by Mina Carter
“Oh buggar it...well a gal’s gotta give these things a try! Okay...we’re not just pixies. There’s something odd mixed into the bloodline. You know much about English royalty?”
Feral laughed. “What, you mean as in human English royalty? Hell, I have enough trouble remembering who’s the president at the moment. You can’t expect me to know history as well, not when these humans die off every eighty years or so...um, no offense,” he said in haste, as two pairs of eyes swiveled to look at him accusingly, the baby adding the weight of his stare.
She wrinkled her nose, the glare fading. “Nah, you’re okay. I’m not that easily offended. Okay, long story short. Jane was once the Queen of England. Until they chopped her head off.”
Feral nodded slowly. “I wondered what the scarf was for.”
“Yeah…” She shrugged. “She doesn’t like to talk about it and I can’t blame her. I know she still has nightmares. We don’t know how she survived,” Tessa admitted, lifting a hand to rake her hair back from her face. “I think she does, but she’s not letting on.”
“Some things are best left unsaid,” he agreed, pushing off from the wall to approach her. Sliding a strong finger under her chin, he made her look up. “Just as long as it’s nothing that’s going to get you killed…”
She shook her head quickly, her eyes wide and dark. “No. Of course not. Jane would never hurt me. Hurt anyone.”
He grumbled and let her go. That hadn’t been exactly what he’d meant but instinct warned him that pushing Tessa further would just get her to clam up on him. He didn’t want that.
She slid off the bed and away from him to the tea and coffee making facilities on the dresser. Unlike many hotels he’d stayed in, there was an actual kettle. “I’m parched. Um, do vampires drink coffee?” she queried, looking over her shoulder.
They locked eyes for a moment before she blushed and looked away, leaving a little smile on Feral’s face. He read her interest there, the awareness of him as a man, and it pleased him on levels he hadn’t realized existed.
“Yeah, we drink coffee,” he said, his voice low in the sudden silence. “Actually, most of us can eat and drink...we just don’t most of the time. Some prefer not to at all. Myself, I’m partial to a beer and a pizza,” he offered with a smile, as he realized having a man in the room with her had to be a little worrying. After all, he wasn’t the smallest of kyn, and compared to the average pixie or human, he was huge.
She flashed him a grin. “Sounds like the perfect date,” her voice was light as she arranged two mugs on the dresser, “pepperoni pizza with all the trimmings?”
Feral grinned. “Why? You angling for a date, Tessa?”
She arched an eyebrow as she emptied the small packets of instant coffee into the mugs and started to pour the now boiled water.
“Hmm, depends... pixies are better kissers than vamps,” she replied, a hint of mischief in her eyes.
This time, it was Feral’s eyebrow winging its way up to his shaved hairline. “Is that so, little pixie?” he asked, a dangerous edge in his voice as he worked to keep a straight face.
“Yup.” She pushed a mug toward him, leaning her hips back against the side as she lifted her own to her lips, blowing the steam on top.
Her wide, dark eyes glanced at him over the rim, laughter dancing in them. Pixies liked to live dangerously…seemed it was true of the women as well as the men. But where the men liked to get into fights, Tessa was playing a whole different sort of game. One he was more than happy to play with her.
“Well, I can’t let this slur to the kyn go unpunished.” He stalked toward her, step by slow step. He could move faster than the eye could see, mortal or pixie, but this wasn’t about speed. It was about the awareness tingling between them, about feeding the attraction to see where it would lead. And about getting a taste of those full, pouting lips. Ones that held a soft smile of invitation.
He reached out and took the mug from her unresisting hands. “I figure I’m going to have to do something about it.”
Putting the mug on the dresser behind her, he boxed her in with a hand on each side of her hips and lowered his head.
The softness of her lips took him by surprise, warm and pliant. There was no coyness in her response, her lips yielding under his gentle coaxing as her arms wrapped around his shoulders. He groaned as she stroked her tongue along his playfully, shifting to enfold her in his arms as he deepened the kiss.
