Pink Princess Fairytini (Fairy Files #2) (33 page)

“Hello, daughter,” she said, her voice raspy. “Oakenwood, you and the guards may leave.” She turned and faced us, her face pale and drawn. “I don’t suppose the wolf will leave with them?”

Frost growled and took a step closer to me, but my mother kept her eyes on mine.

“No,” I said. “Frost will stay with me and hear what you have to say.”

My mother gestured for us to sit. When I remained standing, she frowned and stepped to the middle of the room. “You must fight me every step of the way, mustn’t you, Daughter? I’m surprised you didn’t try to bring your human lover with you. He wouldn’t have survived the crossing, but he seems stubborn enough to try it.”

“He’s stubborn,” I said. “Not an idiot. What did you bring me here to tell me, Mother?”

She sighed. “Rubalia is under attack, and my father weakened our people so much that we are probably going to lose this battle. The creatures from the land of nightmares have long wanted to live in our lush, green world, and it seems they will finally get their wish.”

I sank down onto a chair that appeared too delicate to hold me. “Surely there must be something you can do?”

She smiled and sat down next to me, taking my hands in hers. It softened me, that motherly touch. “Are you pretending to care about me, now, Daughter? To care about Rubalia? After caring about only yourself for so many years, it must be difficult even to pretend you give a moment of your energy to thinking of me.”

And there was the knife to the chest. Frost growled, but I waved him away. I was tougher than I used to be. I’d seen my mother kill her father, and I’d long learned a guilt trip when I heard one. “What do you want?”

“I want you to be the obedient, caring daughter I need. I want you to help the humans to capture Benny, and then I want you to return him to Rubalia.”

I pulled my hand from her grasp. She wasn’t asking me for anything I didn’t already know needed to be done, but something wasn’t adding up. “And if I kill him?”

Disapproval bloomed on her face. “You must not kill him, dear. He has the secret to closing portals. We can create portals, as we created the portal in your office, but we don’t know how to destroy them. With Benny’s secret, I believe we can close the leaks between the realm of nightmares and Rubalia and stop them from moving in.”

I considered her words for a long moment. “At the risk of the lives of more children?”

Her cheeks reddened. “Thousands more children will die if we do not close the portals.” She dropped my hands and took a deep breath. She leaned back in her seat and smoothed her robes. “But, of course, every precaution will be taken to be sure no children will be harmed.”

I didn’t believe her, but I had no way to prove she was lying. I would just have to make sure Missella was aware of what she was doing and could ensure the veracity of her claim. “And how will I capture Benny? I have no magic that will stop him, and I can’t fight him in his dragon form.”

“It is a problem,” she said. “My father and the faun king wanted nothing to do with the dragons, so we know very little about how to stop them.” She pulled a rope from a pocket in her robes and handed it to me. “I believe if you can get this around his neck, it will prevent him from shifting into his dragon form and then you can fight him. You will need a strong cage to hold him and transport him to me, something that will keep him from using his magic to escape.”

“Amber,” I said. The myths about iron causing the fae pain were false, but amber was our kryptonite. It obstructed our magic and weakened us. “Will it work on a creature from the realm of nightmares?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know, but I have no better ideas.”

“Great.” But I knew I would try. The other options, of leaving Benny free in the Non or allowing him to be caught and studied by the humans, weren’t acceptable alternatives. “And what about Ephemeral? Why is there a portal in it?”

“I will make sure Neil is revealed as the saboteur and that your club is restored to you,” she said. “In exchange, I want you to return to your condo and take over as the gatekeeper.”

I shot out of my seat, not sure what to make of any of what she’d just said, but sure I didn’t like it. “Convenient that you can offer back to me what I already had in exchange for me doing more for you than I was already doing.”

“Dear,” she said, her expression innocent. “You wouldn’t be helping me, you’d be helping the refugees from Rubalia. You will be my face and voice in the Non, you will behave as royalty and make sure the fae are representing Rubalia in a good way. It won’t be long before more humans are aware of us, and I want them to think well of us. I don’t want to give them any reason to come to Rubalia and wipe us out with their guns and their bombs.”

