by Abby Blake
“We can when we’re close enough,” Thomas said, trying to rein in his temper. Yelling at his mate’s sister was not the way to solve this problem. “Jennifer isn’t in town, we can sense that, but the receptionist thought she was still in her office. There’s more than one way out, but the kid on the reception desk said Jennifer always leaves via the front door and never goes anywhere without letting her know when she’ll be back.”
“Where are you now?”
“We’re in Jennifer’s office.”
“Send me your coordinates. We’re coming to you.”
A few moments later, Alex stepped into the room via slip travel. A warlock’s bounce tunnel opened beside him, and Jed, Samuel, and Skye stepped through.
“Has anyone else been here?” Alex asked as he walked over to Jennifer’s desk. “Via slip travel, I mean. There’s a faint signature of a slip path about an hour old.”
“Can you follow it?” Adam asked, sounding all business.
“I think so,” Alex said slowly, his concentration already on the task, “but I’m not sure that we should.”
“What do you mean you’re not sure?” Skye asked angrily.
“Because, for one, if they didn’t want me to sense it, I wouldn’t be able to, not this long afterward.” He walked around the space, taking in details of only something he could sense. “And it seems to lead right into the enemy camp. If I’m not mistaken, directly into the palace of the pixie king.”
“You’re serious?” Thomas asked. He felt like he was waiting for the punch line to a really bad joke.
“Yes,” Alex said without a hint of his usual jovial personality.
“Take me there anyway,” Skye said quickly. “If they took Jennifer, they must want something from me. Take me there.”
“Not until I’ve cleared it with Benjamin,” Alex said with a shake of his head.
“I do not have to ask my husband for permission,” Skye said, looking angry enough to bite him. Vampires couldn’t feed on fire demons, but Skye seemed rather willing to make an exception.
“Skye,” Samuel said in a tone far less indulgent than Adam had ever heard him use on his wife. “Benjamin is your CO as well as your husband. It’s standard PUP squad protocol to check in with our commanding officer first.”
“But Jennifer—”
“Will be fine until we can get ourselves organized. You won’t do her any good barging in and getting yourself killed.”
Everything Samuel said was true, but not only was Skye a newly made vampire and apprentice to the PUP squad, she was also dealing with the disappearance of her only sister. It wasn’t often that a mission became personal, but it seemed to be the way of things lately.
Alex was already on the phone to Benjamin by the time Samuel had managed to calm Skye down. It was obvious that she was really concerned for her sister. Pixies assassinated people. They didn’t abduct them. Whatever the hell reason they had for taking his mate, Thomas wanted it done, finished, over with. He wanted his mate in his arms and the ones responsible for her disappearance to be dealt with severely.
* * * *
Jennifer pushed herself to a sitting position on the floor and rested her back against a cold stone wall. Her head felt ready to explode if she moved too fast, and her stomach protested every tiny movement, but she gritted her teeth and forced herself upright. Finally, she very carefully glanced around the room and tried not to giggle hysterically.
Everything was in miniature.
Everything.
Well, except for her of course. She’d always been rather average—height, weight, and appearance—so finding herself towering over child-sized furniture was a very strange experience. Thankfully the ceiling seemed extra high in comparison, but it didn’t quell the feeling that she’d somehow fallen down the rabbit hole.
“Are you feeling better?” a kind female voice asked from across the room.
“Not really,” Jennifer answered in a whisper. Her head was still pounding, her limbs were still trembling, and her eyes still didn’t want to focus.
“I feel I must apologize for my husband’s heavy-handed tactics, but he is a father frantic to find his daughter. I hope that one day you may come to forgive him for his behavior.”
“Where am I?” Jennifer managed to force out even though her lunch threatened to reappear.
