The Hob (The Gray Court 4) (18 page)

Raven attacked first, as Robin had known he would. He disappeared in a swirl of dark smoke, only to reappear behind Robin. He took a swipe at Robin with his claws, but Robin was no longer there, disappearing in a similar swirl of dark mist.

The wind changed, and Robin scented it again, that elusive scent tantalizing him, taunting him with might-have-beens and deliberately forgotten dreams.

That earthy, feral aroma could not be Robin’s. There was no way one of the worst of Titannia’s lackeys was his child.

“I will protect her, even from you.” Raven disappeared again, but this time stayed gone. Robin stilled, stretching out with his senses, waiting for Raven to try again. He hated to admit it, but the boy had guts. Hobart had barely fought, choosing instead to beg for his life and that of his lover, Constance.

Robin had destroyed Hobart, leaving nothing behind but the thick, black sludge that ran through his veins, the same sludge that had poisoned and nearly killed Shane Dunne.

Robin wished things could have turned out differently. Hobart Klaussner, the man who’d tortured Shane and somehow brought the Child of Dunne prophecy to pass, had been his child, but had been nothing like the Raven Lord. He’d operated under the radar, born of a mother who’d once been a pooka but was changed into a vampire halfway through her pregnancy by Titannia. That was the only way the bitch queen could have laid her hands on one of his progeny, of that Robin had been certain.

He’d been a fluke, nothing more. He had to have been. If not…

Robin could not have lost another unknown child to that black-hearted bitch.

Raven popped into the air above him, nearly getting the drop on him. Robin dodged, impressed, and lashed out. He took a chunk of Raven’s coat with him.

The boy might be his, but he certainly didn’t have Robin’s fashion sense. He dressed completely in black, like the raven he took his name from. Robin had yet to see him in any color.

Raven snarled at him. “Stay away from Michaela. She is
mine
.”

Robin laughed, evading the swipe Raven aimed at him with ease. “What care I for your words? Michaela has a mind of her own. She will decide which of us she wants, and there is not a damn thing you can do about it.”

The Fear Dearc leapt into the air, his movements so swift Robin could barely follow them, avoiding Robin’s return blow. He landed on the edge of the building and perched there in a pose that was so familiar Robin’s heart broke. “You are no Sidhe, to Claim her against her will.”

“Neither are you, it would seem.” Robin straightened from his crouch. Hell and damnation. There was no longer any doubt in his mind.

This boy, this Black Court parasite, was one of Robin’s get.

The arrogant smile on Raven’s face turned bitter. Luminescent green fire danced in his eyes. “Finally figured it out, did you, Father?” He tilted his head, the gesture birdlike.

“How?” How had two of Robin’s children wound up in Titannia’s hands?

“The Dark Queen pays your women handsomely for your seed.”

What? Robin froze in place, his attention fixed solely on the Fear Dearc, the Raven Lord. Baddest of the Black Court fae, save for Bres and the Black Queen herself.

But for all his reputation, Robin saw something in Raven’s face, something quickly hidden, that made his heart stutter in his chest.

Longing. The same longing Robin felt each time he saw Michaela, or watched the Dunnes and their mates together. The same longing that had been in Aileen Dunne’s eyes when her son had been missing, stolen by the Malmaynes in an attempt to get Leo Dunne’s attention.

The boy wanted his father the way Robin wanted his children, but was too terrified to do anything about it.

“Indeed. She even allowed my mother the privilege of living. Be grateful to her. If she hadn’t, I’d have been an even bigger bastard. She was the only gentleness I knew.” Raven’s smile softened, lost its bitter edge. “Michaela reminds me of her.”

Raven was lying. He had to be. There could not be more of them out there, lost in the Black.

“Father?”

The mocking edge to Raven’s voice was impossible to miss. The building beneath his feet trembled, nearly sending Raven over the edge. Without thought, Robin moved to save the boy.

His
boy.

