by Karen Chance
It didn’t look like much, clear as vodka without the tint provided by the bottle. And it tasted like even less, just vaguely of the flowers and herbs it was made from—if flowers and herbs were in the habit of tasting you back. And drinking you down. And standing you on your head because fey fauna might be scary, but I honestly thought fey flora gave it a run for its money.
But while the wine had a kick like an enraged hippo, it was also the only thing I’d found that helped to control my fits. Or no, that wasn’t exactly right. It didn’t help. Help was what human hooch, Mary Jane, and living with a powerful null had done for me. Help was giving me fewer episodes, or helping them to be shorter, or giving me more time to get away from innocent people who didn’t need to meet Hurricane Dory whenever I felt one coming on.
Fey wine didn’t do that. Fey wine turned them off, stopped them cold, shut them down. It was the magic elixir I’d been searching for most of my life, and it had seemed like a dream come true when I first discovered it earlier this summer.
Until I’d started to notice a few things.
Like how it let vamps spy on my thoughts. Or how it eroded my edge in combat, almost getting me killed a few times. Or how I was fast growing dependent on the stuff. I’d cut way back after seeing how, even after Claire returned and I didn’t really need it anymore, I’d still wanted it.
Like, really, really wanted it.
Like right now, in fact.
I pulled the stopper out of the bottle, which wasn’t cork because the stuff ate right through it, and slammed back a couple shots’ worth. I can chug straight whiskey and not bat an eye, but a swallow of this stuff was enough to have me tearing up, to leave me gasping. But I hit it again right after, anyway.
And it was good. Not the taste, but the feeling it spread down my torso, through my limbs, throughout my body was just a huge relief. Not because it took away the pain—it didn’t—but because it ensured that, at least for a little while, I wasn’t going to be inflicting some on anyone else.
I shoved the stopper back in, dragged myself up and went to the closet. My clothes had been returned by whoever had retrieved them after the cataclysm. Meaning that half had been carefully folded and hung back up (Claire) and half were piled in a colorful wad on the floor (the fey). I shoved the wad aside, popped the door over my weapons stash and dumped most of what I had on hand into the big duffel I used for missions. Then I stuffed some clothes on top, stuck the wine bottle in the side, grabbed a jacket on my way across the bedroom and flung open the door.
And almost ran into the angry person standing on the other side.
Chapter Nineteen
“Going somewhere?” Claire asked grimly.
“Damned right!” I tried to push past her, and got slammed into the wall for my trouble.
“I don’t think so.”
I stared at her over the thin, paisley-covered arm that had me pinned, because Claire didn’t do a lot of slamming. Of course, she didn’t usually glare daggers at me, either, so today was obviously about new experiences. Too bad I didn’t have time for them.
I threw off her hold and took a step toward the stairs.
And promptly ended up making the acquaintance of Mr. Wall again.
My eyes narrowed; hers narrowed back. I dropped the duffel, which had ended up in between us, giving me room to slip under her grasp. And that worked great—for about a second. Which was how long it took for a scale-covered gauntlet to grab my shoulder and for the slamming to recommence, this time with a little more gusto.
“That’s cheating,” I told my still mostly human-looking roommate.
Claire scowled at me, or possibly at the remains of the sleeve on her once nice wrap dress, which hadn’t been designed to accommodate a dragon’s forearm. “And what you were trying to do wasn’t?”
“I was trying to get out of here—”
“Yes, I got that!”
“You know it’s necessary,” I said, struggling—uselessly, because when one of the dragon-kind puts you somewhere, you stay there.
“Like hell it is! You have a crazed vampire after you—”
“Not anymore.” Probably.
“—and a bunch of smugglers or whoever kidnapped you all of two days ago! Are you trying to get yourself killed?”
“I’m trying to do what you should have last night!” I snapped, starting to get angry.
“And what was that?”
“Throw me out! Instead you leave me here, inside the damned wards, where I might easily have—”
“Done what? Hurt me?” She looked incredulous.
“You aren’t the only one here!”
“I think your boyfriend can take care of himself,” she said drily.
“He isn’t my—that’s not who I meant!”
“As can the guards.”
“Damn it, Claire. You know who I mean!”
“No, I really—” I saw when it hit, when her eyes widened. As if it had literally not occurred to her despite my all but spelling it out last night.
“You’re sane when you transform,” I gritted out. “I’m not. And since I can’t guarantee I won’t attack someone who can’t defend themselves, I’m out of—”
I cut off because something had just zipped by us, moving so fast it was merely a blur of color.
I started to ask what the hell, but before I could get the words out, the blur had knocked a mirror off the wall, caught it a couple inches off the floor, put it back where it belonged, zipped the rest of the way down the hall and finally resolved itself into a small man with a smaller mustache. He was of medium height and slender, with dark eyes, slicked-back black hair, and a sharp dark outfit. It made him look like the maître d’ at one of the kind of restaurants that don’t take reservations, because if you’re not important enough for them to recognize you, you aren’t getting in anyway.
It looked a little incongruous next to the overflowing laundry hamper he had tucked under one arm.
“Who—” I tried again.