And she had me, because I wanted to help the refugees anyway. “Why not just close off all of the portals between the Non and Rubalia?”

“Are you ready to give up your life in the Non?”

“No.”

“And I’m not ready to cut you off from Rubalia.”

I knew there was more to it, but I also knew she was unlikely to tell me the truth. So I let it go, for the moment. “I will act as the gatekeeper, and I will bring you Benny.”

“Good.” She smiled, her face regaining some color. She’d been worried I’d say no. Maybe she really did believe me selfish and self-centered. “I will make sure you have the money and lawyers you need to defeat the mayor in his case against your club. I won’t have bad things said about the princess of Rubalia.” She looked at Frost, as though she were sending him a silent message, and he nodded. “I would prefer you changed your club into a normal martini bar, but I don’t suppose—”

“No,” I said. “Absolutely not.”

“Then you may go and fly safely under the goodwill of Rubalia.”

“What the hell was that?” Frost asked when we were back in my office. He’d shifted and was naked, but he didn’t seem to care. “You agreed not to answer her until we’d had a chance to discuss it.”

I shrugged and tried not to let my eyes wander. “Would you like to go back and tell her I’ve changed my mind?”

He paced, his muscles rippling as he moved. “You can’t take on being the gatekeeper and run Ephemeral. How are you going to have time for that? How are you going to be able to help anyone when you’re stretched thin?”

“I can get more help,” I said, realizing as I spoke that I wanted this responsibility. I’d seen the way the refugees from Rubalia lived, and I wanted to help them. I wanted to be able to guide them toward better lives in the Non. “Mercury can’t keep dealing drugs forever, and he’s going to be looking for a legitimate job. And Pierson’s ready for more responsibility. Maybe Sandra can work here, too.”

“You want this.” He paused in his pacing to study me.

I nodded.

“Fine. I’ll do whatever I can to help you. But going after Benny with a rope that
might
be magic and
might
restrain him is insanity.”

“And what’s the other option?” My eyes drifted south on his body of their own wicked volition. “Can you please put some clothes on? I can’t talk to you like this.”

He looked down at his body like he’d forgotten he was naked. When his eyes met mine, again, his smirk suggested dirty thoughts. “Why? Does it make you think of all the things you want to do to my body, all the ways I could give you pleasure?”

“No,” I said, way too quickly. “It’s just distracting.”

“Okay, I don’t want you to be distracted right now.” His tone suggested he’d like to distract me at another time. But he bent and started pulling on clothes from the pile he’d left behind when we’d crossed over.

Once he was clothed, he faced me. “Better?”

“Yes, thank you,” I lied, because his body really was a pleasure to behold.

He smiled like he knew my thoughts. “The other option would be to let Benny be Benny’s problem. We are not responsible for every supernatural creature who causes problems in the Non.”

“And if we do nothing? If he decides he wants to take back his job as gatekeeper? If the humans dissect him and decide the fae are dangerous to humans and should all be caged? If he goes rogue and starts killing people? Starts killing people we care about?”

He growled. “I’m aware of all of these possibilities, but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s suicide to try to take him out.”

“You’re right.” I dragged my chair around to the opposite wall, putting it farther from the portal. “Help me move my desk?”

He grunted, but he helped me move the desk. He basically moved the desk himself. “So you’re not going to go after him?”

“Nah.” I sat and threw my feet up on my desk, leaning my chair back on two legs. “You’re right. We should just let the human police deal with the big, bad dragon. I’m sure they’ll just unleash a nuclear bomb on him and everything will be peachy.”

He rolled his eyes. “Your reverse psychology is not going to work on me.”

I shrugged. “I don’t care if it does or not. I’m going to embrace your philosophy and just ignore whatever problems in my life are too dangerous to confront.”

He pulled a chair over in front of my desk and dropped into it. “Benny is not your problem. If he’s anyone’s problem, he’s your mother’s. Just because the humans find out the dragon is really a dragon, there’s no reason for them to suspect anyone else of being fae.”

“Hmm, but what about the kids who went to the hospital? You don’t think anyone noticed they aren’t quite human?”

