Phantom Fae (11 page)

"Unless I am mistaken, they have disobeyed me and are trying to fight this war also."

Brett smiled.

Ena frowned at him.

"They love you."

"If they loved me, they would obey me."

They heard someone coming and she said, "Shoot, I had hoped you'd be dressed before anyone came."

"I don't think I can get out of this bed yet."

"It's the police. I recognize their voices." She got Brett's fae clothes out of a cabinet and shoved them into his arms.

He groaned.

"Sorry. We have to move, now. Hold onto the I.V. also, and I'll hold onto you. Are you ready?"

He was in pain, generally sore all over, and trying to keep his grip on his clothes and the pole with the I.V. was going to be tough. Until her arms went around her in a firm hold and all he could think of was Ena, the light fragrance of honeysuckle she wore, the way she held him fiercely as if she was afraid she'd lose him, the way she placed her cheek against his chest. When the darkness faded and he was sitting on the grassy ground in a forest, he thought she had lost her way or couldn't hold onto him any longer.

But then she was kneeling beside him, holding his hand and looking worried.

"What's wrong?" he whispered.

"You passed out on me. I thought I was going to drop you. We're near my castle, but I needed to make sure that it's safe to take you there. If my brother and my friends haven't retaken it, we'll have to wait here until they do. Are you going to be all right?"

"Yeah. I'll just lie down here and wait for you."

She glanced down at his bare legs. He was wearing only the hospital gown with little brown bears on it. "I should have grabbed the blanket off the bed."

"I'll try to dress while you're gone."

"All right."

That was the last he remembered before the darkness descended again.

Chapter 10

Ena was torn about leaving Brett alone in the woods in his injured condition should anyone happen upon him. She heard fighting in the distance, though not from the direction of her castle. She would be quick about it and return pronto. She couldn't leave him alone long, not in the bad shape he was still in.

She appeared in her castle courtyard, and was expecting either a fight with whoever had taken over her castle, or her brother and friends to come out and greet her. What she didn't expect was for her butler, Ryker, to come bounding out. He did not
bound
out of anywhere. Not
ever
. He was the most sedate man she'd ever known. She thought it was because he believed that's how butlers behaved. So in a momentary burst of enthusiasm to see her, he suddenly realized his reaction and quickly slowed his pace and took on the role of her usual dignified butler.

"Brett's badly wounded," she warned. "Was my brother here?"

"Yes, and he found we had driven Prince Grotto's men from the castle—all on our own. Well, with some of the merchants' help, since they want very much for you and the other shifters to return and do business with them because of the most generous way that you—"

Ladies shrieks rent the air as the women working for her ran out to greet her, then quickly stopped in place and looked chagrined.

"If you have to fire us, we will understand, but we had to come and make way for your return," her lady's maid, Muriel said.

"Aye, we had to put the kitchen back in order," Cook said.

"I need help bringing Brett here. He's badly wounded," Ena said. "Where's Jacob?"

"Here," Jacob said. "Where is he?"

Ena showed Jacob the way, though she didn't mean for all her staff to come with her. They did anyway.

Of all the fussing! She swore they never fussed that much over her when she was injured or sick. And yet, she loved them for it. Brett would need all the tender loving care he could get until he was healed enough to make it on his own.

"Where did my brother and the others go?" Ena asked.

"They decided to take over their castles one castle at a time to use as a safe haven for the dark fae and hawk fae. The shifters' staffs are ready to join them."

"Don't tell me they did the same as you?"

"Rightly so, my lady," Ryker said.

At hearing him use the courtesy, she raised a brow.

"You are a duchess, by the dark fae queen's ruling. Which means you are now to be called a lady," Ryker reminded her, as if she needed to be reminded.

She heard the two cleaning maids in Brett's chamber fussing over him. Then her lady's maid hurried to take a new blanket into his room, and Cook was carrying a tray of sweet treats and a bowl of steaming potato soup to give to him.

"They are glad to see him returned." Ryker folded his arms across his chest as he stood in the Great Hall with Ena, observing the flurry of activity.