“The other reason I have a headache,” Claire muttered, as the maître d’ hoisted the basket of laundry—meticulously folded sheets and towels, by the look of it—and rapid-fired them into a linen closet, like a veteran poker player dealing cards.
If I’d tried that, they’d have ended up in a crumpled mess, and probably piled in the bottom of the closet. In his case, they obediently formed themselves into perfectly square piles with military precision, allowing him to kick the door shut with one mirror-bright patent leather shoe, zip back down the hall, tuck something into Claire’s apron pocket, and disappear down the stairs.
The whole thing had taken maybe ten seconds.
“That…was a vampire,” I said stupidly.
Claire sighed. “Tell me something I don’t know.”
“What did he give you?” I asked, because she’d fished it out.
She opened her palm to show me a little packet of pills. “It’s like they know what I need before I need it.”
“Not unless you’re going to dry-swallow. You don’t have any—” I stopped because I’d blinked. And now she was holding a glass of water.
“They even folded the fitted sheets,” she said. And then she let me go in order to knock back the aspirin.
“That’s impossible.”
“That’s what I always thought, but it can be done. And the old copper cookware—you know, the ones that had that lovely patina?”
“I guess,” I said, because I cooked about once a decade.
“Well, they’re bright and shiny now,” she said sourly. “At least they were the last time I was allowed into my own kitchen, which was about an hour ago, so God knows what’s been done in—”
“Who are they?’”
“You said it,” she grimaced. “Vampires.”
“But whose?”
“Whose do you think?”
Damn.
“I’ll talk to Ray,” I told her. “I know his people probably need somewhere to crash until I get this mess so
rted out, but I never told him they could—”
“They aren’t Ray’s,” Claire said, looking at me funny.
“Whose then?”
She put her hands, both of which were back to normal, I was relieved to see, on her hips. “Did you or did you not tell Louis-Cesare that I needed domestic help?”
“I…Not in so many words, no.”
“Well, he interpreted it that way. They showed up a couple hours ago and took over. So far, they’ve done the laundry, mowed the yard, cleaned the house to within an inch of its life—despite my telling them that the spell would just return everything to the way it was, anyway—shampooed the cats and replanted my marigolds!”
“Your marigolds?”
“They said the lines weren’t straight enough!” She looked pissed. No one gets points for telling a Virgo that she doesn’t know how to keep house.
“Why didn’t you just dismiss them?” I asked.
“Oh, now why didn’t I think of that? Because they wouldn’t let me! That vampire sent them to you and you’re the only one who can tell them to go. And that’s exactly what you’re going to do! And then you’re going to march yourself back up here and get a bath—”
“I’m doing nothing of the—”
“—and then you’re going to get dressed and unpack that ridiculous bag and come downstairs again and we’re all going to have a nice meal, okay?”
“No, it’s not okay. It’s not safe—”
“Bullshit.” Claire swearing was odd enough to shut me up. “We lived together for almost two years, didn’t we?”
“Yes, but—”
“And how many times did something like last night happen?”
“Once is enough! And it also happened a month ago—”
“And what else happened a month ago?”
“What are you—”
“Damn it, Dory!” Her eyes had focused on my bag, which was still on the floor, and she leaned over and jerked something out. “You’ve got it on you!”
“Of course I’ve got it on me,” I said, wrestling her for my little blue bottle. “What did you expect after—”
“I expected you to take a moment and wonder if this wasn’t the problem!” Claire said, and threw it viciously at the wall.
It didn’t shatter into a thousand pieces, but only because the glass was so thick. It did, however, stick halfway into the wall and stay there. I turned my eyes from the new hallway decoration and back to Claire, who was practically incandescent.
“My abilities draw out your power, release it, destroy it!” she told me angrily. “That’s what a null is. But the wine isn’t a null.”
“Well, it’s doing something.”
“Yes! Yes, it is! It stops your fits, but it doesn’t remove the cause. It’s like closing the valve on a steam engine. It might keep the steam from escaping, but it doesn’t do anything about the pressure.”
I’d been about to say something, but at that I stopped. And just stared at her for a moment. “That’s what you think is happening?”
“I don’t know,” she said, exasperated. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. Nobody knows what that stuff does when ingested by a dhampir. All we know is that it brings out latent magical abilities in humans. But you’re not human.”
“But you believe it’s been putting a kind of stopper in my fits.”
She shoved frazzled red hair off her forehead. “Well, it makes sense, doesn’t it? You drink it, and it stops your fits, because it shuts off any escape valve for that part of you. But it doesn’t do anything to let off the pressure. So it just keeps building and building. And sooner or later—”
“Pow.”
“Very much pow.”
I nodded. “Thank you,” I told her, and meant it. I pried the bottle out of the wall.
“What are you doing?”
“Even if you’re right, it can still be useful in emergencies,” I told her, shoving it back in my pack.
“But…where are you going?” she demanded, as I started for the stairs again.
“The same place I was going before. Away.”
“But I’ve just explained—”
“That the wine doesn’t work, not over the long haul.”
