“I’m all for staying with family to cut costs, but that’s an hour or so drive from the beach, isn’t it?”
“Yes, but—” she lifted a finger, “—his family owns a condo on Daytona Beach.”
“They won’t mind if we crash there?” Given my current predicament, I had my doubts.
“Truth?” She pursed her lips. “Kitsunes are aligned with the Seelie. There’s a good chance even for Aimi’s sake, because of his position, that Jon would be hesitant to shelter the Unseelie princess.”
“I can’t blame him.” Dreams of condo crashing burst. “This princess thing is a royal pain.”
“Ha ha, funny girl.” Mai absently wove locks of my hair into tiny braids I would never unravel without her help. “For his sake, I’ve decided it’s best not to tell him you are the friend I’m bringing.”
Foreboding clouded my thoughts. “Is that wise?”
She shrugged. “Plausible deniability.”
I worried my bottom lip with my teeth. “I don’t want to get him into any trouble.”
“I’m not totally irresponsible. I’ll tell Daddy. He’ll vouch for you if it comes down to it.” She gathered my hands in hers. “This might be our last chance for a girls only getaway before you have to go.”
Go. As in back to Faerie. Where I would be crowned and have to play house with Rook.
“I know.” My heart wrenched. “But I’d be dragging the guards, and then there’s Diode.”
She glanced around as if she had forgotten he should be here. “Where is he anyway?”
“I haven’t seen him since I got home.” He prowled the fae parts of town unless I was home to keep him company. “It’s got to be hard on a cat used to living in the forest to stay cramped up inside an apartment in the city all day.”
She made a commiserating sound before her brow puckered. “The guards don’t like cars, right?”
I shrugged. “Not mine anyway.”
“What about Diode?”
“He’s managed to avoid getting in one so far,” I admitted.
“It’s just—my car is new and the seats are leather...”
“I’ll ask him what he wants to do.” I foresaw a feline hissy fit in my future. “So far he’s been content guarding the apartment.”
“Sounds good.” She looked relieved at the prospect of leaving him home. “What about Shaw?”
I picked at the applique on my shirt. “Like I said, I haven’t heard from him in a few days.”
“Can he last a week without—” she rolled her hand, “—you know?”
“I’m not sure.” I tugged on a string. “He’s getting stronger now that he’s being fed regularly.”
Mai popped my hand before I unraveled the embroidered patch. “You can’t feed him forever.”
But I couldn’t let him die, either. Not when I was the one who broke him in the first place. “I’ll figure something out.”
“You better do it fast,” she warned. “He can’t follow you to Faerie. Your hubs would gut him.”
I rolled my eyes so hard I heard rattling noises. “My husband can suck it.”
“Don’t give him any ideas.”
I snorted, grabbed a pillow and bashed her over the head with it. “Hussy.”
“What?” She cackled. “You said he’s hot, and you two are married.”
“We’re not that kind of married.”
“Pfft.” She sighed. “How can I live vicariously through you if you never do anything even remotely naughty?”
“Sorry, sugar paws.” I reached up and patted her cheek. “But your future husband will thank me. After a lifetime of suppression, when your soul mate passes your foxy test, he’s in for a sexplosion.”
“God yes,” she agreed. “He’ll be lucky if it doesn’t kill him.”
I grinned up at her. “He’ll be lucky either way.”
A slight flush pinked her cheeks. “So, and I expect total honesty here, because I will know if you’re lying. Tell me, are you ready to give up your ice-cream-gorging ways and embrace the light?”
“Yes.” I rose onto my elbows. “I guess I should tell Mom, huh?”
“That’s your call. Literally.” She considered me. “A trip to the beach is innocent enough even she can’t take offense.”
“Mai,” I said in a warning tone too tired to fool either of us.
“Okay, so, you make your calls. I’ll make my calls.” She slid out from under me, hopped off the couch and left my head to bounce on the cushions. “Car leaves at seven a.m. Be there or be square.”
