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“I see you’re all so happy I’ve dropped by. Don’t put yourselves out. I’ll get right to the point,” the petite sorceress said, ignoring everyone except Delilah and me. “You two—and that vampire sister of yours—need to think long and hard about the wisdom of refusing to join my court. We need you, and you’re going to need us. The lines are being drawn between the Earthside Fae and the Otherworld Fae and you’d better choose your side before it’s too late.”
“Say what? Are you threatening us? And what the hell do you mean—lines being drawn? I haven’t heard anything about trouble between the factions.” I stared her down.
At first, I’d been starstruck when I met her. Now, I was over her. She was no longer the brilliant light I’d thought, but a shadowy troublemaker who kept trying to coerce us to defect from the OIA, along with our Otherworld heritage. All in order to join her court. Of course, we kept refusing and so she was thoroughly pissed at us.
“Threatening? Of course not. Why would I threaten my kin?” But her face was clouded, and she looked ready to smack me a good one. I held her gaze, not backing down. We were similar in looks—violet eyes, raven hair, but I was taller and my Fae heritage was closer to the surface than hers. On the other hand, she had eons of magic under her belt and the cloak of a queen on her shoulders.
“We’ll consider your advice.” I folded my arms across my chest. “Anything else?”
“Better not be or I’ll fry you for breakfast,” Smoky said casually, tipping his chair back so that he was balanced against the wall. “No one threatens my wife and gets away alive.” He gazed at Morgaine, an impassive look on his face.
She narrowed her eyes and though she didn’t look his way, I saw a hint of fear creep across her face. So she was afraid of dragons. Well, she’d better be. Smoky could take her down with one nasty swipe of his claws, and he had his own forms of magic to guard against hers. If it came to a showdown, my money was on Dragon Dude.
Morgaine apparently decided it was not a good day to die. She turned back to me without saying a word to him. “Let me know what you decide, but make it quick. There are currents brewing and I wouldn’t want to be caught walking between two worlds when they spill over.”
“Consider us warned.” I gently motioned to the door.
Morgaine let out a low hiss. “Stupid girls. Stupid, stupid girls. You think just because you’re fucking dragons and cavorting with demons that you’re safe? You think that having the blessing of that ancient husk of an Elfin Queen is going to offer you shelter? Think again, girls. You’re playing on the wrong side and when the fire comes bearing down, you’re going to get your fingers burned.” And with that, she swept past me and stormed out the door, slamming it behind her.
I looked back at the others. Smoky was examining his nails. Morio was finishing up his breakfast. Iris was washing the counter. Only Delilah looked at me, and her expression—a mixture of worry and irritation—mirrored my own.
“So much for that,” I finally said. “Okay, let’s go bag ourselves a goshanti devil.” But inside, I was mulling over the thought that our own kin were proving to be more problematic than the demon menace.
At least there were some things we could still control, I thought as I grabbed my capelet and headed for the car. Give me a fight with a simple demon or devil any day, over the whims of a pissed off Fae Queen.
CHAPTER 4
The air smelled of salt and woodsmoke, cedar and moss as we headed out to the car. Delilah called shotgun, so Morio climbed in the back. I tossed the bag of ritual items into the trunk and slid into the driver’s seat. As we pulled out of the driveway, Iris waved to us from the front steps. Her fair face, and the hope in her smile, reminded me once again why we did what we did. Why we stayed here and fought.
“So, you really think Nerissa has a chance of winning the council seat?” I glanced at Delilah.
“I think we’ve got the odds on our side,” she said. My sister was on the recently elected Supe Community Council and had vigorously been campaigning for Nerissa over the past few months. “If people aren’t scared off by Taggart Jones. Andy Gambit has been pushing him as the front runner in the Seattle Tattler, and all he is, is a mouthpiece for the Freedom’s Angels. We’ve been trying to find the evidence that ties them together but haven’t been able to, though we know it’s there somewhere. Jones is pushing an agenda to strip away all the rights in King County that the Fae and the Supes have won.”
“Andy Gambit has his head up his ass, or he would if I had my way,” I mumbled. Gambit was a yellow journalist with a grudge against anybody who wasn’t one of the “earthborn”—a loose faction of wacko groups who were all militantly bigoted hate mongers. I’d been on the receiving end of his barbs more than once.
“We should encourage Menolly to have a word with him.” Delilah giggled. “Of course, he’d just turn around and use it to fuel the flames.”
“And flames like that we do not need,” I said. “No, we need a more devious plan to undermine Gambit and his xenophobic pack of cronies. We’ll have to think about it for a while.”
The thought of actually toppling Gambit from his position as god of yellow journalism tickled me fuchsia. Maybe we could lure him into a compromising position and publish the pictures. Spread the love, so to speak.
Shaking away the thought until a more appropriate time, I said over my shoulder, “So, Morio, what’s the plan once we get to Harold’s?”
He leaned forward, eyes gleaming in the rearview mirror. “Scour the earth with the salt and your Tygerian well water, then exorcise the hell out of it. I’ve got the litany to free the dead memorized.”
I glanced at him through the mirror. Over the months, I’d come to realize that the youkai actually enjoyed the escalating turmoil. He wasn’t one for words, but I could smell him. Not exactly aroused, but a hint of excitement lingered in his scent. He lusted for the chase, especially when it involved magic. What scared me a little was I was beginning to notice the same reaction in myself.
Delilah must have caught his scent, too, because she glanced back at him. “Where did you first learn death magic?”
Morio remained silent for a moment. When he spoke, his words were terse. “I learned it while growing up.” He lapsed back into silence and I sidled a look at Delilah, who shrugged and went back to gazing out the window.>I raised my head, panting raggedly as Morio raked his nails—now sharp—across my thigh, and I knew he’d left welts across my skin but the pain enhanced the pleasure and I groaned loudly, willing myself to come, to soar, to fly. As he drove harder into me, his expression lost all sense of humanity as his vulpine nature emerged and passion raged across his face.
“My demon,” I whispered, tears sliding down my face from the intensity.
“Don’t forget me,” Smoky whispered behind me.
“How could I, my dragon lord? Tear me down, make me whole again.”
And then, Smoky let out a groan as he, too, started to come. His ecstasy merged with my own, our passion reacting like a creature, sentient and vibrating. It exploded in a brilliant blast of light as we shared one incredible, shattering orgasm. With one last cry, I tumbled over the edge, sobbing uncontrollably, dragging both of them into that dark void where we had been bound together forever, three souls into one, connected on all levels, for all time.
