The Mad Queen (The Fae War Chronicles Book 5)

by Jocelyn Fox

  “What is the meaning of this?” Calliea’s voice rang out sharply in the tense silence. She pushed through the ranks of Unseelie, most stepping aside to let her pass, Merrick striding quickly in her wake and taking in the scene with level gray eyes.

  Quinn felt a vague sense of relief as Calliea stopped by the Knights that held him, positioning herself between them and the Vaelanmavar. His head still spun from that last hit but he swallowed the metallic blood in his mouth and concentrated on staying steady on his feet.

  “He is under the protection of the High Queen,” Calliea said to the Vaelanmavar, her eyes traveling over Quinn’s face and then returning to the bloodied visage of the Knight.

  “He attacked me,” said the Vaelanmavar.

  “After you attacked Niamh and Maeve,” growled Quinn, straining against the two men holding him. Calliea glanced at Merrick, who silently went to Maeve and Niamh. Niamh sat by the ruins of the head healer’s desk, her mother standing watchfully beside her. Merrick spoke to them in a low voice and then returned to stand behind Calliea again, his hand now resting on his sword hilt.

  “What cause leads you to bring violence into the healing ward?” Calliea demanded of Mab’s Vaelanmavar.

  “Your head healer will not allow us to remove our brothers from this hall,” said the Knight. “I warned her that she needed to stand aside.”

  “And why would you move any of your wounded?” asked Merrick, shaking his head. “Those left in the healing ward at this point were gravely injured.”

  “Queen Mab wishes to have her Court whole once again,” replied the Vaelanmavar. “They are her subjects, and it is her right as Queen.”

  “Is it her right as Queen to kill them?” said Maeve fiercely.

  “Healer, you were warned once,” said the Unseelie Knight. Some of the men behind him shifted into fighting stances. Merrick took two steps back toward Maeve and Niamh and drew his own sword, his face grim.

  “There will be no more violence here,” said Calliea in a strong voice that brooked no argument. She turned her flinty gaze to the two Knights who held Quinn. He grimaced as they tightened their grips on his arms. “Release him.”

  For a moment, the whole tableau remained frozen. Then the two Unseelie Knights released Quinn, though not without a little shove. He stumbled but regained his footing. With a quick look at Niamh, who nodded at him, signaling she was all right, he retrieved the knife from his boot and positioned himself behind Niamh. If those pointy-eared bastards wanted another fight, he’d give it to them. Calliea smiled at his dogged loyalty.

  “If you were a Sidhe Knight, I would challenge you to a duel and spit you on my sword,” the Vaelanmavar said to Quinn.

  “Doubt it,” said Quinn. “I don’t fight fair, asshole. You’ve got the bruises to prove it.”

  A Glasidhe zipped by overhead like a shooting star. More footsteps sounded from the entrance to the hall. Quinn didn’t take his eyes from the Vaelanmavar. No sense in getting distracted from someone who’d just vowed to kill you.

  “Laedrek,” said Tess, striding over to Calliea. A low rumbling accompanied the Bearer, emanating from the sheath on her back. Quinn felt blood trickle down his chin. He shifted his grip on his knife. Time enough to lick his wounds later, once this standoff was done.

  “Lady Bearer,” said Calliea. She, too, didn’t take her eyes from the Vaelanmavar.

  “Is there a problem here?” Tess said, her hard gaze traveling between the Unseelie Knight, Quinn and Calliea.

  “No,” said the Vaelanmavar finally. “Simply a misunderstanding. We will be about our business.” He gave a hand signal and his men strode past him into the rows of beds. Quinn saw that most of them carried rolled canvas stretchers. Merrick caught Maeve by the arm as she rushed forward.

  “Donovan,” said Tess in a low voice, calling Mab’s Vaelanmavar by his name. “Why are you doing this? You know some of those men could die if they’re moved.”

  “It is by order of the Queen,” the Knight replied.

  “Does she have healers to tend to them?” Tess asked, trying to reason with him.

  “It is not my place to question her orders.”

  “Please, Donovan, think about this,” Tess tried again, her voice firm but not unkind.

