The Mad Queen (The Fae War Chronicles Book 5)

by Jocelyn Fox

  “What kind of downward spiral are we talking about here?” Tess asked.

  Vell took a deep breath and let it out, lacing her fingers together and then letting her hands go limp. “A darkening madness. Something not easily explained or understood.”

  The hairs on the back of Tess’s neck stood on end. The Caedbranr’s power paced in her chest, prowling from rib to rib like a caged animal. “What’s she doing?”

  “Can’t say for certain.” Vell shook her head, her gold circlet catching the dim light.

  “She was perfectly willing to execute those she deemed traitors and imprison those whom she thought needed to prove themselves, even before all this,” said Calliea.

  “Not to mention the blood oath and digging through her subjects’ heads. And even those who aren’t her subjects.” Tess shoved away the harrowing memory of Mab’s icy claws raking through her mind.

  “Those defenseless against her power,” rumbled Luca, his pale eyes hard. Tess stood from the bed and touched his shoulder, knowing that he was remembering his own subjugation at the hands of Malravenar’s minions.

  “That being said, what do we do now?” Calliea said, her bright eyes watching the High Queen steadily.

  Vell sat silently for a moment and then muttered, “I can’t believe I’m saying this.” She surged to her feet and swept her gaze over all of them. “I will send a message to Queen Titania that I agree with her plan to overthrow Queen Mab.”

  Chapter 23

  Not for the first time, Ross felt thankful for the hard lessons she’d learned during her time in the military. Her body ached with bone-deep exhaustion as she mounted the steps of the house in the deepening dusk, but she still focused on all the things she’d accomplished that day.

  She’d grabbed a shower and a couple of hours of sleep after their half-marathon trek back to the house from the meeting with Corsica. That was an experience she’d prefer not to repeat: running in the thick darkness of a Louisiana night, dreading the constellations of mosquito bites that would spread across her legs the next day, sweat soaking her shirt and her hair and dripping off her nose. Running felt like swimming sometimes in the South, and she wasn’t particularly fond of swimming.

  Luckily, she knew one of the paramedics who worked at her new firehouse, and he lived in Cairn too. With minimal bribing (a growler of beer from his favorite New Orleans brewery and a promise to cover a shift in the future if he needed it), she convinced Jon to swing by and pick her up before shift. He’d even budgeted enough time for her to run into the best donut shop in the city and grab two dozen donuts as an offering to the house on her first day.

  “You’ve already got the deck stacked against you, gotta do what I can to help,” he’d said, rubbing the salt-and-pepper bristle on his chin and grinning.

  “Not my fault I have a different pair of chromosomes,” Ross had replied, balancing the white cardboard boxes of donuts in one hand as she climbed back into his truck. Riding in his truck had made her miss her own with a sudden sharp pang, which she’d dismissed just as quickly as it had appeared. In the grand scheme of things, she’d certainly come out ahead from the events of the past few days: the fiancée she’d thought was dead was alive, for one, and she thought that maybe being involved with the Fae would make life more interesting.

  Her first day at Station 28 had been similar to her other first days. They all had the same flavor, whether it was the first day at a new duty station with a new unit, first day with a new ambulance crew, or now, her first day as a firefighter. She’d been issued a locker, the front and inside surfaces still sticky from the tape its previous occupant had used to post his memorabilia. Thankfully though it wasn’t too dirty, and she’d thrown her bag into it with a mental promise to apply Lysol liberally to the interior of the locker when she got a moment to breathe.

  But she hadn’t had a moment to breathe that entire day, which she’d expected…but a mental expectation and the reality of experiencing that expectation were often very different. The gear custodian had issued her turnout gear that was a couple of sizes too big for her, but workable.

  “If you’re still here when I order the next set of life cycle replacements, I’ll get your size,” the custodian, a redheaded firefighter named Donny, had told her. His voice hadn’t been unkind, just practical, but she felt him watch her to see if she reacted.

  She’d nodded as she signed for the gear. “Let me know when you’re about to order so I can give you my size.”

