The stress of the day made it hard for her to think. She needed a bit of relaxation before she tackled that particular riddle. “Brendan?” He came up to a sitting position most obediently as she got comfy in the chair, ready to receive her next command. “Would you help your Auntie with something?”
He cocked his head to the side, lifting one paw then the other to show his readiness. Crooking a finger at him, she smiled as she spread her thighs. “That’s a good boy. Now, heel.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
FINN
The next few days were an absolute blur. Between meeting with advisors and the crash course on the coronation, he was now in the middle of planning a wedding. Two state functions within days of one another, they had to be completely insane.
Cora, thankfully, took charge of the majority of the wedding planning. He could see her Guard training coming through loud and clear in the level of precision and organization she expected from those participating in the wedding either as members of the family or part of the planning team. One of them jokingly referred to her as Generalissima and she told Vasi to put her in for a promotion.
Not to mention fielding media requests, putting out their official engagement pictures, and enduring endless discussions about the ring. Everyone wanted to know who she was wearing, how she felt about being the first mixed marriage in the history of the monarchy, and so many other things both great and small. It was a wonder they got either a moment’s peace or a meal between them.
Cora’s morning sickness had returned, unfortunately, stronger than before and the doctor had put her down for a couple days rest while her body recovered electrolytes via an IV port. Needless to say, pissed off did not even begin to her feelings about having to slow down to a more measured pace, but the one bonus was that more than once, Finn had returned from work to find his father and Cora spending time together, playing cards, chess, or backgammon, drinking tea, or even both in the library on separate couches reading magazines while wearing house slippers. That picture had gone directly onto the palace Instagram account.
Brendan, and Aunt Gwen, left the evening of the fight. Vasi informed him that their passports were checked in the Lisbon airport, and as much as it pained Finn to say it, he hoped they would never return. Life would be so much easier that way, though he was becoming accustomed to looking over his shoulder now, so there was that.
The overall feeling in the kingdom had lightened since the change of succession with the community at large feeling more hopeful than they had in a long time. Of course, there were some quarters who would have preferred his brother on the throne, but he suspected that had more to do with their perceived leverage over him than his actual ability to govern.
It had been going too well, really. The transition to crown prince, his public relationship with Cora, and even, surprisingly, his private one, too. After his flubbed proposal, he’d spent time making it up to her with flowers and her favorite tea that settled her stomach and her favorite late night snacks and cheesy movies when she couldn’t sleep. The line between personal and professional was so blurred between them, it may as well have evaporated. There would be consequences, at the end of all this. Political, definitely. Emotional more than anything, though, but in the moment, it was very easy to let himself imagine a future together.
The morning her cell phone rang had been a good one, they’d awakened early and dined with the king, who was starting to feel remarkably better after so long in decline. Finn had been preparing to leave for work and Cora, feeling truly herself for the first time in a week at least and dressed to kill in her clingy azure sweater with a draped collar and black pencil skirt combo, had been preparing to lay siege to the wedding plans once more.
It had been a quick conversation, the look of confused suspicion on her face giving him pause. He waited until she was off the phone before he left for the day. “You okay?”
His concern only grew as she slipped a holster for her compact pistol seamlessly in the back waistband of her tight pencil skirt, and an extra knife he didn’t even know she had with her into her purse. “Mookie just called. The alarm company for my safehouse just called my assistant and inform her there was a fire at my place. He’s sitting off of it now.”
“I thought it was still being renovated.” He held the door to the hallway for her as they walked down the hallway to their waiting chauffeured rides.
“It is, hence my concern.”
“You going over there?” He didn’t like the idea of her going alone, but he also knew enough not to voice that concern. Instead, he held her coat as she slipped into it and threw on her scarf.
She shrugged. “I have a 10 A.M. with Shayla, the assistant wedding planner to discuss more fucking flower arrangements.” He covered his mouth to hide his amusement at her irritation. “And then I’ll head that way. I’ll let you know what I find, okay?”
“Okay.” He leaned down and kissed the corner of her mouth like he did every morning. “I’ll see you tonight.”
“Have fun storming the castle,” she called after him as he headed down the steps to his waiting car. Driscoll waved at her as she got into the SUV they’d designated for her use and both pulled out of the palace grounds to start their days.
* * *
CORA
Finding a venue to hold this wedding had been a chore, between the needs for security, the fact that the Morrigan don’t exactly have a church where one worships that does not involve extensive bloodshed, and the sheer presence of royalty, it would have been easier plotting to overthrow the government.
Barefoot in a field of spring violets was what she wanted, with a bouquet of white roses to honor the dead and red to honor the living. Lavender, mugwort, and rosemary were needed in all the arrangements, at least somewhere, even if they were hidden. Convincing a florist to honor those requests, however… A non-shifter florist was out of the question, though she wanted to make sure to use non-shifters for some portion of the event as a show of unity.
