Motor City Witch (13 page)

The arrangement was simple—a long straight corridor with eight cells off to one side. Where a ninth and tenth could have been at the front was an open space, holding some cheap plastic chairs and an old stainless steel desk. There was a battered avocado refrigerator from the seventies and a small microwave, with a stack of the yellow plastic plates beside it on a card table. The fridge proved to have a selection of cheap frozen entrees and some eight-ounce bottles of water, as well as a dozen or so whole raw chickens. Bones were scattered about the floor, but at least they looked like chicken legs and animal ribs—probably from half a dozen sides of beef, judging by the gnawed-on partial one in another corner. Not human or elven, at any rate. The cloud of flies buzzing about didn’t seem to mind, making Aidan wish he hadn’t eaten at the convenience store.

Kayla and Lachlan walked the length of the hallway, checking the cells, while Michael stood watch with his rifle and Aidan began to search the desk. In the top drawer he found four wallets and a small silvery evening bag. He flipped through his own. Cash was gone, but everything else was intact. He stuffed Colin’s—the chains and silver studs gave it away—into his pocket and set the others on the desktop.

“Cells are all empty. No signs that any but ours have been occupied.” Kayla sauntered up to the desk and picked up her purse after rifling through the contents. “Huh. Good thing I only had about twenty bucks in cash. I’m surprised they didn’t take the credit cards.” Afterward, she scooped a pair of silver high-heeled sandals out from a pile under the desk.

Michael and Lachlan took turns reclaiming their wallets and their shoes while Aidan searched the other drawers. All he found was a list of names, with five checked off and four, including Meagan’s, remaining. A sticky note on the wall, however, did yield a couple of phone numbers. One was prefaced with an O—for Oswald?—and the other an A. The third had no label at all. Aidan pocketed both the note and the list of names. “Make sure we check
any of the remaining prisoners for cell phones,” he said. Since there was no land line in this room, that had to be their means of communication. Of course any that had been on any of the dead bodies had vanished along with them.

“Out here,” Ric called from the other room right when Aidan had completely given up finding anything in the so-called office. “We found the werewolves’ clothes. There’s a phone in each of their pockets. Guys say none on any of the goblins. No wallets or IDs either, though there are some small bits of cash.”

Aidan tipped his head at his fellow captives and they all rejoined the group in the warehouse. Ric held up two smart phones and two wallets. “I’m guessing the werewolves were in charge. Orcs aren’t smart enough.”

“Agreed. We’ll see what Wallis can do with the phones.” Aidan smiled grimly. “Well, folks, it’s been fun, but let’s get the hell out of this place.”

***

Dina had refused to go across the hall to sleep in the room assigned to Elise, so Elise gave in and tucked the sleepy child into Aidan’s bed, leaving the extra room for Belinda and Morwynna, so they could stay close to Colin. Meagan fetched the stuffed Pegasus from the other room and Dina squealed happily when Meagan leaned over the bed to hand it over.

“Peggy!” She reached up and threw her arms around Meagan’s neck. “Thank you, Aunt Meagan. Love you.”

Elise managed not to chuckle at the bewildered expression on Meagan’s face. Dina had only met the other woman once or twice before the wedding—but once Dina decided someone was part of her family, the idea was stuck. Elise shrugged and shook her head.

“Love you too, sweetie.” Meagan grinned, taking her new “aunt” status in stride.

Dina smiled. “I can’t wait to play with my new cousin.”

Meagan’s eyes flew wide, but after a moment they started to dance with suppressed laughter. “I bet he’ll like that too, Dina. But you might as well go to sleep now. He’s not going to be here until next spring.”

“Summer,” Dina corrected with a yawn. “Good night.” She turned to Elise, who had stretched out above the covers on the other half of the bed. “Good night, Mommy. Don’t worry. Daddy’s okay. He’ll be home in a while.”

Her certainty was convincing enough that Elise believed her. “How about Uncle Ric?” she asked, phrasing it that way to tease Meagan a bit. It felt good to loosen up a little with her friend. She’d been avoiding personal connections her whole life. Had she missed out on how rewarding friendship could be?

“He’s fine too. And Uncle Des. They’re all okay and on their way home.” She leaned over and gave Elise a hug and a kiss. “Love you.” She snuggled down into her pillow with her toy in her arms and was almost instantly asleep.

Meagan stood across the room shaking her head. “Wow. Scary kid. But cute—and sweet. I’m so glad we got her back okay.”

