Gist shrugged. “All I know is, a special agent showed up this morning and took right over.”
Diana shot a look at the other department heads, who were following the conversation with interest. “I think I’ve taken up enough of your time, gentlemen. Why don’t you go tend the city’s business?”
She waited until they’d filed out of the room before she spoke. Something about this just didn’t feel right. “Did you ask the FBI to step in, Chief?”
Gist blinked at her. “Who, me? Hell, no. You know how I feel about the Feebees.”
Yes, she did, which was why she was wondering about his loopy smile. “Somebody had to. Murder’s a state offense. The Feds have no jurisdiction. Do they think this is a serial killer?”
The chief shrugged.
Diana frowned at him. “So you’re all right with having a bunch of suits come in and pull this case right out from under you?”
“Well, they are better equipped to handle this kind of thing.”
She stared. “You’re under some kind of spell.”
He blinked at her. “What? What are you talking about?”
Diana got up and walked around her desk to crouch in front of him. His eyes looked faintly out of focus. Her temper began to steam. “Where’s this FBI agent now, Chief?”
“He’s down in my office.”
She rose and started for the door.
“Where are you going?”
Diana looked back over her shoulder at her normally razor-sharp friend. He looked confused. “Don’t worry about it, Bill. I’m just going to go kick some ass.”
He nodded vaguely. “Okay.”
She turned and stalked through the door, resisting the urge to slam it. “And I’m going to kick really, really hard.”
Diana strode down the short carpeted hallway, nodding absently to the city clerks who waved at her as she passed. She was too busy worrying about what waited for her down in Gist’s office.
It couldn’t be the killer. Surely the bitch wouldn’t be bold enough to just waltz in and put the Verdaville Police Chief under a spell with Diana right there in the building.
Unless she didn’t realize the seven-foot werewolf she’d fought the night before was actually a five-foot-eleven city manager. Which, now that Diana thought about it, sounded a lot more likely than she’d first assumed.
Her stomach coiling into knots, she hit the stairs, heading for the police department, which took up City Hall’s basement.
Shoving the door open, she stormed down the hallway, her heels clicking angrily on worn vinyl tiles that had peeled away in spots, revealing the cement floor underneath. She barely noticed the crackle of the police scanner or the murmur of the clerk’s voice as she talked to an officer over the radio. Diana’s narrowed gaze was focused on the chief’s door at the end of the hall, opposite the locker room.
She didn’t bother to knock.
Three business-suited men she didn’t know whirled as she barged in. Each, oddly enough, reached for his hip rather than the shoulder holsters visible under their jackets. The closest one aborted the gesture and grabbed for her instead. Diana jerked away, her lips pulling back from her teeth. “Back off!”
But before the man could touch her—or she could lunge for his throat—a deep male voice said, “Stand down!”
The barked command drew Diana’s gaze to the man sitting behind the chief’s desk, crime scene photos spread out in front of him across a litter of reports.
For a moment, she felt heat flood her cheeks at the thought that these men really were FBI. Then she realized every one of them had hair halfway to his butt, in colors not found in humans. And she’d be willing to bet those exotic shades didn’t come from a bottle.
“Hello, Diana,” the blond said, in a voice as deep and smoky as Kentucky bourbon.
Diana frowned. “Do I know…?” She broke off, realizing she did indeed recognize her unwelcome visitor.
Except the last time she’d seen him, he’d been naked and prowling through her dreams like an erotic ghost. She hadn’t noticed the pointed ears last night. Or the smell of magic that clung to everybody in the room like a very expensive cologne.
This couldn’t be good.
“What in God’s name are you?” Diana demanded, instinctively tensing for combat.
The blond man leaned back in Gist’s chair, a very male smile curling his handsome mouth. “Actually, I’m the King of the Fairies.”
FOUR
The King of the Fairies.
Diana would have been less shocked if he’d punched her. She’d grown up hearing her grandfather’s stories of Merlin, Arthur, and the Sidhe. “You’re King Dearg’s son.” Remembering one tale in particular, she took a wary step back. “Llyr or Ansgar?”