He shrugged. “Their parents picked them up before the humans could get a good look at them. They took them to Jimmy.”

“Ugh. Jimmy. I really hate that guy.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I got that. Speaking of which, you should probably go home and get some sleep. I’ll talk to Brace about how we can take out Benny.”

“I thought you were against going after him.”

“I am.” He pushed to his feet. “But you aren’t going to back down are you?”

“Nope.”

He didn’t flinch. “So we’re going after him. I’ll take you to Harvey’s.”

I stood. “Um, no, just take me to the condo.” I wasn’t ready to tell Frost I’d broken up with Harvey. I wasn’t ready for his lack of surprise, wasn’t ready to prove him right about me. “I want to fix Mercury’s leg and Vin’s concussion.”

He studied me for a long moment, and I was almost positive he didn’t believe me. Then he shook his head and motioned for me to follow him. “We’ll take the bike.”

Showdowns are always more fun in the movies
. –Chloe Frangipani

If you can, avoid confrontation. Smile sweetly and use manipulation or subterfuge to get what you want
. –Althea Frangipani

“Are you sure this is going to work?” I asked. Brace was crouched next to me in Benny’s throne room. We were waiting for him to return. I was pretty sure he wasn’t coming back, since none of his goons were there, but Brace figured he wouldn’t leave it. We’d been waiting for two hours already, with no sign of Benny and my stomach was starting to grumble.

I’d healed Mercury and Vin, and they were on the other side of the room, crouching below the windows, so we wouldn’t be seen from the outside. Frost, Harvey, Buddy, Brace, and Sandra were outside to deal with whatever goons Benny might have with him. Harvey had insisted on joining us, saying he, as a human representative of law enforcement, needed to see Benny removed from the Non. I argued against him being there, as did everyone else, but Harvey was nothing if not stubborn.

If Benny entered his house through the portal from Rubalia, we’d all be in trouble, but the general consensus was that he knew better than to risk going to Rubalia when the fairy queen was gunning for him.

“Nope,” Brace said.

I gripped the ‘magic’ rope in my hands and tried to ignore my hunger and the cramps in my legs from crouching for so long. We’d woven bits of amber into the rope where we could, but I had a bad feeling our half pound of amber wouldn’t be enough to slow a dragon. Unfortunately, we’d had no luck finding a cage constructed of amber, and we didn’t have the time or the resources to build one. My first order of business as gatekeeper would be to build such a cage and install it at the club. Since amber could only be found in the Non, my mother would be able to offer no help with that task.

It was starting to get dark when Benny, with two goons on either side of him, stepped into his throne room and right into the loop of rope we’d laid out on the hardwood floor. I yanked hard and he hit the floor on his ass, the rope tight around his left ankle. Brace stood and started chanting his sleeping spell, while Mercury and Vin jumped in to keep the goons occupied until Brace’s spell worked.

I walked over to Benny and pointed my sword at his throat. “Sorry, Benny, you’re going to have to come with us. It’d be best for everyone if you came willingly.”

Benny smiled at me from the floor, his skin rippling until his neck was covered in scales from his shoulders to his chin. The fucking rope didn’t work on him. The scales meant stabbing him in the neck wouldn’t do him too much damage. If I got a good swing, I might be able to separate his head from his shoulders. The very thought made me nauseous. I’d decapitated a dragon person before, but I knew Benny, and he wasn’t actively trying to kill me. Plus, I was supposed to keep him alive to save Rubalia.

I repositioned my sword and my grip until I would be capable of a killing blow, but Benny took that moment to barrel to his feet and into me, pushing me back into the seat of the throne with him straddling me. “It’s too bad you chose to fight me,” he said, curling his body over mine and baring sharp teeth. “We could have been amazing together.”

He pressed his teeth to my neck, and I braced myself because I didn’t think there would be anything gentle or erotic about his bite. His teeth broke through my skin too quickly for me to shift and slide out of his grasp. I shoved against him, but he might as well have been made of stone, because in my awkward position, I couldn’t get the leverage I needed to move him. I wondered why none of my friends had come to save me, when he swallowed and lapped my skin with his tongue.