by Mina Carter
“Of course.”
He kneeled to settle the baby in the middle of the changing mat. He could do this. But for such a small, little thing, it took virtually every part of Feral’s body to make sure he was placed carefully on the mat.
“Look, mate, you aren’t making this easy you know,” Feral muttered, trying to get his nose as far away from his hands as he could without turning his head or being on the other side of the room. He’d managed to remove the diaper, but he hadn’t been prepared for what it contained.
He grimaced as he considered the contents, not sure what he was supposed to do now. He’d watched Vixen change her little daughter more times than he could remember, and she’d always made it look easy. Grabbing a wipe, he tried to remove the sticky mess on its ass and quickly found out it wasn’t as easy as it looked.
“What the fuck is this stuff?” he muttered, not managing to clean it off but just smear it around more. “Fucking industrial glue?”
He heard a stifled giggle and found the little pixie woman watching him. At the sight of her, he sucked in a hard breath. She was utterly beautiful. He’d known she was a pixie, and he’d thought he could see through her glamour to what lay beneath, but now he realized the truth. He could see the glamour itself, and the potential of what lay beneath, but nothing more.
Now though, she’d stripped the glamour away and he could see her true appearance. And it was stunning. Exotic, feline-cast eyes dominated a small heart-shaped face, with a tiny button of a nose and full lips he ached to taste. Her chin was small but delicate and the arch of her slender neck, half hidden by the mass of dark curls, made both his cock and his fangs ache. One look and he wanted her in the worst way, under him as he drove both his fangs and his cock into her soft sweetness.
“Just where I like to see a man,” she quipped, “on his knees. Come out of the way. You’re just making it worse.” She shooed him away and then knelt in front of the baby, who was taking advantage of the moment to try and flip himself over. Reaching a hand out, she stopped him just before he managed it and tapped his nose playfully.
“Oh no you don’t, handsome,” she chuckled, catching his ankles in one hand and cleaning him up with the other. Her movements were swift and efficient and within a few seconds, the baby was cleaned up with a fresh diaper on him. Feral blinked, unsure how she’d managed it so quickly. Magic, obviously.
“There we go, all clean and dry. Aren’t you a clever little man?” She fastened his top as he wriggled again, doing his best to escape. Grinning, she caught him, his chortles filling the room as she tickled his sides.
Smiles wreathed her face and Feral bit back another surge of lust. He wanted her. Badly. She wasn’t his normal type. Kyn women tended to be tall, slender and pale whereas she was petite and curvy, with warm, dark hair and eyes that reminded him of chocolate. But he didn’t care. Everything about her called out to him. Unaware of his attention, she tickled the baby again, running her fingers along the soles of his bare feet as she reached for his pants.
“He’s a gorgeous little thing,” she commented. “So, he was just left on your doorstep?”
“Yeah, about half an hour ago. Was a bit of a surprise...usually I just get pizza delivery,” he chuckled, shrugging a shoulder. “Not the domestic type.”
“Pizza? I didn’t think vampires ate?” She flicked a glance up at him while she finished dressing the little one. Picking him up, she handed him over. “Here, hold him for a moment while I clear this lot up. Hey...what’s this?”
A piece of paper fell free of the yellow blanket as she picked it up. Reaching down, she recovered it from the floor as Feral watched, jiggling the now clean-smelling baby in his large arms. It was a sheet from a reporter’s notebook, crumpled and folded into quarters. She smoothed it out and frowned at the words scrawled on it in a hasty hand.
“What’s it say?” He shifted closer, peering over her shoulder. The scent of shower gel and warm woman enveloped him, causing a shiver to run down his spine. He really needed to get laid if just being close to a woman stirred up a reaction like that.
She shook her head. “I don’t know. It’s an old fae script, I think... This is more Lisa’s kettle of fish than mine. Some of it I recognize,” she pointed out a word in the middle, fingernail tapping the paper lightly. “This is the word for Morrigan. Oh, shit!”