  “They won’t listen to reason,” Calliea said. Her thumb caressed the curve of her golden whip.

  “Quinn,” said Liam, moving over to his friend’s side. Quinn hadn’t seen him enter the hall. He realized that his team leader had checked on Niamh and Maeve first.

  “Damn, they busted your face pretty good,” Liam continued quietly.

  “I’ll still be pretty tomorrow,” Quinn replied nonchalantly. “Don’t need any attention now. Focus on these bastards.”

  “There’s nothing we can do without starting something that very well may be war,” Liam said.

  Quinn looked at the man he’d followed into firefights in some of the most dangerous places in the world. “Never thought I’d see the day that you’d back down from a righteous cause.” He heard his own voice tightening in anger. “They’re gonna kill their own guys, you get that? That bastard put hands on Maeve and hurt Niamh, and now they’re gonna take their guys that shouldn’t be moved.”

  “There are a lot of factors in play here,” said Liam.

  “Is that you talking, or the dead girl in your head?” Quinn said acidly. His team leader glanced at him and then moved silently away. He checked back in with the situation – Tess still trying to talk down the Vaelanmavar, Calliea and Liam at her back now – and decided that they could afford for him to check out. He walked stiffly over to Niamh and knelt by her side.

  “You all right?” he said huskily, his throat closing at the thought of her hurt again.

  She smiled wanly. “I cannot say it was…fun…to use one of your words. But I will be fine. I have had worse...than a few bruises...these past days.” She paused to catch her breath.

  “I’d tell you that you shouldn’t have jumped at him, but you just got there before I did,” he said.

  She touched his face delicately, her fingers cool against his already-tender skin. “You will have…more impressive bruises…than me.”

  “More visible,” he agreed, catching her hand in his own. “And I’d do it again to send a message to that bastard for putting hands on you.”

  She smiled. “I can defend myself, Quinn.” But even as she said the words, her breath caught in her throat and she grimaced as she struggled not to cough.

  “Enough talking, sweetheart,” he said gently, pressing her hand in his own and then turning back to watch the confrontation. The Unseelie had begun to appear with their wounded, marching quickly down the center aisle, heedless of any cries of pain from those they were transporting. Merrick no longer had to restrain Maeve, but she watched with a stony fury.

  “She will never forgive any of them for this,” Niamh whispered.

  The Unseelie left with their wounded without any further incident or insult. The Vaelanmavar even bowed stiffly to Tess, but his eyes glittered predatorily as he glanced at Quinn when he followed his men out of the hall.

  “Help me up,” said Niamh. Quinn gave her his arm and she pulled herself upright. She looked at her mother’s desk and pressed her lips together. Merrick and Liam walked over and set the table upright again, gathering the scattered papers and the leather-bound book from where it had landed face down on the floor, pages splayed. The clay tablet had shattered into sharp pieces. Maeve paid their efforts no mind as she spoke to Tess and Calliea.

  “You broke my stool,” Niamh said to Quinn in mock chastisement.

  “I broke it on that guy’s face,” Quinn agreed, nodding in satisfaction.

  Niamh sighed but he caught her smile before she turned her face away. She walked toward the other three women, waving away Quinn’s offer of assistance and traversing the distance slowly on her own. Quinn watched until Maeve embraced her daughter and kept an arm around her waist in a show of public affection that
was rare for the stern healer.

  “Can’t keep you from starting brawls even here,” said Liam as Quinn joined them in attempting to reorganize Maeve’s implements.

  “Someone has to do it,” Quinn replied stiffly. “You sure as hell weren’t going to.”

  Merrick glanced between the two of them and held his tongue, busily collecting shards of clay and the splintered frame.

  “Sometimes it isn’t as simple as punching a guy in the face,” Liam replied.

  “And sometimes it is,” said Quinn with a note of finality. After a moment he added, “I didn’t punch him. I hit him with a wooden stool.”

  Liam looked over at the shattered remains of the stool. “Stars help us,” he sighed.

  “Startin’ to sound like one of them,” muttered Quinn. He couldn’t put his finger on why exactly he was so angry with his old team leader.

