by Amy Sumida
We followed the drive around to the front of the house where the horse fountain sat morosely in the center of the roundabout, shut down for winter. There were several cars parked on the circling driveway, even a couple more SUVs, but none of them were Drostan's. He parked his luxury vehicles in an enormous garage to the far left of the house. Sloane parked behind a sleek sports car that had Lord of the Wild Hunt written all over it. I'd seen Tiernan drive one just like it when we'd first met in Hawaii. Fairies love sports cars.
We had talked Daxon out of the hotel on the way there, but he conceded by saying that he reserved the right to change his mind. I was not looking forward to introducing him to Drostan. As I said, I was getting nervous. Just seeing the house was bringing back memories that I had suppressed the past few months. The one that I kept circling back to was of Drostan naked, straddling Verisande's face as she did naughty things to his ass and stroked his shaft. My body clenched as I remembered the sound of Drostan's climax and the way his stare had latched onto mine. But it was just desire, and I was a happily married woman, four times over. Love makes lust look like a pitiful beggar.
Car doors opened and then slammed shut as people began to exit the SUVs. Daxon's heat left my side as he moved for the door. When he opened it, a chill blasted me like a slap in the face. I ducked my head as I climbed out of the vehicle and when I lifted it, he was standing in the doorway—Baron Drostan Dealan, the man who believed we were destined for each other.
He looked good. Much better than when I'd last seen him. Drostan had his long, snowy hair pulled back into a ponytail, sexy in its carelessness. The swept-back style gave his face priority, showing off his exotic fey features as well as the masculine line of his jaw and nose. His honey-brown skin looked flushed, but that was probably from the cold since he hadn't bothered to put a jacket on to open the door. He stood there in jeans, boots, and a button-down shirt, watching me with his electric-blue eyes.
There was a huge group of people converging on him, but he spoke only to me, “Hello, Seren.”
“Hi, Drostan,” I said awkwardly.
Daxon's face shifted into one of his masks. He had a few he liked to use. There was the face he showed business associates, the one for fairies in the Undergrounds, and one he used when seducing me, just to name a few. This one I'd seen him wear into battle; it was a mix of I'm-gonna-kick-your-ass and you-amuse-me-little-man. Daxon took my hand and led the way to Drostan.
Before my husband could say anything, I introduced them, “Daxon, this is Baron Drostan Dealan, the man who saved my life. Drostan, this is my husband, King Daxon Tromlaighe.”
Dax grimaced at my reminder that we owed this man big, and Drostan's eyes tightened at the knowledge that this was yet another man who had me when he didn't. The men extended their hands and shook grudgingly. To call it awkward would be putting it mildly.
“Welcome to my home, Your Majesties.” Drostan waved us inside.
“Call me Daxon,” Dax growled as he stepped past.
I gave Drostan an apologetic look that he waved away. Then I got a good look at his home. We stood inside Drostan's massive, marble, two-story foyer, with a spiraling staircase in the far right corner that went up to the open landing of the second floor and also down to the basement. To our left was a dining room with a fireplace and to the right was a corridor. There was a sitting room off that corridor in which Drostan and I had shared an intimate conversation. I grimaced and looked away.
Directly ahead of me, a pair of columns marked the entrance to the main living room, and to the left of that was the kitchen which connected to the dining room. I couldn't see the kitchen, but I knew it was there, probably with Ana, Drostan's Kitsune cook, busy in it. To the right of the main living room, was a smaller living room where Drostan kept his television. It just wouldn't do to have something as crass as a TV in his main living room. Several large pieces of furniture looked familiar but other than that, the decor had changed drastically.
“You redecorated?” I asked in surprise.
Drostan flushed again and this time it wasn't from the cold. “I couldn't take the memories,” he whispered.
I wasn't sure if he meant the memories of Verisande or me, but I assumed and hoped it was Verisande. They had been together a while, and Drostan had loved her. Still, he had killed her for me. To kill one woman you love to save the one you were only attracted to, had to leave a massive scar on your heart. It was no wonder he'd changed things up a bit; he must have memories of her all over that house.
“I'm sorry,” I murmured. “Of course. How are you, Drostan?”
“I'm good,” he said crisply and stepped past us. “Would anyone like a warm beverage before we go into the operations room?”
“There's an operations room?” I glanced at Killian.
“Drostan has given us his smaller living room to work in,” Wayne explained.
“The entertainment room,” Drostan corrected with a shrug. “It's off to the right of the living room.”
“Yeah, what he said.” Wayne grinned like a man who didn't know the difference between an entertainment room and a living room but loved that there was one.
“Uh, I'd appreciate a coffee,” I said. “But my guards will need to get settled.” I waved at the pile of luggage they were carting in. “I've brought a couple more than last time. I hope you have the room.”
