by Lexi Blake
“Marcus, did you see that?” I tried to turn my head.
“Was that Kelsey?” Marcus asked.
“Boss, I detected five civilians.” Adam was all business. “Three of them are of unknown origin. One is Fae and one is a known citizen of the Vampire plane. Do you want to investigate?”
“Summer!”
I heard someone scream my name. A feminine voice.
“We don’t have time to investigate,” Taggart declared. “But obviously someone knows who we’re transporting. I don’t like that.”
“It’s one of the unknown origins yelling. I’ve got a scanner on her. She’s running after us,” Adam said. “Boss, it’s the weirdest thing. If I didn’t know better I would say she’s Summer’s twin. But she doesn’t have a twin, right?”
My heart nearly stopped. Could it be true? Could that be my mother? “Stop.”
“No can do,” Taggart replied.
“Stop, please.” I felt something—some deep emotion—build inside me, and I knew I would regret it forever if I didn’t stop and find out who that woman was.
“We need to stop.” Marcus was right there with me.
“We’re not going to…” Taggart began.
And then the bikes stopped so suddenly I felt my body lurch forward. I wasn’t sure why Taggart had changed his mind, but I wasn’t going to waste a moment. We’d been speeding by and I wasn’t sure how far back they were. I slid off the bike which hovered roughly a foot off the ground.
I could hear Taggart cursing, but I pulled the helmet off my head while Marcus was moving to stand beside me.
And then I saw her. She’d been running and she stopped suddenly as she rounded the curve in the path. She stood there in the early evening light, her eyes on me.
She hadn’t changed a bit, hadn’t aged or altered her appearance. She still had long red hair and the kindest eyes. My heart constricted and I realized that all the anxiety I’d felt when I thought of this moment was nothing in the face of the deep joy I felt at seeing her again.
“Momma?” The helmet I’d been holding slipped from my fingers to the dirt below.
We stared at each other in complete wonder. All of my life she’d been so far from me. She’d been on another world, but now she was here. She was standing right there, and I felt a bit frozen, worried if I moved she might disappear.
“Zoey, those men have guns.” Kelsey’s warning snapped me back into reality.
My mom was standing there. She wasn’t moving toward me. Was she scared of me?
My Fae father jogged around the curve. “My goddess, we don’t know who she’s with.”
Those words seemed to spur my mother. She suddenly ran my way, her arms open and emotion plain on her face. Tears streaked down her cheeks as she enveloped me in her arms.
“Momma?” My breath hitched in my chest and I was almost overwhelmed by the sweetness of being near her.
“Summer, I missed you. I missed you so much. Baby, I love you. I never forgot you.” She whispered in my ear, her voice ragged, and she held me so tight. As though she worried someone would rip me from her arms the way they had the first time. “You’ve been in my heart since the day you were born. Please forgive me for letting you go. I should never have let you go.”
A sob burst from me because this woman wasn’t going to reject me. I don’t know why I was sure in that moment, but I knew I could tell this woman anything and she would still love me.
She was my mother.
“Momma. Momma, I missed you.” There had been a hole inside me I hadn’t realized was there, and now it filled.
“Oh, I can’t tell you how much I missed you, my baby,” she said. “We’ve looked for you for years. I’d almost given up hope.”
Marcus and Dev had both told me that my parents had searched for me, but I hadn’t truly believed it until I heard my mother’s wrecked words.
“Summer?”
I looked up and my father stood beside Dev Quinn, his face so pale. His jaw was tight as he looked at me, and I remembered how scared he’d been when he’d realized that it had been his will, his love and longing, that had created me. He hadn’t felt worthy to be a father.
But he was a dad now. Did he still feel that way?
My mom pulled away slightly and looked toward him. “Daniel? It’s her. It’s our baby.”
My father’s lips tugged up slightly. “Hello, Summer.”
“Sweetie, he’s scared. He’s always been afraid of this moment,” my mother whispered. “He was scared then and he’s scared now. Not of you, but of what he’s done and that he doesn’t deserve you.”