The goober was backing toward her bedroom, holding her thumbs and index fingers in a square shape, when she tripped over the sneakers I’d kicked off by the door.
“I am so sorry.” I jumped to my feet. “Are you okay?”
She held two thumbs up. “I meant to do that.”
I was still grinning when my phone’s caller ID flashed Shaw’s number.
Chapter Five
My thumb hesitated over the green call icon. As cranky as I was, as bad as my day had been, Shaw would pick this moment to check in. He was the needle pricking the balloon of happiness Mai had inflated for me.
“Well, color me pink and call me a tutu,” I answered. “You do know how to use a phone.”
His husky voice rolled across the line, giving me shivers. “I heard about what happened.”
I groaned and shifted onto my side. “I love her, but Mable’s mouth needs an off switch.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“No.” I was done rehashing my stupidity over and over in my head. I didn’t want to go for round three out loud.
“Are you sure?” he pressed.
I ground the heel of my palm into my eye. “I forgot I sucked at math and took a calculated risk.”
“Are you sure you don’t mean chemistry?” Mai chirped. “Since it blew up in your face?”
“Hold on,” I told Shaw. To Mai, I said, “I thought you were showering.”
“I’m not wearing a towel dress for giggles.” She swept her arm over herself, indicating the terrycloth wrapping her body. “Can you snap the reins right quick? I want to be sure I’m showering alone.”
Kitsunes, like most shifters, had no problem with nudity. That Mai hadn’t waltzed in here naked meant my invisible friends were getting under her skin.
“Tahlil paque.” To me.
Two sullen guardsmen appeared behind Mai, close enough their shadows dwarfed her. She whirled to face them and almost lost her grip on the towel.
I was an idiot. The problem was obvious, and I had missed it.
“On second thought...” She paled when she glimpsed my darkening mood and backed toward her room. “Maybe I’ll go for a run before bed.”
“Go change, Mai.” Anger crackled in the order. “I’ll keep an eye on them until you’re finished.”
Once the door to her bedroom shut—and locked—I turned my attention to them. “This is a House problem, isn’t it?”
Neither guard answered as they stood tall and defiant in their stiff black leather armor.
“Kitsunes are aligned with House Seelie.” Lefty barely suppressed a grimace at my proclamation. “The thing is, we aren’t in Faerie. We’re in the mortal realm. Things are handled differently here.” Righty shifted his weight as if I bored him. “That woman is my best friend. Seelie or not, I value her life above my own. Do you understand what that means?” I waited. “What? No takers? Fine. Let me break it down for you. Don’t talk to Mai, and make damn sure you don’t watch during her private moments, or I will drain you dry, roll you up and mail your skin back to Faerie in a cardboard tube.”
“She is Seelie,” Lefty seethed.
“And I’m neutral, which means I get to have friends on both sides of the border. Fun, huh?”
“You are our princess,” Righty roared. “You have no right—”
I clucked my tongue at him. “That’s no way to talk to your future queen.”
His response was a thro
ttled snarl.
Clearly I wasn’t the only one less than thrilled with the High Court’s pick for princess.
“Thierry?” a tiny voice called.
Crap. I had forgotten Shaw was on the phone. “Almost done,” I told him. Pointing at the guards, I warned them, “This harassment stops now. Go stand in the corner where I can keep an eye on you.”
Even without a human upbringing to cue them in, some punishments were universal. They understood they had been disciplined like naughty children. Okay, so it wasn’t in my best interest to antagonize my guards in case political troubles in Faerie boiled over onto my life here, but this was Mai’s home too. She had to feel safe here, and it sucked knowing my entourage had stolen that comfort from her.
I sighed into my phone, too tired to utter another half-hearted greeting.
“Trouble in paradise?” Shaw chuckled.
“Don’t make this worse than it already is.”
“Okay.” A minute lapsed.
“Really?” I dredged up a laugh. “That’s all you’ve got?”
He cleared his throat. “What are you doing for the next two weeks?”