He grabbed Raven’s arm, ignoring the claws that were suddenly embedded in his side, and pulled Raven off the edge. Dark poison pumped uselessly into his veins. No one had bothered to inform Raven that Robin was immune to it, an advantage Robin had been forced to use in his fight with Hobart. The vampiric pooka had been resistant to dying. Robin had been forced to make an example out of him. He’d prayed for the lost child he’d never known, his soul crying out for what had needlessly been lost forever.

If Titannia had, indeed, been taking his children, raising them in her image…

Raven stumbled against him, and that elusive scent, the one that had bothered Robin from the start, filled his senses. Under the stink of Titannia and sylph lay Robin’s own feral tang. He could deny all he wished, but there was no longer any doubt.

Titannia had taken another one of his children from him.

Robin screeched in rage, the sound shattering the metal door behind them and cracking the tar and concrete of the roof.

Raven, his deep blue–green eyes filled with fear, tried to back away, but Robin would not allow it.

“How?”

Raven stilled, as a human would when facing a hungry tiger. “How what? That’s a rather broad question.”

“The Black Queen. How did she get to your mother?” Robin barely remembered the night he’d spent with the sylph, but her scent was all over their son, dark and swarming with fae magic. Combined with Titannia’s, it had nearly obliterated Robin’s. Only the tantalizing whiffs of Robin in his blood had saved Raven from death.

“You didn’t know.”

Robin frowned. That wasn’t the answer he’d been expecting, nor was the strange wonder in Raven’s voice.

The green fire in Raven’s eyes died. He eyed Robin warily now, but his claws and fangs were sheathed. “Titannia always told us that you’d sold us.”

Robin took a deep breath. Mandates of the gods or not, Titannia needed to die a slow, agonizing death. Robin knew just the Hob to deliver it to her. “No. I would never sell my children.” He’d longed for a true family for centuries, and now his son stood before him, willing to hear him out.

Raven relaxed even further in Robin’s grasp. “If that’s so, then she’s lied to us all.”

Us all
. Robin’s worst fears were becoming realized. “How many of you are there?” Robin held on to his anger by a thin, easily broken thread. Too much more and he’d lose it, and the building would collapse beneath his feet.

He had to maintain his control. Michaela was in the building. There was nothing Robin would not do to ensure her safety.

“More than you’d hope, less than you fear.”

He closed his eyes and prayed. “A number, if you please.”

“Six—no, five, now that the highly annoying Hobart is dead. And not all of them are displeased to be there.”

Robin’s eyes popped open. “Were you?”

One of Raven’s dark brows quirked upward. “Need you ask?”

Indeed. If Raven had been happy under Titannia he would now be sitting in the delegate’s chair below, not confronting his lost father. “Then why did you not seek me out?”

Raven laughed, the sound bitter beyond words. “Seek out Robin Goodfellow, the Hobgoblin himself? Boogeymen frighten their children with tales of you.”

Well. He had to admit, Raven had a point.

“It was drummed into us that even entertaining the thought of running to the Gray Court and begging for sanctuary would bring your wrath down upon our heads and the heads of what loved ones we dared to have. No. Coming to you was not an option any of us dared contemplate.”

“I would have protected you. All of you.” From Oberon himself, if need be.

“Even Hobart?” Raven grimaced. “There are those of us who enjoy the attentions of the Dark Queen.”

That did not sound good. “What do you mean, attentions?”

Raven shuddered. “Each of us is forced to lie with her, to give her our seed so that she might bear a child with your power and her dark heart.”

Robin, for the first time in centuries, felt nauseous. “She’s
leannan Sidhe,
a vampire. She cannot bear children.” Vampires were infertile, even the original. Titannia must have been desperate indeed to please her demon lord, if she tried to bear fruit in an empty womb.

“Her Majesty is not the most stable leg on the table.” Raven grinned, the expression a pale imitation of his usual arrogant look. “Why aren’t you still trying to kill me? Because I share your blood? Don’t think that will stop me from claiming Michaela.”

Robin growled. “Make no mistake. Michaela is mine.” He shook his head, staring at the boy who looked nothing like him, but was more his son than any he’d faced before. “But so are you.”

Raven, obviously stunned, laughed. “We’ll see about that.”