“In my home.” The woman stepped closer and held out a glass that looked way too big for her hand. “It’s water,” she said when Jennifer refused to reach for it. “It will help with the travel sickness.” The woman sighed softly as she placed it on the ground beside Jennifer. “I don’t think my husband truly understood how badly slip travel affects humans. If it’s any consolation, you almost gave him the pixie version of a heart attack when you collapsed the way you did.”
Jennifer gave her a forced, halfhearted smile. The woman was obviously trying to be nice. Jennifer just had no idea why. What she really wanted to do was run away screaming, but as awful as she felt she wasn’t even sure she could pull off a fast crawl at the moment.
“Why me?” Jennifer asked, trying to be polite despite her fear.
“You’re our last hope,” the woman said, taking a seat on an ornate sofa not far from Jennifer.
“I don’t understand.” Jennifer began to shake her head but stopped almost immediately when the room began spinning again. “How can I be your last hope?”
“My daughter tried to kill one of the human women your sister and her squad were protecting. We believe she was captured and is currently being held prisoner by PUP Squad Alpha.”
“I still don’t understand how I can help.”
The woman gave her a sad smile and rubbed her forehead as if she had a headache. “My husband is planning to propose a prisoner exchange—you for my daughter.”
“So you’re at war with other paranormals?”
“No, not really,” the woman said with a shake of her head. “Pixies have always worked in cooperation with the Ruling Body. We don’t even understand what our daughter’s mission was or even who sent her. We only know that she’s missing and we want her back.”
Jennifer didn’t know what to say. She remembered how frantic she’d felt when Skye had gone missing the night she’d become a vampire. She couldn’t begin to imagine how scared this woman must feel for her daughter.
“It could be weeks before anyone notices I’m missing,” Jennifer said as bile rose in her throat. As happy as she’d felt dreaming about Adam and Thomas, her fantasies weren’t going to help her now. It was quite common for her and Skye to miss each other on the telephone these days. Skye would probably leave a dozen messages before realizing that something was wrong. Only her boss and the receptionist at the resort would notice her missing, and neither of them had a way to contact Skye.
“It’s okay, Jennifer,” the woman said, giving her a watery smile. “I promise no harm will come to you. I am not certain of my husband’s plans, but I do know he did this out of desperation. It is likely that he has already contacted your sister.”
“Will he hurt her?”
“No,” the miniature woman said, looking quite shocked. “We just want to know what happened to our daughter. The king is a good man. I promise you no harm will come to you or your sister.”
Jennifer gave the woman a tremulous smile but unfortunately didn’t believe a word of it.
* * * *
“Okay,” Alex said as he closed the phone connection to Benjamin. “Thomas, Adam, and I are cleared to follow the slip path.”
Skye looked annoyed enough to rip his head off. Considering her vampiric strength, it wasn’t really something they wanted her trying. Thomas understood her reaction, cared enough for the woman to want to help her any way possible, but also understood why Benjamin hadn’t assigned her to go with them. Thomas knew his CO wanted to protect his mate, but it was also the right tactical decision in this instance. If the pixies wanted Skye, the last thing Benjamin needed to do was deliver her to their doorstep.
“We’ll bring her back,” Thomas said quietly, trying to convey his utter determination to get his mate back safe in his arms. “Benjamin has asked us to try negotiation first, but I promise you we will get her back, no matter what it takes.”
Skye nodded, biting her lips together in an obvious effort to control her emotions. The whole squad knew how important Jennifer was to Skye, yet, after only a few moments of panic, the young vampire managed to follow orders. Thomas tried to follow her example, determined to treat this like any other mission. If they were going to rescue their mate, she needed the professional soldiers, not the men who loved her.
Jed opened a bounce tunnel back to headquarters, and Skye and Samuel stepped through. As soon as they were gone, Adam and Thomas both did a quick inventory of their weapons. They’d thought they were visiting their mate, not preparing for a mission, so they’d both traveled light. It didn’t mean they were unarmed though. Alex smiled, checking his own human-type weapons before placing one hand on Thomas’s shoulder and one on Adam’s.
