CHAPTER 29
They found Squick pinned to the floor where Graham had lain. Fiona had more than enough magic now to heal the alpha Lupine as well. Once he was back on his feet, Squick groaned and spit out a mouthful of fur and immediately began talking. Everyone seemed in too good a mood to correct him when he narrated the whole story of the battle for Tess and Missy. Not even when he got to the part where he jumped on Dionnu’s back and held him still so “the princess could hits him with the big love whammy.”
They all just laughed.
“I’d have been doomed without Walker and the rest of you there,” Fiona said from her perch in her mate’s lap on Vircolac’s library sofa. “And Squick.” She winked at the imp. “But frankly, I’m just glad it’s over.”
“We all are.” Rafe looked over at Rule. “And no matter how you protest that you were useless in the end, I still think we all owe you a debt of gratitude. As well as an apology.”
Tess shot her mate a superior glance. “Some of us have nothing to apologize for because we didn’t automatically assume anyone from Below must be up to no good.”
Rule laughed. “No one needs to apologize. I only played a small part in tonight’s events. And I’m afraid I still have work to do. I didn’t see any evidence that the other demons Dionnu summoned were returned to their homes. If they’re still here Above, I need to find them.”
“If there’s anything the pack can to do help,” Graham offered, “you only have to ask.”
“Speak for yourself,” Walker said, grinning. “Did I mention I’m going to be taking some vacation time in the immediate future?”
Graham looked at his beta and raised an eyebrow. “And here I was going to offer you the chance to take over my place guarding the negotiations.”
“Right, because I just would have jumped at that chance. Sorry, Cuz, but I’ve got better things to do with my time than listen to those squabbles.”
“So do I,” Graham muttered.
“Oh, I wouldn’t worry, old friend,” Rafe drawled, stretching out his long legs and grinning in satisfaction. “I think you will get a vacation of your own before the year is out.”
Fiona looked at him, surprised. “Really? Things are going that well?”
“Very nearly. The first agreement has been signed and ratified. We are over the first hurdle, and as you might expect, the first is always the largest.”
“Congratulations,” she said, meaning it sincerely. “That’s a hell of an accomplishment. One for the history books. Literally.”
Tess grinned. “Stop, before the praise goes to his head. This is the result of the hard work of a hell of a lot of folks, not just my oh-so-talented husband.” She squeezed said husband’s knee and turned her attention back to Walker and Fiona. “So where are you going on this vacation of yours?”
“We got a message through to Aunt Mab from Dionnu’s apartment,” Fiona said, grinning. “He had a scrying mirror of his own, it turns out. Even though he cut everyone else off from Faerie, he wanted to be able to keep his eye on things there. Anyway, she’s invited us to visit, so I’m taking Walker home to meet the family.”
Missy looked intrigued. “Are you going to be staying long?”
Fiona laughed. “Not on your life! She seemed to think that with Dionnu dead, I was going to come home and assume his place on the Unseelie throne.”
“But it turns out I’m allergic to palaces.” Walker grinned.
“I’ve never wanted to be part of the whole political life at court. I told my aunt that if she wanted to reward us for taking care of Dionnu, she could give me a lifetime supply of Faerie wine to take care of this pesky little difference in life spans we have to deal with. The Fae only get tipsy from drinking it, but mortals get extended longevity. Dionnu had plenty of other nieces and nephews. They can duke it out to see who gets his throne.” Fiona looked at Rule. “Aunt Mab did mention, though, that she also wants you to know that if you need help, you can call on her.”
“The only help I would ask for is that you continue to conceal my presence as well as that of the fiends from the humans. My work and my life will be a lot easier if they know nothing of us.”
Rafe sighed. “I’ll do what I can, but I’m afraid one thing the Council of Others never considered was how our coming out to the humans would affect those Below. I have to apologize for that, as well. I’m afraid it’s only a matter of time before the humans will realize they have more to deal with than just shapeshifters and vampires.”
“You can’t stop the march of time.” Rule shrugged. “I’ll take whatever assistance you can give, and when the time comes that the humans find out about us, we will deal with it. At least I can go back Below and tell my people that we should begin to prepare.”
“Trust me.” Graham scowled, his opinion of the human side of the negotiations clear. “There are some things you can never prepare for.”
Fiona laughed and looked up at her mate, who returned her laugh with a grin.
“I’ll second that,” he said. “Some things just take you by surprise.”
“And sometimes,” Fiona said, reaching up to kiss him, “those are the very best things of all.”
Read on for a sneak peek at
Christine Warren’s next book
THE DEMON YOU KNOW
Coming soon from St. Martin’s Paperbacks
Abby scrambled quickly to her feet, not thrilled about the positioning of two strange women towering over her. “Are you two… Others?”
“Lupines,” Samantha said, softly, as if she were breaking some bad news. “Werewolves. We’re both members of the Silverback Clan.”
Was that whooshing sound Abby suddenly heard the sea, she wondered, or was all of the blood rushing out of her head?
She was talking to a couple of werewolves.
“It’s okay. We realize we take some getting used to for most humans, and you haven’t known about us long. But we honestly aren’t going to hurt you. We just wanted to make sure you were okay.”
Abby shifted her weight and tried to smile back. “No, I’m sorry. I can only imagine what my face must have looked like. It’s just… you’re the first were-lupines I’ve met. Since the announcement, anyway. I was a little surprised.”
“We get that a lot.” Carly shoved her hands in the pockets of her coveralls and raised an eyebrow. “So now that you know what we are, why don’t you tell us what you are?”
Abby blinked. “Say huh?”
Samantha glared at her friend, then turned back to Abby with a reassuring smile. “Carly doesn’t mean to be rude. She’s just curious. We both thought you were human at first.”