“Yeah, me too.” Elise grinned at her friend. “Just wait until you have your own little magical—and I mean that literally in our cases—bundle of joy. They keep you on your toes, believe me.”

“Yeah, looking forward to that—not.” Meagan settled into a chair and patted her tummy, which wasn’t even starting to show yet. “But I am kind of excited about meeting him
face to face. With everything happening so fast in the last two months, it hasn’t really sunk in yet.”

Elise didn’t reply, she simply gazed down at Adina, sleeping so peacefully after all the horror of the last twenty-four hours. Elise would probably have nightmares about this for the rest of her life—she hoped Dina wouldn’t.

She’d killed a living being today and injured another. Yes, both had been intent on killing her and no, it wasn’t the first time. She’d never gotten used to it, though, even when she was an active enforcer, which was one of the reasons she’d retired. Today, though, all she had to do was look over at her daughter and all the guilt vanished. They’d kidnapped Dina, planning to kill her and frame Aidan, from what Colin had told them after Dina fell asleep in the limo. No, she didn’t feel guilty about killing them at all, which was rather unsettling in its own right.

Then there was Aidan. Goddess, what was she going to do about him? Whatever Elise had felt for him before, now it was even more complicated by the tenderness he’d shown Dina and the lengths he’d gone to in order to save her, even though he knew she wasn’t his. Honestly, Elise was about ready to quit trying to make him accept that fact. Maybe it would be good for Dina to have a father like Aidan, even if they weren’t biologically related. Goddess knew, Elise would never marry. One thing she had realized today was that Aidan was the one and only love of her life. There would never be anyone else, not for her. She had no idea how the hell she was supposed to deal with that realization. She leaned back against the headboard and sighed.

Elise didn’t know how long she’d been lounging there, zoning out and worrying, when she heard a sharp sound from the doorway, which had been left partially open so their ersatz guards could keep an eye on things.

“Psst.” The hiss came again.

Elise looked up to see Fianna Meadows poking her head around the door.

The former elf worried her lower lip between her teeth and cast Elise a look of supplication. “Can I speak to you for a moment?”

“Go ahead.” Meagan waved a hand toward the door when Elise glanced over to where she lounged in the chair. “I’ll stay with the munchkin. I’m not going to be able to sleep until I see Ric with my own eyes anyway.”

Elise knew the feeling. She hoped Dina knew what she was talking about, but until Aidan returned, she wouldn’t truly believe that he was all right. Love could certainly be a pain in the butt.

“Worth it, though,” Meagan replied idly as Elise stood and walked toward the door.

Had she spoken out loud? Or had she dropped her mental shields without realizing it? One way or another, Elise’s brain was most certainly not firing on all cylinders, which probably made this a bad time for a tête-à-tête with one of Owain Le Faire’s followers. Nonetheless, she slipped out the gap in the doorway and moved a few feet down the hall toward Fianna, who stood in the space between the two doors of the Willows’ suite, shifting her weight from side to side. Lana waved from her position at the stair landing, a few yards down the hall.

Elise had never met Aidan’s former secretary before she’d been punished by being turned human. Fianna wore no glamour now that she’d been turned into a mortal. Though her features were still almost inhumanly delicate and her ears had a tiny hint of a point if you looked carefully, she was definitely a mortal, if an incredibly beautiful one. She was exhausted like the rest of them, though, with dark shadows under her aquamarine eyes and her pale blond hair streaked with dust and hanging limply about her shoulders. Someone had given her a black cardigan sweater, which she wore over top her light blue New Moon Bar polo shirt. The visible strip of the shirt was smudged with greasy dirt like her hair. The cell they’d rescued her from had been none too clean, but Fianna, to her credit, hadn’t complained a bit.

“I wanted to speak with you personally.” Fianna’s blue-green eyes stared down at the scuffed toe of her black boot. She glanced up and firmed her chin. “I wanted to apologize to you for ever having been part of my uncle’s plans. When he sent me here to spy on Lord Green Oak, he promised me no one would get hurt. He used me to gain access to the portal.”

“And he put a magical trap on it that killed Gunter.” Elise knew the story of what had happened before Meagan and Ric had stopped Owain. Wallis had been Aidan’s number two security man until the death of his friend and employee, Gunter, in the damaged portal. Elise remembered the troll who’d acted as driver for Aidan as well as bodyguard five years earlier.

