The Loyal Friend: Unstoppable Liv Beaufont™ Book 5

by Noffke, Sarah

  “Well, I’m sure you’ll wiggle your way into their good graces and learn their craft one way or another,” John said good-naturedly.

  Liv turned to appraise her work, thinking she was nearly done with the renovations. Then she noticed a small piece of paper floating down from the high ceiling. It landed on her new coffee table with a strange popping noise.

  Unsure what this was or if it was safe to touch it, Liv took tentative steps toward the paper.

  “What it is?” John asked, eyeing it.

  “I’m not sure,” Liv stated. “It could be a trap.”

  “It’s a tiny piece of paper,” he reasoned.

  “I still can’t trust it.” She twirled her finger in the air, lifting the paper so it was even with her face. The sloppy handwriting said:

  Liv Beaufont,

  I’ve set up an appointment for your mortals to meet with Dr. Jay Dowling, the chief neuroscientist and genetic expert at UCLA.

  Your friend,

  Mortimer

  Liv grabbed the paper, a smile springing to her face. “Hey, John. Are you up for a little excursion?”

  He smiled, his eyes twinkling. “Of course. Whatever you’d like.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Liv pulled the stone from her cape that she’d gotten from Rudolf, running her forefinger and thumb over it.

  “Rudolf, you Laffy Taffy, where are you?” she asked. She closed her eyes, aware that John was looking at her.

  The fae appeared a second later with a popping noise, making her open her eyes. To her horror, he was wearing a kilt that showed way too much of his knees and thighs and no shirt.

  “Well, hello, my lovely!” Rudolf said, throwing his arms wide. “Do you need a hug?”

  Liv’s gaze flew to John, giving him an uncertain look before glaring at Rudolf.

  “I need you—”

  Rudolf put his finger to Liv’s lips, pausing her. “Shush. I don’t need you to say another word. I knew this day was coming. Dear Liv, I know you’re obsessed with me, but my heart belongs to another.”

  Liv slapped his hand away, rolling her eyes at him. “I was trying to say that I need you to bring your mortal girl-toy to a doctor with John and me. I’m conducting an experiment.”

  Rudolf considered this for a moment, obviously thrown off his game. “So you want me to bring Serena to a place with your boyfriend so we can do a little two-on-two action?”

  Liv tried as best she could to swallow the revulsion. “No, you jerk. John isn’t my boyfriend, and there will be nothing gross between us. I want to take your girlfriend to a doctor to find out why she can’t see magic but John can.” Speaking slowly, like he didn’t understand English, she said, “Do you know what I’m trying to say?”

  He nodded slowly. “Okay, so you need me to go get Serena? What should we be wearing?”

  “Well, first off, you need a shirt,” Liv stated. “I really don’t care otherwise, just cover your body. Maybe your face, too. Secondly, get her pronto, then we’re off to UCLA.”

  Rudolf shrugged, looking half-defeated. “Fine. I’ll go get her and return to you, but this sounds incredibly boring. Can we at least go to a club first? Maybe have a few Jell-O shots?”

  Liv shook her head. “The appointment is in twenty minutes. Go get the train-wreck you brought back from the dead, then I’m throwing corpse-girl through an MRI. After that, you can go back to being totally annoying and draining society of its precious resources.”

  Rudolf bowed. “I look forward to nothing more.”

  After the fae disappeared, Liv turned to John with an apologetic look. “Sorry, but I need his girl in order to create a test sample.”

  “No need to apologize,” John said dismissively. “I think Rudolf is quite entertaining. I’m looking forward to meeting his lady.”

  “Actually, I think—”

  “You little hooker, what do you want with my man?” Serena cut Liv off with a scowl, materializing in front of the Warrior with her arms crossed over her chest.

  Unlike the first and only time that Liv had seen her, the mortal’s face was full of color and her hair was styled, not plastered to her face from being submerged in a fountain. Liv gave Rudolf a disgusted glare after he stepped through the portal after Serena. Thankfully he’d put on a shirt, but he was still wearing the awful kilt that showed too much thigh.