I gave my mother a squeeze and then let her go. My father needed me to make the first move. I understood him. I’d felt his guilt, his worry that he wasn’t enough and never would be. He’d been the man who was so afraid he was a monster.
I rushed to him like my mother had done for me and held my arms open. I felt my father shudder as he wrapped me up in a bear hug.
I felt my mom on the other side of me and I was wrapped up in them.
“Papa?” I didn’t want to leave my Fae father out, and I remembered that was what my brothers had called him. My vampire father was daddy and the Green Man papa.
He immediately joined us and I was held so tight I could barely breathe. I didn’t want to breathe. I wanted to revel in this moment, in the moment when I got my family back.
I shoved out everything but the love I felt.
You are happy, bella. That makes me so happy.
Marcus was here with me and I opened myself up to him, letting him feel my every emotion.
* * * *
Kelsey
While I love a good family reunion, and the one playing out in front of me was a long time coming, I had a job to do and there were new people I needed to figure out if I should kill.
“When you said Summer looked like her mom, I thought you meant resembled her,” Dean said. “They’re like twins. I mean I guess Summer looks a little younger and her mom’s hair is shorter, but wow.”
Well, there had been a reason I’d been confused when I first saw her. I noticed our pixie friend wasn’t in on the reunion either. Arwyna had come with us, flying alongside or content to sit on one of our shoulders. She was on mine now, and I got the feeling she was also trying to play the guardian.
“Yeah, yeah, they’re double trouble. Now do you know who any of these guys are?” I needed Dean focused.
“That’s Taggart.” Dean stood beside me, his eyes on the newcomers. “I think the other guy is one of his employees.”
He’d indicated the big blond guy and the slightly smaller dark-haired dude who was pointing out something on his tablet. There was another person on the bike Taggart had gotten off of, but whoever it was they weren’t moving. And then there was the fourth bike. A petite figure slid off the seat and out of her helmet, and her eyes flashed for the merest second, the sunlight catching them in just the right way. Something inside me recognized her.
“She’s a werewolf,” I said to Dean under my breath as we approached the group.
Dean stopped. “Is that Kaja Dellacourt?”
I was interested in the wolf among us, but I’d caught sight of a friendlier face. “Marcus!”
I jogged over to join him, and my first instinct was to launch myself his way. Then I realized he barely noticed me because he was watching her.
And I was so happy for him.
“Hello, Kelsey,” he said absently. “I’m glad to see you’re all right. When did the king and queen join us, and do they have a way back to the Earth plane? Keep your voice low because if we can leave, I want the option, and I doubt our new friends would give that to us.”
I glanced over to where the security guys were inspecting the cool as fuck hovering motorcycles that I wanted to get my hands on. I wondered if we could ride that bad boy through the portal. “No, they were dumbasses like the rest of us and fell through the painting. Oh, and fun new fact, Dean was right about there being s
omething in Dev’s head. It was called a thrall stone and Myrddin’s been using it to control the king and Dev. Another fun fact, the king is human.”
I now had Marcus’s full attention. “What?”
I shrugged. “Something happened on his way through the gate, something that shifted his body back to its human form. He’s not real happy about it.”
Marcus’s head fell back, and he started to curse in Italian.
I thought I should give him all the bad news right up front. “Also, the super powerful witch who’s been Summer’s mentor stole the book we need, and she’s been controlling Dean through one of those stones, though I suspect she didn’t put one in Summer.”
In my periphery I could see Dean holding out a hand to the dude who was with the werewolf. They seemed to know each other, and I had to hope it was a friendly relationship.
“Summer’s mind is free, but I’ve started to wonder about her body,” Marcus admitted. “I’m worried if the witch wasn’t who she said she was. She’s the one who convinced Summer to bind her magic. Summer has been with her for years. Are we absolutely sure?”