She looked up at him, eyes wide.
“What? What is it?” Feral frowned, brows raised.
“He...the baby...he’s a Morrigan. There’s a fae prophecy about a male Morrigan… The only male Morrigan.” She swallowed, visibly shaken. “When he grows up, I think he’s going to be a god.”
CHAPTER 2
F eral blinked in surprise.
“Okay, you want to run that one by me again? A god? As in smiting and powers...the whole shebang?” He looked down at the baby in his arms in surprise, trying to see something of the divine. All he saw was cute. A whole lot of cute.
“The real deal. The legend of the Winter King?” She looked at him as though the name should mean something. It didn’t.
“Sorry, doll, not up on fae legends,” he apologized with a shrug, wondering why he was getting pulled into this. The baby was a pixie. He’d found a pixie to look after it, so he should be hightailing it out of here.
He really didn’t like pixies. Last year, they’d kidnapped his patrol partner and beaten the living snot out of him. It didn’t incline him to think favorably of them. But, as he was finding out, female pixies were something else entirely. Tessa was enchanting. He’d watched as she’d gathered things up—her movements quick and graceful.
“The Winter King legend is an old one. You’ve heard of the Morrigan right?” She didn’t wait for his nod before she continued. Everyone knew the legend of the Morrigan.
Originally a Triple Goddess dedicated to war, the Morrigan had diminished into one form, Nemain, and had become a fixture of the Unseelie Host. No one was sure how much of her divine power she’d retained. What was known was that the woman was batty, even by fae standards. Madness ran in the line and touched each new Morrigan as she came into her power. Not that anyone would dare to say it to her face. There was something about a former goddess, especially a corpse goddess, which sent chills down a person’s spine.
“Well, there’s this old legend about the line. They’re all female. No male children born in the line whatsoever, never has been. But they say, when there is a male Morrigan born, he’ll be the Winter King.”
“O...kay, this is a bad thing, right?” Feral asked carefully and grimaced as the little guy they were discussing slobbered all over his shoulder.
She shrugged. “It could really upset the balance of power in the fae courts for starters. The rest, I’m not so sure about. The legends are vague. Apparently the Morrigan knows more about it...there’s a book, an old one, on it. But she’s never let anyone read it, doesn’t like to talk about it.”
“Okay, so, not ‘end of the world’ type stuff...but imbalance is probably bad, right? And if he’s fae, not a pixie, what’s with the fluorescent ‘do?”
“Well, pixies are actually fae,” her lips quirked, eyes dancing in amusement. “We just don’t like to admit it out loud. And imbalance would be bad, yes. You can plop him down on the floor to roll around. This place is kiddie-proof.”
Feral did as he was told, a quick glance around reassuring him she told the truth. He’d been convinced this place was an interior design showpiece, but when he looked closer, he could see care had been taken to make it suitable for children. There were soft carpets and furnishings, and all hard edges on the furniture had little cushioned pads. Amazing what someone could miss when they weren’t looking properly.
He put the baby on the floor carefully, leaving him giggling and playing with a soft toy Tessa waved in front of him.
Like his place, the kitchen was just off the living area, a large breakfast counter separating the two. He leaned against the counter, his arms folded over his broad chest as he wat
ched her bustle around the small space. Now that the baby had been sorted and didn’t smell so badly, he could finally take time to appreciate the way she looked.
She was small, barely grazing his shoulder, and wrapped in a terry toweling robe designed for someone far larger. The voluminous fabric buried her, cinched tightly around a small waist.
“I’ll make him up a bottle,” she chattered, obviously not realizing his attention was elsewhere. Like on the deep “V” at her neckline, which kept gaping a little, teasing his imagination with fascinating glimpses of the creamy skin underneath.