  Liv stuck out her hand, not at all deterred by the girl’s terse insults. “Why, yes, you are quite welcome. It was my pleasure to rescue you from the bottom of a deep fountain that was protected by a deadly mermaid. You are so very welcome that I rescued you, thereby risking my very life so that you could have a second chance.”

  Serena threw her nose in the air, rejecting Liv’s offered hand. “Ru, you’re right. She’s out for you. I see it now with my own eyes.”

  Liv nodded, having expected this. “By ‘expected this,’ did you mean that I needed you and Ru to accompany me to a doctor’s office so that I can save all of the mortals from a crazy and dangerous spell?”

  Serena shivered like she was suddenly cold. “I know what you mean now, Ru. She tries to pretend she isn’t in love with you, making up reasons you should be together. I see the truth, though.”

  John stepped forward with an easy smile on his face, offered his hand to Serena, and knelt. “My dear mortal, do not worry about Liv. She isn’t after your man. I assure you that he is of no interest to her.”

  “What does the strange man mean?” Serena asked Rudolf in a whisper.

  “I think he’s saying that Liv Beaufont is gay,” Rudolf said in a stage-whisper. “That makes sense. It explains why she has shied away from me and my advances.”

  Serena shot him a heated glare.

  “I meant before your heart was beating, of course,” Rudolf added hastily. “I only ever fooled with other women when you were dead. And Liv wouldn’t have any of it because of her sexual orientation.”

  “That isn’t it,” Liv stated indifferently. “I like men.”

  “When she says men, she means girls who are not you,” Rudolf stated.

  “I don’t,” Liv countered.

  “And she’s married to her job, and wouldn’t notice a good man if he slapped her in the face.”

  “If he did, I’d put him in a headlock and ensure he could never father children,” Liv remarked.

  Rudolf chuckled. “You see what I mean, Serena? She’s rough around the edges. Probably never going to attract a lover, whether she figures out her sexual orientation or not.”

  Liv sighed. “My sexual orientation, straight or not, is none of your business.”

  “Oh, magicians are always so limited, thinking they must choose only one sexual orientation. Am I right?” Rudolf asked John.

  Liv’s friend didn’t at all seem receptive to the question. Instead, he simply averted his eyes, looking to Liv to rescue him from the fae.

  “Okay, we’ve got an appointment to get to, and I need you all to behave,” Liv ordered.

  “No problem, boss,” John said, saluting.

  Liv shook her head at him. “I’m not talking to you. I was referring to Rudolf and his corpse bride.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The foursome stepped through the portal outside the doctor’s office. Although Dr. Jay Dowling was the leading expert in genetics and neuroscience in the country, Liv was unsure if this was even a viable option to find out about the mortals. She had no reason to believe there would be any differences between John’s and Serena’s brains based on the fact that he could see magic and she couldn’t—although she was pretty certain that Serena’s brain scan would come back showing that her head was full of rocks.

  Thank goodness she’s pretty, Liv thought, waiting for the mortal to step through the portal after John. She tripped after exiting the portal and would have fallen if she hadn’t been holding Rudolf’s hand.

  “How did I get here?” she asked, spinning around and staring blankly at the area where the portal had been.

&nbs
p; “You came through a portal,” Liv explained, pointing. “Can you see it?”

  Serena shook her head. “There’s nothing there.” She turned to face Rudolf. “Is that vixen messing with me? Is there really something there?”

  “I assure you that there is,” John stated, answering for the fae.

  Rudolf nodded, putting his arm around Serena’s shoulder. “Liv Beaufont lies about many things, but in this case, she isn’t.”

  “What are you talking about?” Liv asked, her tone full of offense.

  Rudolf held up a finger. “You lied about your age, for starters.”

  “I’ve never lied about my age,” Liv argued.

  “Remember, you told me that you were only twenty-two, but you look so much older.”

  Liv let out a slow, deliberate breath.

  Rudolf continued to tick off things using his fingers. “And then there are your lies about not having an obsession with me. Oh, and remember that time you lied to Queen Visa about giving her your blood?”