“There's space in the guest house; with the two beds in each of the rooms, it sleeps sixteen,” Drostan reminded me. “And there are plenty of guest rooms upstairs.” He nodded at Conri, who he'd met before. “Just leave your stuff here for now. We can deal with all that later. I imagine you'll want to take a look around the grounds.”
“Yes, Sir,” Ennis answered him.
“I'll stay with her,” Gradh, my only female knight, said to the others.
The other four knights stepped back outside while Gradh followed me to the kitchen with Drostan, my husbands, Wayne, Lance, and Extinguisher Carrie Sloane, who had driven the second SUV. As we walked, I said hello to Carrie; she'd been on the original team. I was still smiling at her when we stepped into the kitchen to find not one, but two fairies. Ana was there, her three, fluffy, fox tails curling up from beneath the hem of her modest, knee-length skirt, but there was also an Unseelie hunter at the coffee pot, refilling his mug. I recognized him before he turned around. He wasn't just a hunter but a Lord of the Wild Hunt. It looked as if the Human Council wasn't the only one who decided to send in a familiar team.
“Lord Nightblade,” I said in greeting.
Shawn Nightblade turned toward me, his green eyes lighting with pleasure, and then bowed. “Your Majesty, I'm glad you're with us. Congratulations on your reinstatement.”
“Thank you.” I glanced at Drostan pointedly to let him know that I knew he was responsible for that, and I appreciated it. “I'm glad your team is here as well. You proved yourselves very capable on the last mission.”
Nightblade inclined his head, accepting the praise gracefully. Then Killian introduced him and Ana to Dax and Gradh. We got our coffee and followed Nightblade out of the kitchen, through the main living room, and then into the room beyond. I glanced to my left at the Victorian gazebo on the balcony as we passed it. That's where I'd seen Drostan and Verisande together. I had stood right at the door, watching them like a pervert. Shivering with shame, I dragged my eyes away from the glass and steel box, determining to forget what I'd seen. Then I caught Drostan watching me, his vivid stare hot enough to make me sweat.
Shit.
I looked away from him as well, concentrating instead on my handsome husbands, one of whom had a hold of my hand again as he glared at Drostan. I pulled Daxon into the entertainment room, then gaped at the transformation. All the furniture had been moved to one side, replaced by a meeting table covered in autopsy reports, horrific photographs, and other piles of investigative detritus. A dry erase board on a stand stood next to a wall-mounted flat screen TV longer than I was tall—much larger than the dry erase boar
d. The TV was on a local news station, muted with captions, while the board had pictures taped to it and notes written around them in block letters. A group of people, both extinguishers and hunters, were gathered around the table. They all looked up as we entered the room.
“We've briefed the Ambassador on the deaths,” Wayne said. “Show her the crime scene photographs.”
“It's so nice to be included,” Daxon said dryly.
“You're not an ambassador, baby,” I winked at him as I slipped out of my coat.
“I hate to break it to you, baby,” Daxon drawled, “but this is not ambassador work.”
“It is for me.” I tossed my coat on a chair along with my purse.
“I'm so sorry. I should have offered to take your coats,” Drostan waved a hand at Dax as he shrugged out of his.
“It's fine,” I said absently as I drew back my hair and twisted the length a couple times so that it laid behind me like a ponytail.
I went to the table to look at the photographs a few of the hunters pushed together for me. The bodies looked like victims of my magic—the Firethorns. They were burned beyond recognition, just blackened husks curled into fetal positions, and the area around them was burned as well, but not as much as it should have been. Which is why I said it resembled what my magic could do. My firethorns tended to burn hot and fast, doing minimal damage to the surrounding area unless I directed it to.
“Did they have a fire expert take a look?” I asked. I looked up when I got only silence. “They being the initial crime scene investigators. Did they bring in fire engineers?”
“They did,” Wayne answered. “It was what flagged the deaths for our attention. From all appearances, an accelerator was used but no traces of an accelerant were found.”
“Your attention? I thought Drostan called everyone in?” I asked.
Wayne answered before Drostan could, “We were brought in first. I called Drostan to give him a head's up, and he offered his home for our use.”
“Then Baron Drostan called the Fairy Council,” Nightblade added with a hint of irritation.
“I was counting on him doing so,” Wayne said to the Lord Hunter. “Frankly, I didn't want to have to go through all the red tape to get you guys involved. This way, you were sent immediately, without me having to spend hours, or possibly even days, convincing the Human Council to allow you in on the case.”
Nightblade blinked, processed, and said, “My apologies, Councilman.”
Wayne grinned. “Accepted.”
“The reason I asked is that this looks like something I could do,” I interrupted the male bonding.
Everyone went silent again. I looked around the room. People were frowning and staring at the pictures.
“Fuck, anyone with strong fire magic could do that,” Conri huffed as he came into the room with a cup of coffee in his hand and Ainsley in tow.
