by Lauren Dawes
“Apparently.”
“Well, this is great, right?”
“How do you figure?”
“Well, you were worried about monogamy. Sawyer can’t get it up for anyone else. Ergo, your problem is solved.”
“Did you just use ergo in a sentence? Also, what about the whole thing about our relationship? I don’t want to lose that and see it burst into flames in front of my eyes.”
“Oh, my God, you’re so dramatic,” she said, snorting. “It won’t. You guys are solid as you are right now. All you’re doing is adding sex to the mix. If anything, your relationship will be stronger because you have a solid base to work off.”
“I don’t know…” I hedged.
“You want to know what I think?”
I huffed out a laugh. “I have a feeling you’d tell me whether I wanted to know or not.”
“Why else would you call me to chat. I don’t think it’s your fear of ruining the relationship that’s the problem.”
I smoothed my finger over the unicorn blanket on my legs. “Oh?”
“I think you’re hesitant because of what he is.”
I said, “Well, duh. He’s an incubus.”
“He’s also a supe. You were so afraid of them before, you know, with the death of your first partner and your parents.”
“What, are you my therapist?” I shot back with a small, scared laugh.
“No, but I am your best friend. I know what makes you tick, and what’s stopping you from pursuing Sawyer is you. Do you think that if you got involved, you’d be… I don’t know… betraying humanity or some shit?”
I paused at her question, noodling over it for a moment. Was that my real issue? Was I terrified of supes to the point that I didn’t want to get involved with one? I thought back to the night Sawyer and I had finally had sex. It wasn’t out of a mutual desire that it happened, although that had helped. He had been starving—weakened from not feeding properly—and I had been helping him through that.
Helping him.
I was helping him, and that made it okay.
But what I wanted—a relationship with him—that was a purely selfish thing. I wanted to be with him because I was insanely attracted to him. I wanted to get in his pants at every available second, and the scarier thing was, he wanted that too. When I’d lusted over him from afar, it had been okay. It was one-sided. Now? Sawyer had messed things up because he wanted me back.
“Cat? You still there?” Sasha asked.
Shaking myself, I gripped the phone harder. “I’m still here.”
“Look, I have to go. Brad just walked into the room with nothing but a Santa hat on his dick, and I need to open my present.”
“Go get that dick, Sash.”
She laughed. “You, too, Cat. Love you.”
“Love you, too.”
I hung up the phone and dropped it onto the blanket. Running a hand through my hair, I let my friend’s words swirl around my head. I could admit I wanted Sawyer—to myself, to the world—and that was okay.
But before I could tackle the Sawyer situation, I needed to figure out the truth behind my hesitation. I needed to figure out who I really was and how Rogue Faction and my opal necklace played into all of it.
I needed answers, and there was only one place I could think to get them.
Leaning over to my side table, I picked up Willis’s business card and ran my thumb over the embossed number.
I dialed, then put the call on speaker.
Twelve
I organized to meet Willis Cameron in the park. I waited for him on the bench overlooking the almost completely frozen river, bundled up in a new down jacket since that psycho bitch, Kseniya, had shredded the other one with her nails. It was a peaceful winter afternoon. The sun was just starting to set, leaving the cold, crisp wind to sweep in for the late shift.
I heaved out a sigh and looked out over the river. The banks were loaded with snow, the surface on the other side frozen over. In the middle, though, the water was sluggish but still moving. Tree limbs dangled over the water, swaying their skeletal limbs gently in the breeze.
I turned when I heard the soft crunch of feet on snow, and gave Willis Cameron a smile.
“How are you, Cat?” he asked, blowing into his ungloved hands and rubbing them together. “It’s cold, huh?”
“Yeah. Thanks for meeting me.” I gestured to the seat beside me. “I appreciate you coming out.”
“Your dad was a good guy. I truly liked him.” He blew into his hands once more. “Anyway, you said you had some questions for me?”
