by Sarra Cannon
“I can sympathize, but I’ve never met my father.” I shrugged. “I have no idea where he is.”
“We are aware of that. We don’t expect you to find him. It’s more we were hoping you might be persuaded to act in his stead. Only one of his bloodline may take his place, and you are the only known child of Macsen Sullivan.” He paused. “We are not without resources. You will be compensated.”
Caution lent my voice a sharp edge. “Who is we?”
“I speak for House Unseelie.”
Another statement. This one more malleable, but I let it slide. “What is their stake in this?”
“Balance must be maintained.” Power thrummed in his voice. “It was your father’s duty to serve the fae realm and now, as his only child, I offer you his position. If only temporarily.”
“You said he went missing. Why are you acting like he’s dead?”
“When old creatures go missing in Faerie, it is because they do not wish to be found.”
The pressure in my chest eased. “So he might be taking a vacation from court life?”
One year in the field and my job frustrated me. After millenniums of casting irrefutable judgments upon those condemned by the Faerie High Court, of which my father was a founding member, I would be ready for a break too.
Raven cast a meaningful look my way. “He has done so once before.”
Right. He took a position once with the Earthen Conclave, spent a few months here and met Mom.
Would she want to know Mac had gone missing? Would she care? Or would she worry he might be here and hadn’t come to visit? Maybe this was what Mac did. Maybe he had a thing for mortal women. He wouldn’t be the first. I might be the only child of his to appear on the conclave’s steps with blood on her hands, but that didn’t mean I was the only child he had sired.
The thought of having siblings out there… No. Raven said Mac had done this once before, with Mom. Pathetic, I know, but I clung to the childish dream she had been special to him, at least until she got pregnant with me.
I twisted to face Raven. “Why not wait for Macsen to return?”
“It’s a delicate time in Faerie, as I have said.” He glanced away. “We can’t afford to wait.”
Unseelie being concerned over the balance in Faerie struck me as suspicious. They weren’t all bad, just as Seelie weren’t all good, but Unseelie were called dark fae for a reason.
“I’ll think about it.” I pushed to my feet. “My father left this realm before I was born, so you understand why I don’t feel any particular attachment to his legacy or any concern for its continuance.”
Raven stood as well.
“I’m sorry he vanished,” I continued, “but I have to think of my mom, the parent who stuck around and raised me. I’m all the family she has. She needs me.”
As powerful as my father was, he had cultivated equally lethal enemies. Mom was under conclave protection, but being Mac’s mortal ex-lover, and the mother of his heir, made her a tempting coup for any of them. Especially if I wasn’t here to see the law enforced on her behalf.
I liked to believe I could handle myself, mostly, but Mom had no means of protecting herself against the fae.
I couldn’t do this. It would be Mac all over again. I couldn’t leave her for Faerie.
Raven inclined his head. “I can allow you twenty-four hours to consider your options.”
“Do me a favor while we sort this out.” I didn’t make it a question. “Don’t answer any more of the Morrigan’s summons, okay?”
“As you wish.” He trailed me to the door, pinching a lock of my hair and twisting it around his finger. “As it is, I have taken enough to sustain me.”
Unnerved by his familiarity, I glanced over my shoulder. “What happens if I don’t go?”
He bent to inhale the hairs caught in his fist. “The houses will declare war upon one another.”
Chapter 13
Raven’s offer left me so keyed up, I decided against returning to the apartment. Mai would be waking up and getting ready for work soon. Opting to let her sleep while she could, I shot her a text and told her I was heading in to the office early.
I had solved the case. Go me. Fat lot of good it did.
Any doubts I had about Raven’s identity had gone up in smoke. He was here. He was real. And his plea implied dire consequences for Faerie if I turned down the Unseelie’s offer. I needed to get Shaw’s take on this before I involved the magistrates, and I had to involve them. Soon. Say within twenty-four hours.
Once inside the marshal’s office, I breathed easier.