He moved to leap off the edge of the building, but Robin held out his hand, stopping him. “Wait. Your brothers and sisters. Is there a way to contact them?”

Raven scowled. “I am the youngest, and the least under Titannia’s thumb. I would trust none of the others, were I you.” He sighed, perhaps reading Robin’s determination to save as many as he could. “Fine. I’ll see what I can do. In the meantime, Father—” Raven’s form blurred, “—prepare to fight for her.”

Robin watched as his son launched himself from the rooftop with a raucous, mocking cry. “So be it.”

Chapter Fifteen

Oberon swirled into being and stared at the strange humans in front of him. He could not believe some of the lengths they would go to in order to imitate the fae.

He shook his head and straightened his pearl-gray suit. His hair was bound in a tail at the nape of his neck by a titanium clasp with the symbol of his Court etched into it, the dark gray metal a foil for the symbol. A triple spiral triskelion, the bottom two spirals were white and black enamel, to represent the White and Black Courts. But the upper spiral, the one above them both, was done in pure, shining silver, the arms of the spiral reaching down to touch the white and the black, blending into them. It doubled as his crown when he was away from Court, and declared that the High King was present on official business. Silver glasses with gray lenses hid his eyes.

Some of the true fae attending the con saw him and quickly averted their eyes, aware that if the High King were present something must be wrong.

It was, and Oberon was uncertain how to deal with it. Shane had told him his presence was necessary in Philadelphia, but had refused to tell him why. Even pressing him with his power had not elicited a response, a fact that still stunned him. Shane had given in when pressed about Robin’s truebond, but would not do so when asked why Oberon was needed in Philadelphia. All he’d done was wish him the same as the Seer.

“Pleasant dreams.”

It was strange, and Oberon did not care for it one little bit, especially in light of the highly erotic dreams he’d been having lately. All of them revolved around a woman with huge turquoise eyes and long, pale limbs that glimmered in the light like they were dotted with tiny scales. Now he knew the name of the woman, and his heart hardened.

Princess Cassandra Nerice.

He might be forced into a matebond, but his half a heart would remain his own.

He walked up to the registration desk and requested the key to his room. Since there had been a slim chance that the delegation would require his direct intervention to reach an accord, he’d discreetly booked a room in the hotel. He refused to share space with Robin and Kael. City apartments were far too small for his taste, and he did not own one of the larger condos in Philadelphia. New York, Rome, Paris and Vienna, yes. Philadelphia, no. He’d been contemplating a home in Hong Kong, until he learned Titannia’s Court was currently stationed in Beijing.

He’d be purchasing a home in Tokyo instead. And now that the dark queen was no longer in Russia, he might even consider a home in Moscow.

Oberon smiled at the girl behind the counter, amused when she blushed furiously. She was certainly cute, but not to his taste. There was no woman who could turn his head, despite what Shane had decreed. Oberon would never again be vulnerable to a woman’s wiles. There was far too much at stake to allow his heart to become engaged.

“Sire?” Oberon turned, card key in hand, to find Duncan Malmayne-Blackthorn standing there, a frown on his face. “Should you be here?”

Oberon looked down at the key card in his hand. “According to your brother-in-law Shane, yes.”

Duncan paled. “Ah. I see.”

“I doubt that.” When Duncan’s brow rose, Oberon decided to explain. The man was, by truebond, mated to Robin’s blood, and therefore family in a roundabout way. When Robin had given Jaden his blood it had changed him. Robin had inadvertently created a bond that was just as strong, just as familial, as that of a truebond, making Robin, in a round-about way, Jaden’s sire. It was why Oberon had accepted Jaden as Robin’s when his Hob had pointed it out to him. It had also allowed for the formation of Clan Blackthorn, a clan that accepted those of all the fae races and their human mates, giving not just Gray Court vampires, but hobgoblins, redcaps, Sidhe mated to vampires, even banshees, a clan to call their own. Robin’s claim, and considerable influence, kept the rumblings in court to a minimum. It was the first time a vampire had ever been given lordship over a clan, and Oberon almost looked forward to what the Malmayne-Blackthorns would do with it. “There is an issue with Robin that needs my attention.”