“Dory!” She grabbed for my arm again, but this time I was ready, and spun out of her reach. “Damn it, get back here!”
“I can’t.”
She reached for me again, but I grabbed her this time, pushing her into the wall face-first. It wasn’t hard enough to hurt, but she didn’t look too happy. Of course, neither was I.
“It’s getting worse, all right,” I told her harshly. “Let’s face it. You can’t control me anymore. And the wine is a stopgap at best. Meaning I’m not—”
I broke off because my back suddenly hit the wall. On the other side of the corridor. Which was a surprise, since I didn’t recall moving.
“You know what’s not safe?” Claire demanded furiously, stalking toward me. “I am not safe. You’re not the only one dealing with pressure right now. I’m under it all day, every day, with no end in sight! And no matter what I try to tell anyone, they never—”
She cut off abruptly, and looked away. “What is it?” I demanded.
She didn’t say anything.
“Claire—”
“No,” she said, looking back at me, her eyes shuttered. “You have enough problems of your own. I can’t solve them for you, but I can keep from piling any more on.”
“But I can help—”
Red hair tossed. “How? I thought you were leaving.”
I just looked at her, because Claire never stayed mad for long. And this proved to be no exception. She deflated suddenly, looking miserable. “You won’t like it.”
“If it has you looking like that, I already don’t like it.”
“No, I mean—” She stopped, and licked her lips. And then she stiffened her shoulders and met my eyes squarely. And dropped the bombshell.
“Æsubrand hasn’t been seen in almost a week.”
I blinked. Okay, if anything could distract me from my own private hell, that was it. Æsubrand was a little bit of hell all on his own.
And, as irony would have it, he was also soon to be Claire’s cousin by marriage. It seemed that the fey family she was about to marry into was almost as messed up as mine. In fact, it might just take the prize, since none of my relatives were actively trying to kill each other.
Well, not at the moment.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t true for Claire. Her father-in-law was Caedmon, king of the Blarestri, one of the three main divisions of the Light Fey. He had a sister, Efridís, who had been married off to the Svarestri king, the leader of one of the other great houses, to seal a treaty or something. I wasn’t real clear on the details. What I was clear on was that she’d had a son, who had turned out to be a homicidal son of a bitch.
He was also ambitious as hell, to the point that merely inheriting one throne wasn’t good enough for him. Oh, no. Æsubrand wanted two. Specifically, he wanted Caedmon’s, which he’d had a claim to—right up until Heidar, aka Caedmon Jr., met a certain redheaded half dragon. And they had a son.
Heidar hadn’t been a problem for Æsubrand, because Blarestri law required its kings to have a majority of fey blood and his mother had been plain old human. But Claire, who was more than fifty percent fey, had tipped their son straight into the line of succession. And the line of fire.
Aiden’s existence had seriously messed up his cousin’s fey-unifying, dynasty-building, Æsubrand-glorifying plans, and he hadn’t taken it well. As in, he’d tried to kill Claire while she was still pregnant, and when that didn’t work, he’d gone after baby Aiden. But—lucky me—I’d managed to get in his way not once, but twice. Not that I’d been the only reason he failed, or even the main one, but for some reason, he seemed to blame me.
One of these days, I was going to have to work on my people skills.
“You think he’s here?” I asked, because that was just all
we needed.
“Caedmon doesn’t know,” Claire said distractedly, running a hand through already messy curls. “But he didn’t seem…He said he’d be more inclined to think that Æsubrand was back here if it didn’t look like he was.”
I tried to parse that, and failed utterly. “Come again?”
“You know his mother’s ability with glamourie?”
I nodded. Most fey could change their appearance to some degree, even without the potions they sometimes sold to us. But Efridís was said to be especially gifted, to the point of even being able to fool her fellow fey. She’d used her skills to impersonate her darling boy, helping him break out of the fey version of jail, last time I’d heard.
And then I finally realized what Claire was saying. “You think she’d be covering for him.”
“Caedmon thinks so,” she said, frowning. “He said the Svarestri know we spy on them, just like they do on us. And that if Æsubrand was here, his mother would be doing everything in her power to make it look like he was still at court. He’d be seen riding, hunting, hawking—anything to make him highly visible. But he isn’t.”
“Which means what?”
“That’s just it—I don’t know! Caedmon thinks Æsubrand probably is away from court, just not here. So he doesn’t need anyone to cover for him. He said he could be patrolling the border, or leading war games, or on a freaking trade mission—” She threw up her hands in disgust.
“But you’re assuming the worst.”
“Do I have a choice?” she asked wildly. “After everything?”
No. She really didn’t. Aiden’s talisman protected him, but only to a degree. It meant that someone might not be able to just walk up and kill him, as they’d tried once before. But it wouldn’t do a damned thing to stop a kidnapping. And if Æsubrand ever got Aiden into his elegant hands, I didn’t think it would be long before he’d find a way to dispose of the problem—permanently.
It was, I suspected, why Claire was still here instead of back in Faerie. She’d recovered the talisman two weeks ago but had shown no signs of leaving. Maybe because Æsubrand didn’t know Earth all that well, which put him at a disadvantage here.