I guessed my super vague and jumbled voicemail message hadn’t made a lot of sense. “Yes, I do. So many. I don’t know a thing about what he did. I thought my parents were archaeologists. Clearly, that wasn’t true.”
“No, it wasn’t. Members of Rogue Faction are told to use a fake profession or job in order to fly under the radar, but it has to be related to something in our pasts.”
“What’s your cover story?”
“Private security.”
Well, that made sense. I looked down at my clasped hands. “Look, I guess I need you to start from the beginning. Tell me everything you know. I feel as if I have a huge blank space in my memories, although that’s not exactly true because my parents never told me what they did.”
“All right.” He sat back on the bench and stared out at the river. Bending down, he scooped up a handful of rocks, then slowly started throwing them into the center of the water. As soon as the first stone hit the surface and the water rippled, he threw the next and the next and the next.
Six stones in total and then he sat and watched the water for a moment.
Then he started to talk in a rich baritone. “Rogue Faction was created in 1451, a year after the European Witch Hunts began. The group had started small—just a handful of people who suspected there was more in this world than what they were told. The most zealous of these members was a man called Elias Booth and a woman called Prudence Wright. They married and had children, who, when they were old enough, were indoctrinated into the Faction as well. This is how it went for hundreds of years. As the group’s members grew and multiplied in Europe, the same happened in America. The US association reached its peak number in mid-1693 at the conclusion of the Salem Witch Trials.
“After your mother died, there was a period where there was a spate of attacks by supernaturals on Rogue groups as they worked to simultaneously clear vampire kisses across Europe. Your father was the sole survivor of a particularly bloody attack that destroyed his team. He became the most zealous member after that. He was tenacious in his need to kill the supes, to the point where it eventually got him killed in Turkey.”
My fingers played with the little fabric tag on the zipper of my jacket. “I was once told that I was the culmination of two of the strongest bloodlines in Rogue Faction history.”
Willis turned to look at me slowly, and I saw the truth of it in his eyes. “Your father’s line can trace back to Elias Booth and Prudence Wright. Your mother’s to Thomas Danforth, who was a major player in the Salem Witch Trials. So, yes, you are from two of the strongest bloodlines our organization has.” He glanced away, and when he looked back, there was a strange look in his dark eyes. “They say that you are the future of Rogue Faction.”
I blinked. “I can’t be. I’m not a member.” Nor do I want to be, I tacked on in my head.
A small smile flexed his lips. “It doesn’t really matter, anyway. After your father’s death, Rogue Faction kind of dissolved. It doesn’t exist anymore, unless you count the few inactive members of us who are left behind.”
“That’s it?” I don’t know why I sounded so shocked. “So what do you do now?”
He shrugged. “This and that.”
“And the other remaining members?”
He turned his attention back to the river. “They survive how they can, but like soldiers, switching off that part of their brains that fought and hated supernaturals is dif
ficult. Some killed themselves. Some became paid mercenaries because the desire to kill was still there. Some became vigilantes and are still trying to clean up the problem alone.”
“Do you know anything else that might be important?” I clung to the idea that maybe my father had told someone where he got the necklace from, but I wasn’t stupid enough to just blurt out the question. If a witch had wanted it, if it was a conduit for power, then a group like Rogue Faction—even if it were defunct—would still want it too. Right?
He looked over at me and smiled. “I know he loved you very much. You were always on his mind, Cat.”
Warmth suffused my chest at his words. Deep down, I knew my father loved me, but after my mom’s death, he’d withdrawn so much that I hardly saw him around the apartment anymore.
“I’m glad.”
With a soft smile, he stood and brushed off his hands. “Well, I’d better get going. My wife is expecting me home.”
“You’re married?”
He nodded. Grinned. “For the past few years, yes. I finally found a woman who loves me for me… scars and all.”