“I have plans with Mai,” I hedged. “I was about to call you, actually.”
Expectation filled another awkward silence.
“We’re leaving for Florida tomorrow,” I blurted.
No response.
“You’re stronger now, almost back to normal,” I rambled, “so I figured if I topped you off...”
“I would last until you got back,” he finished for me.
“Yeah.” I winced. “That.”
“Who’s going with you?”
“Righty and Lefty—” I raised my voice, “—if they can behave. Maybe Diode.”
“Righty and Lefty?” His voice strained. “I assume you mean your guards?”
“Yes, my guards.” I flushed. “And no, I didn’t check to see if the designations fit.”
His surprised bark of laughter rewarded me. “Where are you staying?”
I debated my response. “We’re staying with Mai’s family, at their condo.”
“Kitsunes are aligned with the Seelie.”
I should have known employing tact was a waste of breath. Shaw knew me too well.
“I’m neutral,” I ground out, “so we ought to get along just fine.”
“You know they won’t see it that way.”
Now it was my turn not to answer him. I was tired of the pressure to choose a side. I saw each of the houses in shades of gray. I knew the Seelie weren’t as kind as their smiles implied and that the Unseelie weren’t as cruel as their sneers warned. There were extremes in both camps, but most of the fae were middle-of-the-roaders. That was what I wanted to go back to being—a line-straddler.
“When should I come over?”
“Sooner rather than later.” I rubbed my eyes, which felt gritty and dry from my Supernatural marathon. “You know Mai. She plans on rolling out early, and I’m full of ice cream. I won’t be awake much longer.”
“Can I bring you anything?” He didn’t let me respond. “I can grab Marco’s.”
“Stop trying to bribe me.” I groaned. “I can’t say no to their pizza, and it feels slimy trading bits of my soul for pepperoni and onions.”
“We could mix it up,” he offered. “Go for pineapple and ham.”
“You can’t see me, but I just shuddered.”
Amusement saturated his voice. “I’ll grab dinner and see you in a few.”
I ended the call and stared at the phone, feeling a little like takeout myself.
Shaw arrived as I finished packing my suitcase. I ignored the jump in my pulse and the way I had to force myself to walk slowly to the door so I didn’t seem too eager. As it was, I fumbled the lock, and my expression hitched between an instinctive smile and the cautious frown that materialized when I was around him lately.
“Hi.” He leaned in and pressed a quick kiss to my cheek.
My skin tingled. It was all I could do not to reach up and touch the spot. “Hi yourself.”
“Can you...?” He lifted a case of ginger beer while the pizzas on his other arm teetered.
“Sure.” Our fingers brushed as I grasped the handle. My gaze held his for a breathless moment then fell to his boots. The view there was safer. “You look good.” That brief glimpse of him eased my conscience. The wicked gleam to his coppery eyes had returned. His lips were full and pink again. Even his mahogany hair had a healthy sheen to it. “And by good, I mean you look healthy.”
His answering tone was light. “My new diet seems to agree with me.”
Unsure how to respond, I answered him with a half-cocked grin. “Give me a second, and I’ll clear us some room.” I shoved a stack of unopened bills off the coffee table onto the floor. “I apologize for the mess.” I took the steaming pizza from him. “I was playing creditor roulette earlier.”
He noticed the small trash can by my foot. “Winner gets paid?”
“That about sums it up.” I tugged on the edge of a manila folder trapped between the two greasy pizza boxes featuring Marco’s cartoonish dancing mushroom. “What’s this?”
“It’s a new lead on an old case.” He rolled his shoulders, dismissing the file.
Resisting the temptation to peek inside, I set down the food. “What’s it doing in my apartment?”
He could have left it in his truck. In fact, in light of my suspension, he should have left it there.
“The folder must have gotten stuck.” He managed a passible impression of innocence. “I hear cheese is one hell of an adhesive.”
“Uh-huh.” I tapped the file. “What about the wax paper?”