Fianna nodded. “That’s when I knew he was wrong. My mother died when I was born and my father chose to leave me in her brother’s household—he wasn’t particularly interested in raising a child. So I grew up with Oswald and I was taught to honor my uncle as a lord among our people. He was very proud to be a cousin of the queen herself. The superiority of
the Fae, particularly the true-blooded elf, was drummed into my head. Even though I have spent time now with other races, ingrained prejudice is hard to overcome.”

“I understand.” Elise did in a way. The
Wyndewin
League tended to disapprove of non-humans in general, as if expecting them to break the law at any opportunity. Desmond still bought into that. It had taken Elise a while to realize that non-humans were simply people too—some good, some bad, most somewhere in between.

“I swear to you, though, that I never would have gone along with my uncle had I known it meant killing. Even though I agreed with his belief, I would not have aided him in that. And Oswald—well, my cousin is a different man entirely.” She shuddered. “I don’t think his motives are as pure as his father’s. Uncle Le Faire wanted power, but because he believed it was right. Oswald—he just wants to be in charge. He has no moral code at all. Be careful. Whatever plan he is up to, it will be of benefit to no one but himself.”

“Thank you for the warning.” Elise held out a hand to the other woman. “And I believe you. You have learned a lot in the last six weeks, haven’t you?”

Fianna actually grinned. “Besides how to wash dishes and avoid getting my ass pinched by lecherous drunks? Yes. The wolves—they are a bit uncouth, but they are good people underneath it all. I could have been given a far harsher sentence than to have to work for them.” Her translucent skin pinkened as she mentioned the wolves and her aura did as well.

Elise bit back a gasp. Had Fianna fallen for Greg? George was taken and Fianna didn’t seem to swing toward women. Oh, wow, that was an interesting development. She filed it away for future reference. “Is there anything more you can tell us about Oswald? Where he might be hiding? Who he might be working with?”

Fianna shook her head. “I know he is extremely powerful. He’s the only one of my generation who had the same level of power as the queen, which is part of the reason for his delusions of grandeur. His father told him over and over as a child that his changeable eyes were the mark of a future ruler and Oswald believed it completely.”

That stopped Elise in her tracks with a gasp. “What?”

“Owain constantly reinforced that Oswald was destined to rule,” Fianna rephrased. “Until Oswald became obsessed—”

It was all Elise could do not to grab the other woman and shake her until her teeth rattled. “Not that. The part about the eyes.”

Fianna’s pale brows scrunched together as she tried to understand. “What about them? They are a mark of great power. Oswald has always believed they mark him as the next destined ruler and his father encouraged that belief.”

“His eyes—they change color? Is that what you mean?” Elise’s heart was pounding in her chest so hard she was surprised it wasn’t vibrating the floor. Surely, if that were the case, Aidan would have said something to her when she’d told him about Dina.

“Well, yes.” Fianna stared at Elise for a moment until something seemed to dawn on her. “I’m sorry, I forgot for a moment that no one outside the royal family is supposed to know about that.”

“And Oswald is one-hundred-percent Fae, right? Not a hybrid? No human in the mix—or demon?” Elise’s mind reeled.
The portrait!
That’s what it was. The artist hadn’t gotten the hue wrong—the queen had changed her eye color sometime after it was done.

“Of course,” Fianna replied. “That mark has only ever appeared in pureblooded Fae—and only among the nobility—only within our close kin, as far as I know. Oswald is the only
one I’ve ever heard of except for Llyris. As children, their eye color can change, until they settle on a shade that seems right for them. Llyris chose ice blue, while Oswald’s are the color of dark sapphires.”

“And good goddess, Dina chose green,” Elise whispered, stricken. “Aidan
is
her father!”

“What? Your daughter is a potential queen?” Fianna’s hand flew to her throat. “A
halfling?
Goddess, if they found out about that, she’d be in even greater danger. It violates everything they believe in.”

There was a thump a few feet down the hallway, as a maid dropped a stack of towels she’d been carrying. Her jaw was hanging low, her almond-shaped eyes round with horror. Then they narrowed. “No. A part-blood who could become queen? Never!”

Neither Lana at the main stairwell nor Elise had paid any attention to the maid who’d strolled casually up the servants’ stair with a load of linens in her arms. Fianna’s back was toward the servant. Now, Elise noted with terror that the woman stepped in front of Aidan’s bedroom door and she’d blinked in a lethal-looking snub-nosed revolver, which she raised and pointed into the room at the bed where Dina slept.