Jacob joined them. "Your brother is sending men to protect the castle and everyone in it. He said to get your rest and watch over Brett. Freya has been with them, but she'll come here once she learned Brett was here."

Ena frowned at the notion. She knew Freya needed Brett's help. That part she understood. But she felt there was more to it than that where Freya and Brett were concerned. At least as far as Freya was interested.

She heard Brett say something, and Ena strode off to talk to him. She didn’t want her people to think she was going to fall all over him like they were. But when she walked into the room, she saw the members of her staff were all smiles to see him back in his bed. At least they had the foresight to step away from the bed to allow her room to speak with him. His gaze fell on her and the oddest sensation slid through her. In that instant, it was as though something had changed between them. Like no matter how much her staff coddled him and how much she did not, he only had eyes and an interest in seeing her.

"The castle is secure." She didn't know what else to say when everyone was listening to her. She didn't want to dismiss them and make it seem as though she wished to see him alone.

Everyone was expecting her to say something more, as if he already had to have assumed the castle was secure and she was supposed to say something else. Something more personal.

"I want you to rest well. I will stay the remainder of the day and then the night, but after that, I must leave to help win this war against Prince Grotto. My brother is sending reinforcements, so the place will be well-protected."

"Thank you for bringing me here."

"I had nowhere else to take you." No matter what, he would not make it sound as though she desired him here.

"The first time. Thank you for making me part of your—"

"Staff," she quickly said in the event he was going to say family. Yes, her staff was like family. She treated them that way. Loved them dearly. Paid them generously. Could not leave them behind when she had wanted to protect them, but they had given up everything to go with her. How could she not see them as family?

But she was a dragon-shifter fae, and she had a reputation to uphold. She wasn't a duchess who wore fancy gowns to functions all the time. She was Ena, wearing her black leather corsets and breeches, and thigh high boots, her hair cut short, not wearing it long like most fae women, and her nails painted black, her eye shadow black too. Some would call her Goth in the human world. In the fae world, there was no such thing. It was just Ena's look. And derived from surviving her parents' death and living under her brother's thumb until she was old enough to break away, earn enough gold, and have a castle built of her own.

She was ready for battle, ready to find missing persons, or anything else she could do to help others. But she didn't see herself as being the head of a family, exactly. They were her paid staff.

When everyone smiled at her, she sighed.

"Staff," he said, but the smile in his expression told her he knew better.

Even as bad as Brett felt physically, he didn't want Ena to go fight anyone without him being by her side.

"Ena," Brett said.

"Lady Ena," Ryker corrected from the doorway.

Brett smiled. He couldn't imagine her wanting to be called anything but Ena. But he would call her anything that pleased her. The sharp look she gave her butler made Brett think calling her Lady Ena was out. Ryker, being his usual unflappable self, just looked at her as if he was in charge, and she would go by her new title or else.

"Get your rest," Ena said, returning her attention to Brett. "You still have to take care of this business with Freya."

He then noticed that Freya was standing near Ryker. He hadn't even realized she was there. Which he instantly felt bad about.

"And then you have gardening to do."

"Gardening?" Freya said, sounding offended. "He is a mage." As if that trumped a gardener by a mile.

"Mage apprentice," Ena corrected her. "And from what he says, until he can do something useful with his mage skills, he's my gardener." Her tone of voice clearly stated she was in charge of her people, and him. Freya was an outsider, a phantom fae, and she hadn't any say in how Ena conducted her business.

And yet, Ena did Brett the courtesy of glancing back at him as if waiting to see his response.

His smile broadened. "I will be whatever you wish of me."

Ena's cheeks blushed a little. The Goth-like fae rarely blushed. Certainly rarely around her suitors. But when she was with Brett, she blushed. And he took that as a good sign.

Her housekeepers, Addie and Kerry, giggled. Ena gave them a growly look. No matter how she acted, he knew she had the hots for him.