One of the other three men—he had hair the color of spring grass—squared his impressive shoulders and announced, “You are in the presence of King Llyr Aleyn Galatyn.”
Oh, the good one.
She’d almost banged Llyr Galatyn. At least in her dreams. Granddad would be tickled—if she ever told him, which she wouldn’t.
“These men are my personal bodyguards,” Llyr told her, rising from his chair. Something about the way he moved made Diana’s libido purr. He dropped a hand on the shoulder of the green-haired man. “Bevyn Cynyr.” An elegant gesture pointed out a second breathtakingly handsome man, this one with shimmering blue hair. “His brother, Egan,” Another sweep of a royal hand indicated the one who’d almost jumped her when she walked in. “And Iden Naois.” Naois was big and broad, his dark, hip-length hair shimmering with iridescent highlights that might have looked effeminate, had his face not been so thoroughly masculine. He watched her with a feral intensity that made her hackles rise.
Staring right back at him, Diana readied herself to transform, though she knew she was seriously screwed if they attacked her. Powerful as she was, she wasn’t up to taking on four Sidhe warriors. Not if Granddad’s stories had any truth to them at all.
“I’m Diana London.” She edged away from the dark one. He didn’t move. His eyes were so black, they seemed to have no pupils at all. Diana gave him a hard, warning glare before turning to the Sidhe king. “I’m the Verdaville city administrator. Which brings me back to my original point—where the hell do you get off, putting a spell on my police chief?”
Llyr lifted his chin, surprise flickering in his gaze. After a pause, he tapped one of the photos arrayed on the desk in front of him. “I thought it best. Your police may not be equipped to handle this murder. There’s a good chance the killer is not human.”
Diana snorted. “Yeah, I picked up on that last night when she almost fried me with an energy blast.”
Every Sidhe in the room came to alert. “You fought her?” The king’s eyes searched her face. They glittered with tiny flecks of light, like opals.
“She was waiting for me in the woods, about a quarter of a mile from the crime scene,” Diana told him, trying to ignore her body’s response to his. “What is she, anyway? She casts spells, but she’s way too strong to be a Maja. She one of yours?”
“A Sidhe? Dragon’s Breath, no. She a vampire.”
Diana frowned. “There are no female vampires. Magi are always male.”
“Merlin’s Gift had nothing to do with this one. She’s the product of a death spell. A demon named Geirolf…”
“Geirolf? Isn’t he the one who killed your father?” She braced her fists on her hips and studied the Sidhe king. Damn, but he was beautiful.
“The same. Merlin locked him in a cell in the Mageverse sixteen hundred years ago, after the Great War.” Diana listened with interest as Llyr described Geirolf’s escape and the battle to defeat him. “Unfortunately, Stephen Parker, Geirolf’s lackey, used the demon’s death to power a spell that scattered his vampire army all over Mortal Earth.”
“Wait—vampire army? That doesn’t sound good.”
“It’s not. When Geirolf escaped his cell, he founded a network of death cults…”
For months now, the news had been dominated by the crimes of a network of death cults that were allegedly responsible for murders all across the country. Part of the media’s fascination was born of the fact that the cults seemed to have nothing in common. Some were ecoterrorists, others were blatantly Satanic, and still others were violently racist. Their weapons ran the gamut from strychnine in cold medications to human sacrifice. They’d driven the public into a panic, and the media was having a field day speculating on why so many lunatic groups had cropped up at one time. In retrospect, it made sense they’d all be related.
If one of those cultists had come to Verdaville, the situation was even worse than she’d thought.
And it was, she realized, as Llyr described the way Geirolf had fed off the deaths of the cult’s victims. “Then he decided to eliminate both the Magekind and the Sidhe,” the king continued. “He designed a death spell he meant to power by sacrificing Grayson and Champion. If it had worked, it would have instantly killed every witch and vampire on either Earth.”