  They’d only had a couple of calls that day, nothing too serious. A grease fire set off the alarms at a restaurant downtown and they’d checked to make sure the fire hadn’t jumped into the walls of the old building. The owner had been incensed when they advised him not to use his industrial-grade range hood until an electrician verified that the wiring hadn’t been compromised by the fire.

  “We’re gonna be responding to an electrical fire here next when that asshole doesn’t listen to us,” Ross heard Donny grumble as they piled back into the truck.

  The only other call had been to a residential neighborhood, where they found a frantic young woman and a shrieking toddler who’d managed to jam his chubby legs into the too-small confines of a plastic high chair meant for baby dolls. The scenario would have been funny but for the tears of the young woman, who explained that she was the au pair and she was afraid that the sturdy plastic of the high chair was cutting off circulation in the child’s legs.

  While Donny and Jon had discussed the best way to cut through the plastic of the toy, Ross had let her gaze wander over the tidy living room, wondering who the high chair belonged to – it seemed like the toddler was still too young to play with dolls almost as big as he was. She’d glimpsed a pair of dark eyes peering around the frame of the entryway, and she’d coaxed the toddler’s older sister into the room with an inviting smile.

  “Hey kiddo,” she said. “Don’t be scared, okay?”

  “Who are all these people?” the precocious little girl asked clearly, taking in Jon and Donny’s imposing bulks with wide eyes.

  “We’re firefighters,” Ross had said, dropping to one knee to talk to the girl on her level.

  “There’s no fire here,” the kid said in voice that pretty much said Are you stupid or what, lady?

  Ross had suppressed a smile. “Well, we don’t just put out fires. We help people who need us. And right now, that’s your brother.”

  The little girl sighed in exaggerated disgust. “I told him that I was feeding Baby, not him, and he wouldn’t fit. He didn’t listen to me, and Helen was reading her book.”

  “Well, don’t worry, we’ll get him unstuck, okay?”

  She gave another dramatic sigh. “Guess no more high chair for Baby. Little brothers ruin everything.”

  Ross had chuckled. For all her self-confidence, the little girl’s eyes had gone wide again when Donny fired up the Saws-all. The toddler’s shrieking escalated into another pitch and Helen the au pair looked like she was ready to pass out.

  “Hey, do you wanna come see our fire truck?” Ross said quickly. She caught Helen’s eye and motioned outside as she took the little girl’s hand. The au pair nodded distractedly.

  The little girl’s jubilant expressions at seeing the fire truck more than made up for the ribbing she got from the guys once they were rumbling back to the station in the back of the truck.

  “Don’t tell me you’ve got kids on the brain,” said one of the younger firefighters, Cameron.

  “Hey, if you’d wanted to add another screaming kid into the mix, I could’ve just let her freak out,” Ross had responded coolly.

  Cameron hadn’t had a comeback to that. One of the older firefighters had chuckled, and Donny had smiled.

  After that call had wrapped up, they’d run a few hose drills and then re-stowed all the gear. She’d run through the check sheet to make sure the truck was ready for the next shift, which took up the rest of her time. Jon had only complained a little bit at waiting for her to finish before
driving her home.

  “I’m gonna charge a growler of beer every week,” he warned her good-naturedly as she climbed out of his truck. In the darkness of that morning, he hadn’t noticed the charred hulk over her truck. Now he glimpsed it and gave a low whistle. “Damn, what happened to your wheels?”

  “This crazy pyro chick decided to blow it up,” Ross replied as she grabbed her bag from the bed of the truck.

  “Huh,” Jon said, but he didn’t ask any more questions.

  Now Ross slid her key into the front door and hoped vaguely that someone else had decided to cook dinner. She heard the distinctive rhythm of Mayhem’s romping leaps – when the former working dog wasn’t on mission, she gave in to what Vivian called her “goober tendencies.” Ross smiled before she even opened the door, anticipating the sight of the dog’s antics.