  “One of them?” repeated Liam, frowning. “Come on, Quinn. Whatever it is, snap out of it.”

  Quinn shook his head and joined Merrick in picking up shards of clay, trying to ignore the growing ache in his jaw and temple. He glanced up at the group of women. “What do you think they’re talking about?”

  “Most likely they are discussing when they think Mab will declare war, and whether we can do anything about it,” Merrick said darkly.

  “Oh. Well, that’s…cheery.”

  “You may have sped along the process by fighting the Vaelanmavar.”

  “First of all, he started it,” said Quinn calmly. “Second of all, starting a war with a wooden stool would be pretty badass.”

  Merrick looked at him blankly. “I hope that is your mortal humor, because I do not find the prospect of another war appealing. Too many have died.”

  Quinn sighed. “It’s called gallows humor, man.”

  “Gallows humor,” repeated Merrick thoughtfully, straightening as they finished gathering the shattered pieces of the clay tablet.

  Quinn watched Niamh, Tess, Maeve and Calliea speaking in quiet voices, their faces alight with serious concentration, and he fervently hoped that he hadn’t actually started a war…although, considering the look on the Vaelanmavar’s face and the feeling of raw gratification that buzzed through him when his hit connected, maybe it would have been worth it after all. He shrugged and went back to helping pick up the literal pieces of the mess that the Unseelie had created, thinking that in some ways, this world was just as flawed as the one he’d left behind him.

  Chapter 11

  Ross lengthened her stride and pushed her pace as she neared the end of the country lane that connected to the main road. Mayhem kept pace easily, tongue lolling out of her mouth in canine bliss as the former working dog enjoyed the exercise. The Louisiana summer pressed around them, the air thick and soupy with humidity. Sweat rolled down her back and soaked her shirt, but Ross only leaned harder into her run. The physical pain of running and lifting and training for her job had taken the edge off the darkest times after Noah had disappeared. Disappeared, and then been declared dead, she amended in her head, the burning in her lungs and legs countering the heavy drop of her stomach as she remembered the crisp uniforms of the casualty officers who had parked their gleaming SUV in the dusty driveway those months ago. Once one memory surfaced, the rest followed, like a string of bubbles trailing up to the surface of the ocean, the only evidence of the swimmer drowning beneath the waves.

  Mayhem deftly pivoted behind Ross’s legs and picked up the pace to catch up with her handler, her ears pinned back to her skull and her head lowered in line with her spine, a sleek streak of black and tan that made it easy to see why soldiers affectionately nicknamed their working dogs “fur missiles.” The next memory floated into Ross’s mind: the hearse with the casket, the flag stretched tight over the gleaming wood. They’d all known that only ashes rested inside that casket. She’d had dreams of fire for weeks after the investigators had summarized their final findings for her in a terse phone call.

  There was a headstone in Arlington that bore the names of all of them, since their remains had been so inextricably intertwined, and all their families had agreed that the men who’d been brothers in life wouldn’t object to sharing a final resting place. With a stabbing pain, Ross felt a tide of guilt wash over her. Guilt that she’d been relieved of the sorrow that had swamped her after Noah’s death, guilt that she didn’t have to bear the burden of loss anymore, guilt that somehow, by some unbelievable twist of fate and magic, her fiancé had not, in fact, been killed in an explosion overseas. He’d just been whisked into another world because his team leader had some sort of mystical powers.

  She shook her head and focused on the rhythm of her strides and the burning breath in her lungs. She couldn’t control the fact that she’d been mysteriously rescued from the list of those who’d lost a loved one in war. She couldn’t control the fact that, as best they knew, no one else would be relieved of that burden. But what she could do was redirect every scrap of fury that she’d felt at the injustice of Noah’s death into stopping the bone sorcerer and saving people trapped in burning buildings. Both seemed like valid goals.