  “So that she wouldn’t kill me?” Liv shot back brightly.

  “There’s always an excuse for people like you,” Rudolf stated. “And don’t forget that time that you told that club full of people that you were Billie Idol?”

  Liv rolled her eyes. “That was you.”

  “And I won’t even go into the things that you’ve said while under oath,” Rudolf continued.

  Liv turned to John, giving him a sympathetic expression. “Jerkface has this problem where he projects his own lies and deceit onto other people. It’s sort of adorable if you like horrible soulless people who have zero tact and suffer from delusions.”

  “It’s very entertaining,” John agreed with a smile.

  Liv opened the door to the modern doctor’s office. Since Dr. Dowling was an elf, she expected there to be incense burning and prayer flags hanging from the ceiling. Many of the elves she’d met were disgusting hippies who didn’t work when Mercury was in retrograde or during the summer equinox or on the day of their monthly bath.

  Authoritatively, Liv pointed to a set of chairs, ordering the group to take a seat while she checked them in at the front desk.

  “The doctor will be right with you,” the secretary said once Liv had written down their names and magically filled out John’s and Serena’s paperwork. Thankfully she was a mortal and didn’t ask any questions about the quick turnaround. Knowing that answers were important, Liv was going to have to confide in Dr. Dowling, but she had a plan for how to deal with him afterward. She knew that too many people having the information would lead to her funeral. That was why she wasn’t taking any chances.

  When Liv took a seat, Serena was scowling at her from the other side of the waiting room. Ignoring her, she pulled out Mysterious Creatures, taking the opportunity to read up more on werewolves or whatever other chapter the strange book served up.

  The book surprisingly fell open to a page on fae. It read:

  The fae, although they appear as dense as pound cake and just as ill-equipped to deal with life’s challenges due to their superficial nature, are an incredibly adept race that is better suited for surviving harsh conditions than most. They are fairly difficult to kill due to their genetic structure, which can amend to heal them when injured or cure them if they happen to contract a disease.

  Liv peered over her book at Rudolf, who had his feet propped up on the coffee table beside him and was reading a children’s book upside-down. Serena’s head was lying in his lap and she had a serious expression on her face as he read from the pages, his voice too loud, making many of the mortals in the waiting room shoot him annoyed expressions. As usual, he’d glamoured his wings so he blended in with the mortals. Well, aside from being drop-dead gorgeous and completely irritating.

  “Although Teddy didn’t want to go to bed when his mother told him to, he knew he had a big day coming up. So he put on his pajamas and—”

  “Hey, Dumbface,” Liv said, cutting him off. “Keep it down over there.”

  Serena shot her a scathing look. “Would you not interrupt? We’re in the middle of a pivotal part of the story.”

  “They all die,” Liv said dryly, pulling Mysterious Creatures back up to read.

  It figured that the fae were incredibly difficult to kill. Otherwise, Rudolf would have been dead a long, long time ago.

  The fae do have some weaknesses that their adversaries can exploit in order to weaken them. However, the best defense against a fae is another fae. Whereas magicians and elves struggle to penetrate their tough exterior, another fae has little problem getting past these shields. It is for this reason that the fae rarely battle one another, knowing that the biggest weakness to their brand of magic is one of their own. The fae have little history of civil war because of this fact, knowing that if they turned on one another, they would be extinct in no time.

  “The doctor will see you all now,” the secretary said from the open door to the back rooms.

  Liv rose, corralling the others and thinking of the strange information she’d just read. What was even more peculiar to her was that the book had served up that particular chapter. Rory said it gave the reader what they needed to know about at that specific moment. Did the book know that Liv wanted to kill Rudolf? Sadly, it seemed that battling him to the death would be extremely difficult.

  Ironically, Liv and Rudolf were escorted to a cramped office while John and Serena had their MRI scans. She would have been content to sit quietly, continuing to read Mysterious Creatures. However, Rudolf apparently despised quiet, and promptly summoned a paddle ball and began knocking the thing around, sending the ball on its rubber band dangerously close to her. It was like the universe was trying to tempt Liv to kill the fae.