By the time she left her meeting, it was well past noon and she needed food before she became dangerous to everyone around her. She was so hungry these days, and for weird shit, too. Like fried chicken and sauerkraut. It wasn’t natural and she was not a fan. Truly, she could not wait for the hormones the doctor injected her with to run their course.
Plus they made it hard to remember this was a job. She was doing a job, protecting the prince, and this wedding she was planning, this ‘baby’ she was supposed to be carrying, were all in service to that end. This wasn’t a relationship, regardless of her feelings for him or the way he liked to snuggle with her on the couch after dinner or fuck her brainless and boneless in the mornings before they got out of bed.
Her mind immediately conjured his besotted expression as he watched her take apart and clean her pistol before putting it back in the bed under the pillow, not to mention the one she kept on her leg and the one in her bag. She was not part of his world, not really, and no amount of playing pretend would remedy that. No matter how real the feelings involved were.
She parked half a block from her safehouse. So far as her Guards were concerned, she was still with the wedding planner and her assistant had Samson drop off her ride for ease of escape. It was work to facilitate her escape, but it was necessary, if she wasn’t going to bring any more people into the party than she had to.
Mookie had wanted to stick around for her, but her firm had other cases and he was needed elsewhere, so she’d dismissed him. There was a benefit to being armed to the teeth, and it wasn’t like she was truly helpless at all, regardless of the height of her heels or the delicacy of her attire. She’d fight naked if she had to, just who she was.
The approach to the house was the same as it always was. A quiet street, rows of connected houses and interconnected lives. Cora had chosen this neighborhood for its nondescript charm. The only truly remarkable difference was the window boxes out front and the door colors. Hers, alas, was ‘Molotov chic’, or somewhat of a
burnt toast aesthetic. Someone had come and tried to torch the house, and for some reason, there were no contractors to be found. Somewhere, somehow, there should have been guys there fixing and reinforcing the shot up walls and windows and now, repairing the door.
Keys out, she explored the ground floor and found windows open in the back, her french doors unlocked, toolboxes out and opened like their owners had just stepped out for a moment. It was… eerie. Upstairs, her bedroom was still in shambles, most of the holes in the lath and plaster were now patched with the Kevlar mesh over the steel frame replaced, but not sanded or painted.
“The fuck am I paying these people for?” she grumbled as she dialed her assistant’s number.
Cora sensed the movement and twisted out of the way just in time to avoid the swing of a claw hammer, phone flying from her hands, stunned for a moment by the image of its head embedded in the sheetrock like it surely would have been her skull. Then she saw its owner, a wraith of a man with no hair in a threadbare NHRA shirt under a leather jacket and holey jeans, and grinned.
The Lacertine was tall, sickly thin but moderately muscular, with slit green eyes and a mouthful of sharp teeth that made for an unsettling grin in return, made even more so with the flick of his forked tongue.
“Missed,” she purred as she turned to face him fully, pistol out and pointed at him. His thin frame filled the doorway and blocked off her access to the rest of the house. She didn’t want to kill him if she didn’t have to, but there would be no escape if she couldn’t get past him.
He wrenched the hammer out of the wall and pulled a nasty-looking hunting knife from the back of his jeans, brandishing both like he might know what to do with them. “I won’t this time, sweetheart.”
“Come with it then.”
When he rushed her from the door, it was all she could do to put one in his chest and one in his head. She left him twitching on the floor as she made for the stairs, stymied to see he’d brought several friends who had heard the gunshots and were running to his aid.
Unlike her neighbors. One of the features she’d had installed was soundproofing in all the exterior walls and those that joined up with her neighbors on either sides. There’d be no relying on them hearing a strange noise and calling it in unless, perhaps, they saw the clown car of motherfucking lizard men erupting on her front law.
The problem with lizards was that they were fast. Damn fast, and no respect for simple things like gravity or the fact that walls and ceilings were not fucking walkways!
“So rude!” Across the upstairs landing to the guest room with reptiles on her bearing down on her ass was not how she’d planned to spend the day. To be fair, it was better than picking out another fucking floral arrangement but still. Diving through the door, she slammed it shut behind her, locking it and shoving the empty wooden dresser in front to buy her some time. The door itself was also steel reinforced, but that wasn’t going to keep them out forever. She needed a plan and quickly.
Her cell phone was out, dropped in the other room when she was attacked. Damn her training. She had enough bullets left to kill some, but not all of the intruders, so that wouldn’t help her much. Any spare weaponry would have been removed by her team prior to the renovations commencing.
Her sense of urgency got a jump by the loud crash against the door that jostled the dresser incrementally. “A door breach? Are you fucking kidding me?” Three more solid hits were the answer that solidified her plan: fight wasn’t an option so flee it must be.
The guest room had just one way out, the window overlooking the backyard and alley behind the house. It was locked, and alarmed, so hopefully when she opened it, someone would come. In the meantime, she tossed off her clothes in record time, firing a shot when the door opened slightly, and gratified to hear someone scream in pain in response.