Thomas ground his teeth, determined to ignore the nausea that slip travel provoked, as they stepped into what seemed to be a bedchamber inside a castle.
“Thank you for coming,” a young female voice said quietly.
Chapter Five
Thomas glanced around the room and felt relief wash over him when he spotted Jennifer leaning against a stone wall. She looked pale and apprehensive, and was staring at him and Adam as if she’d seen a ghost or two, but she was alive and seemed unhurt. He breathed a silent sigh of relief. None of them had been expecting Jennifer to still be at the end of the slip path.
But as much as he wanted to go to her and pull her into his arms, he stayed on alert, ready for the trouble they’d been expecting. Instead what they got was a single female pixie sitting on an ornate sofa.
“I apologize for my husband’s methods, but as I was just explaining to Jennifer, he’s simply doing everything within his power to find our daughter.”
“Your daughter?” Alex asked in a neutral tone.
Thomas had a sinking feeling he knew exactly who the pixie was talking about. Only Alex, Ronan, and Kali knew where that particular, now miniature, pixie was being held.
“Please don’t insult me, Mr. Clements. You know who I am and who my husband is, but beyond the royal titles we are simply parents trying to find our daughter. We know what she was doing when she was captured by PUP Squad Alpha. We also know that she wasn’t on an official mission for the PLA. What we don’t know is where she is being held.”
“We know she wasn’t on an official mission,” Alex said, managing to keep a neutral tone despite the fact they were talking about the pixie who tried to assassinate his wife. “But how do you explain the assassins who’ve come since?”
“There have been others?” the pixie queen asked, clearly distressed by the news. “Please excuse me for a moment.” The woman stood up, stepped into a slip path, and disappeared.
Alex, Adam, and Thomas held their ground. It was obvious that his squadmates were as confused as he felt. They were technically in a room alone. They could grab Jennifer and get the hell out of here. Apparently all three of them had the same idea because they all hurried to Jennifer’s position. Adam pulled her into his arms, hugging her close as he nodded to Alex to get them the hell out of here.
“No,” Jennifer said quickly. “If we go, you lose the chance to understand what’s going on.”
Alex hesitated. It was obvious he thought the same thing.
“Okay,” Thomas said, nodding to Alex. “Get them to safety and come back.”
“Please, no,” Jennifer said. “Emmallina is just looking for her daughter. She trusts us to stay here. If you take me away, things might become more dangerous.”
“It’s what we’re trained for, beautiful,” Adam said, stroking a hand through her hair the way he’d done in their mating dreams.
* * * *
Jennifer struggled to remember the point she was trying to make. Adam’s touch felt so familiar that she was beginning to wonder if she was actually dreaming. That could be the only explanation for the men to be acting this way. But just in case this wasn’t another of her kooky dreams, she had to explain to them why they needed to stay.
“I need you to listen to me. Emmallina is a reasonable person. She’s horrified by what her daughter has done, but she needs answers. She needs to know if her daughter is alive or not.” She turned to Alex, hoping to appeal to the man she hadn’t been dreaming about. “Alex, if you take me out of here, any chance we have of understanding the big picture could be lost.”
“Damn,” Adam said on a small laugh, “you’re as stubborn as your sister—and as brave. The sooner we make you a wolf the better.”
Stunned to hear the words from her dream, Jennifer was about to launch into a round of twenty questions when Emmallina returned, this time with her husband beside her.
* * * *
Adam held his woman tighter. The mating dreams had been amazing, but the reality was so much better. Of course being trapped in the middle of tense negotiation wasn’t exactly the ideal place to declare his intentions, but now that he held her in his arms for real he was never letting her go again.
He had time enough to second-guess his agreement to stay at least a hundred times, so he was almost relieved when the pixie and her husband slipped back into the room. Interestingly the man gave Jennifer a look of relief.
“I’m so very glad to see you are feeling better, Jennifer, and I again apologize for my methods of getting these gentlemen here.”
