And she would have her mug back.
“Huh-uh,” said Daniel, who held her firmly in place by the upper arm. “You stay here,” He released her, and he and his motorcycle boots strode confidently across the kitchen toward the broom closet.
Lily watched him go for a moment, admiring the view from behind before the kitchen disappeared from Lily’s view to once more be replaced by a scene of red and darkness.
Blood. That’s what she was seeing. It was everywhere. And smoke…. There was a crackling sound. She heard screaming, blood-curdling and desperate, heard someone crying next, and terror ripped through her to sever her spirit like a scythe. Vaguely, she felt herself going down. The ground was drawing near. She was weightless, slowly sinking, drowning in a sea of fear.
“Mama!”
The red and the darkness grew, spacing out the rest of the world until they moved beyond her perception, blurred away, and just like that, were gone.
As the nightmare left her, she became aware that she’d stopped falling. She felt Daniel’s arms around her, strong, secure bands of steel, and a moment later, she was forcing her eyes open to gaze up at him once more.
She was lying across his lap where he knelt in the glass upon their kitchen floor. He was either unaware of the shards slicing into his knees, or he couldn’t be bothered to pay them heed. As they had always been, his piercing blue eyes were filled with care only for her.
He didn’t have to ask her what she had seen. Her cheeks were wet; she’d been crying. Only seconds into the vision, and she was bawling.
But she shook her head as another sob escaped her. “I don’t know!” she cried. “I don’t know what it is! I can’t see it clearly! But it’s horrible, Daniel!”
Daniel drew her into him, cradling her against his chest with strong arms that shielded her from the rest of the world. She felt his lips against her forehead where he left a kiss, and she heard him whisper softly. “Shh. It’ll be okay.”
“No it won’t,” she told him as calmly as she could. She wasn’t just arguing, and she wasn’t being difficult or overly emotional. She was saying this because that was just it. If her vision had told her anything at all, it was only that someone – someone close to her, most likely – was absolutely not going to be okay.
Daniel was quiet for a long while. When he spoke again, it was directed at their son. “William, go put your shoes on.”
Lily heard her son hesitate. Rather, she failed to hear him walk away.
“Now.” Her husband’s voice brooked no argument.
Lily heard William scuffle quickly toward his bedroom. When an alpha wolf commanded you to do something, you did it. Perhaps it was why Daniel Kane was so successful as the police chief of Baton Rouge.
She felt him move against her and knew he was looking back down at her again. “We’ll speak with Lalura,” he told her.
His grip on her tightened, and he picked her up as he stood, taking her easily out of the danger of the kitchen. He set her down on the overstuffed sofa, where he then took her hands in his and held them tight.
She stared into the oceans of his eyes.
“We’ll figure this out.”
Chapter Two
Jesse sat back in his chair at the end of the table. Opposite to him, at the other end of the round polished mahogany, sat Roman D’Angelo, the Vampire King.
The table was much smaller than the one they normally sat at, as there were only four of them present at this smaller meeting. To Jesse’s left sat the Seelie King, Avery. Across from him sat his brother, Caliban. The two sidhe kings wore identical rings that protected them from the iron so prevalent in modern day society. The rings allowed them to meet in the larger cities it was sometimes necessary to gather in. Iron was caustic to the fae.
Jesse had once referred to them as “fey” – “f,e,y.” However, since being drawn into the fold of the thirteen supernatural factions, he’d learned a few things, including the spelling preferred by the fae kingdoms themselves.
The fae were nearly always highly attractive, conforming to the ideals that mortals had grown to idolize: tall, slim, thick shining hair, vividly colored eyes. Avery and Caliban were the epitome of this rule.
Both men were well above average height, possessed the kinds of builds associated with athletes and models, and had faces that made women double-take and swoon – strong chins, chiseled cheek bones, perfect teeth, eyes unlike any on Earth.
The two exuded enormous amounts of power, but Caliban’s was very obviously… darker.
