by D. D. Miers
I glanced at the helhounds, most of them just lying on the dirt floor, panting and looking around at us all like regular dogs...if regular dogs had open oozing sores, black eyes, and razors for teeth.
We'd have to bring help back to attempt to return them to their true forms, but for the moment they and the people they would harm were safe.
Twenty-Three
Gray did as he promised and busted the mirror into a million pieces, pocketing some of the frames so it could never be rebuilt, while Geallta and I sat down in the bar with the dancers and Booker.
“I don’t know if he had a plan for the club, but let’s just say business as usual, until he communicates with us, okay? Booker, you do all the day to day anyway, so everyone’s still gonna get paid…”
There was a smattering of smiles among the teary dancers at my quip, but the mood was solemn. It was hard to see them so sad and know that while he manipulated me at every turn, he had cared for his people the way I did mine.
“Will you come with me, Geallta? I want Tryst to know we took care of you and kept you from being alone.”
She hadn’t said a word through my announcement to the bartenders and dancers, and she remained quiet until we reached the apartment.
“Is she okay? Did her brother leaving put her back in a catatonic state?” Niall gently tied back her hair as she watched the television with Prescot and the Fae girls, who I’d learned hadn’t left his side for a moment.
“I don’t know, but I can’t worry about it at the moment. I need to get Prescot home, and I don’t know if he’ll go for me.”
“You could send him to the garden and have your father get him home.”
“I can’t even imagine getting him to agree.”
Niall pursed his lips. “And you could send Blythe and Sasha…If the Fae won’t accept them…”
“Carl’s pack will. Niall, you’re so smart. No wonder Gray keeps you around.” I kissed his cheek and told the kids to pack up, they were about to visit Fairy. Prescot’s complaints were quickly shut down when I explained the girls were going with him.
Suddenly, a travesty became an adventure, and the kids gathered their things in record time. I went to confess my decision to Gray, who instead of being upset with me, was thrilled that I’d found a way to get Blythe and Sasha out of the underground and into a pack that might call the girls their own.
We left Geallta with Pippi and walked the kids down to the fountain.
“Should I have told my father?” I asked Gray as the portal to the garden opened under my touch,
“It’s just the Garden, and Carl’s on his way. Did you warn the kids about the naiads?”
Frantic, I called the kids over and gave them a full rundown of Fae dangers in the garden. "Look. Just go straight to the gate and wait there. Do not speak to anyone, don't touch anything, don't eat anything. Promise me."
They all promised, and then I made them repeat the rules back to me.
“Your dad’s gonna meet you there, Carl, but it’ll be a few minutes, so get to the gate and stay there. You’ll be safe just outside the gate.”
They promised again, and we gave hugs all around, and then Prescot helped the girls through one at a time before following.
Niall sniffed and wiped some tears away. “I’m going to miss those kids. It was nice to have children around.”
I hadn’t known such things mattered to the men, but it reminded me of one last issue I’d failed to tell Gray when I was still human and couldn’t give him assurance of a shifter heir.
We turned back to the building and started inside. “We should send the boys to Fairy too. I wonder if they’d go?”
Gray started to answer when someone at the door called his name.
“Hey Robert, Shelley, Mayor White, what can I do for you?” Instantly, Gray’s demeanor lightened, and he was the affable, wealthy businessman that humans recognized from the covers of magazines.
“Sorry this isn’t a friendlier visit, Grayson, but the city finally came to a decision about the shifter presence in San Francisco, and I’m afraid they didn’t rule in your favor.”
Gray hadn’t told me much about what he was going through with the city, only that I needed to stop bringing more magical beings to the building because the trouble that came with them was causing problems.
“Wait. You’re evicting anyone who’s a shifter?” I scoffed. “That’s blatant discrimination. You can’t do that.”
“And you are?”
I drew myself to my full height. “I’m Morgana Silk Xenos, Princess of the Seelie Fae and Grayson’s wife.”