And with that, he walked away. I sat there for a few more minutes, turning his words over and over in my head. My father loved me, missed me, talked about me. Draco had been right—I was the culmination of two of the strongest bloodlines in Rogue Faction history, but what did that mean for me? Clearly, the remaining members had no idea who I was, otherwise they would’ve found me by now and demanded I take over the mantel.
I burrowed my hands into the neck of my jacket and felt for my opal. It was warm against my palm, but only from the heat of my body. I let out a sigh. Willis hadn’t mentioned the stone at all, and I didn’t know why he would. It wasn’t as if he could see it to make a comment, and I was certainly leery about bringing it up in conversation. My ownership of it had caused so much trouble for me already.
That still didn’t change the fact that I needed to know about it, needed to understand it. It was the missing link in this chain. If I wanted my questions answered, I had no choice but to speak to Astrid, and speaking to the fae didn’t come without its dangers.
I would have to bargain for something in order to get out of this alive.
But what would that be?
My body ached in protest as I stood. Stretching out my arms above my head, I yawned and took a step toward the river to check out how long before the river froze over completely when the sensation of spiders crawling over my skin assaulted me.
“Oh, hell no,” I muttered, drawing back a step. The sensation didn’t stop. If anything, it got worse, and I brushed frantically at the invisible creatures crawling all over me.
I inched back another step…
… then ice cracked.
My head jerked around in the direction of the sound, my breath slowed to a barely-there stream. What the hell was going to crawl up through the ice this time? More kappas? Maybe a pissed-off water sprite. I almost laughed at that one. Water sprites were harmless, or at least I thought they were.
Idiot, I chastised myself mentally. Kappas and water sprites couldn’t manipulate Wonderland—only the fae could, and maybe also a mass-murdering witch in possession of my necklace, but as far as I knew, Kseniya was still locked up and serving multiple life sentences.
I wanted to take another step back—maybe even a couple of thousand so I wasn’t here right now, to get away from whatever fae had managed to manipulate Wonderland and let them through—but I couldn’t move. Looking down, I saw my boots and ankles were frozen in ice that was creeping up my calves right before my eyes.
My heart ratcheted up to greyhound speed.
Out on the river, a slender hand reached through the sluggish water at the edge of the ice sheet. The other joined it, and fear skittered through me. A woman—a beautiful, dark-skinned woman—pulled herself up onto the ice, completely dry. Her feral onyx eyes studied me, traveling lazily across my body like she was inspecting me for weaknesses.
“Are you Catherine Ellen McKenzie?” the woman asked in a Kathleen Turner-style smoky voice.
An involuntary shiver moved through me. “Who are you?”
The woman moved without moving—seeming to float across the surface of the ice. Her slender hips swaying beneath her black satin slip. Lifting her hand, she made a flicking motion near her head, and a black crown appeared, the surface of which was glittering with rubies so dark that they looked black too.
“I am Avi Woodbryre S’Quainforrest, Queen of Fall and Winter, and current ruler of the Unseelie Court.” She studied me with shrewd eyes. “And you may bow before me.” Another flick of her wrist, and my knees and back bent without me directing them too. With a hiss, I fell into an awkward bow. I kept my eyes on her until more pressure was directed at my head, and I lowered that too.
She kept me in that position of supplication and came closer, her feet not quite reaching the bank. I could feel her gaze on my skin, though, and my opal warmed under my jacket. I was stunned by this, considering the stone had laid quiet for so long.
“I can feel it,” she said on a low, drawn-out purr. “I can feel it calling to me like a lover.” The pressure lifted, and I looked up. The queen was willowy, her dark skin dewy with health. Her black hair fell past her shoulders, and I guessed to her lower back. She was the epitome of beauty, but I could feel the darkness lurking behind her eyes.
“What?” I bit out.
“What was stolen from me. What I want back.”
“Look, lady, I have no idea what you’re talking about—” I started.
