Bad Boy Prince: A British Royal Stepbrother Romance (23 page)

Working for Mere Marie had opened up a whole new world for him, and every damned magical thing seemed to have a special title and a backstory. That wasn’t even accounting for all the weird New Orleans history and mythology that Mere Marie and Duverjay were steeped in. God help you if you pronounced Burgundy Street like the wine, when locals called it
Ber-GUN-dee
.

“Where’s Aeric?” Mere Marie asked, fanning herself. “I need all three Guardians for this task.”

Gabriel turned, cupping his hands to his mouth, and bellowed Aeric’s name toward the second floor where the viking's rooms lay. The four upper floors were all arranged so that a row of dark wood doors exited onto a long, broad landing that connected to the staircases mounted on each side of the house. This meant that looking up from the foyer, The volume of his shout was particularly impressive, and Rhys smirked at Mere Marie’s expression of displeasure at being so close to the sound.

Seconds later, a door on the second floor opened and a massive dark blond man stepped into view, looking irate.

“Yes?” Aeric asked, walking up to the landing’s railing and leaning on it to peer down at them. Aeric’s English was coming along well, considering that at the time of his arrival at the Manor he’d known none at all, but even so he was still taciturn.

“
Mistress
needs all of us,” Gabriel said, using the title Mere Marie insisted upon.

Aeric shot them all a steely glare, then trudged down the hall and down the stairs.

“I’m in the middle of something,” the former Viking informed them all. His medieval Norwegian accent was thick as sludge when he did choose to speak, and Rhys sometimes struggled to pick out words amongst Aeric’s mumbling.

“Not anymore,” Mere Marie told him crisply, turning and leading them back into the vast living area. Duverjay and Andrea were huddled in the open kitchen, sitting at the bar and talking in low tones.

Mere Marie stalked to what the Guardians called The Table, which was a massive oak table flanked by several heavy benches. It was their usual meeting place when discussing the business of slaying demons and generally fighting evil forces that threatened New Orleans.

She took a seat at the far end, leaving Rhys, Aeric, and Gabriel to find seats around her.

“Pere Mal has abducted a relative of Duverjay’s,” Mere Marie told Aeric, waving a hand at the butler.

Aeric pursed his lips, perhaps wondering about the wisdom of Pere Mal abducting someone so closely connected to the Guardians, but he said nothing. Whether Pere Mal was yet aware of the Guardians was a frequent topic of debate at the Manor, and now was not the time to start another heated argument about a tangental topic.

“Andrea said that Pere Mal’s guy called the woman a Light. As in one of the Three Lights,” Mere Marie said, launching into a short lecture. “Pere Mal is obsessed with destroying the Veil, the protective barrier between the spirit world and ours. He wants to be able to rule over the spirits of his ancestors, call their power as his own. Unfortunately, he doesn’t care what else will come through the Veil.”

“I’m guessing nothing we’d like,” Gabriel said.

“Let’s just say that we’ve all got ghosts in our pasts, and vengeful spirits would be a blessing compared to some of the darker forces that would emerge,” Mere Marie said.

“So what are the Lights?” Rhys prompted, curious.

“Pere Mal believes that Baron Samedi, an old Voodoo priest, found a way to open the Veil. ‘
Seven nights, seven moons, seven secrets, seven tombs
.’ Some people believe that to be the key to finding and unlocking the Gates of Guinee, leading straight into the realm of the spirits. From there, certain… spells… could be used to tear the Veil forever.”

Aeric finally spoke up, giving Mere Marie a frank glance. “I am curious as to how you know these things about Pere Mal.”

Mere Marie stiffened for the barest second, then relaxed once more. It happened so quickly that Rhys might have imagined it.

“I have many informants,” was her only answer.

Her words were true, of course; she had a vast network of informants throughout the city, all whispering to one another, passing secrets from one to the next until they reached Mere Marie’s ear. Mere Marie had a charming side, a way of making people relax and laugh until they
wanted
to tell her everything.

“Right,” Rhys said, shaking his head for a brief moment. “So the Lights are part of the ritual or something?”

“I’m not certain,” Mere Marie said, surprising Rhys. “They all serve different functions. Andrea mentioned that this girl, Echo, is a medium. It would appear that Pere Mal needs her to summon and commune with a ghost.”