He resisted the urge to flit closer, all his kyn instincts activated by the presence of the female. All he wanted to do was stalk her around the small space, capture her and turn to pin her against the counter behind him. Her lips would be sweet, he decided, his gaze zeroing in on them. They were small, but full and luscious. He’d gather her to him, part them with a sweep of his tongue, and drive within to taste the sweetness beyond…
He’d taken a step forward before he realized what he was doing and stopped dead. He was as hard as a rock, the need to touch and taste her almost overwhelming. He couldn’t though. She was a pixie and he was kyn. There was no way anything between them was going to work out. Though she didn’t live in a barrow, she was bound to belong to a clan… a clan that would not be at all happy about a vampire claiming one of their women.
“Hey, you okay?” She’d turned and noticed he’d moved, preoccupation on his face as he fought his own instincts.
Crash!
He was saved from answering by the sound of wood splintering and glass shattering. They both froze.
“Shit!” Feral hissed. “Get the baby and get dressed,” he ordered, shoving her toward the bedroom.
He turned toward the hall door, his amorous mood disappearing into cool professionalism now that there was a threat. He extended his senses past the kitchen and into the apartment beyond. On silent feet, he plastered himself against the wall by it and waited.
He sensed three intruders, heartbeats loud in the sudden stillness of the apartment. Feral’s eyes narrowed with anger and determination. He had no idea who these goons were or what they wanted. Chances were, it wasn’t to borrow a cup of sugar. No, whatever it was, it was dodgy. Regular visitors waited until you opened the door. They didn’t break it down.
Automatically, his hands reached into the small of his back for the heavy blades usually tucked into the back of his belt. They closed on empty air. He’d left his weapons in his apartment. Rookie mistake. He kicked himself mentally for a second and then slowly smiled. It was a nasty little expression, which had nothing to do with humor.
He was kyn. He didn’t need blades to be lethal.
There were two in the corridor closest, still unaware of his presence on the other side of the door. They wouldn’t be for long.
Then they were there, bracketing the door, one on either side. Feral drew in a silent breath, rolling the air over his tongue and tasting it. Male, he decided, the air tainted with the tang of male sweat and something chemically sweet. Hair gel?
He paused for a moment, waiting for some sign of movement from outside the door, his large hand reaching out toward the handle. There it was—the scuff of a boot over the carpet. A slight noise, but enough to warn him. Feral moved like lightening. Hand on the door, he yanked it open wide, the guy with his hand on the other side stumbling through. Before he could react, Feral was on him, a hard hand on the back of his head as he slammed it down toward his raised knee. He grinned at the satisfying crunch of bone as it connected with a nose. The scent of blood blossomed on the air, heavy and fragrant to the vampire’s senses.
One down, two to go. He dropped the first intruder like a hotcake and rounded on the other guy in the corridor, dodging a punch as he got his first good look at the intruders. Then the smell of hair gel made sense.
Pixies. Feral snarled, blocking another heavy punch and throwing a few of his own, driving the hoodie-clad pixie back toward the main room. “When will you assholes get the message?”
The pixie looked equally surprised, blocking Feral’s lightning-fast punches with an agility Feral begrudgingly admired. They burst into the lit main room and the pixie’s eyes widened.
“Crap. Where the fuck did you come from? There was only supposed to be a woman and a baby in here.”
“Just not your lucky day, is it then, sunshine?” Feral grinned as he advanced, knowing that the expression made the marks across the side of his face appear even more menacing than usual.
“Serves you right, sending three of you against normal people,” he growled, angered beyond measure. He’d always known pixies were cowards. This just proved it.
The fight continuing, the pixie bounced off the kitchen counter. As he rebounded, he grabbed one of the bar stools. Feral sucked his breath in, raising his arms as the stool whistled through the air toward his head. The stool shattered across his upraised arm and shoulder, skittering a little down his side. He hissed and shook himself, shedding bits of wood like a dog shaking water from its coat.
The pixie looked at the end of the stool leg he still had in one hand and back at Feral, a stunned expression on his face. Feral didn’t blame him. The blow would have put most men down. Trouble was, Feral wasn’t most men. He was kyn, and that was a whole different ballgame.