“The stone,” she hissed, inching forward another step but not leaving the ice. “I know you have it. Kailon told me. I want it back.” Avi stared hungrily at where my opal laid beneath my clothes, her hands curling into fists repeatedly like she could feel it in her palm already.
I fought not to roll my eyes. When would all these thieving, kleptomaniac supes just leave me alone? But then I wondered why in the hell she didn’t take it right now. She was far more powerful than I was, and so far, it looked like the fae didn’t trigger my opal’s killer instincts.
“Sorry. I’m kind of attached to it,” I replied with a shrug.
“It’s mine.”
I arched a brow. “Were you raised with this sense of entitlement, or are you a narcissist?”
“I want it back!” she screeched, stamping her foot like a petulant toddler. The ice sheet she stood on cracked.
“So, why can’t you just reach out and take it?” I asked curiously.
She hissed at me, her dark irises gobbling up all the white in her eyes. “Because I am powerless to leave this nexus between our realms,” she seethed. “At least, not without my stone.”
Nexus? “I sense this is an ongoing complaint,” I deadpanned. “Look, Avi, is it? It sounds like you are out of luck, Avi.” She remained where she was, but her disdain for me was growing. I could almost taste it in the air. “And since it looks like you can’t leave the surface of the river, I’d say you are also shit out of luck.”
She watched me like a cat watching an escaping mouse, and it was driving her insane. “For this insubordination, I’ll—”
I cut her off, earning me a glare. “Look, I don’t really care what threats you fling around right now. I have enough on my plate without adding your shit to it, too.”
“You know, I’m the only thing standing between you and your destruction,” she sing-songed, and I paused.
“How do you figure?”
She smiled like the cat that got the canary. “Why do you think you’re still breathing? Kailon wants you dead.”
“Not a news flash,” I retorted.
Her lips thinned into a hard line. “Maybe not, but I’m the only reason you’re still walking this earth. I’m the one stopping Kailon from ending your life.”
“You should get that on a t-shirt,” I replied. “And while you’re at it, add I’m a fucking narcissist – just ask me along with it. Also, you should probably know, Kailon is bein
g a very bad fae and not listening to your orders. He’s already made three attempts on my life. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to get the hell out of here.”
I tried to lift one of my feet, but the ice was solid. I tried again, cursing when the ice hardened even further.
Avi’s mouth flexed into a smug smile, and she raised her palm. Bracing myself, I waited for whatever she was conjuring, but as a minute ticked by, then another, my muscles released their grip on my bones.
What the hell was she doing?
That was when I heard it.
A scraping.
A metallic groan.
Then a woman screamed. Loudly.
I spun around and gaped as my truck was skidding sideways through the park, the tires collecting snow, dirt, and gravel. The woman who had screamed was a jogger who’d been brought up short in her afternoon run by an electric blue RAM careening through a midtown park. Ah, what a story to tell the grandkids.
After blasting through a couple of park benches and a trash can, the front quarter panel and passenger door was dented and scratched, and I had to bite my tongue. The insurance company had begrudgingly covered the replacement of my last truck. Somehow, I doubted a third ‘supernatural mishap’ was going to be all right with them.
When my truck was within one hundred feet of the river, its speed increased. It was like someone had slung an invisible lasso around the middle of the bed, dragging it like it was a toy rather than an almost five-thousand-pound piece of automotive perfection. It hit the edge of the sidewalk, the tires puncturing from the lateral force, and tipped—flipping over onto its roof and sending sparks flying.
“No, no, no,” I muttered. Shoving the hair from my face, I watched in horror as it hit the ice, fracturing the semi-solid surface with a crack! Like a mythical river monster, it sank into the dark, sluggish water of the river, the bubbles breaking the surface, the only marker of the death of yet another one of my trucks.
I turned to glare at the fae queen. “What the hell did you do that for?” I yelled.
“You take something from me. I take something from you.” She shrugged, retreated a step, then she fell into the water and disappeared back into its icy depths.