I was sure he didn’t want to have to give Summer the bad news about her bestie. Luckily I wasn’t trying to sleep with her. I could totally take that job. “We are one hundred percent sure. I found the stone she used myself, and then she attacked me and stole a book that we have to get back.”
“Summer is going to be devastated,” Marcus said with a frown. “She does not trust many people. At least her parents are here, and that can soften the blow.”
“We need to figure out if she was using Summer. Maybe the queen can help us with that. They look like they’re getting along well.” I glanced over to where Summer was smiling up at the king. I’d never seen Daniel Donovan look so happy as I did when he stared down at his daughter’s face. For a human dude, he was practically doing the Twilight glow thing. Of course Marcus didn’t look half bad either. “Everything going all right with her? Did you take over the mercenary dudes’ brains and make them do your will?”
His lips quirked up. “Absolutely not. I was unable to break through the shielding Mr. Taggart and Adam have. The werewolf is named Kaja. She and her daughter broke us out. I did manage to take over her vampire husband’s brain, but hers was closed to me. She threatened me with grave bodily injury, and I believed her. No, my dear, it was logic that truly brought us here.”
“Logic?”
“Yes, apparently our erstwhile mercenary has a companion, and she’s a bit of a scholar,” Marcus explained. “She believes she understands what’s happening with the convergences. She convinced her husband not to turn us over. Unfortunately, one of his employees wanted the bounty on Summer. The werewolf is representing the interests of the Seelie kings. She was embedded in the company, and she is the one who saved us from being taken by the witches.”
He laid out everything that had happened for me, including schooling me on the fact that there were different faery planes, but we would be dealing with the most powerful of them— Tír na nÓg. Marcus had some questions about the King of all Vampire suddenly not being a vampire, but I was as lost as anyone else.
“Vorenus, I want to know what she did to the bikes.” Taggart strode up, interrupting our deep discussion of whether or not I should stab the king and try to turn him. “They stopped on their own and we can’t figure out how.”
“What do you mean they stopped on their own?” I wasn’t going to wait for an introduction to start asking questions. I would follow Marcus’s lead, and nothing about the way he was standing led me to believe he thought this guy was an immediate threat.
“I mean all four of the bikes were tethered together, and only Adam could have overridden the system.” He gestured to the dark-haired man behind him. “As he doesn’t particularly want me to punch through his chest and pull his heart out, I don’t think he did it.”
Adam’s eyes rolled. His visor was up, but like Taggart, he hadn’t taken it off, and I had to wonder if that had something to do with the sunlight. After all, these were vampires we were dealing with. “As if, but no I didn’t do it. According to these readings the bikes simply stopped on their own and now the electrical systems are fried. I’ve never seen anything like it. Are you sure her power is bound?”
Taggart nodded. “I was thinking the same thing. Summer there wanted to stop and suddenly we stopped. That can’t be a coincidence. According to my wife, she’s got serious power. She was a legend in Tír na nÓg for her magic, though she apparently didn’t use it often.”
“She doesn’t use it at all,” Marcus pointed out. “According to Summer, she cannot access her power in any way. She fears it to the point of obsession.”
“She’s not the only one with magic.” I was starting to get a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. “Dean, could Erna have shut down the bikes?”
Dean looked up from his conversation with the werewolf chick. “Sure. She could probably even do it if they had wards on them. She’s good at getting through wards. She’s incredibly powerful.”
Taggart’s hand went to his belt where he had some kind of weapon. It was in the shape of a gun but looked way more technologically advanced than any gun I’d played around with. And I’ve played with them all. “Where’s the witch? Do you know if she’s alone?”
“I don’t believe she’s involved with the witches who are chasing Summer,” Marcus commented. “After all, she is the one who convinced Summer to steal the book in the first place. I would like to have gotten a look at it.”
“Hey, your insect friend looks like she has the zoomies.” Adam pointed to Arwyna, who was zipping around my head. “That’s what we call it when a dog runs crazy.”