She lifted her brows. “Must have been a hell of a spell.”
“It was, but it wouldn’t have worked on my people. For that, he needed a magical army. So he transformed his cultists into vampires, planning to turn them loose on the Sidhe.”
“But then his Magekind sacrifices sprung their booby trap and killed him,” Diana guessed, piecing it all together. “And Parker used the energy of the demon’s death to scatter all those vampires all over the planet.”
“Where they’ve been murdering people ever since. The Magekind are attempting to track down and destroy them. I volunteered to help.” He spread his hands and sat down again. “So my men and I will track down your killer, eliminate her, and be on our way.”
Diana looked at him as he sprawled in masculine elegance in Gist’s chair. She was tempted to dump the whole thing in his lap and let him handle it. After all, Llyr could work magic. She might be a shape-shifter, but the kind of power blasts Vampire Bitch had thrown around last night were beyond her.
Besides, this was the Burning Moon. Diana didn’t trust herself to keep a choke chain on her libido with the King of the Sidhe flexing under her nose. All she needed was to lose control, rip the enchanted Armani off his luscious body, and bang his fairy brains out in front of God and the Verdaville City Council. And every time she inhaled the scent of magical masculinity, she was seriously tempted.
A smart city manager would leave the whole mess to Llyr and go off to fight with DHEC over the sewage treatment pond. Only…
Diana sighed. “Like I told Fang Face last night, this is my fief. Its people are my people. She killed one of my people, she’s mine.” She met Llyr’s glowing opalescent gaze. “But I wouldn’t turn down help.”
Something in Diana’s direct stare made blood pool in Llyr’s groin, much to his irritation. He’d like to help her, all right. He’d like to help her with the sexual hunger that rolled off her in hot waves.
Llyr felt a stab of shame. Janieda had given her life for him. He owed her more than to go up in flames for a stranger when she was barely cold in her grave.
Yet Diana fascinated him. Every breath he took in her presence carried the scent of wild passion, and there was a lithe strength in the way she moved that he found darkly arousing. Even the bold challenge in her gaze called to him. He wanted to test himself against her, wanted to bend her over, strip down those mannish slacks, and investigate her sweet cream heat.
Oh, yes, he wanted to ride her, badly. Despite his dream-inspired conviction that they were destined for each other, that was all he wanted.
Dream or not, it was all too obvious Diana wasn’t the queen he’d been seeking. She was too feral, too sensual. The animal lay too close to the surface in her; his people would never accept her.
What was worse, she was mortal. He’d buried too many queens as it was.
So despite his dreams, there could be nothing between them but sex. Any woman he wed would be queen of the Cachamwri Sidhe, and had better be worthy of the honor. Though Diana’s obvious dedication to the people of Verdaville was a point in her favor, it wasn’t enough.
And yet every breath he took of her scent made his need rise.
As he stared hungrily into her face, Diana lifted a brow. Belatedly he remembered she’d implied a question: would he work with her to catch the killer? He cleared his throat. “You know your fiefdom better than I. We’d do well to work together, rather than at cross purposes.”
“I couldn’t agree more.” She extended a long, slender hand. Lust hit him like a fist, and he drew in a breath, staring down at those slim fingers. “Partners, then?” she asked, her voice a honey rasp that seemed to stroke over his skin.
“Partners,” he agreed hoarsely, and somehow managed a handshake instead of dragging her into his arms. Her skin felt like velvet against his palm, sending another bolt of lust through him. “Please, be seated.”
Nodding briskly, she dropped her hand and moved to a chair. When she sat down and crossed her long legs, every man in the room caught his breath.
Llyr glanced around at his bodyguards and realized he wasn’t the only one who ached to touch her. He wasn’t at all sure she wouldn’t let them, either.
And he’d just agreed to work with her.
“May I suggest that if you’re going to continue posing as FBI agents…” Diana’s silky brows drew into a frown. “Does everybody see the hair?”
He blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
“You boys have more hair than an eighties rock band. It doesn’t exactly fit your cover.”
Mortal slang could be so irritatingly obscure. “I’m afraid I’m not familiar with your terminology.”
“FBI agents wear their hair cut short, Your Majesty.”
“We’re surrounded by a glamor. Your people will see what they expect to see.”
“Handy talent to have.” She drummed her nails on the arm of her chair, frowning. “If you’re going to pose as FBI, I would advise you to check into the motel in town. It would attract less attention than popping in and out.”
Llyr gathered she was talking about an inn of some kind. He considered the idea before nodding slowly. He didn’t want the vampire to know he was in pursuit. “You have a point.”
“Good. I’ll take you over. I assume you don’t have a car?” She lifted a brow.
“If we need one, I’ll create one.”
“Wish I could do that.” Diana glanced at her watch. “Look, I’ve got some duties to attend to before I start squiring y’ all around. I’ll meet you back here in an hour, if that’s acceptable?”
He nodded. “Whatever is convenient.”
“That would be.” She rose from her chair. “See you then.”
Llyr watched the feminine sway of her hips as she walked out the door, closing it carefully behind her. He listened to the click of her heels down the hall, the easy murmur of her voice as she spoke to one of her employees. In the distance, another door closed.
“Mmm,” Naois said. “I’d love to put a leash on that.”
As Llyr stiffened slightly, the brothers laughed. “Aye, she’s a hot one,” Bevyn agreed, tossing back his green hair with a shake.
Egan smirked. “A true bitch in heat. And I, for one, wouldn’t object to giving her exactly what she needs.”
“She’s also our host,” Llyr growled. “And I expect her to be treated with respect.”
His guards looked at him with dismayed surprise. He glared back. They’d been with him so many years, they sometimes forgot themselves. “We intended no disrespect, Your Majesty,” Naois said. “Our apologies.”
The brothers chorused an agreement. “It will not happen again,” Egan added.
“I am relieved to hear it,” Llyr said coolly. “I would be most displeased. Please take your posts.”
Chastised,
the three stiffened and hurried into position, one stepping outside the door, another just inside, the third at his back. Simultaneously, they drew themselves to attention with an audible click of the heels, backs rod straight, chins up, stomachs in. Normally, he’d tell them to assume a more comfortable pose, but this time Llyr left them like that as he turned his attention to the file on the murder.
Inwardly, he was a bit surprised at his own incandescent reaction. His men had not said anything he hadn’t been thinking himself. But that was irrelevant, he told himself. Diana was their hostess. Treating her with such blatant disrespect was rude.
And that was his only concern.
Adsulata Cynyr snapped her head up over the scrying bowl she used for visions. Its surface danced, the water showing the image of her husband, Egan, as he fell into attention outside the office where the king sat.
“Bastard,” she growled, rising from the bed to pace the room in long, angry strides. She wasn’t at all surprised to find Egan sniffing after the werewolf. He screwed every other female he came in contact with—why not an animal woman? It was just the kind of thing he’d do.
Goddess, but she hated him.
Adsulata had been spying on Egan since she’d discovered his whoring a year before. It had been a simple matter to enchant the Bond Bracelet he wore as a mark of their marriage so she could use it to spy on him through her scrying bowl. It was the only method that would have worked, since Llyr traveled with powerful magical shields as a protection against his brother’s assassins.
But he’d not reckoned with the deep, subtle magic that bound a husband and wife.
Neither had Egan.
Of course, if either the king or Egan had discovered her trick, she would have been imprisoned for it. But Adsulata didn’t care. She’d been betrayed by her faithless husband. She deserved her revenge. And she knew just how to get it.
Her violet eyes narrowed as she lifted her hands in an intricate gesture. In the air before her, a tiny point began to glow with Mageverse energies. She poured power into the point, and it swelled, opening a hole in the air. Beyond it, trees shimmered under the moon of the Mageverse.
Master of the Moon Page 6