But then he felt so tired all of a sudden, and without his permission, he closed his eyes. That was the prompt for everyone to leave him alone. But he opened his eyes just as quickly and said to Freya, "I will help you as soon as I can."

She nodded. "Thank you."

Then Ryker ushered everyone out of the room, except for Ena. "If you need anything, ring the bell. One of the ladies will fetch it for you. Sleep now, and then I want to know how you shifted into a dragon."

Then Ena turned and stalked out of the room.

He had wished it. That was all. He wasn't sure why he had turned back except he'd heard Ena discussing with her brother how they needed to get him to a human hospital, but couldn't when he was a dragon. Had he wished to be human again? Well, fae?

He wasn't certain if it was the medicines flooding his cells or what, but he felt he was moving through the whisper quiet castle in the dark as a winged bird, though he could see as well as if it were daylight. He flew around the statue in the Ena's entryway, feeling free, until a roar of pain stabbed into every nerve in his side and out the other side, blinding him for an instant. Or maybe he passed out.

The resounding crash stirred him to consciousness. In pain and dazed, he sat amidst the cracked pieces of a six-foot tall hand-decorated vase, the green eye of a dragon painted on one shard staring up at him as if accusing him of the wreckage.

"Oh, my heavens," Cook exclaimed, her hand to her chest, her eyes wide with shock.

He wasn't having a nightmare, unfortunately. He was sitting near the entryway of the keep, having roused the whole household as everyone rushed to see the matter and then stood gaping at him like they couldn't believe he had just ruined a vase of Ena's. Was it really special to her? He would have to make this up to her. He was getting deeper and deeper into debt with her.

Despite his groggy and
pained
state, Brett noticed Ena was not there with her staff. The only way she wouldn't be there scolding him for wrecking her place—or maybe a little worried that he was hurting—was if she was off fighting a battle.

He tried to stand up, but couldn't muster the strength and was totally exasperated with himself.

"Where is Ena?" he growled ferociously, or at least he tried to. His growl was more of a hiss and at the end of his words, a puff of smoke appeared.

Everyone stood back. And then Ryker motioned with his hand in the universal way of saying be at peace, we mean you no harm. "It's just us, Brett. Your friends. Just us. Come, let's get you back to bed. You're…bleeding…all over the stone floor." He said it as if he believed Brett would be more eager to obey if he thought he'd earn more of Ena's ire if he made even more of a mess. But Ryker also truly sounded worried that Brett was bleeding again.

"What did he say before he blew smoke at us?" Cook whispered.

"He said he didn't mean to break Ena's favorite vase," Ryker said, as if he could understand Brett's dragon tongue when Ena couldn't.

"Can you shift back?" Jacob asked. "We'll carry you to bed. Or if you'd rather, you can fly there. But you look a little…"

Everyone was watching Jacob to see what he was going to say.

"We'll help you," Jacob continued as if anything else he might say could offend a dragon that they didn't know well enough. When they thought Brett was only a human, that was one thing. Even as a phantom fae, he might have had some other abilities that could have been dangerous. A mage? Definitely, especially since he couldn't control his spells well enough yet. A dragon? He could incinerate them all. Either on purpose or by accident.

At least that's what Brett figured they were thinking.

He told himself he wanted to be a human, well, fae. He really, really hadn't gotten the hang of that notion. For eighteen years, he had been a human. For a couple of months or more? A fae. So it was easy to forget that he wasn't really human.

So he wished he was human and then he wished he was in bed.

And then he was human, or fae! Only he hadn't made it back to bed using the traditional fae transport. Instead Ryker, who said that carrying half-dead mages who turned into dragons in the middle of the night was not part of his buttling duties, and Jacob, carried him there. So a fae transport of another kind.

"Should we get word to Lady Ena?" her lady's maid asked, wringing her hands as they all looked down at Brett lying in the bed.

As a raven, Freya was sitting on top of a chest in the chamber watching him. She cawed, "Of all the dumb things to do." She shook her head. "You were healing and now look at you. Just so you could fly around as a dragon?"