Okay, when had Abby’s life turned into a B-rated horror movie? “I am human.”
“Know many other human women with no muscle tone to speak of who can toss a grown man fifty feet by accident?” Carly looked torn between amusement and skepticism.
“I work out,” Abby protested.
“It’s okay. We understand about anonymity.” Samantha reached out and patted her hand. “We’re not going to out you against your will.”
This just kept getting weirder. “No, you don’t understand. I have nothing to out. I’m human. I’m even straight! I don’t have anything to hide.”
“Of course not,” Carly agreed cheerfully. “You’re just the human girl next door. Absolutely.” The Lupine grinned. “Provided the girl next door has a black belt and superhuman strength, speed, and agility.”
“Carly, you’re scaring her.” Samantha’s eyes searched Abby’s face, golden brown and filled with concern. “You honestly don’t know what’s going on, do you?”
Abby’s laugh sounded close to hysterical, even to herself. “Haven’t a clue. Unless this is all really a nightmare, and I’m just dreaming that I’ve entered the Twilight Zone “
Carly shook her head. “Sorry, sweetie. Rod Serling is dead. I’m afraid this is the real thing.”
“I can’t believe this is happening,” Abby muttered, mostly to herself. “When I woke up this morning, I was human. And boring. Somebody pinch me.”
Samantha’s smile was sympathetic. “How about we go with something a little less painful?”
“Frontal lobotomy?”
The Lupine laughed. “I was thinking we could go see some friends of mine. They’re a lot better at unraveling mysteries than we are. I’m sure they could help us figure out what’s going on.”
Abby had a sudden vision of standing in the middle of a room full of unfamiliar people, each of whom was leaning close and trying to sniff her. She shifted uncomfortably. “I don’t know…”
“We already promised not to hurt you,” Carly said. “I’m not sure you’ll get the same offer from them.” She jerked her thumb in the direction of the crowd of protesters. While the three women had been talking, the crowd had begun to drift closer to them, and they didn’t sound any friendlier than they had an hour ago.
“They’ve already seen you with us,” Samantha pointed out.
Abby felt that sinking feeling again. “But they don’t know you’re werewolves,” she protested, not sure if she believed herself.
“They do now.”
Impatient and impulsive, Carly took a deep breath and shifted right in front of Abby’s eyes. Abby’s and the entire crowd’s. One minute, she was a short, moderately attractive blonde, and the next, the air around her seemed to pulse and shiver and in her place stood a huge, rangy wolf with sandy-blonde fur and challenging brown eyes.
Beside her, Abby heard Samantha swear. “Oh, shit! RUN!”
The demon called Rule shifted restlessly in his chair in the library at Vircolac and struggled not to look as impatient as he felt. Judging by the grin on Rafael De Santos’s face, he was failing miserably.
“Believe me,” the Felix said, swirling a brandy snifter lazily in one elegant hand, “it’s not that I don’t sympathize with your predicament. I do. Completely. It’s just that after the past six weeks, it is so refreshing to be listening to someone else’s problems for a change.”
“Your problems were of your own making. Had you truly wished to remain hidden from the humans, I am sure you could have found a way.”
Rule knew the accusation was unfair, but he wasn’t in the mood to play fair. He wasn’t in the mood to play at all.
Draining his brandy without so much as a blink, Rule debated for a moment how best to tell the other man his news without causing undue alarm. Too bad there wasn’t such a way.
“I… seem to be missing a fiend.”
Unlike many Others who tended to be a temperamental lot, shapeshifters especially, Rafe had earned a reputation during his life for his eerie calm in even the most stressful situations. For that reason, he did not leap to his feet and shout his demand for an explanation. Instead, he carefully crossed one ankle over the opposite knee and quirked a dark eyebrow. “I beg your pardon?”
The steel beneath the polite question made it impossible for Rule to mistake that calm for disinterest. The last time fiends had been set loose in Manhattan, people had died, humans and Others alike. It had not made him a happy werejaguar.
“Not one you need to be terribly concerned with,” Rule clarified before he had a battle on his hands. “It’s a minor fiend with few powers and fewer brain cells. More of an imp, really. It only concerns me because I’ve been using it to gather information on the activities of the fiends I am worried about. We’re having a hard time locating the ringleaders of the fiendish rebellion, so I can’t afford not to be in contact with this one.”
Rafe looked only vaguely reassured. “And you think that this fiend might have come up Above? I thought we were going to make sure that didn’t happen again after the last time.”
The demon gave his host a bland stare. “And how is your government doing securing their southern borders?”
“Point taken. Still, I’m not sure how much I’ll be able to help you in locating this fiend. Manhattan is a big place, and if the creature has a brain in its head, I would think it would be keeping a low profile and staying out of places where it might ran into one of my people.”
“Like I said, it’s not real smart.”
The two men then turned in unison at the sound of a loud bang on the library door. The dark panels swung open, and a head full of blonde curls poked in from the hallway. Rule recognized the Felix’s mate from their meeting a year ago.
“I’m sorry to interrupt,” the woman said. Rule judged her expression to contain less regret than mischief. “But Samantha Cartwright and Carly Waters have brought a woman back with them, and I think she might be possessed.”
CHRISTINE WARREN lives on the East Coast because landlocked states make her claustrophobic. Her only other fear is that she will one day run out of reading material, an eventuality she seeks to prevent by taking up writing herself. She draws on her degrees in literature and history, as well as on her vivid imagination, to tell stories she enjoys about people who entertain her. In doing this, she figures someone somewhere will eventually laugh at her jokes. Christine loves to hear from readers and can be reached at: www.christinewarren.net