Not Your Ordinary Faerie Tale

by Christine Warren

  “If you will share that information with me, the Council will take care of it,” Rafe said.

  Corinne thought about that for a second and eyed him suspiciously. “Take care of it how?”

  “Relax.” The Felix flashed her a grin. “No one will so much as nibble on a single one of them, I promise. We do occasionally have to deal with situations like this, when one of our kind is seen by an outsider. Usually we can find a way to…alter such recollections. Convince them they have seen a stray dog instead of a wolf, and so on. Painlessly, of course. So long as we keep the number of witnesses down, we should be able to deal with it easily enough.”

  The idea of anyone playing around with someone else’s memories didn’t exactly have Corinne doing cartwheels, but she supposed it was the most practical solution. And at least they wouldn’t be messing around in her mind.

  “All right,” she agreed. “I’ll make you a copy of the info, but before you go and do whatever it is you’re going to do, I still need to interview these people.” She pulled her backpack onto her lap and opened the buckles to rummage inside. Digging out her notebook, she flipped open to the section marked what did i do to deserve this? and skimmed through her notes. “None of the initial reports was much help. They all saw basically the same thing: tall blond guy, brick walls, bright lights, disappearing trick. Of course, the initial reports are more like thirdhand scuttlebutt, since the police weren’t exactly interested in filing reports on the ravings of folks they assumed should be in Bellevue.”

  “Did the witnesses talk to anyone other than the police?” Rafe asked.

  “A couple of tabloids, a PI or two. Those reports aren’t much better, though.” She snapped her notebook shut. “That’s why I had intended to start redoing interviews myself. I need to talk to the witnesses firsthand if I’m going to get to the bottom of anything.”

  Luc nodded. “Great. Then that’s what I will do.”

  “Um, excuse me?” Corinne looked at him dubiously. “What do you mean what you’lldo?”

  “Agreeing to share your contact information is helpful to the Council’s efforts to contain the story, but I need to be the one interviewing these witnesses. I must be able to follow every trail before it goes cold if I’m going to find Seoc and drag him back to Faerie.”

  “You know, enough with the talk about dragging. Have you ever considered just telling the guy what you’re worried about and askinghim to head back home?”

  “Seoc knew he wasn’t supposed to be here when he slipped through a door that he’d been forbidden to use. He knew he was supposed to return to Faerie when the Queen commanded him to do so. He’s not late for his curfew, for Lady’s sake, he’s sparking an interdimensional incident of epic proportions!”

  Corinne drew back from Luc’s vehement roar and glanced over at Rafe to see if he’d noticed the little display of temper, but Mr. Cowardly Lion had decided to examine his manicure.

  “All right. Sheesh. No need to go ballistic. It was just a question.”

  “You have no idea how badly I wish I could just put you under a sleep spell,” he said, his hands clenching into fists at his sides. “It would make my life so much easier.”

  “Except, of course, that it would make it very difficult for her to help us find the Queen’s nephew,” Rafe cautioned, giving Luc a firm look.

  Corinne blinked. The idea that the Fae warrior could cast spells had never occurred to her. Of course, she’d never known anyone from Faerie before, so she really didn’t know what they could or couldn’t do. “You could do that? Just put someone to sleep?”

  “Not you, unfortunately,” he grumbled.

  “But you can do it to other people.”

  “To some other people, but to humans, absolutely. Which is one of the reasons why I need to conduct these interviews. I’ll be able to tell if the witnesses are lying. I might even be able to help them with details they can’t consciously recall.”

  “I can see where that would come in handy.” She shoved her notebook back into her satchel and stood. “I guess you can come along, then.”

  “Come along?” Luc shook his head. “You misunderstand. I will take the contact information you provide and do the interviews myself. Alone.”

  “No, you won’t.” Seeing him about to howl a protest, Corinne held up a hand. God, men could be so stubborn. “Look, whether or not you get any useful information from these people, I still need to talk to them to do my story. My editor gave me the assignment, and he’ll know something’s wrong if I suddenly do a shitty job as a reporter. I’m not saying I’ll put anything I learn in the article I turn in, but I have to do my due diligence. Don’t you think it will stir up a lot less interest in this whole story if we do the interviews together instead of separately?”