  Sweat slid in rivulets down the back of her legs as the paved road that led to Cairn came into sight at the heat-blurred line of the horizon. Mayhem switched to running on the grass at the side of the road rather than the gravel. Ross made a mental note to check the dog’s paws for any scrapes or burns. May wouldn’t stop running, even if her paws were bleeding. In that way, they were all too similar. Ross smiled slightly and put more effort into pumping her arms and driving her knees, stretching even farther toward a sprint but still maintaining a pace that she could hold for at least half a mile. Her shoes crunched on the gravel. Mayhem’s steady panting provided a counterpoint to her labored breathing. Finally, she slipped away from the memories into a purely physical place, where no past and no future weighed on her mind and there was only the strain of her muscles and the beat of her heart and the hot sun pressing down from the bright blue sky.

  The paved road snaked over the low grassy hill that made the turn onto Ross’s lane slightly hazardous. The roads down south were so flat that drivers weren’t accustomed to the idea of blind spots. Vivian had brought up the idea of asking the parish to post a warning sign or something, but there were few enough cars on this road that they’d agreed it really wasn’t worth it. Heat radiated in waves off the black macadam as Ross tapped the edge of the road with her toe and pivoted to start the return leg of the run. She stopped after a few strides when Mayhem didn’t catch up, glancing over her shoulder to look for the Malinois.

  “May?” she said, her voice slightly breathless.

  The dog stood at the edge of the road to Cairn, her ears pricked and her tail raised slightly, her whole body coiled like a spring. Ross knew that posture. She reached inside the zippered pocket of her running shorts and slid the little tube of pepper spray into her palm.

  “May, what is it?” she said, taking deep breaths to slow her heart rate as she walked toward the dog.

  Mayhem gave a short growl that ended on a huff of air, not quite a bark but promising one. She took two stiff-legged steps toward one of the sprawling trees that dotted the land beside the road. The hairs on the back of Ross’s neck stood up as she stared at the tree. She couldn’t see anything wrong at first glance, but her instincts told her that May was right. There was something about the tree that was off. She sternly gave May the command to heel as she walked steadily toward the tree. The dog kept pace beside her, her coiled body so close to Ross’s legs that she felt the brush of May’s pelt on her skin every few strides.

  Ross’s skin prickled. She felt the familiar rush of sensory detail rendered clearer by an unspooling of adrenaline in her bloodstream: the slight breeze that pushed the heavy air against her face, the slide of sweat down the curve of her back, the slight damp smell of May overlapped by the dog’s breathing, the crunch of the gravel under her feet giving way to dry grass as she stepped off the shoulder of the road into the dirt.
A small voice whispered in the back of her head, asking her what exactly she thought she was doing, investigating some gut feeling out here alone after the insanity of the past days. She drew back her shoulders and pushed that small nagging voice firmly aside. Her world had shifted on its axis, true, but those sudden jarring changes hadn’t altered who she was. She was still the same person, still trying to do right in the world, still tough and resilient and independent…and maybe a little stubborn. Maybe.

  A low growl rumbled from Mayhem as they approached the tree. Ross glimpsed something glinting in its trunk, something silver that caught the fractured diamonds of sunlight that slid through the branches and leaves. She curled her fingers around the pepper spray and tried not to wish that she’d brought one of her pistols.

  When they were about twenty feet from the reach of the first spreading branches, Mayhem’s growl shifted to louder, higher pitched, a growl that meant that she sensed something or saw something. At the same time, the dog placed her muscular body in front of Ross and leaned back against her legs, preventing her from stepping under the branches of the tree. Ross shifted her focus to the branches, scanning the latticework of gnarled limbs in sectors, waiting for her eyes to pick out some irregularity. Finally, her eyes snagged on a sliver of out-of-place white, like a bit of a cloud caught among the branches of the tree.

  Her stomach tightened and she tensed. Mayhem felt her shift her weight to lower her center of gravity, and the dog stopped leaning on her legs, satisfied that she’d gotten the message. She let her eyes adjust, following the contours of the shape that she thought she saw without overanalyzing too much, and by the time she exhaled again, she knew that a trap had been set for her. If it hadn’t been for May, she might have just blundered right into it. She clenched her jaw at the memory of the first intense moments with the Exiled: her truck exploding, Tyr and Corsica attacking Luca, Duke and Merrick, she and Vivian and Mayhem joining the fray.