“There’s no way of knowing who he wants to talk to,” Gabriel surmised. “Could be Baron Samedi himself, or a member of his family. Could be…”

“Anyone,” Rhys finished with a nod. “I’m not sure how we fight against something we have absolutely no way of finding.”

“The girl. We find the girl,” Mere Marie said. “We need to use her to find the secret before Pere Mal does.”

Silence reigned for several long beats.

“Are you suggesting that we use her in precisely the same manner as the man from whom we are rescuing her?” Gabriel asked, his brows lowering with displeasure.

“Yes. And I believe…” Mere Marie pretended to look around at the house for a moment. “Ah, yes. I am still in charge here. So when I ask you to go find the girl, and do it soon… I think you’d better do it.”

She pushed to her feet, giving them all a threatening glance.

“Use the scrying mirror. Find the girl. I want her in the Manor by sunrise,” she commanded. She rolled her neck, producing several sharp
pops
, and left the room without so much as a backward glance.

“Well… alright,” Gabriel said, resentment plain on his face. “I guess I’ll get the mirror.”

“
W
e need more
than just a vague location,” Rhys said as all three men stared into the scrying mirror, which was reflecting a pleasant and brightly colored block of the Faubourg Marigny, an upscale neighborhood close to the French Quarter filled with immaculately kept traditional Creole cottage style homes. “The fact that she’s somewhere on Spain Street doesn’t really help.”

“Mmmm…” Gabriel said, considering. “Well, there’s one thing I can try. I haven’t done it before, but I found an obscure spell that might show us what our girl looks like.”

“Will it kill anyone? Scorch any eyebrows?” Aeric asked, giving Gabriel a meaningful glance. A month into their residence at the Manor, Aeric had let Gabriel use him as the test subject on a summoning spell. The apple in Aeric’s hand didn’t move an inch, much less fly into Gabriel’s waiting hand, but Gabriel did somehow manage to singe off Aeric’s eyebrows and eyelashes, which Rhys found quite funny.

“No,” Gabriel said defensively. “I told you, one of the words in that spell was smudged. It wasn't my fault.”

“All magic belongs to the magician,” Aeric started in. The Viking had strong feelings about magical responsibility, making Rhys wonder once more about Aeric’s former life. He was secretive about his ability to shift and his knowledge of magic, distrustful of women, and easily overwhelmed by new technologies. Unfortunately for Rhys’s inquiring mind, Aeric was a tight-lipped, overly private bastard who never talked about his past for more than a moment or two.

“Okay, okay,” Rhys said, checking the gold watch on his wrist. “We don’t have time for this. Gabriel, do the spell.”

“I need the girl. Andrea, I mean,” Gabriel said.

Andrea was brought over, Duverjay hovering in the background and shooting the Guardians distrustful glances. Gabriel had recently begun to take a page from Mere Marie’s book; when he did spells, he now combined the physical ingredients ahead of time and tucked them into a palm-sized white linen sachet. Depending on the spell, the sachet might be worn under clothing and against the skin, burned as it lay inside a circle of salt, cast into the river, or any other number of symbolic gestures.

This spell called for Andrea to place the coin-sized sachet on her tongue as she pictured the spell’s target. Rhys winced sympathetically as Andrea sniffed the sachet and blanched at the scent of it, but she dutifully followed orders and then closed her eyes.

After a brief incantation, Gabriel raised his hands before Andrea’s face. He made a pulling gesture, grabbing at the air near her eyes and pulling his hands backward. A thin gray mist appeared in the air, giving them a flickering black and white moving picture of the young woman who Andrea’s mother befriended.

The image was shoddy, giving few details. The woman had pale skin, light-colored hair, and dark eyes set in a heart-shaped face. The single glimpse of her body revealed a sweetly curved hourglass figure clad in a chic but modest retro-style dress. For some reason, though the details about her were few, Rhys felt a stirring of attraction low in his belly.

He pulled a face, suppressing his strange reaction. He hadn’t had a woman since he’d arrived in New Orleans. Modern women were a complete puzzle to him, playing by rules he didn’t understand, using technology he didn’t want or need, expecting… Well, certainly not courtship, if Rhys had that much right.