By the time he lifted his head a while later, their breathing was ragged, and high bands of color highlighted her cheeks. Feral rested his forehead against hers and smiled. “I agree,” he breathed. “Pixies are great kissers.”
CHAPTER 4
T he Fae Court was the Eighth Wonder of the World. The first would be more accurate, since it had formed even before fae memory had begun, and therefore, well before human memory. Certainly, before any of the structures on the traditional list had been constructed.
The court was a law unto itself. It worked to an agenda no one living, or sane, could figure out. For the last couple of hundred years, it had appeared as the archetype of a romantic court with high vaulted ceilings and walls made of smooth, veined marble, the veins sparkling silver as they caught the light. Light came from glowing orbs set in brackets on the walls and from will-o’-wisps twisted into glorious crystal chandeliers.
It was the sort of place someone would expect a fairytale princess to come around the next corner, brushing her hair and waiting for her prince to arrive. But occasionally, when the court was agitated, it appeared in different forms. A gothic castle, or even, when it was really stressed, the rough-hewn dirt walls of the barrow it had originally been. Now though, it was a glorious sight to rival the best of any mortal king’s palace, and was completely ignored by the woman who swept through the massive doorway.
Slender and almost childlike in form, she had the delicate fragility of a full-blooded fae. One of the old blood, not the newer generations whose blood had been filtered by elven or some other magical creature. There weren’t many left these days. The old lines had died out, leaving just the Seven Sisters and Mab, and with the newest generation, even they would be gone. It was hard to worry though, when a generation such as theirs could span thousands of years.
Ilia stormed into the large, high-ceilinged hall, her face like thunder. With an imperious wave she ordered the door closed, ignoring the servant who scurried to do her bidding.
“So you failed. Why am I not surprised?” Although her appearance was ethereally beautiful, the voice that issued from the perfect cupid’s bow of her lips was as sharp as a whip and twice as venomous.
She stalked in front of the three pixies she’d sent to recover the Morrigan child. Forced to their knees by her guards, all three trembled as she approached. A small smile curved her perfect lips as she switched the hem of her white gown away from their knees, in case they marked the pristine hem.
Terrified… just the way she liked them. Closing her eyes for a moment, she savored the fear that oozed from their skin. She shivered at the delicious treat.
“Do you know how much it cost me to get that brat separated from its parents?” Her voice sharpened as the initial hit from their fear wore off and she recalled their failure.
Everyone in the room, pixie or fae, avoided the gaze of the princess—the three held before her, the guards doing the holding, as well as the gaggle of pixies huddled in the corner. Her pixies, to do with as she wished, after their fool of a warlord tried to put one over on her. He’d ended up trapped by fae law and she’d gloried in taking his pack—and his flesh—for the insult. Pixie flesh and blood were powerful. She hadn’t needed to feed for weeks after he’d shared her bed.
A mutter from one of the kneeling pixies drew her attention and she leaned forward. “What was that?”
“It wasn’t our fault!” the “leader” of the trio complained, daring to look up. His bravado didn’t last long and he looked down again, visibly quaking.
“There was a kyn there, a war
rior,” he muttered. “We were only expecting the woman and the baby,” he added, flinching as though he expected a blow.
“Excuses, excuses! Always bloody excuses!” she exploded, seething in anger. If it wasn’t the damn nanny suddenly developing a conscience and dropping the brat off on the first pixie doorstep she could find, it was this bunch of incompetents. A kyn indeed… like she believed that.
“Do I have to do everything around here myself? Do not answer that, Talven,” she ordered as her guard captain looked up, a frown on his handsome face.
That was the trouble with half-breeds. Pretty to look at, but very much a case of “the lights were on but no one was home.” Talven, a sidhe half-breed, fit that description perfectly. The hopeful expression in his eyes bolstered her feminine ego while also irritating the hell out of her. He was like a damn puppy, always following her around and eager to please. If she were to kick him, she was sure he’d thank her.
“Get these idiots out of my sight.” She waved her hand dismissively. “Clean them up and send them to my chambers. I’ll deal with them later.”
