fix me, right?
I’d done the smart thing by walking away. If there was one thing Erna had taught me over the years it was to stay far away from temptation. My past didn’t matter. Or rather, my past would only get me in trouble. I had to worry about the future of all the creatures of the planes if I couldn’t figure out what was going wrong.
I walked around the lake’s banks, seeking the place where the lake became a river. The river would lead me to the abandoned village where I would hide away.
“Hello, shining one.”
I stopped and turned, taking in the sight of a gorgeous woman lounging in the shallows of the lake, her naked body barely concealed by the dark water. “Hello, Gwragedd Annwn.”
That wasn’t her name. I didn’t know her particular name, but I did know her species. She was a water sprite, mostly harmless unless you were a male who happened to swim in her lake or pond and she had an itch to scratch. Then you better hope your significant other never found out because I’ve heard they can get quite intimate. As I was a female and hadn’t touched her water, she couldn’t have any hold on me.
But she might be able to help me out.
“Hey, there’s a vampire chasing me.” At least I thought he might chase me after he finished talking about Kelsey’s child.
The sprite sat up, her eyes completely focused now. Her breasts were covered with dark-green mossy vines that also clung to her long hair like they were a part of her. “A vampire? I thought they had left this plane. I haven’t seen one in years. Funny creatures, vampires. They have such odd magics.”
What they had was tech, but I wasn’t about to explain that to the sprite. “I don’t think he meant to come here. He fell through a doorway.”
Her big eyes widened. “I felt something happen hours ago, and then again a few moments ago. The ground is happy and so are the trees.” She touched the vines that wound around her torso. “They’re practically vibrating with excitement. Does that have something to do with the way the world shifted? Did you do that, shining one? What kind of games are you playing with the rest of us?”
“I’m not playing any games. I’m trying to get home,” I explained. “I don’t know what’s causing the convergence, but I mean to find out. As to the plants, well, there’s a Green Man walking this plane.”
The sprite’s spine straightened. “Are you speaking truth?” She touched her hair. “I’m not ready. I…how is my hair?”
It was coated in moss. What was I supposed to say? “You look lovely and I would be forever grateful if you would distract them all. They’ve got a female with them.”
A single pale shoulder shrugged. “I’m not picky. It’s been terribly boring here since the sidhe left for Tír na NÓg. I miss them. I don’t suppose you would send that wizard boy my way. I promise I won’t eat him up.”
The last thing Dean needed was to be initiated into sex by a horny water sprite. “I don’t think Dean could handle you.”
Don’t run from me, bella.
I groaned and shut down the walls of my mind. He was a persistent predator. I would give him that.
I glanced back and sure enough, the vampire was running up behind me.
The sprite turned her head his way. “He isn’t wearing normal vampire clothing. How is the sun not harming him? Are you sure he’s a vampire?”
I’d seen his fangs. “I don’t understand anything about these creatures.”
They claimed they knew my parents.
“I don’t have to understand them to have some fun. Run along, shining one. Or stay and watch. I’ll take care of the vampire. And please send the Green Man my way. The forest is alive because of him. Even the plants in the water are humming. It feels so good. I can’t imagine what he’ll feel like when I take a bite.” The sprite smiled, though there was something vaguely malicious in the uptick of her lips as she retreated into the water.
I stared down into the midnight depths and wondered if I was doing the right thing.
Marcus stopped in front of me, close to the shore. All I had to do was get his feet to touch the water and the Gwragedd Annwn could do her job. I didn’t feel bad about it. She wouldn’t kill him. He was a vampire and could hold his breath for long periods of time. If he’d been human like Dean, she might drown him with her love, but Marcus Vorenus would survive the experience. It would give me plenty of time to get home, and hopefully he wouldn’t follow.
“I told you I wasn’t interested.” I settled my satchel on my shoulder and faced him. He really was a beautiful male. It was a shame he was a vampire. Had he been a sidhe, I might have given him more of a chance, but I knew what I was in his eyes. Consort. It was the name the creatures of the Vampire plane had for women like me. On the Earth plane they would use the term companion. There were women like me across the planes and vampires always chased us. My mother had been one, and though I remember the love she’d had for my father, I also knew she’d worried that his love for her had come from the glow she held, the fact that her blood strengthened him in a way other humans could not. That fear I’d felt from my mother was precisely the reason I’d turned down all vampire suitors. I’d been born knowing that vampires would always need me and I should stay away.