One of the men rubbed his forehead with his thumb and index finger. The woman cleared her throat and bobbed a little like she thought she might be expected to curtsy.
The mayor just locked his jaw and glared at me. "The shifters are trouble, and we're asking that you take it elsewhere before real people get hurt."
I knew what he meant, but a murderous rage filled me and threatened to erupt out on the front lawn. I took Gray’s arm and pushed past the delegation of humans into the lobby to escape before I said or did something to make things worse.
"Gray." The mayor strode through the doors right behind us and grabbed Grayson's arm to command his attention. "I'm talking to you, wolf boy."
It was the final straw at the end of a long, bad day. I had hunter blood in my hair still, my clothes were dirty and torn, and my tenuous grasp on my beast snapped as I lost my cool.
Raw power exploded from me, slamming into Grayson, Niall, and worst of all, the mayor. He was thrown through the doors and onto the pavement outside as I fell to my knees, sobbing, in agony.
I felt Gray’s hands on my shoulders and heard him speaking from far away but couldn’t understand what he was telling me until I felt him pulling my beast to the surface. I tried to fight him off, but the wounds Lothar had given me had left me too weak to do anything but collapse to the tile floor of the lobby, in plain sight of anyone passing by, and the humans outside.
“Move me,” I managed to mumble, and he hefted me easily into his arms and ran into the rec room, laying me on the floor next to the pool where once, he’d saved me from the man who’d tried to drown me.
“Let go, Morgan.”
Finally, I did as I was told and let go, dropping my shields and releasing the power I was trying so hard to rein in.
Searing, tearing pain tore a scream from my throat, and then, all my pain simply vanished in a cloud of euphoria. When I glanced down at my hands, I found delicate purple paws, the color of my hair.
I glanced up at Gray, who wore a look of pure wonder. "My God, you are beautiful, Mo. Look." He pointed to the pool, and I tottered over to look at my reflection.
My ears were tall and pointed, just like my Fae ears. My eyes were large, alien, and feline, but I still knew myself when I looked at them. I shifted to see my side and let out a chirp of delight at the bands of gold that ran through my violet fur. My long tail slashed the air, and the gold there ran in bands to the tip.
I’m a Fae-cat. Good Goddess, I’m a Fae-cat!
I wanted to shout and run in circles and…and climb. I knew Fae-cats were excellent climbers, but I hadn't realized it was a compulsion until I found myself arguing with my beast that there was nowhere to climb at the pool. Instead, I…we leaped into the water and paddled happily around as Gray sat cross-legged and laughed at me.
He waved, and I clambered up to his side, shaking off excess water with delight.
Can I talk to you? Can you understand me? I stared at him as hard as I could, trying to communicate with him.
“You need to change back, Mo. I know you’re trying to talk to me, but I don’t speak whatever Fae language that is.”
Well, shit.
“That I understood.”
Because there's no Fae word for ‘shit.'
“Probably.” He chuckled. “This is what it’s like for you and that blade of yours, huh? Come on, time to be human-Fae-witch hybrid girl again
.” His power flowed over me, gentler than before, and I felt my body reform painlessly to my bipedal, fleshy, naked self.
“I’m naked.”
“I see that.”
“I’m a Fae-cat.”
“I know.”
I looked at him and bit my lip. “I made things worse.”
“Maybe. No point in worrying about it today. He trespassed, so he’ll have to tread carefully.”
I rolled my shoulders and gave him a long look. "There's one more thing, Lover." He waited, and I gathered my courage, feeling vulnerable standing naked in the rec room where anyone could see us but plunged ahead. "Now that there's new blood on both sides, namely mine and Tryst's, someone must produce an heir. The assassination attempts will only increase on the Fae front until one of us proves we can provide the Fae with a legacy."
He exhaled slowly and looked me over. “So we need to get you knocked up before Tryst talks someone into letting him do it to them?”