“You’re beginning to piss me off now,” he growled as he grabbed the pixie by the scruff of the neck, wrenching the broken leg away from him and throwing it aside.
A scream from the direction of the bedrooms snapped Feral’s head up. Tessa and the baby… With a roar of fury, he twirled the pixie in his grip, half pushing, half throwing him toward the breakfast counter and slammed the guy’s face into the polished countertop.
He rebounded with a dull groan of pain, the blood from his nose splattering the pristine surface. He was still conscious. Feral knew better than to leave a conscious opponent behind. His spread hand caught the back of the pixie’s head like a basketball, slamming it back down. This time, his face got up close and personal with the countertop and didn’t rebound. Just slid boneless to the floor, leaving a smeared crimson trail.
“I fucking hate pixies,” he muttered, flicking blood splatter off his chest and heading for the knife block on the counter. Selecting the heaviest blade, he turned and headed for the bedrooms.
Tessa hadn’t argued at the hard shove toward the door, launching herself through it with speed born from fear. Someone was in the apartment. And the only reason she could think of that someone would want to break in was the baby. She raced through the master bedroom like a small tornado.
The moment she entered the room, though, the door to the bathroom opened, a big guy appearing in the doorway. His grin as he saw her sent a spike of fear down her spine. With a gasp, she launched herself toward the nursery door, reaching it before he did and managing to shut it on him.
Acting on pure instinct, she grappled with the wardrobe, pulling it until it toppled over and crashed across to block the door diagonally. Not a moment too soon as heavy thuds and curses erupted from the other side.
Running high on adrenaline, Tessa whirled around, checking the cot that held the baby. Startled blue eyes stared back at her and then watered as he wailed, obviously scared by the sudden noises.
“Shh, it’s going to be okay, I promise,” she whispered, already looking around the room for something she could use as a weapon. She’d blocked the door but there was nothing she could use to block the window. They were on the second floor, but she knew better than to think that would make any difference if people seriously meant harm.
She gathered the baby into her arms, trying to soothe him. “Shh, little man. I need you to be quiet, okay?” she murmured, backing up and looking for somewhere to hide him. Her eyes fell on the changing unit.
“Sorry about this,” she whispered, kneeling and shoving him as far toward the back as she could. He sniffled for a moment, but then seemed to get the message, lying quie
tly.
Just in time. As she straightened, the door crashed inward. The wood of the wardrobe, a nursery-sized one rather than full-sized, groaned in protest as it was pushed along the carpeted floor.
“Get out! Help! Help! Someone help us!” Tessa shrieked like a banshee, hoping beyond hope to wake someone up in the surrounding units. She threw things at the pixie clambering over the wardrobe. Changing baskets and trailing nappies flew and obscured his vision, but the bottles were far more effective, heavy with baby oil and lotion.
“Lisa, I’ll never complain about your stockpiling again,” Tessa promised in an undertone as she hurled bottle after bottle with bruising accuracy, grinning as the pixie yelped and tried to cover his head with his arms. She’d always been a good pitcher as a kid, but time was running out, and she knew it.
Soon she would run out of ammunition and she had no clue what she was going to do. She was half pixie, yes, but she was also female and small, for either species. Her grasp on magic wasn’t going to help much either. She could manage low level glamour, appearance, and perhaps some “fairy lights” but that was about it.
Fairy lights. Tessa threw the last bottle, managing a clear strike on the guy’s forehead, which rocked his head back. Could she do it? She had nothing to lose by trying.
Closing her eyes, she reached deep down inside herself. It was wonderful how the imminent threat aided her concentration, and she delved into the part of her that was pure pixie. She opened her eyes, feeling the familiar tingle in her fingers as the Witching, the magical layer in everything, surrounded her, reacted to her.
Raising her hands, she spread them out as tiny balls of light appeared over her palms. Fairy lights, a charm to amuse children, were considered a party trick and nothing more. The pixie didn’t seem impressed, rubbing his head as he straightened and glared at her.