“Look, lady, we’re not here to kill you,” a semi-reasonable sounding male voice with a Brooklyn accent called through the door.
“Your friend said otherwise.”
Left standing by the open window, Cora was naked as the day she was born except for her engagement ring. When she shifted, she’d have to move fast to get it and take it with her. Damn everything else, that was non-negotiable. Perched precariously onto the ledge, she aimed her pistol at the door, taking out three more men as they crowded into the room.
She threw the gun once she ran out of bullets, shifting quick and snatching up here ring. “Like I told your friend,” she called behind her as she dove out the window a six foot raven in full flight, “you missed!”
Chapter Twenty-Four
BRENDAN
How in the absolute fuck did it take fifteen men to grab one woman, one fucking debutante? And then they fail? Brendan closed his eyes as he pulled a hand down his face, doing his very best to rein in his temper.
The first step of the plan and it couldn’t even get off the ground. He’d sent a glamoured Lacertine to Portugal to accompany Aunt Gwen and let the heat die down, buying him time to think of a way to course correct. Losing his temper had lost him footing, socially, politically, but not the war. He’d spent the days in his aunt’s section of the palace, skulking about and shaking off the absolute betrayal for the conviction of righteousness. This was his and he would take it back.
First, though, was setting a trap to nab a wily bird.
“I need you to walk me through this one more time.” The Lacertine in front of him shifted from foot to foot, a story of fear from his flippy little tongue to his twitchy little tail. Brendan had half a mind to snatch it off, just to watch it regenerate. Of course, his aunt would not appreciate him decorating her office in blood like he did the dining room, so he refrained. For now.
“We watched the block and she pulled up in a black car by herself.”
That was interesting. He kicked back in the chair with his ankle laying across his knee. “She was driving? Where were her Guards?”
One leather-clad shoulder shrugged. “Dunno. She was driving and parked way far away from the house. She was looking around when she walked up to the house like she was expecting us.”
“Do tell.”
“She didn’t see us; we blend in real good. So we waited and followed her inside.”
“All of you?”
The lizard rolled his eyes, which was kind of this weird creepy blink more than anything. “Except Larry.”
“Was ‘kill only if necessary’ an unclear command?” he asked softly, again feeling the rage flow and his claws extend.
The grubby creature in front of him shook his head vehemently. “No! No, Highness. Not at all. It’s just… Larry, he got excited. Got ahead of himself.”
“And got killed for his troubles,” Brendan finished for him. “And the rest?”
Head down, the younger man sighed. “It kind of all fell apart after that. She was a lot tougher than we’d been led to believe. She sure didn’t fight like no society chick I ever seen.”
That was an interesting tidbit. “Fine. Wait in the hall. Send in the vulture.”
Driscoll entered, as attentive as ever. As minions went, he was at least prompt, courteous and occasionally worth a damn. “Highness?”
“I need you to tell me,” he paused, sighing deeply as he organized his thoughts. “Why is it, a society princess like Cora Westgate knows how to fight like she’s been in the special forces?”
“Well, she was a member of the Guard in Logistics.”
He said that like those words were supposed to go together and make sense. His brother’s girlfriend? A member of the Guard? “We talking about the same person?”
Driscoll nodded. “Yeah, about yea tall, incredible ass? Engaged to your brother?”
It was unclear to him which was more annoying: this new information or the person giving it. “I need you to find out why a glorified mailman turned socialite managed to kill no less than five of my men and then evade capture. Can you do that?”
Heels clicked together as he leapt to attention. “Of course,
Your Highness.”
“Good. Then kill the lizards on your way out, if you would.”
“Of course, Highness.”
* * *
FINN
He’d expected her to be back at the palace when he’d gotten off work, ready to rail against the unfair strictures placed upon her by having a massive royal wedding so close to a coronation. It was a daily thing for the two of them. She’d bitch about the wedding planning and he’d grumble about the coronation, and together, they’d unwind and decompress over whatever food they brought home with them.
Coming home to his empty suite was disconcerting. Not just disconcerting, jarring. Her scent was so faint, he knew she hadn’t been home all day, so where was she? He dug his phone out of his pocket and dialed the Guard house.
“Xander, have you or Dev seen Cora?”
The silence that greeted his question made his stomach drop to the floor. “...We’re on our way to you now.”
Finn stared at the blackened screen of his phone for a moment in absolute bafflement. “Because that’s not upsetting or ominous at all, really.”
The decisive knock on the interior door made him jump and he opened it to a parade of three harried and haggard birds of prey in suits. “What happened.”
His best friend passed a hand over his mouth and gestured to Xander as he threw himself into the armchair in the living room. “Cora went to her appointment today with the wedding planner, and she disappeared somewhere around noon.” The blond man looked both pissed and apologetic.
“...that doesn’t make sense. I thought she went to her brownstone after the appointment?” Raised eyebrows all around and Dev’s frantic texting set off alarm bells. “Is that not what happened? Why were there no Guards with her?”
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