The low moan from one of the trio when they were hauled to their feet got her attention, but not as much as the fresh wave of terror that rolled toward her. She held out her hand, an unspoken order to stop as she stepped forward.
The sound had come from the youngest. He was barely in his twenties with smooth, handsome features and a strong, well-muscled body. He had the sort of looks that fired her interest, her body awakening as she felt the pull of attraction.
“Oh, don’t worry.” Her voice was a soft croon as she moved closer to press against him, nestling her slender body along his. He flinched, trying to move away, but the hard hold of the guards kept him immobile. “There, there,” she murmured, her voice soft and lover-like as she stroked the side of his jaw. A fine tremor racked his body as she leaned in to lay a gentle kiss on his lips.
“It’s all going to be fine. I’ll be gentle with you. I promise,” she assured him, a promise that didn’t seem to console the young pixie. Faced with what she assumed was one of his worst nightmares wrapped up in a breathtakingly beautiful package, his breathing was panicked, his eyes wild as he looked at anything but her.
Growing tired of the game, she reached out and pulled his jaw around. He struggled, but she was far stronger than her delicate appearance should allow, even for a fae. She caught his forest-green eyes with her own dark gaze. “We’ll have ourselves a good night you and I,” she whispered.
His terrified moan, more animalistic than anything, echoed around the chamber. At the same moment, a hot, acrid smell assaulted her sensitive nostrils. She leapt away, pushing off from his broad chest and her nose wrinkling in distaste as a dark stain spread over the front of his trousers.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake! Get them out of my sight,” she hissed in annoyance. What was it with men these days? She longed to find a real man, not one that lost control of his bodily functions when she so much as looked at him. One who would stand up to her…
“Right, the rest of you…” She turned on her heel and glared at the huddled group in the corner as the others were dragged away. “…get out there and get that damn baby. I don’t care how you do it. Just do it!” she barked her orders, a warning in her voice alluding to their fate should they fail her again. The atmosphere in the room grew cold, as though the very building were affected by her mood.
“Now go,” she snapped, turning in a flurry of skirts to stalk up the length of the hall. Movement broke out behind her as the pixies made their escape, followed by the measured tread of her guard. A small sigh escaped her as she approached the dais at the end of the large hall. Pausing at the bottom of the steps, she looked at the throne.
Made of stone, it was one of seven, each sitting in a hall of its own around the court. Or, when required, pulled by the court itself into the queen’s hall to sit flanked around Mab. One throne for each of the Seven Sisters. The Seven Fae princesses. Beloved by the land, all powerful amongst the fae, and all that crap...but Ilia wanted to be more powerful. She wanted, needed...
Everything.
She’d been right. Tessa walked back to her hotel room sometime later, deep in thought. Jane had read through the note and confirmed Tessa’s suspicions. The baby was a Morrigan.
That much she’d managed to read for herself, but there was more on the note she couldn’t read. Jane knew the language far better than Tessa. More years to study, as well as having the advantage of dealing with all sorts of fae daily, so she’d been able to translate what Tessa couldn’t.
The note had been brief and to the point, explaining that the baby had been stolen from his family because his mother was possibly Morrigan-descent. The writer had said she’d regretted what she’d done but hadn’t had time to return him as she was being tracked. There were vague references of what “they” wanted to do to him but no details on who “they” were. She, whoever she was, had asked forgiveness for what she’d done, and that whoever found him keep the baby safe.
One thing puzzled Tessa though. Why had the baby been left on Feral’s doorstep in the first place? She could understand leaving him there for protection. After all, there weren’t many beings that could take on a kyn warrior and live to brag about it. The note had been written in High Fae, though, not something anyone would expect a vampire to be able to read. Hell, thanks to her pixie side, she had fae blood, and even she couldn’t read all of it.
Then there was the fact they’d hit her sister’s apartment rather than Feral’s. It was rare for pixies, even as arrogant as they were, to break in like that with brute force rather than employing glamour—and Feral had said they’d been expecting a woman and a baby, not a kyn.