“Did you finish your patrol?” Gradh, Conri's girlfriend demanded, her rosy-bronze sunset skin flushing into a pinker shade.
“Yeah, relax, babe. Everything's copacetic. Felix and Ennis took the first shift.”
“Okay,” Gradh muttered.
“Thanks for wanting to be near me,” Conri teased as he sidled up to her and nudged her cheek with the curve of a horn.
Conri was a fine specimen of a fey man, with a buff body, a pair of fiery eyes, and a mop of dark curls that made his curling horns look puckish. But Gradh held up an imperious hand. When she was working, Gradh didn't put up with hanky-panky.
“The adults are working,” she declared.
Killian laughed his ass off at Conri's annoyed expression.
“How strong?” I asked.
“What?” Daxon frowned, not following me.
“I'm talking to Conri,” I emphasized Con's name so he'd look at me. “How strong does a fairy have to be to do this with a fire-based mór?”
“Hell, if they were strong enough, they could do this with a beag,” Conri drawled.
Mórs, as I mentioned earlier, are the main magic a fairy has, while beags are minor, elemental magic that all fairies possess. While the strength of a mór is determined at birth and will eventually stabilize to a point where it will increase no further, beags must be learned and strengthened through training. Despite the opportunity that training gives fairies, beags are still limited by the power of the individual.
“If that was a beag, the fairy wouldn't just be powerful, they'd be talented,” Nightblade murmured.
“But it's not a beag, it's a drug, right?” Conri asked as he peered at the photos.
“It's magic inside a drug, just like Newt,” I murmured. Then I remembered the question I'd been meaning to ask. “Was Alp Luachra mucus involved?”
“Not that we can tell,” Lance Sloane said. “It appears that someone has taken the Newt formula and removed the newt.”
“Its purpose was to cause euphoria,” I said pensively. “Without it, there wouldn't be a reason for humans to take the drug.”
That sank in. I watched as everyone processed.
“You're saying that there's another aspect of the drug that makes people want to take it?” Wayne asked.
“Or these people have been forced to take it.” I tapped my mug before I set it down, replacing it with a stack of reports. “Forced or tricked.”
“What would be the point of that?” Conri asked.
“Control,” Daxon and I said together.
I grinned at my husband. Daxon had once told me that control wasn't forcing someone to their knees, it was making them want to be there. But this was about force.
“Whoever is doing this, they know that Verisande's formula gave her power over humans,” I went on. “They aren't interested in making money, at least not by selling drugs. They're trying to make an army. Either that or they simply like killing humans.”
“The violence,” Wayne whispered as he tapped a report. “We assumed it was a side-effect of the drug, but what if they're being ordered to commit crimes?”
“What sort of things have they done?” Daxon asked.
Lance Sloane answered as he flipped through a stack of reports, “They mainly attack other people but the way they do it is seriously fucked up. We're talking serial killer shit—disemboweling, dismemberment, poisoning, things like that.”
“Those things require a certain amount of reasoning,” Daxon pointed out. “They are not the spontaneous actions of someone under the influence of drugs; they are the actions of psychopaths.”
“Or of one psychopath controlling people,” Wayne said.
“We're not going to find this fairy by hunting down dealers this time,” I noted. “Instead, we need to look into what these people were doing before they became violent.”
“You heard her,” Extinguisher Sloane said. “Get busy!”
People dove for the piles of paper.
“What about a sci-psych?” I asked Wayne.
“We tried.” Wayne grimaced. “It didn't work.”
“What do you mean, it didn't work?” I asked, going still.
“The souls of the dead wouldn't come. The Sci-Psych said they were already gone.”
“All of them? Even the most recent deaths?”
“Yes.”
“Damn,” I whispered. “Has anyone spoken to my Uncle Dylan?”
“No, why?” Wayne asked.
“He was the one who first determined that Newt was made with Alp Luachra mucus; he might be able to find out exactly what this new drug is made of. Plus, we gave him those blood samples of the Newt victims,” I reminded Wayne. “He was supposed to be analyzing them to see if there was any way to counter another attack.”
“Would you mind calling him?” Lance Sloane asked. “You'll probably have an easier time reaching him.”
I sighed and groaned at the same time. “I'll need a minute.”
Chapter Six
I used my cellphone to call my Uncle Dylan even though the scry phone would have been free. Frankly, I didn't want to see him roll
ing his eyes at me. It was bad enough to have to listen to his patronizing tone. I loved him; he was one of my few relatives who hadn't tried to kill me. But Uncle Dylan was a snarky pain in the ass.
“Seren,” Duke Dylan Thorn's cultured voice filled my ear.
“Hey, Uncle Dylan,” I said, glancing over my shoulder as someone came into the room.
I froze when I saw it was Drostan. I had gone into the same sitting room where we'd once had that intimate conversation and now, it was feeling like deja vu.
“Are you going to say anything else?” Dylan prompted me.