He was lonely at the Manor, and unlike Gabriel, he wasn’t making any effort to get used to the city’s smoky bars and loud dance clubs. The dancing was the worst part, actually. The most forced social interaction of all, to “music” Rhys despised, all while pressed up against a strange woman…

He shuddered and pulled himself from his thoughts.

“Right. You’re done,” Gabriel told Andrea, who looked grateful as she spat the sachet into her palm. “Stay with Duverjay until we get your mother free, alright?”

“Thanks,” Andrea said, allowing the butler to lead her back to the front hall. Duverjay and Mere Marie both had rooms on the fourth floor, and Rhys guessed that Duverjay would settle Andrea in his for the night.

“Time for the fun part,” Aeric said, giving one of his rare smiles.

Rhys and Gabriel trudged after him as Aeric headed out the back door, across the yard, and into the gymnasium. The gym was divided into three segments. The bulk of the gym held the sparring area that Rhys and Gabriel had used earlier; the floor could be transformed from tough rubber to softer padded mats, or a ring set up for boxing if needed. The second largest segment of the gym was training and exercise equipment: treadmills, rack after rack of weights, all kinds of specialized equipment to keep their bodies in perfect sword-wielding shape.

The final segment, much smaller than the rest of the gym, was also the only area that was protected by a thumbprint and retinal scanner. Aeric strode across the gymnasium floor to the large black-barred cage and stepped up to the door for a quick scan, disengaging the locks on the foot-thick steel door. He swung it open and stepped inside, pausing to let Rhys and Gabriel follow.

Rhys glanced around at the metal bars that made up the cage’s walls, each stacked floor to ceiling with rows of weaponry. Guns and newer weaponry on the right, swords and brutal low-tech arms on the left. Gabriel went right first, Aeric and Rhys to the left. Typical, as Gabriel had adjusted to 2015’s technologies with ease, whereas Aeric and Rhys had struggled a bit more. Aeric most of all, actually. He’d learned the bare minimum about guns and computers, and gone no further.

Perhaps it was because the fact that, though all three men appeared the same age, Aeric and Rhys were far older than Gabriel, who’d lived only thirty years prior to joining the Guardians. His normal human aging only stopped a few months after arriving at the Manor, thirty years being the common point of stasis for bear shifters.

At any rate, Rhys and Aeric went for swords first. Rhys chose a nicely balanced claymore, Aeric a heavy broad sword. It explained their fighting styles well, Rhys choosing maneuverability and Aeric brute force. They crossed paths with Gabriel, who’d scooped up two black handguns and a double hip holster.

As Gabriel went to find a lightweight sword, Rhys and Aeric chose their guns. A Guardian rule that Mere Marie had instituted — if they were going to fight in the modern world, they needed modern weaponry. If someone fired a gun, the Guardians had to fight back in kind. So far, the guns had gotten very little play. It was second nature for Rhys and Aeric to fight with their swords, and the Guardians’ usual gambit of dispatching demons and threatening bloodlust-stricken vampires were sword-friendly activities.

“Don’t forget your uniform,” Rhys said to Aeric as they headed out of the cage. Duverjay kept three neat stacks of gear waiting on a table just inside the cage, each stack neatly labeled with the Guardians’ names.

Rhys grabbed the black combat boots, black cargo pants, dark gray t-shirt, a specially made weapons belt, and bulletproof black tactical vest. Every item was emblazoned with the Alpha Guardians’ logo, a snarling bear’s head over two crossed swords, with the letters A and G on either side. Heading over to the small locker room beside the arms cage, he suited up.

After threading the weapons harness through his belt loops, he secured a set of straps around each leg at mid-thigh. The belt had a scabbard and sheath on the left side for his sword and two gun holsters on his right, one at the hip and another six inches lower. The back of the holster held a couple of clips for the two .38 specials he carried, and he kept more ammunition in his vest.

Outside the locker room, the Guardians took a minute to check themselves and each other over, making sure all was in place and no one was missing something vital. Another one of Mere Marie’s rules, something she felt encouraged
teamwork
.