  Sure enough, Mayhem leapt across the living room in comically high jumps, her tail wagging so hard that the entire back half of her body swayed from side to side. Ross stepped inside, shut the door behind her and dropped her bag on the floor. “Hey, May, I missed you too.”

  She squatted and let the Malinois put her black paws on her shoulders, thoroughly licking her face.

  “How was your first day?” asked Vivian. She wore black leggings and a long, flowing green top that made her red hair look even brighter.

  Ross shrugged as she stood and Mayhem leaned against her leg, panting happily as Ross rubbed behind her ears.

  “It was okay,” she said. “Not really much different than I expected.”

  “Well, Alex is coming by later to give me a ride to go pick up my new car,” said Vivian. “Wanna come with and see if you find anything you like?”

  “That was quick,” said Ross.

  Vivian shrugged. “Evie wasn’t exactly thrilled when I called her this morning to ask whether Alex could come pick me up so I could go over the books with her at the shop.”

  Ross chuckled. “So it’s an order from Mama Evie that’s the driving factor.”

  Vivian widened her eyes. “Have you ever seen the look she gives? She means business. Part of why my grandma trusted her so much. Evie takes no shit.”

  “I don’t know her as well as you do, but I can believe it,” said Ross. She sniffed the air appreciatively. “Who’s cooking?”

  “Jess. Catfish and bacon, I think.”

  “That sounds fantastic.”

  “Pretty sure you think everything and anything sounds fantastic when you’re hungry,” said Vivian.

  “True,” Ross allowed. “I’m going to go take a shower.” She left her bag by the door and kicked off her shoes. Mayhem shadowed her across the living room and then peeled off into the kitchen, sitting by the stove and gazing hopefully up at Jess as he cooked the catfish in a cast iron skillet.

  “Don’t let her con you into giving her anything,” she cautioned, throwing the words over her shoulder as she continued down the hallway toward her bedroom.

  “Roger that, heart of stone, don’t let the hair missile sway me with her soulful eyes,” replied Jess drolly.

  Ross thought she heard him scrape a piece of something from the skillet. Maybe she imagined the delighted huff from Mayhem, but a smile curved her lips despite her attempt at being stern.

  The hot water of the shower felt delicious, soothing the little aches out of her muscles and washing away the rime of dried sweat from the drills. She reviewed the day in her head. There were always the guys who were going to say something that toed the line – either a joke about women, an insinuation that she wasn’t going to stay for long, or some other sexist remark. She didn’t think that it was right, but she also wasn’t going to file a complaint with human resources over something so trivial as an offhanded comment. Showing that words didn’t rattle her was the best approach, one she’d honed especially well on those long deployments in the sandbox.

  “Hey babe,” came Duke’s voice, echoing through the steam.

  She pulled back the shower curtain just enough to see him. He leaned one hip against the sink and ran his fingers through his hair. She expected him to ask to join her, and she saw him open his mouth, but then he closed it again and said instead, “How was your first day?”

  Ross let the shower curtain fall back into place and tipped her head back, rinsing the conditioner from her hair. “It was…fine. Typical first day stuff.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Oh, you know, getting issued gear that isn’t really my size, being told that I probably won’t be around long,” Ross said with a hint of acid in her voice. She shut off the shower and squeezed some of the water from her hair. “Don’t get me wrong, I expected it. I’m not complaining.”

  “You can complain to me if you want, darlin’,” said Duke. “We don’t work at the same place anymore. I don’t know what life as a firefighter is like. I’m here to listen.”

  “Thanks,” she said, twisting a microfiber turban around her wet hair and tucking her towel under her armpits as she stepped out of the shower. “Anything interesting happen while I was at work?”

  He shook his head. “Not much, actually. Ramel did come to when V was gone. That was the main thing.”

  “Did you tell him about Molly?”

  Duke sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. “I wasn’t in there. Jess decided not to. Apparently, he wasn’t really that…with it. Kept saying something about ‘the mad queen.’”