Appearances aside, the Unseelie King reminded Jesse a lot of a werewolf he’d once known – one he had very much despised. There was that same ruthless glint to his piercing eyes, and that same slightly cruel turn of his lips. However, where Gabriel Phelan had been what crazy is to evil, the Seelie King was anything but. He was calculating, yes. Cold, perhaps. But Caliban was very much in control of his faculties. Which admittedly made him all the more dangerous.
He played his hand close to his chest, and Jesse could never guess what the man was thinking. But one thing Jesse had to admit he could say about the dark fae king was that Caliban was loyal to the other sovereigns, especially to the Seelie King. Jesse had to respect that. It was important to know when someone had your back.
Avery and Caliban were photo-negatives of one another. The Unseelie King had eyes of a vivid purple flecked with sparks of emerald. His brother’s were exact opposites, piercingly green embedded with flakes of shimmering amethyst.
While the Unseelie King’s hair was raven black and meticulously groomed, Avery’s was quite blonde, and Jesse was pretty sure the man had never had a professional haircut in his life. Where Caliban chose to wear suits woven of the finest material and sewn by the world’s most famous tailors, Avery was laid back in jeans and a tee-shirt. Their modes of living and transportation differed as well; Caliban used a car and driver, while Avery turned the throttle on a motorcycle. The fact that iron was caustic to him hadn’t stopped him from riding; he’d simply created a set of wheels constructed of pure platinum.
Fit for a king.
Fortunately, most people couldn’t tell the difference between steel and platinum, and a magical spell had not only created, but protected the bike anyway.
Caliban stayed in the penthouse suites of five star hotels. But Jesse happened to know from personal experience that Avery tended to bed down wherever there was room available at the time. He’d even wound up on Jesse’s couch once.
That had been one hell of a night.
It took a lot to get a werewolf drunk, especially a former enforcer like Jesse, and most especially an enforcer who’d become the Werewolf Council Overseer. Jesse had never thrown back so much Everclear in his entire life. And Avery’d matched the drinks bottle per bottle.
Avery never put on airs, even though he had every right to. It was almost as if he were either totally unaware or uncaring that he possessed the vast stores of power he did. Caliban, however… well, again, he played his cards close to his chest. He was a mystery.
“Twelve werewolves total,” Jesse said, in summation of his report and the reason he’d attended the small meeting. “Three in Oregon, two in Washington, six in California, and one in Mexico. All were female and barely aware of their powers since the Curse was lifted. All were killed the same way, heads taken off, bodies drained of blood.”
There was no way in hell Jesse thought Roman D’Angelo and his vampire nation had anything to do with the sudden rash of werewolf deaths. However, Roman had a brother – and it had been made more than clear that Rafael D’Angelo’s reach was vast, and his thirst for blood far from quenched. What Jesse couldn’t understand was why he would target werewolves. Surely he had to know that it would bring Jesse and his people into the fight against him – a battle any intelligent vampire would not want on his hands.
And that’s why Jesse was here. The fae kings were here for another reason, but one equally important and for all they knew, possibly related.
&
nbsp; “He must be insane,” said Avery, “starting a war with the wolves.”
“My thoughts exactly,” said Roman, who also sat back in his chair and had his fingers steepled beneath his chin. “But there in lies the conundrum.” He un-steepled his hands, and gracefully rose from his chair. He paced to the windows of the high-rise office they were using at the moment, and peered out over the world beyond. “I already know that my brother has lost his mind. He is mad. But this is a different kind of insanity.” He turned back to face the other three. “And one not like him.”
“You mean his fight is with you, not with us, and he knows it,” suggested Avery.
Roman nodded.
“Not only that, but in doing this, he has depleted his resources,” said Caliban. “Twelve werewolves have been slaughtered, but they didn’t go down without a fight.”
“No, they didn’t,” agreed Jesse. “My men confirm that five vampires were also killed, along with numerous human vampire servants.”