“Hey there, sunshine,” Mable chirped as I passed her desk. “Are you going after that púca? An anonymous tip placed him at Oak Trail Park ten minutes ago.”
I exhaled on a curse too low for her ears. “Have you seen Shaw yet?”
“Yes.” She pushed her glasses up her nose. “He came by earlier to pick up a search warrant the magistrates wanted executed before sunup.”
Great. So he would be occupied for a while.
“In that case, I’ll grab a quick shower and check out the tip on the púca.”
Her voice trailed after me. “I don’t suppose you—”
“Catch.” I twisted and tossed her a square jar of lavender honey. “Let me know what you think.”
Her shocked laughter when she caught my pitch made me chuckle.
She picked her spoon off her desk and waved it at me. “I’ll do that.”
The scent of pine cleaner made me wrinkle my nose when I entered the communal showers tucked into the rear quarter of the marshal’s office. It took a few tries, but I managed to remember my combination and pop open my locker where I kept a change of clothes. Five minutes later I was standing under hot spray, ignoring the way my elbow kept banging into the wall of the tiny stall or the knobs jabbing me in the back when I turned to rinse my hair.
Cold air rushed beneath the sheet of opaque plastic and kissed my ankles, raising gooseflesh.
“Hello?” A wispy shadow rippled over the curtain. “Is someone out there?”
A voice in the back of my mind screamed, This is how all horror movies start.
Naked chick plus a shower stall equaled a bloody horrible death. Always. No exceptions.
Thanking forethought for getting my glove spelled against water, I whispered my Word and felt the tingle of its magic releasing. Rolling down the material gave me a head start if I needed one. I hoped it wouldn’t come to that. I prayed my imagination was in overdrive after visiting with Raven and yanking the curtain open would slam the brakes on my speeding heart.
One. Two. Two and a half… Three.
I shoved open the curtain.
Nothing.
The room was empty. No shadow. No freaky cold air gusts. Just naked ol’ me.
“Beware the Rook.” A gruff masculine voice ricocheted off the tile surfaces, seeming to come from everywhere and nowhere at once. Nails clacked as the rich voice receded. “You are his pawn.”
“The Rook?” I snatched a towel from its peg. Slipping and sliding, I skidded after the sound. “Wait.”
My right foot shot forward. I tried to regain my balance, hit a soapy patch and went down hard, cracking my head against the slick floor. The overhead lights blurred and spun in my vision.
“Thierry?” Mable called. “Are you all right? I thought I heard something.”
I sucked in air to fill my lungs and croaked, “Careful. It’s slippery.”
All those whirling lights made me dizzy. Shutting my eyes settled my stomach.
“Let me have a look.” Mable sounded closer. Her hand eased under my head, searching the base of my skull. “You’ve got one nasty bump, but you aren’t bleeding. Thierry? Dear? What happened?”
“Who else is here?” I managed.
Her warm hands pushed the sticky hair from my face. “In the building or on the grounds?”
“In the building.” I opened my eyes. “Someone was in here. He spoke to me.”
�
��He?” Her pencil-thin brows slanted. “There are no male personnel in the building currently.”
Bracing on my elbows, I raised my shoulders off the floor. “How about civilians? Fugitives?”
“One fugitive.” Mable stood and helped me to my feet. “A fire sprite Marshal Jenkins brought in earlier, but he’s already been processed.”
“The Rook.” I snapped my fingers as the voice’s warning clicked into place. “Who is he?”
“The name doesn’t ring a bell, dear.” She dabbed at the wet spots on her cotton-candy-colored skirt. “You hit your head pretty hard…”
A borderline growl laced my voice. “I know what I heard.”
“Maybe it was a sprite.” Careful of the mess I’d made, she picked her way toward the window I had forgotten was there. Probably because someone tacked a dressing mirror over it. “It’s open.”
Open. Of course it was. Why wouldn’t it be? All hidden windows should be left cracked before they’re covered and forgotten for decades at a time. Whatever. Didn’t matter. I knew what I heard. I also knew someone else I could ask. Raven.