Wax paper came on a roll, in a box with a serrated edge, just like tinfoil, and Shaw loved it. He kept a roll in his messenger bag as an aid for his spellwork. He used it as a liner, made funnels for getting ingredients into tight spaces, preserved herbs he picked on roadsides, used the wax as a lubricant and to waterproof temporary workspaces. So yeah, we both knew he had trimmed a length to protect the file from the greasy boxes.
I raised my eyebrows. “It just unrolled and trimmed itself to fit?”
“You’re a fairy princess, and you’re questioning the existence of self-cutting wax paper?”
“Touché.” I huffed out a breath. “I guess this is a working dinner.”
“I always loved watching you work.”
Startled by his compliment, I ducked my head and reached for the folder to cover my surprise. It wasn’t like he had been stingy with praise back when we were partners. He was a good marshal, and that meant he behaved professionally, even when our relationship blurred the line into personal. The shock came from my reaction to his praise. His words sent warmth flooding through my chest.
Rook and I...were complicated. Yes, I had kissed him. Twice. Maybe three times. But I had also been pretty damn sure I wasn’t leaving Faerie with a pulse. At the time, making out with a handsome guy didn’t seem like a bad way to spend my last night alive.
Having survived, I got the fun of living with those consequences.
“You don’t have to collaborate if you don’t want to,” Shaw said.
“Twist my arm, why don’t you?” I grabbed the file before common sense kicked in, and flipped it open to the first page. “A missing person’s case?” I skimmed the file. “Female. Thirty-five. She’s got fae blood a few generations back.” That might explain how the case fell into his hands. “Valkyrie, huh? Those bloodlines are rare.”
“They are,” he agreed.
I gave him a look. “Is that why you got stuck investigating this?”
He shook his head.
“Then I don’t get it.” I thumped the file. “This information is months old.”
“Considering the person in question vanished ten years ago, it’s still recent by comparison.”
“Why haven’t you followed up yet? This looks promising.”
He tapped the file’s edge. “Check the bottom of the last page
.”
“The subject was spotted at a Walmart in— You’ve got to be kidding me.” I scowled. “Orlando?”
“She was on vacation with her husband and their kids in Port Arkansas, about eight hours from Wink, on the Texas coast, when she disappeared.” He studied me. “I was given the information while I was...away...but Florida was too far to travel in my condition.”
My eyes narrowed. “And now that your food’s on the move, you can be too.”
“I didn’t ask you to go.”
“Of course not.” I picked at the edge of the file. “You’re just making the most of a convenient situation.”
His shoulders rose and fell.
“What am I missing here?” I read the topmost sheet again. “This isn’t like you.”
Sure we had our share of missing persons’ cases to work. Fae were hell to find when they didn’t want to be found. But those were handed down from the conclave. This case read like freelance work.
“The missing woman, Jenna.” He set his jaw. “She was my brother’s wife.”
“Wife?” My hand spasmed, and papers slid across the floor. “A married incubus?”
Shaw’s brother had a wife. He was married. A married incubus. The revelation shifted the world beneath my feet. Or, since I was seated, my ass.
“We are capable of commitment,” he growled.
For a day? A week? We had lasted almost a month. Yet here was proof an incubus could choose to settle down, choose to spend his life with one woman. I guess, for Shaw, I just wasn’t her. I locked down that line of thought and shut my mouth before the past spewed over my lips and ruined the weird truce we had worked so hard to maintain since I began feeding him. “So this is personal.”
“Yes.”
“Having had my mother kidnapped recently, I get that you need to look out for your family.”
“So you don’t mind me crashing your trip?”
“That’s not what I said.” Mai would kill me if she found out he was tagging along on our vacay. “You’re welcome to stay in Orlando. I’ll be an hour away, on Daytona Beach, working on my tan.” His eyes flashed white, and a shiver rippled down my spine. “That’s close enough you can find me if you need to, but far enough away we can each handle business without tripping over the other one.”
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