Caliban cocked his head to one side. “Five down. That’s not negligible, and from what we’ve seen of Rafael, it doesn’t seem like his M.O.”
“Are you suggesting this isn’t Rafael’s doing?” Jesse asked.
“No,” said Caliban. “I’m suggesting his M.O. may have changed.”
“Anything is possible,” Roman said. “But it still doesn’t answer the question of why.” He returned to his seat and leaned forward, folding his fingers together on the table top.
Roman’s expression darkened. “On another note, how is the Seer doing?”
Jesse knew that Roman was referring to Lily Kane. The wife of the alpha werewolf, Daniel Kane, had recently decided to go vegetarian. Again.
She’d been one prior to being turned into a werewolf, however wolves were carnivores, and meat was a necessary part of a werewolf’s diet. Lily did not come by this decision lightly. It effected not only her, but everyone around her. Not the least of which was her husband, Daniel Kane.
Frankly, it worried Jesse. Lily Kane was rare and precious to their kind, a seer of immense and growing abilities, and she had a beautiful son who worshipped every breath she took. Her husband, the police chief of Baton Rouge, was one of their stronger alphas, filling out the ranks of those among them Jesse considered their veritable army. If something happened to her, it would work as a domino effect, pulling everyone down around her.
But she had her reasons, and Jesse could only admire them. Lately, redneck idiots in several Midwest states had gone on a wolf-killing rampage, destroying hundreds of gray and red wolves in days flat. In one state, the killing was legally validated by passed bills, and number had gone from almost a thousand to less than a hundred wolves in no more than a week. Pictures of men wearing KKK masks and toting guns and American flags had gone viral online, confusing the matter with strange and inappropriate insinuations of patriotism mixed with racism and animal cruelty.
Like most people, Lily knew that the majority of these men were ranchers or elk hunters, or tied to one of the two in some way. Elk hunters wanted the number of elks to remain unnaturally high, and the only way to do that was to conversely make the number of wolves unnaturally low. Lily couldn’t do much about this part of the equation except ask her wolf friends to stop eating elk. Which they almost never did anyway, so that wasn’t an issue.
But the only way to stop the ranch-born slaughter of wolves was to stop supporting the ranchers. And the only way to do that was to stop consuming the meat that came from their land. That much, she could do.
“She is a strong woman,” said Jesse. “And her mind is set. She figures that if she can show people even a carnivore can go meatless, all the omnivores on the planet will think twice about their need for meat.”
“I think she’s fighting a losing battle,” said Avery. “For one thing, humans don’t know werewolves exist. So they’re not going to care whether werewolves need meat or not.”
“He’s right,” agreed his brother. “And even if they did, humans will never see non-humans as anything but chattel.” His eyes flashed, and his look darkened. “Much as the fae consider most mortals.”
Avery met his brother’s gaze and straightened. But he retained enough grace and honesty not to contest Caliban’s words. He knew it was true; the look on his face said as much.
Everyone was silent for a moment. Then Roman leaned back and took a deep breath. “Tell Lily that I support her decision, and she has Evie’s support as well.”
Jesse nodded.
“Then we’re on to our next order of business.” Roman glanced over at Avery, and then at Caliban. “You’ve decided what you’re going to do about the Trystaine twins?” Roman asked.
Avery spoke up. “As you know, our initial reaction last night upon hearing about them was to immediately charge in and see to the women ourselves,” he said. “But as you also know… we stopped just short of doing that.”
He looked at his brother. “Damon has assigned a few trusted goblins and elementals to watch over them on an immediate basis while we determine how best to handle this. It might be a much more dimensional situation than it seems at first glance.”
“In other words,” said Caliban, his accent preternaturally old and hard to place. There was a darkness to his satin tone that was nearly tangible. “It might be a trap.”
Avery nodded. “Any manner of magics can be used to cloak an individual in an air of the fae kingdom. It’s entirely possible what you experienced with Miss Trystaine was something of the sort, simply placed upon her in order to lure my brother and I into a deadly situation.”