  She saw that Luc wanted to argue the point with her, just as she saw that he could find no good reason to do so. Satisfied, she reached into her pocket and pulled out a business card. Scribbling the address of interview number one on the back, she held it out to him. “This is the first place I’ll be going tomorrow. Meet me there at ten am, and we’ll see what we can find out.”

  He glanced down at the address and his eyes narrowed. “This is where we’re going to find someone who spotted Seoc?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  Luc passed the card to Rafe, whose eyes widened considerably. “Who did you say these witnesses are?”

  “A rabbi, three models, a sex shop owner, and a bartender.”

  Rafe snorted. “Walk into a bar, or are stranded on a desert island?”

  Corinne rolled her eyes. “I know it sounds like the setup to a bad joke, but I’m totally serious. Those are the witnesses of record to the elf sightings. Although one of them did call him a leprechaun. I’m not sure who, though. Probably not the bartender.”

  Luc snorted. “Someone thought he was a leprechaun?”

  “What?” she asked. “Is that one imaginary creature that really is imaginary?”

  “No, they’re real,” Luc assured her, “but they’re short, ugly, foul-tempered little bastards. You can’t mistake one for Fae.”

  “Yeah, well, the witness must have missed that day of Things That Don’t Exist One-Oh-One.”

  Rafe cleared his throat and handed the card back to Luc. “So tomorrow the two of you will be hitting The Pink Pillow?”

  Corinne tried very hard not to think about the way that sounded. She also tried very hard to push away the images it conjured of her and the Faerie prince over there tangled up on rose-colored bedsheets.

  “Yes, I agree that it’s a ridiculous name,” she managed, after a small cough, “but that’s where our first witness is. He’s the owner.”

  “Ah, the sex shop owner. I’m really glad it isn’t the rabbi.”

  Corinne refused to laugh.

  “Ten o’clock,” she repeated, moving back toward the office door.

  Luc blocked her way. “Why wait until tomorrow? It’s a sex shop. They must have evening hours. Why don’t we go tonight?”

  Corinne lifted her chin and met his gaze defiantly. “Because I have other plans for tonight. I’m sure no one will be fleeing town before sunrise. We can start tomorrow.”

  He scowled down at her. “You think a date is more important than these interviews? Didn’t we just go over what’s at stake if we don’t find Seoc as soon as possible?”

  “I didn’t say I had a date,” she snapped, refusing to be intimidated by the sheer bulk of him looming over her. Corinne had never considered herself short, but this guy made her feel tiny. “I have some more background research to do, and I thought it would be smart to get it out of the way before we start in on the witnesses. Not that I think I need to explain to you how I do my job.”

  “You do if you’re doing it stupidly.”

  Rafe stood and looked very much as if he’d rather be somewhere else. “Ah, children—”

  “Not now.”

  “Sod off.”

  The Felix nodded. “Right. I’ll just h
ead home then. I’m certain the two of you can find your own way out.”

  Neither of them noticed him leave or the door clicking shut behind him.

  “Men don’t get to call me stupid,” Corinne growled, poking a finger into the layer of granite muscle over Luc’s sternum. “And you sure as hell don’t get to call me anything on the basis of a twenty-minute acquaintance. Don’t they teach kids growing up in Faerie not piss off people they need in order to accomplish their goals?”

  “Don’t they teach little girls in Ithirnot to pull on the tiger’s tail?”

  She didn’t get to answer. Instead, she got a mouthful of hot, angry, aroused man.

  Luc grabbed and lifted her before she could so much as squeak in protest, and forget squeaking once his mouth slammed down on hers, punishing, devouring, claiming, and cherishing in an unfathomable deluge of sensation. Hell, forget thinking. All Corinne could do was feel, and she felt things for this aggravating, non-human warrior that she’d never felt for another man in her life.

