Pink Princess Fairytini (Fairy Files #2) (22 page)

“Thieves,” I said. “They were arguing about how to split the take, but they must have figured it out, because by the time I arrived all my shit was gone.”

“Really?” Harvey said. “They were acting like they lived there and Mercury was there, so I thought…Fuck, was Mercury in on it?”

It made me feel so much better to pull one over on Harvey and get a rise out of him. “I’m kidding. My cousin Sandra and her fiancé are living with me for a bit, and her family decided to show up and try to talk her into supporting them.”

“Wow, that’s rough,” he said, but he sounded distracted. “Have lunch with me today?”

“I’d love to. But I have a meeting with my lawyer this afternoon for a deposition to officially state that the mayor is full of shit.”

“Right. I heard that Dale and the mayor’s wife have moved in together.”

“No,” I said, truly shocked. I was sure the mayor’s wife would drop Dale as soon as things got real. “That should help my case.”

“I hope so,” he said. “How about a late dinner tonight? I’ll pick you up at nine?”

“Sounds perfect. I’ll see you then.” Two police cars pulled up as I hung up with Harvey.

“We’ll check out the place first,” one of the officers said to Frost. “Once we’ve cleared it, you can come in and look around.”

“Thanks, Hugh,” Frost said, with a smile and a pat on the back for the young officer.

So we sat back down on the pallet and waited some more while police officers broke down the door and eased into the building. My heart started to pound with adrenaline and hope that we might find the missing kids, alive and well.

Less than half an hour later, the officers returned. “It looks like someone’s been squatting in there,” Hugh said. “But no sign of the kids. I can let you have a look around, but then we need to close the place back up.”

Frost and I stood and made our way into the building, my disappointment weighing heavy on my shoulders. I was so sure we’d found them, but there was nothing. It was just a big, empty warehouse with a bright glowing circle on the far wall.

“Holy shit,” I said, making my way toward the light. “It’s a portal.”

“The scent trail ends at the wall,” Frost said. “They took them through there.”

“Let’s go.” I leapt toward the portal.

Frost grabbed my arm and pulled me back so hard I landed on my ass on the concrete floor. “We have no idea where that leads,” he said. “We can’t just go in there unprepared.”

“No. I won’t accept that. We can’t give up, now, or they’ll get away.”

“The gatekeeper will know where this portal goes,” he said. “We’ll talk to him and we’ll get more weapons and then we’ll go.”

“And how long will that take? How far will they have taken the kids? We can’t risk it.”

He knelt on the floor in front of me and put both his hands on my shoulders. “And we won’t be able to help them at all if we’re dead. You have a deposition this afternoon to save your club. If we cross over, you’ll probably miss it and risk losing this lawsuit.”

I nodded, doing my best to appear meek and submissive, but I was quite the opposite. We didn’t have any other leads, we didn’t have any other solid clues and this portal might lead us straight to the kidnappers. I wasn’t going to just walk away from that. I let Frost help me to my feet, but as soon as he let go, I spun and leapt for the portal with everything I had.

I landed in a small cottage, on a floor made of what appeared to be gingerbread. I looked around at the walls, covered with oversized candy and came eye to eye with a familiar fairy.

“Chloe, what the hell are you doing?” Frost asked, landing next to me. The shift took him before he could say another word, and he transformed into a wolf.

I looked back up at the fairy facing me. “Hieronymus,” I said. “Where are the children?”

“Princess,” Hieronymus said, his eyes narrowing. “I might ask you the same question.”

Frost growled and Hieronymus took a step back. “Really?” I said. “Because several fae kids have gone missing from the Non and our investigation led us right to you.”

Hieronymus sighed. “Children have been going missing from Rubalia, as well. I followed their trail here, but if you are not the kidnapper, then this is not only another dead end, but likely a trap. One we should leave immediately.”

The last words were hardly out of his mouth before a third portal opened and dark, smoky creatures, cold and precise, came pouring into our gingerbread house.

“Go, go, go,” Hieronymus shouted, pushing us toward the portal from which we’d come, but I wasn’t ready to leave. I wanted some answers. I also wasn’t stupid, or eager to take on six dark, scaly monsters, so I turned and leaped toward the portal, but something grabbed me in mid-air and pulled me back down to the ground.