Out of all the thousands upon thousands of new words Rhys had learned over the last year,
teamwork
was probably one of his least favorites. Its use usually suggested an unpleasant task or personal sacrifice for the larger good, and Rhys had done plenty of both in his lifetime. Still, he had grown to like working with Gabriel and Aeric, to trust them in a fight. Gabriel was a vast pool of information about magic, and Aeric… Rhys hadn’t figured Aeric out quite yet, but the man knew a little about almost everything.

“Let’s get moving,” Aeric said.

They left the gymnasium from the opposite end they’d entered it, going through a short breezeway that led off the property. The Manor was situated on Esplanade Avenue just north of the French Quarter, in a historic neighborhood called the Treme. The Manor and its grounds took up nearly a block, and the Guardians still had to use part of a three-story parking garage that abutted the back of the property to store their numerous vehicles.

Since they were riding together and trying to move fast, Aeric had snagged the keys to a light SUV from the arms cage. He tossed them to Rhys, who was the de facto driver of the group. Less than a minute later, they were pulling out of the garage and gunning for the Marigny neighborhood.

The trip was short, barely a mile. There was little traffic in the area since it was after ten at night on a Wednesday, so they pulled into a parking spot on Spain Street only a few minutes later. The street was residential, tightly lined with colorful row houses that were almost as old as the city itself. The whole neighborhood was filed with shotgun-style cottages. Rhys jumped out and looked around, trying to pinpoint the area where the scrying mirror had shown their target.

Echo
, he thought distractedly,
a pretty name
. Rhys scowled at himself and refocused, but Gabriel solved the riddle first.

“There,” Gabriel pointed. “A few blocks down, the orange one there.”

The other Guardian was right. The distinctive melon-colored house was wedged between a teal blue one and a lime green one, three cheerful and well-kept buildings that were identical except for their color. Rhys pushed into a trot, locking the car with the key fob as they moved down the block.

Rhys stopped across the street from the orange house, number 307. He passed it, walking down a few houses until he came to a spot where a few satsuma orange trees sprang up, their thick foliage giving the men something to lurk behind.

“Aeric, watch the west,” Rhys said, pointing to where they’d come from. “Gabriel, the east. I’ll watch the front door for movement.”

They didn’t have long to wait. A few minutes after they took up their watch, the front door of number 307 swung open with a loud
bang
. There was the sound of a shout, and a voluptuous blonde in a conservative navy dress burst from the house, barefoot and in a hurry.

Rhys could feel Gabriel and Aeric tense beside him, the sense born of years on the battlefield, fighting side by side with his men. One second Rhys was ready to spring into action, the next second the blonde looked up and met his gaze. One second he was a warrior primed for battle, the next second he was drowning. Her eyes caught him, twin pools of the deepest amethyst imaginable, a regal purple flecked with hints of molten gold.

Mate
.

Rhys felt his bear move within him, rising to the surface without forcing Rhys into a shift. His lips parted of their own volition, a ragged cry tearing from his throat. Then he was moving, knowing nothing except that he needed to touch her, protect her.

“Mine,” he growled.

A dark shape barreled into Rhys’s line of vision, something Rhys couldn’t quite comprehend at the moment. The dark blur collided with Rhys’s mate, who gave a shocked cry.

Pop
.

Rhys skidded to a halt, staring into empty space. Though the woman had been on the sidewalk a moment before, less than fifty feet away, now she was just… gone.

“He dragged her into a bolt-hole,” Gabriel said, appearing at Rhys’s elbow. “A pocket of space between this world and the next. We can’t go after her, it would be impossible to know exactly where they went.”

Rhys blinked a few times, looking down at his hands, which seemed empty. He’d never been at such a loss before, unable to understand, unable to explain…

“Rhys,” Aeric said, clapping a hand on Rhys’s shoulder. “Look alive.”

Rhys turned to him, lips pulling back from his teeth. His bear was responding to the loss of his mate now, ripping at the last shreds of Rhys’s suddenly-ragged sense of control. Something in Aeric’s ice blue eyes shifted, a response to Rhys’s challenge.

Rhys tipped his head back, his mouth seeking the sky as his body began to ripple, bones shifting as his form shifted from man to bear. Furious and devastated, Rhys released a desperate, frenzied bellow.

Dropping to all fours, he turned and loped down the street, mindless to all but finding that which he’d lost.