  Electricity seemed to arc between them, surging through her body in a current that could have resurrected Frankenstein’s monster. A force this intense could power a star, not to mention start a heart beating. Corinne feared it might have stopped her own.

  She couldn’t catch her breath. She could only breathe in Luc, the heat and strength and musk of him. He filled her head until she forgot all about being called stupid, forgot what they had been fighting about, forgot her own damned name. All she could remember was that male and female bodies fit together like puzzle pieces and she wanted this man’s to fit to hers. Right now.

  She wrapped her arms around him, would have wrapped her legs around him, too, she was so far gone with lust, but Luc tore his mouth from hers and set her down, holding her at arm’s length and shaking her until she opened her eyes. Damn it, she didn’t even remember closing them.

  “Now,” he growled, staring down at her with green eyes that seemed to glow with intensity. “Tell me where weare going tonight.”

  FIVE

  Corinne grumbled something about how it was unfair to pump her for information while she was clearly not thinking straight, but Luc ignored it. Partly because he couldn’t regret a tactic that had yielded the desired result, but mostly because if she thought he’d had an unfair advantage after that kiss, she was out of her mind. She had gone to his head faster than Faerie wine. Faster than moonlight. The woman had nearly brought him to his knees. But he saw absolutely no good reason why he should tell her that.

  In exchange, he had to tolerate her not-so-subtle grousing about unfair tactics and arrogant bastards while they walked from Vircolac to the appointment Corinne hadn’t wanted to admit having at her friend Ava’s apartment a few blocks away in Yorkville. He could only hope that the relatively cooler night air would help blow away the inconvenient remnants of lust that still thrummed through him.

  That kiss might have gotten Corinne to stop arguing and take him along on her research trip, but in the grander scheme of things it might still turn out to be a very big mistake. Luc had a job to do. He had no time to waste getting involved with a woman, especially not a human woman.

  No matter how good she tasted.

  Corinne finally deigned to speak to him again as she paused before a large old mansion just on the edge of the neighborhood at the border of the Upper East Side.

  “Ava lives inside,” she informed him, crossing her arms over her chest to favor him with a challenging look. “I’ll admit you made it through seven blocks without anyone wondering why you have that thing strapped to your back, but I have a feeling the doorman is going to want to know about it. He doesn’t know you from Adam, and he might know me, but I don’t usually come here armed. So before we go in, you’re going to have to do something about that.”

  She gestured impatiently to his shoulder, where the hilt of his sword poked out from behind him. Only she shouldn’t have been able to see it.

  Luc froze, tearing his gaze from its idle inspection of the facade of the converted old home and turning it with new intensity onto his companion. There was no way she knew he was carrying a sword. Before they had left Vircolac, he had cast a glamour over himself and his weapon. All Fae possessed glamour before all other magics, the simplest and yet most potent power they wielded. By casting a glamour on himself, a Fae could alter his appearance in the eyes of any living being—even other Fae if he had particularly strong talents.

  Luc hadn’t used a glamour to enhance his looks, just to disguise them. Knowing what a stir Seoc’s appearances had caused among humanity, Lac hadn’t wanted to take the chance of being seen as Other out on the streets of the city. He hadn’t used a big spell, just a few simple incantations that reshaped his ears into a less pointed form, softened some of the sharper angles of his features, and disguised the glow of enchantment all Fae wore like a visible aura. And, of course, he’d bespelled his weapon to make it invisible to human eyes. He hadn’t been about to leave it at the club; a guardsman never went about unarmed. But as far as any human was concerned—and most Others, too, incidentally—he wore nothing on his back beyond the thin fabric of a close-fitting black T-shirt. Only another Fae or one of a very select handful of other beings should have known the sword even existed. Corinne D’Alessandro could not possibly have numbered among those exceptions.

  “Do something about what?” he asked carefully.

  She looked at him as if he were a drooling idiot. “About the three-foot sword strapped to your back, Einstein. I didn’t say anything about it before, because…” She trailed off, blushing, and he felt a moment of satisfaction that the kiss had shaken her up so much, even if the moment had apparently passed. “Well, because I wasn’t thinking. Clearly. But even if everyone else we passed assumed you were an extra in some kind of movie or on your way to a costume party, I can guarantee you that Ava Markham is not going to make the same mistake. Provided the doorman doesn’t call the cops before you make it to the elevators. Which I sincerely doubt is going to happen.”