Luckily, the floor of the gingerbread house didn’t just look like the sweet, springy treat, it also felt like it. The floor cracked under my impact, but I felt fine. I leapt to my feet to see Hieronymus had his sword out and was fighting two of the shadowy creatures, and Frost had already dispatched one and was fighting another. That left two monsters for me, and I had no weapons. Zero, zilch, nada.

I sighed and faced the creatures. They stood upright on two legs, but they had dragon heads just like Benny’s, scaly with goat-like eyes that did that creepy double blink thing caused by the nictitating membrane. Unlike Benny, though, their bodies looked human and were heavily muscled. My two opponents were female, but just as heavily muscled as the men. They crouched into fighting stances, which was weird, because I’m pretty sure they could have taken me out much quicker if they’d just charged and bitten me a couple of times. Their heads seemed far too big for their bodies and, though they seemed well-balanced, I wondered if I might have a shot of throwing them off and toppling them onto those huge noggins. It was worth a shot.

“How about we play a game,” I said. “I get one answer for every punch I land?”

I ducked as both women growled and rushed me. I was right, the large heads made them a bit clumsy, and I was able to roll out of their path. I leapt to my feet and spun, kicking the one closest to me with a low hit to the kidneys. The woman, already off balance from finding her prey had rolled away, hit the floor.

I didn’t have a chance to cheer at my accomplishment, however, because she was on her feet again in a matter of seconds and both of the women came at me together, again. They weren’t fighting fair at all.

“If you can get to the portal,” Hieronymus yelled. “Do it.”

I dodged the women’s snapping snouts, ducked down low and ran at them in a crouch, taking them both off their feet and to the floor. I looked for Frost and saw him still fighting his dragon humanoid. Hieronymus was down to one, but he was bleeding heavily on his face and his back. The portal was only a leap away, but if I left, the two dragons I was fighting would go help their friends with Hieronymus and Frost.

I spun and faced the two dragon women, wishing I had a weapon, any weapon. They were getting to their feet slowly and I took the opportunity to kick their supporting legs out in quick succession, knocking them back down. I managed a direct hit to a knee and one of them squawked and fell back, clutching the injured joint. The other one was coming for me, but I used my fairy warrior skills to slip under her snapping jaw and throw a hard uppercut to her stomach. She grunted, but moved faster than I expected and snapped my right shoulder in her jaw.

Pain exploded and I saw stars as warm blood flowed from the wound. Her teeth had pierced my skin and she was digging in, getting ready to rip out my shoulder, I imagined. I braced for the pain, but it never came. Her teeth were still in my flesh, but her jaw had stopped working.

“Go to the portal, now?” Hieronymus said as he eased the jaw of the dragon woman open and removed it from my shoulder. He’d dispatched his own opponent and cut the head off mine before she could rip my shoulder off.

Frost stood by my side, his fur matted with blood. His opponent was also down. Our last remaining dragon woman, the one whose knee I’d bashed, got to her feet, not putting weight on the leg I’d hit, growled, and leapt through the portal she’d entered by.

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll go back through the portal, but you’re coming with us, Hieronymus. You’ve got some explaining to do.”

Pain is a part of life. You don’t want to feel pain anymore? Die.
—Chloe frangipani

Pain is a lesson in discipline and determination. You learn to live through pain, you can live through anything
. – Althea Frangipani

“Ow, fuck, it hurts,” Frost said. He’d shifted back as soon as we’d crossed over and his wounds had healed partially from the shift, but he had a bad bite on his leg that was bleeding everywhere.

“Quit being a baby,” I said. My shoulder was on fire and dripping blood as freely as his leg. I knelt in front of him, careful not to look up at the very naked package dangling just over my head, and placed my hands over the wound. My head spun a bit as I leaned over and pushed my healing power into the large gash, searching the wound and healing it as I went.

“Ow, damn,” Frost said. “If this didn’t hurt so bad, I’d really enjoy the sight of you on your knees like this.”

“Fuck you,” I said, but the words came out funny, and my vision went fuzzy around the edges.