  Ross frowned. Duke moved aside so he wasn’t in her way as she rubbed lotion onto her legs and applied deodorant. “The mad queen. Could he be talking about Mab?”

  “It’s a possibility,” Duke allowed with a shrug.

  “He’s still somehow connected to her, right?” Ross said. She padded into the bedroom and pulled on her typical off-hours gear: running shorts, a sports bra and a t-shirt. She didn’t bother matching any colors or anything cute like that, pulling the clothes from the drawer without a second look.

  “As far as I understand, yeah.” Duke’s Southern drawl came through stronger as his voice turned thoughtful.

  Ross pressed her lips together. “I don’t really know what we’re supposed to do with that. Molly knew the most, and she jumped ship.”

  “So to speak,” agreed Duke darkly. “I mean, I think Tyr knows a lot too, but he’s not exactly the most reliable.”

  “Or the most talkative.” Ross twisted her damp hair into a bun on the top of her head. “Well, not much we can do about it until Ramel tells us more. If he tells us more.”

  Duke nodded. Then he arched an eyebrow. “I haven’t properly welcomed you home yet. Y’know, I think I could maybe get used to being a kept man…a house husband, is that what they’re callin’ em?”

  Ross chuckled as he kissed her thoroughly. She drew back and smiled. “You sure you wanna be a ‘kept man?’”

  “Well, I’m supposed to be dead,” he pointed out. “Doesn’t really lend to finding a good job, y’know.”

  “Hey, maybe one of the federal agencies would take you,” Ross replied, half-serious. “What better spook than one who doesn’t exist anymore?”

  “Yeah, I’m not so good at the whole covert thing,” Duke replied. “Runnin’ and gunnin’, not so subtle.”

  “Maybe the Fae will put you on retainer,” said Ross. “You know, like paying for services rendered here in this world?”

  “And how exactly do you think I should go about negotiating a salary?” Duke said skeptically.

  “Bring it up with Niall, I don’t know,” said Ross with a shrug. Her stomach rumbled. “What I do know is that dinner smells great and I’m hungry.”

  “That’s the woman I’m gonna marry,” sighed Duke in appreciation as he followed her out of the bedroom. “Planning her life around food. Could you be any more perfect?”

  Ross smiled as Jess pointed to the kitchen table, where steaming plates of fried catfish and greens dressed with bacon awaited them. “I could get used to this.”

  Vivian barely looked up from her plate as Ross sat dow
n.

  “Niall is with Ramel,” said Jess as he turned off the burners on the stove and transferred the rest of his culinary creation onto a plate.

  “Thought he was out of the woods?” Ross took a moment to inhale the steam rising from the catfish before digging in with relish.

  “We thought so, ‘til he had a seizure or whatever it was this morning before you guys got back,” Jess replied. He walked over to the table and took the empty seat between Vivian and Duke. Vivian didn’t pause in her single-minded inhalation of her meal. “You wanna slow down there, kid?”

  “Alex is gonna be here any minute,” said Vivian around a mouthful of food.

  “He could wait five minutes for you to finish eating,” said Jess.

  “Or you could invite him in for dinner.” Ross shrugged, gazing innocently at Vivian, who gave her a mortified look.

  Jess narrowed his eyes. “Is this Alex around your age?”

  “Why does that even matter?” said Vivian, blushing furiously. She shoveled another forkful of catfish into her mouth.

  “He is,” Ross answered for her. “He works at Adele’s but he’s also a musician.”

  “Oh. Is he in a band or something?” asked Duke.

  Vivian pretended she didn’t hear them, lowering her head and eating with silent determination.

  “Apparently he’s not in a band, he’s more of an acoustic guitar singer,” said Ross.

  “And he’s really good,” said Vivian, looking challengingly across the table at her friend.

  Ross smiled and raised her fork in defeat. She’d heard Vivian talk about Alex a few times and knew enough to suspect that the feeling was mutual. Maybe Evie suspected too and that was part of the order to find a replacement car post-haste. She decided to throw Vivian a lifeline and change the subject. “You’re good on car money?”