Avery and Caliban were not technically brothers, if blood had anything to do with brotherhood. But Jesse was well aware that it did not. They were as close as brothers would ever be, and they’d considered themselves as such for millennia. And it was almost downright creepy the way their eyes were so oppositely similar. They may as well be blood brothers.
“We’ve decided to keep as close an eye on the sisters as we can without fully appearing to them ourselves,” said Caliban. “We will be using the knights.”
Jesse felt a hitch in his memory. He processed the word again, and then there was a kind of rewinding in his brain, a traveling back through time over everything he had learned from the other kings.
That he could recall, the knights were not a species of the fae, strictly speaking. It was more complicated than that. They were also sometimes referred to as the Lords and Ladies, and normally both dreaded and worshipped by the mortal realm. There was good reason for this.
There could only be so many knights in existence at any given point in time, seven for each of the fae rulers – the Seelie, the Unseelie, and the Goblin. A lady was created for a queen, a lord for a king. “Knight” was a gender-neutral reference to both.
A knight was a fae who possessed a piece of its sovereign, a sliver of its king or queen’s spirit. It was enough that the ruler was capable of seeing what they saw, and of feeling what they felt. The spirit of the king or queen would guide the knight’s every move and thought.
Almost nothing a fae king or queen could do was more draining, naturally. A part of the sovereign would be taken from them to create this knight. If Jesse recalled correctly, it was something reserved solely for times of war, in fact. And hadn’t been used in thousands of years.
It was a while before Roman spoke. But when he did, his voice had lowered. He leaned forward, his hypnotic gaze penetrating. “Are you certain?”
“I believe I speak for us both when I say that while neither Avery nor I are keen on walking into our own deaths,” said Caliban, his lips curled slightly at the corner, and an unsettling light flashed in his purple-emerald eyes, “we also don’t want any other man anywhere near the women who might be our queens.”
“In the meantime, we’ve also assigned court members to deal with several possible threats from within our own ranks,” said Avery. “The fact that a ka was able to follow Damon into his own realm has not gone unnoticed.”
/> “The fae realms are potentially devastating in their power,” said Caliban. “Gaining access to or any power over any one of them would be at tremendous boon for Kamon, and an even greater blow to us.”
Avery met his gaze, and a flash of light lit up the emeralds of his eyes. “You dealt with the unicorns, right?” he asked his brother, obviously turning to a more personal matter.
Caliban waited a moment, and smiled a cocky smile. “Let’s hope so.”
“The unicorns?” Jesse asked. He just had to. He was totally flummoxed.
Caliban regarded him. “Unicorns, Mr. Graves, are highly deadly creatures, violent and deceptive, cunning and cruel to the core.”
Everyone at the table was silent. Jesse felt like he’d been sucker punched. “You serious?”
“Perfectly,” said Caliban. Jesse’s eyebrow lifted.
Avery made a derogatory sound and leaned forward toward Jesse. “Trust me, Jess,” he said, shaking his head. “Unicorns are real bastards. And if you’d ever met one personally, you would know what I mean.”
Chapter Three
Selene ducked her head beneath a cloud of cigarette smoke as she made her way down the busy Oxford sidewalk toward the bus stop. She tucked her single key into her purse as she did, being careful not to touch the metal and to keep her fingers on the rubber casing she’d applied to it. Her skin had always reacted badly to some kinds of metal; it was an allergy she shared with her sister.
A few steps later, she moved to the right to avoid another cloud of smoke. This one seemed to almost be directed at her as the smoker lifted his head and blew the white-gray poison directly in her path. But she managed to just miss it.
The third cloud of smoke, she was not able to escape, and a blob of air-borne toxins made it into her nostrils, her mouth, and eyes. She inhaled partway, caught herself, and held her breath.
The sun flashed in her eyes, the heat swam over her head, heavy and oppressive, and the beginnings of a headache took hold at the base of her skull.