“Clarinda, I really don’t think—” Hieronymus said at the same time Frost said, “Hey, Chloe you—”

I didn’t get to hear what they said, because everything went dark and I fell over.

I woke up on the cold concrete floor with two male faces peering down at me. Hieronymus looked rather pale and Frost still appeared to be naked. I felt as though I had awakened after a restful sleep and my shoulder didn’t hurt, so I suspected Hieronymus had healed me. Which probably explained why he was pale, that and the blood still dripping from a gash on his head.

I eased myself into a sitting position, but there were no more stars and everything felt great. “Nice work,” I said to Hieronymus. Then I placed my hands over the gash on his head and had it healed before he could finish saying, “Princess, I really don’t think you should be healing me in your condition.”

His face regained some of its usual color. I stood and turned my attention to his back. The gash there was actually pretty shallow and had stopped bleeding, but I healed him up anyway. All done, I made the mistake of glancing at Frost who stood, with everything just hanging out like naked was his natural and preferred state. My gaze got caught on his body, on his firm, ripply muscles and his scars, and I wondered where he’d gotten a particularly gnarly one I’d never noticed before that started on his hip and ran down to midway on his thigh. Then my eyes, just naturally of course, landed on his impressive boy bits and then shot back to his face before he noticed how my eyes had wandered, of their own accord, over his body. The smug smile on his face suggested he’d noticed.

I scowled at him, but he just kept smiling. “You can touch if you want.”

“Gah,” I said. “Enough of the sexual innuendos. Can we focus on how we’re going to get out of here with you naked, and all three of us bloody, in the middle of the fucking day?”

Frost’s jaw clicked and his smile vanished. “It’s not the middle of the day anymore, sweetheart. It’s about midnight our time.”

My heart stuttered at the tender look on his face and the way his voice went all rumbly over the word, sweetheart, which may have made my brain operate a bit slower than normal. “Okay, well, the darkness will help, but I still think it would be better if you had some clothes.”

“Chloe,” Frost said, his voice gentle. “You missed your deposition.”

My chest went cold, and I thought for a moment I might be having a heart attack. “It’s okay,” I said, taking in deep breaths of air. “I can just reschedule, right?”

Neither Frost nor Hieronymus said anything. I pulled my cell phone from my pocket and saw ten missed calls. “Shit. Fuck.” I put the phone to my ear, my heart pounding so loud I had trouble hearing everything my lawyer was saying, but I did hear the words contempt of court, the mayor’s lawyer fees, and reschedule.

I hung up and swallowed hard. “It’s okay,” I said. “He convinced them not to hold me in contempt of court, but I have to pay the mayor’s lawyer fees for the day, as well as pay the court reporter’s fee for the deposition. They’ve rescheduled for next month.”

“Next month?” Frost asked. “Delaying a decision might be the best possible outcome for your club, especially if Dale and the mayor’s wife stay together. Hard to call it prostitution when they’re living together.”

I took in several deep breaths. I couldn’t afford the fees, but I’d figure something out. I had to. “Okay, you’re right. It will be okay. Right now, we just need to concentrate on getting us all out of here. Why don’t I run out and get some clothes for Frost.”

“I’ve got it covered,” Mercury said, strolling in with a bag in his hand.

He tossed the bag at Frost and met my eyes. “Your boy’s worried about you, Frangipani. His buddies on the force told him you two just vanished this morning, and you were supposed to meet him for dinner.”

“Right.” I checked my phone again, but there were no texts or phone calls from Harvey. If he was so worried why hadn’t he called?

“He came by the condo,” Mercury said, as though he’d heard my thoughts. “We all came here to look for you and Frost and saw the portal. I told him you’d be back when you got back. He had to go in to work, but he wants you to call when you can.”

I walked away from the others and dialed Harvey. “Chloe?” he asked, his voice groggy with sleep. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, Harvey. I’m sorry I missed dinner.”

“It’s okay,” he said. “Mercury said time moves differently in Rubalia. Did you find the kids?”

Time did move differently in Rubalia, but the fight couldn’t have lasted more than half an hour, so there had to be something even weirder about the gingerbread house for the difference to be that drastic. “No. But I think we’re getting closer.”