  “What makes you think I’m carrying a sword?”

  “Duh! I can see it, asshole. And so will Bruno, the doorman, as soon as we walk up those steps.”

  “Describe it to me.”

  “What?”

  Her expression went from telling Luc he was an idiot to telling him to go commit anatomically impossible acts in his own company, but he persisted. The human woman could notbe seeing through his glamour. It wasn’t possible.

  “Describe it to me,” he repeated forcefully.

  “Fuck you,” she bit out. “It’s a sword. It’s long and pointy and metal. And I can’t describe it, because you’ve got it in some kind of harness contraption that covers at least half the damned thing. I’m assuming the sheath thingy has that cutout in front so it doesn’t get hung up when you pull it out over your shoulder.”

  Luc shook his head, but his denial held no force of conviction. Her description was entirely accurate, and not something she should know. He couldn’t deny its significance, no matter how much he wished to. And no matter how hard he tried to push the word from his mind, it swooped in and rooted there, bright and glowing like a blinking neon sign:

  Heartmate.

  Corinne appeared unfazed by his dazed reaction. She kept right on snarling at him. “I’ll bet that’s what it’s for, too. You’re in the Queen’s Guard. You probably think that makes you some kind of medieval action hero. But who the hell thinks about that kind of thing? And who the hell do you think you are, telling me what to do? I don’t take orders from you, and if we’re going to do these interviews together, that’s something you’re going to have to understand. Clearly.”

  Luc understood only too well. In fact he understood things Corinne knew nothing about, and damned if this wasn’t the worst of all possibilities. The last thing he wanted—or needed—while he was stuck in Ithirlooking for the Queen’s nephew was to find his heartmate. But here she was, and apparently no happier about it than him.

&n
bsp; It didn’t help that she had no idea what was going on, and he didn’t have the time to explain.

  Hell, he didn’t have the energy to explain, either, not when the entire thing had broadsided him out of nowhere. Finding a heartmate didn’t exactly happen every day. As far as he knew, it didn’t even happen every lifetime, so how was he supposed to explain to a human that Fate had determined they were meant to be together for all eternity? The mind boggled.

  He could understand her feeling that everything had changed, though, because it had. The minute she had looked at him and seen through his glamour, reality had reshaped itself: an ordinary stroll with a human had become the first time he’d ever spent alone with his heartmate. Just like that.

  There was no other way she could have seen through the magic. Glamours didn’t fade in a couple of hours, and they didn’t require maintenance. Once cast, they just existed, for weeks or even years until the Fae who cast them called them back. No one was able to see Luc’s real appearance—not even another Fae—once the magic had been cast. Except for a heartmate.

  The gods definitely appreciated a little irony.

  Anu had. According to legend, the Great Goddess of the Fae had created heartmating.

  Disappointed by her Fae children and their tendency to hide behind pretty masks and to shape the appearance of things to suit themselves, she had placed them under an enchantment of sorts. According to Anu’s wishes, while the Fae might continue as masters of Illusions, that great power would be balanced by a great vulnerability: Love’s Truth. From the day she first commanded it, each Fae had to recognize that at the moment he found his true love, their hearts would be irrevocably bound, and the Fae’s power of Illusion would never again deceive his heartmate. Even if all the rest of the world believed in the Fae’s spells, his heartmate would see through the magic to the truth.

  It made a romantic story to tell the little ones, but it wreaked havoc on Luc’s plans. If Corinne was his heartmate, he wouldn’t be able to manipulate this investigation to suit his own intentions; nor was the affair he’d been contemplating from the first moment he’d touched her still a possibility. He could never have an affair with her now—at least, not the kind that ended with a peck and a thank-you as he hied himself back to Faerie. This woman was his now, and leaving her—ever—had ceased to be an option.