“Why are we here?” Alex asked. His voice sounded neutral, but Adam knew the fire demon well enough to know when he was struggling to keep his temper. The little man bristled at Alex’s tone anyway, obviously as on edge as the rest of the people in the room.
“Dex,” the woman said in a pleading voice. She said nothing else, but whatever passed between them had the man sighing quietly. Looking like a tired old man rather than the miniature warrior that had stepped into the room a moment ago, the man hugged his wife close and turned his attention to Alex.
“We want to know what happened to our daughter. Connistanterina killed four human women without orders. We don’t know why.” He shook his head as if he couldn’t quite believe what he had to say next. “The PLA has no outstanding assassination orders for her or any of its other operatives. My wife and I thought she was having some sort of delusional episode but now you tell us replacements have been sent.” He rubbed a hand down his face in a very human display of exasperation. “I haven’t been able to get clear answers from the Ruling Body over what happened to Connistanterina, and now it seems I’m being lied to by the Pixie League of Assassins as well.”
The woman stepped out of her husband’s embrace and moved closer to Alex. “We know you’re protecting the other women that Conni targeted. Please, we just want to know what happened to our daughter.”
“I can’t tell you what happened to your daughter,” Alex said. “But I will discuss the situation with my commanding officer.” He glanced at Adam and Jennifer. “Let me take Jennifer home. I’ll return once I have some answers for you.”
The king looked apprehensive but after a quick glance at his wife, nodded his agreement. “I would appreciate it if one of you would stay as an act of good faith.”
Thomas nodded, and stepped away from Adam and Jennifer. A moment later Alex moved them into a slip path and nausea took over.
* * * *
Jennifer’s knees gave out. If she’d thought she’d felt awful after the pixie king dragged her through a slip path, she suddenly had proof positive that the trip could be worse. Adam wobbled as well, apparently as affected by travel sickness as much as she was. Considering that he’d traveled that way twice in ten minutes, she wasn’t at all surprised when Alex guided them to a sitting position on the ground in the shade of a tree.
Adam didn’t let go of her though, not even for a moment, but he did ease her down s
o that they were both lying on a soft bed of grass.
“Where are we?” she asked, too ill to look around. She’d gotten a brief glimpse of a dirt road and lots of trees before her vision had wavered and she’d been forced to close her eyes.
“About five miles outside of Sugarvale,” Alex said from somewhere above her. She heard him have a brief conversation on his cell phone before he stepped back to where she and Adam rested. “Your sister and Benjamin will be here in a few minutes.”
* * * *
“Why here?” Adam asked.
“Sugarvale had a few security upgrades while you were away,” Alex said as he sat on the grass a few feet away from them. “The wards extend five miles in every direction, even underground.”
“Is Kristen okay?” Adam asked. He felt Jennifer tense up in his arms, and he pulled her closer even as she tried to squirm away.
“Of course Kristen’s okay,” Alex said with a laugh. “Although with both a fire demon and an ice demon hovering over her it’s been an interesting few hours.”
His mate seemed to relax slightly at the mention of Dyson and Angus, but it was obvious she was still on edge. “Will Thomas be okay?” she asked without opening her eyes.
“Absolutely,” Alex answered, sounding confident. “Thomas is quite skilled when it comes to negotiation. You said it yourself. The pixie king and queen just want answers. Now that we know that the assassinations are not being officially sanctioned by the pixie king we have another avenue of investigation.”
“Thomas will be back soon, beautiful,” Adam said, sincerely hoping it was true. He knew his mate well enough to know that she took responsibility for the people around her—even the ones capable of taking care of themselves.
“Thank you for coming to get me,” she said as she tried to squirm away once again. “I’m sorry to be such a bother. I’m sure Skye can help me get home.” She sat up and moved away from him even though it was obvious she still wasn’t feeling well. “Thank you for your assistance.”