Realization hit her and she smacked her palm against her forehead. She was obviously far more tired than she thought. The baby had been left on Feral’s doorstep by mistake. All the doors looked alike on that block, and it would have been quite easy to get them mixed up, especially if a person had never been there before and was in a hurry.
She reached their corridor, doing a quick, automatic check on the numbered plaque on the wall. Last thing she wanted to do was walk into someone else’s room. She’d passed her excitement level by nine o’clock this evening. All she wanted to do now was relax and get some sleep.
The intrigue would be over tomorrow though. In the afternoon, Jane would take them to the Fae Court so they could get the baby back to his parents, or at the very least, to the Morrigan. He was of her bloodline so she was bound to know who his parents were.
She nibbled her lip as she walked. The poor things must be going out of their minds with worry, and she didn’t like the idea that she was contributing to their distress. She didn’t know them, but she was sure any parent whose child was missing had to be going through hell wondering where their baby was... Whether he was okay, who had him, whether he was being looked after, fed enough, kept warm enough...the list went on.
She’d been all for going to the courts straight away, getting the baby back as soon as possible. Until Jane pointed out that fae, especially temperamental ones like Mab and the Morrigan, were not people someone awakened from their beds, nor did they need Feral ending up as a crispy critter. Reluctantly, she’d conceded that Jane had a point, agreeing to get some sleep so they could leave as soon as the sun set.
Reaching the door to their room, she opened it easily. Her lips quirked in a smile as she remembered Feral’s earlier grumbling. Honestly, all it took was a light touch, not going at it like a bull at a gate. She pushed the door open and slipped in on silent feet. It closed behind her with a soft click and her gaze flew to the inhabitants of the room to make sure she hadn’t woken them. She knew only too well how grouchy babies could be if they were woken before they were ready.
Her eyes fell on the bed and she smiled, all but melting inside. Stretched out full length across the bed was the large form of her vampire warrior, and curled up trustingly on the broad expanse of his chest was the tiny b
aby, his pink hair a bright halo against Feral’s skin. She itched to rush over to her bag and grab her phone. She so needed to take a picture of this. It was just too cute for words. Big, scary looking thug so gentle with the baby he cradled.
But then, her attention was diverted by the lean form of the man himself. Shirtless again. He seemed to have real issues keeping a shirt on for any length of time, mostly wearing only jeans. Denim clung to his lean hips and powerful thighs, the top button undone—revealing the slight “V” of hair that disappeared underneath.
Oh, my lady, he’s commando under there…
She swallowed convulsively. There wasn’t a spare ounce of fat on him. He was all hard muscle and satin skin. Even as relaxed as he was, that charisma of his couldn’t be shrouded by sleep, and she was still fascinated. Still felt that pull toward him. The desire to run her hands over those ripped muscles gripped her again, to explore that scar she could just see on his abdomen with her tongue...
She was a pervert. Her hands flew to her cheeks as heat flooded them. It was one thing to lust after a guy when he was conscious and asking for it, but quite another to do it when he was sleeping and holding a baby. Just how low could she get?
She shook her head, crossing the room to get her bag. A quick search through the organized chaos of the contents and she located her phone by touch, drawing it out of the bag and thumbing it on as she turned, only to find Feral watching her, his dark eyes unreadable.
“That won’t work. Kyn don’t pick up on cameras well.” His voice was barely more than a whisper, low enough so he wouldn’t wake the sleeping baby. “Like not at all.”
Tessa frowned, pouting slightly in her disappointment. It would have made for such a cute picture. She flipped the case shut and slid it back into her bag, saying the first thing that came to mind. “So how do you get a driver’s license then?”
“Who said I had a license?”
“What?” Tessa squawked, the shrill sound making the baby jump in his sleep. Feral glared at her warningly, soothing the baby back to peacefulness. If he wasn’t a vampire, he’d make a great dad, she thought absently before her indignation at being driven by someone without a license got the better of her again. “You don’t have a license? You shouldn’t be driving at all then! What if you got caught?”