I laughed. “How did you make that even less romantic than it already was? Yes, Grayson, heart of my heart, we need to start practicing our baby making, sooner than later.”
Gray grinned evilly at me and hefted me over his shoulder in a fireman carry. “Thank God, some good news for once.”
When he laid me on the bed and began to kiss his way down my body, I knew that I truly was home. We weren’t out of the woods completely, but I was the first Fae shifter to live among humans in our history. My family was changing again, but it didn’t scare me the way it once had, to let new people in. Gray did that for me. His easy love of his pack and friends made us all safe, and if the humans wanted to challenge that, then they were in for a fight.
I’d been fighting for a home my whole life. I wasn’t about to give up what I’d earned, especially not at the risk of my people. I’d been an outcast, a pariah, a hero, and a princess. But as queen, it fell to me to provide a home to the pack and as a Fae, an heir to renew the magic of my people.
Fortunately, making an heir with Grayson would be even more fun than winning more battles for my pack, my father, and my people.
He hit the sweet spot at the apex of my thighs with his deft tongue and I opened to him, overwhelmed with the understanding that because of the change, for the first time, we’d be together the way shifters are meant to be, and with our bond, neither of us would ever have to hold back again.
Keep reading Morgana’s story in War of Thrones, coming June 1, 2019!
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Chapter 1
Ivy
Lila Crane sauntered through the creaky door of Porter’s Tavern like a goddamn queen. She stood in the entryway, the blue and red neon “Open” sign reflecting in her lavender eyes. She didn’t move, waiting for the sea of bodies to spread in her wake. I wished for once her expectations wouldn’t be met. That she’d finally experience disappointment, but a beautiful bitch like her always got what she wanted.
Youthful, beautiful—and a soul blacker than coal.
Her arrival could only mean one thing: his fucking majesty was summoning me again.
Not that Bastian Marquis was actual royalty. Well, technically, the ancient Fae could’ve been, but I didn’t have the slightest idea. It was just the nickname I’d given him. He certainly acted like it, and of course, he’d chosen Lila as his messenger. My severe distaste for the woman seemed to fuel his desire to send her.
Everyone assumed if supernaturals existed, they lived in glamorous, mysterious cities like New York or London. But the truth was, hiding out in the least obvious places gave them the freedom to do as they chose. No one cares about what happens to a shitty little town in the middle of the Southern California desert. Especially in Shelton Sea, a desert town whose name mocked its total lack of water.
Here, they owned the world. They were each gods—and I an unwilling minion.
Instead of heading straight for me, Lila detoured left toward the back side of the bar. She rarely handled other business when she was sent to summon me. I pitied the idiot who’d been foolish enough to get caught up in Bastian’s schemes willingly.
A legendary UFC matchup and cheap beer had packed the regulars into Porter’s, every seat in the house taken by the weary, the drunk, or the apathetic. At the edge of the bar sat Lester Simmons and his girlfriend, Winnie; a couple who loved to fight as much as they loved to . . . well . . . you get the idea. They bickered constantly and fought often. Who needed cable TV when those two were around?
Flirt, fight, screw, repeat. Their never-ending routine.
Winnie was in rare form tonight. Her target? A leggy red-headed tourist who’d been unfortunate enough to catch Lester’s surly, six-beers-deep gaze. She didn’t welcome the attention, but she sure as hell had it.
In my two years at Porter’s, I'd learned to tune out the drunken yelling, but it didn’t blind me to it. I pulled the tap, filling a scuffed pitcher with pale maple lager, as both women's voices raised over the classic rock from the speakers above. Winnie had a good fifty pounds on the redhead, who’d shrunk away in an attempt to make herself invisible. Fat chance. The Amazonian blonde cornered her against the bar, jabbing a finger into the other woman's chest.
I glanced around for Clive or Porter, the two men whose job it was to intervene on occasions such as these.