“Yeah, we call it that, too.” I stepped back to try to see what had Arwyna all up in arms. “What’s going on?”
She was pointing at a bunch of trees, or at least it seemed like she was.
“Hey, dark-haired chick, get behind me. There’s dangerous shit in this forest,” Taggart called out.
I let my arm turn and waved his way. “Yeah, it’s me.”
Even that big, badass-looking vampire took a step back. Must have been something in my eyes.
“Kelsey, be careful,” Marcus said, but did nothing to stop me from moving forward.
“So you’re a shapeshifter of some kind.” Taggart moved in beside me and he had that big gun in his hand now.
“Sort of,” I replied as we moved off the path and into the forest. Arwyna was flying in front of me, leading the way. “And you’re a vampire, but you don’t do cool shit like the vamps on my plane.”
“I do lots of cool shit,” Taggart replied, his voice low. “But not the mental stuff Vorenus does. What are we looking for out here? And why are we following a butterfly?”
“I’m worried the witch is lurking around.” I stopped and listened for a moment when Arwyna landed on a bush and seemed to be trying to get her bearings.
“I’m warded up against witches.” Taggart did a slow study of our surroundings. “I’ve got tats in places I didn’t want tats because witches can be mean. It’s fun to joke about one turning your dick into a pretzel, but that shit hurts. A lot.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t be pissing off witches.” I didn’t sense anything. All I could hear was the wind in the trees.
No animals. Shouldn’t there have been animals running around? The forest was lush and green. It should have been teeming with life.
“I pissed off a lot of people before I met my Charlie.” He straightened up. “It’s too quiet.”
“I agree. How familiar are you with this plane?”
“I know it’s usually got a lot going on,” Taggart allowed. “What it doesn’t have is a lot of silence. I’m getting a bad feeling. We should get back and make sure we know where everyone is.”
Arwyna suddenly shot into the air and started back the way we came.
“Should we follow the insect?” Taggart asked.
A scream of pure terror was ou
r answer.
We took off and I prayed we made it in time.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Zoey
I watched as my daughter smiled up at her fathers and my heart couldn’t have been more full. Summer had brought Dev into our circle, and she’d made both Dev and Daniel comfortable. There had been no hesitation in her.
I was so proud of her.
It was surreal to be standing here with the child I’d lost so many years ago. But not so many years that I should be standing with a woman. She’d been a baby, a newborn when I’d lost her, and she was a woman now.
“How?” Her gaze moved between her father and I. “How did you get here? Did you come to look for Papa?”
It appeared Dev had filled her in on what to call him and Daniel. The fact that she’d already adopted their names made me want to hug her all over again. “Yes, we were looking for Papa, but your dad and I didn’t exactly mean to come here. It was a trap of sorts. Sweetheart, we can fill you in on everything, but for now I need to make sure you’re safe. Do we need to get you away from here?”
“No, Momma,” she said resolutely. “I’m fine. Mr. Taggart and the Dellacourts are taking me to Tír na nÓg. They think we might find some answers there. I would love it if you would come with me. I think Papa could be helpful when dealing with the Seelies. He’s a Green Man.”
“I would love to see the most powerful of Fae planes,” Dev admitted.
My father would be getting a lot of stories when we got home. My dad had been born in Ireland and he still had a reverence for the great Fae tribes who’d been mere legend for him before we found out Tír na nÓg actually existed. He’d visited the Seelie plane connected to ours. Dev had been born to the Fae who stayed after the strongest left the plane. Our Faery was a place of wonder. I couldn’t imagine what Tír na nÓg would be like.
Summer looked like she was cosplaying Black Widow. It was a good look on her, but not what I’d been expecting. I’d always thought of her in the flowy gowns I connected to the Fae I knew. But then she wasn’t on Tír na nÓg, and from what I’d been told hadn’t been back in a long time. I reached for her hand, needing to touch her to truly believe she was here with me. “Baby, I’m so happy to see you but I have to ask what happened.”