  “Do you mind?” she asked after he’d almost hit her a third time.

  He shook his head. “Not at all.”

  Liv let out a sigh and turned a page, not having read it.

  “What do you think the meaning of life is, Livy?” Rudolf asked with a bad attempt at giving her a nickname.

  “Pain,” she said at once. “We’re all here to see how much of it we can endure and, in your case, it’s how much you can cause others by way of continuous irritation.”

  He nodded like this made sense. “I agree. I think it’s love too.”

  “After this, let’s take you to an ear doctor,” she suggested.

  “I was thinking the same thing,” he said, paddling the ball harder. “Ice cream would really cheer Serena up.”

  Liv lowered the book. “Seriously, are you drunk? On drugs? What’s your deal today? I mean, more so than other days.”

  Rudolf stopped paddling. “Thanks so much for asking about my well-being. I do have something on my mind.”

  “That’s not what is happening here,” Liv stated.

  As if he didn’t hear her, Rudolf continued, “I’m thinking of asking Serena to marry me, but I’m nervous she’ll say no.”

  “You brought her back from the dead.”

  “I know, but I worry that it wasn’t enough,” Rudolf said, leaning forward and placing his elbows on his knees.

  “Ummm…you gave up a hundred years of your life for that hussy. I think you’re good.”

  “So you think we should get married, then?” Rudolf asked.

  “I absolutely don’t give a damn either way.”

  Rudolf nodded. “I know. It must be awkward for you, with all your pent-up feelings for me.”

  “Nope. Not an issue. Just promise me you’ll never breed.”

  “Speaking of which,” Rudolf said with a smile. “If I do ask Serena to be my wife and she says yes by some miracle—”

  “Again, without you, she’d be dead.”

  “Not everyone is like you, swayed by such small acts of affection,” Rudolf said with a huff. “Really, it’s no wonder you don’t have a man. You have to make them try harder.”

  “Wow, why haven’t you opened up a counseling business?” Liv asked, with zero inflection.

&n
bsp; “Anyway, as I was saying, if Serena accepts my proposal…well, I know this will be strange, but I was hoping that you’d be my best man at the ceremony.”

  Liv shook her head. “Nope. I can’t. I’m busy that day.”

  Rudolf frowned. “We haven’t set a date yet. She hasn’t even said yes yet.”

  “She will, and it doesn’t matter what the date or time is. I can’t make it because you two getting married will make me want to vomit.”

  Rudolf nodded in understanding. “Jealousy is toxic. It will make you sick. But I can’t get married without you by my side. You’re my oldest friend.”

  Liv tilted her head and furrowed her brow. “We’ve only known each other for a couple of months.”

  “I know!” Rudolf exclaimed. “And yet, you’re like the sister I never had. You’re like one of my cousins, except that we’ve never slept together.”

  “Okay, I seriously need a barf bag,” Liv said, covering her mouth from repulsion.

  “So does that mean you’ll do it?” Rudolf asked.

  Liv shook her head. “No, but I’ll send you a second-hand clock radio I repaired that gets horrible reception and only plays AM as a wedding present.”

  Rudolf beamed. “I absolutely adore you too. And don’t worry, I won’t tell Serena about that one time that you kissed me.”

  “Nope,” Liv said at once. “That was you kissing me, and I punched you in the face.”

  Rudolf held his hands to his chest and gazed at her fondly. “I treasure that memory more than all the rest, too. Well, until we start vacationing together and spending every single holiday with each other.”

  “I. Cannot. Wait,” Liv said as the nurse entered the room.

  “The doctor is ready to see you all now,” she stated.

  Liv stood, hoping this trip hadn’t entirely been a waste of time and brain cells.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Dr. Jay Dowling didn’t look like any of the elves Liv had met so far. He resembled Santa Claus, with his white beard, bald head and round belly. However, he appeared quite serious, unlike Saint Nick, when she took a seat in front of his desk. She’d left John with the awful job of having to watch Rudolf and Serena while they read children’s books and braided each other’s hair in the waiting room.