Even through the masses, Clive’s dusty cinnamon hair stood out. His official position? Designated bouncer. But more times than not, he was too busy trying to get laid to notice—or care. At present, he leaned across the pool table, attempting to demonstrate a pocket shot to his ex. The devil himself could ride down on a flaming steed and still, Clive wouldn’t move.
I scanned the crowd, searching for Porter’s signature black cowboy hat. At six-foot-four, I’d easily be able to see it above the other, average-sized, humans, but it was nowhere in sight. He must have still been restocking the basement.
Their absence left Violet, Jade, or myself. There was no way in hell I'd let my sisters get involved in any of this crap. As the oldest, it was my job to protect them from the enemies they didn't even know they had, including stupid humans who couldn’t hold their liquor.
We were forever changed since it happened to us, but it didn’t eliminate the humanity within our hearts. It was our greatest strength and our eternal weakness. We each had a unique set of “gifts,” as Bastian called them, bestowed upon us, but I remained the strongest. Specifically, thanks to a special present he’d saved only for me. A secret I had yet to divulge to my sisters.
Glass shattered across the bar, and I sighed. Porter didn't mind the arguments. Hell, they were a part of day-to-day business, but he never allowed altercations on fight nights. The cops would undoubtedly get called, and the fire chief would shut us down if we broke capacity rules again.
Neither Porter's wallet, nor my tips, could afford it.
Son-of-a-bitch.
I slammed the pitcher down onto the counter and crossed the bar. We couldn't risk drawing any more attention than we already had, especially from the other supernaturals. If they knew what we were, what Bastian had made us into, they'd be clamoring to get their hands on us.
Half-breed creatures. No longer human but not born into the supernatural world. Made. Created.
“Enough.” I caught Winnie's calloused fist in my hand, stopping her from bashing the terrified tourist.
Any other woman—or man—would have been too intimidated by her massive frame and sheer attitude. Not me. I had the strength of ten men, maybe more, and unmatched speed.
Winnie’s glossy, ruby-tinged eyes bugged out as they flashed to her enormous hand locked in mine. “What the hell?”
She tried to pull herself free, but her efforts were in vain. Getting out of my grip, especially when I wanted you there, was an impossibility.
"You know the rules on fight night, Winnie." I kept my tone low. Unlike most of the brawlers in this craptastic town, I didn’t like to advertise my abilities.
She
made a second attempt to remove my hand, without result. "This little slut’s trying to make a move on my man."
Untrue, but you can't argue with stupid.
She jutted her jaw toward the woman cornered and cowering a few feet away. “You expect me to do nothing?”
I took my other hand and turned Winnie toward the door. "Time for you to go."
"LikehellI'mgoin'." The words slurred into one another, and she stepped into my space, a sign she was prepared to take this to the next level.
Too bad for her. I was, too.
“I’m not gonna ask again, sweetie.” My fingers crunched down onto her knuckles, the pressure just a flex of my wrist from breaking them.
"Shit!" she screamed as she tried to claw her way out of my steely grip.
I met her eyes, and only for a moment, I let the creature inside flash to the surface. As soon as I released my hold on her, she jumped away. Her normally pink face was ashen and sweat-covered.
“What the fuck?” Her eyes widened as she looked me over. The question in her stare: How had I managed to get one over on her?
I waited, expecting to go another round, but for once, she surprised me. Winnie stormed off through the crowd, Lester trailing behind her like a groveling dog.
Violet grinned at me from across the bar, and I gave her a wink. Too often, I had to keep my abilities under wraps. When I did release them, which wasn’t often, my entire body radiated with a sense of peace.
Our powers simmered within us like a pot of rapidly boiling water, waiting to break free and flow over. I looked to Jade and smiled, only to have my humor instantly fade. Her expression the exact opposite of Vi’s—concern laced with tension and fear.
I'd put myself at risk.
Us at risk.
Again.
More than anything in this world, I hated disappointing my sisters. And I would do anything to avoid it, but I have a code I live by, and I don’t veer from it. Number one on my list? I don’t believe in living in fear. Only in awareness.