I didn’t believe in coincidence. First his visit and now this? The two must be related somehow.
“You’re right.” I cobbled together what I hoped was a convincing smile. “They’re such pests.”
“They really are.” She shut and latched the window. “I wish that banishment bill would get an approval stamp. Faerie can have the little devils back. I moved here to escape that type of nonsense.”
Sprites were pranksters. Their idea of amusing ran the gamut from fart jokes to pickpocketing.
Tiny brains, tiny capers. This stunt was outside their usual scope. Someone else was behind this.
More fae than I must know Raven was here. As eager as he was to escort me to Faerie, I was equally sure there were those in both houses content with the status quo.
At the moment, I was too.
Chapter 14
Sighting a púca meant one of two things. Either you were about to have kick-ass luck, or you were about to get hit with the sucks to be you stick. Call me crazy, but black animals conjure grim tidings in my book, and púcas were extreme luck bringers. Either you got the wicked good or the holy-hella-bad variety.
Based on the color of their fur, I was guessing they preferred the latter to the former.
The file on this particular one, Sean Walters, was as thick as my wrist. He was a repeat offender.
Apparently, he liked mixing his mojo. A touch of extreme luck. We won the lottery! Followed by a jolt of the worst luck ever. What do you mean the ticket was fake? He was just plain cruel. The jerk deserved what he had coming to him.
Rock music blaring in my bra startled birds from the patch of woods I was investigating.
Stealth fail. I hung my head. My mind was not in the right place for this today.
I tugged my phone from inside my shirt, swiped the green icon and whispered, “Hello?”
“Why are you whispering?” Mai whispered back.
“Smart-ass.” The wind shifted. I inhaled deeply. Gotcha. “I have to go.”
“Why?” Suspicion sharpened her tone. “What are you doing?”
With no small amount of glee, I shushed her. “I’m hunting wabbits.”
“Fine. Don’t be serious.” Mai huffed. “But what did you do with the couch?”
“Um, we’ll talk later. Bye.” I ended the call.
That feathery bastard kept our couch? After digging a notepad from my satchel, I wrote myself a reminder to hire movers, preferably hunky ones, to wrangle the couch back down to our apartment.
A whiff of púca hit my nose, and I bared my teeth. Here bunny, bunny, bunny.
After turning off the phone, I tucked it into my back pocket and crept forward.
Judging by the abundance of rabbit pellets in the grass—eww—Sean often hunted in the sprinkling of trees bordering the walking track. I got that prowling the track made hunting easier. Most humans were easily duped by the supernatural, and prey ran past you like a conveyer belt of potential victims here.
I even got why he preferred his bunny form to his horse or goat shapes. Bunnies were cute, cuddly and had no human kills on record. But Oak Trail Park was on the human side of town, and his shenanigans were going to get him caught, skinned and deep fried one day.
Hunkered down, I crept forward. Pungent magic led me right to Sean in time to see him jump onto the track, rear up on his hind legs and twitch his pink nose at the next person who passed. The elderly woman paused in her power-walking to coo at him. Huh. Most folks had better sense than to approach wild animals. Sean must be using a charm. Or maybe Púcas came equipped with magical lures, like incubi, minus their sexual vibe.
Wiggling his cotton tail, Sean turned and hopped toward me, attempting to lead the woman into the privacy of the trees.
A mocking caw had me scanning the sliver of open sky visible to me while I crouched in position.
The woman’s scream brought me to my feet as a massive black bird swooped toward Sean.
“Unbelievable.” I burst onto the track beside her and demanded, “Where’s the bunny?”
She pointed upward.
The bird, an abnormally large raven, circled overhead with a limp rabbit clutched in its talons.
“Was he yours?” She covered her mouth. “That poor little fellow.”
“No, he was—” I bit the inside of my cheek. “Yes. I was walking him when he chewed through his harness and hopped away.” I gestured toward the trees. “I chased him into the open and—”
“I’m sorry you had to witness that.” Her hand lowered to clutch the simple gold cross necklace she wore. “Would you like to sit for a moment?”
“Thank you.” I eased back a step. “I think I need a minute alone.”
Breathe in. Breathe out. Think calming thoughts.
Fluffy clouds. Blue sky. Black birds. Automatic rifles...
No. Bad idea. Deep breaths. Calming thoughts.
Screw it. Raven owed me after this.
Of all the bunnies in all the world, he swooped down on mine.
— —
Back at my sedan, a couple of surprises waited for me. “Do I even want to know?”
Sean the bunny was hopping mad inside a plastic pet crate resting on the hood of the car. His captor held a head of iceberg lettuce and wore an amused smirk while peeling off leaves and poking them through the bars. Sean, for his part, shunned the greens, which amused Raven more.
Raven stood there, still barefoot, but wearing a faded denim shirt tucked into his jeans. Even his hair was tamed. He had plaited it down his back and tied the ends with a blue velvet scrunchie some preteen girl in my apartment building was probably tossing her room to find.
Given Raven’s tendency to take what he wanted, one of my neighbors must have also supplied Raven’s clothes, which tempted me to ask him for a name to go with the wardrobe. I restrained myself, but barely. Asking was the same as admitting I found his build attractive, which struck me as inviting trouble. The pet carrier intrigued me less, though someone must be searching for Sparky’s home away from home.
Before Raven crossed realms, we had to talk about him returning his borrowed supplies.
“I got bored.” The lettuce vanished from his hand. “This realm is…dull…compared to home.”
My eyebrows climbed. “Dull?”
He dusted his hands. “How do you entertain yourself?”
“I read or stream movies on my computer.” I paused. “When was the last time you were here?”
His gaze went distant. “During the Wars of Scottish Independence.”
Damn.
I mentally adjusted his age. “You don’t seem traumatized by modern technology.”
Raven’s finger cut a trail through the pollen turning my white car sneeze-worthy yellow. He rubbed his thumb and finger together. “Is that how it works in those movies you watch?”
“Yes.” I amended, “Not that I believe everything I
see on TV.”
“Nor do I.”
“Wait—you watch TV? In Faerie?”
“It required time to cross the threshold in such a way that my trespass into this realm would not be detected immediately.” Raven pursed his lips. “My consciousness was here before my body arrived.”
A guy who could literally separate his mind from his body. Nope. Not creepy. At all.
“The black spot. That was you, pre-body?” I considered him. “So your consciousness chilled out in this realm and waited for your body to appear? And you figured while you waited, you might as well learn about our world?”
He nodded.
“Then you upgraded to birds.”
Another nod.
“Birds who camped out on my mother’s lawn.”
His lips parted before he mashed them shut.
“She wasn’t thrilled with that. It would be great if you could leave her out of all this.”
“Thierry.”
“See, she pretends I’m not half fae and, well, I let her. But you slapped her with a reminder.”
“Thierry.”
“What?”
“I don’t know where your mother lives.”
Chapter 15
“I don’t understand.” Horns blared behind me as I cut off traffic. “Who sent Mom the Bird-O-Gram?”
My thoughts turned to the voice from the shower. He had warned me away from the Rook. Were the birds another warning? Or were they a threat? I didn’t know, and I wasn’t taking chances with Mom’s life.
In the passenger seat, Raven braced his hands on the dash. His nails sank into the plastic and would leave crescent shapes behind.
“Enemies of Faerie,” he gritted through a tight jaw.
I punched the horn, warning other drivers out of my way. “Vague much?”
“There are those who seek war after so many centuries of peace.” He swallowed hard. “There are others who disagree with you being given a choice. They believe that, as the Black Dog’s daughter, it is your duty to fulfil his obligations until he returns, even if you must be persuaded to cooperate.”
Dread tightened my chest. “Persuaded how?”