“Noooo!” Elise screamed as she leapt toward the woman. Lana snarled and began to run toward them, but she was too far away.

Fianna had spun around and she was closer. The former Fae launched herself at the maid, putting her body between the gun and the open door right as the other woman pulled the trigger.

The gunshot boomed in their ears. Elise struck the maid—she couldn’t remember the bitch’s name—as Fianna crumpled to the floor, a bright red stain spreading out from the hole above her breast. Elise bore the woman down and in a heartbeat, Lana was there, a wicked knife in her hand. Without hesitation, she slit the traitor’s throat. The body, blood and all, instantly vanished.

“One less prisoner to interrogate, but I didn’t want to take the time to subdue her,” Lana said, wiping her blade on her T-shirt. “Is Fee okay?”

Elise rolled, laying her hands on Fianna, who coughed, bringing up a bloody foam. “Nobody.” Cough. “Should.” She choked and gasped. “Hurt.” Another, weaker cough. “Children.”

Elise didn’t respond, she was too busy trying to heal the woman. Damn, the bullet was cold iron and it had passed through a lung to lodge at the edge of the heart.

“Meagan, tweezers—long skinny ones,” she yelled, knowing the commotion would have brought her friend running to the door. “Lana, slice open her shirt.”

Lana bent down and used her knife to cut Fianna’s polo shirt from neckline to hem, before turning her back to them, standing guard. Colin, Morwynna and Belinda appeared at their various doorways, Morwynna with a wicked-looking blade in her hand, Colin with a hockey stick. Good.

“Here.” Meagan blinked in a pair of long pointed tweezers. “But would it be easier if I just blinked out the bullet?”

“Hell, yes.”

Elise maintained a mental connection with the wound, stopping the bleeding as best she could. Then Meagan knelt and laid her hands on Fianna as well. Elise felt the additional power flow in as Meagan poured her magic into Fianna to stabilize the patient. A moment later, Meagan held the bullet in her hand.

Elise integrated the additional power, instantly starting to mend the gap left by the bullet. “You’re getting good at this, but don’t overtax yourself and hurt the baby.”

“I won’t,” Meagan promised. True to her word, she pulled back as soon as the bullet was clear of Fianna. Immediately, Morwynna knelt and took Meagan’s place, while Belinda helped Meagan to her feet.

Elise paused for breath before repairing ribs, muscle and other tissues. She’d used her power more today than any other time in her life and she was damned near out. Exhausted, she sank back on her ass on the floor as Fianna’s eyes fluttered open.

***

“We’ve got gunfire on the second floor!” Aidan heard the words as he stepped into the house through the security entrance, their motley team trailing behind them, some carrying or prodding the prisoners.

The guard yelling was Toby’s nephew, Morgan, who was running down the hall toward the stairs, headset on and weapon in hand. Forgetting the prisoners for a moment, Aidan ran right behind him, Ric and several others close at his heels.

“Wallis, mind the prisoners,” Aidan called back over his shoulder as he raced up the service stair. “Toby, see our guests through the portal so they can go home.”

His bedroom was directly above the library, allowing for a secret passage between his walk-in closet and the portal chamber. Had someone tried to use it? As he reached the top of the stairs, two steps behind Morgan, he saw Elise and Morwynna on the floor in his bedroom doorway, along with Fianna, all of them covered in blood. Meagan, her hands bloody, leaned against Belinda’s shoulder.

His heart started beating again when he saw Elise and Meagan both turn and wave at their approach. “What did that bitch do now?” He ’ported in his cutlass. This was the last straw—he was ending Fianna once and for all.

Elise got shakily to her feet and stood in his way, laying both of her hands on his shoulders. He’d never seen her so pale—or so bloody. “She saved Dina’s life. Almost died doing it. Leave…her…alone.” Her voice was little more than a whisper and she swayed against him, her knees giving out.

Aidan dropped his cutlass and caught her in his arms before she could hit the floor. Desmond had stepped forward to catch her too, but Aidan was quicker and ignored the sharp look her brother cast his way.

Meanwhile, Greg shoved past Aidan to crouch beside Fianna, whose shirt front was torn away, revealing a white bra stained red with blood. He ran his hand across her skin and then buttoned her sweater.

“Seriously.” Meagan launched herself into Ric’s arms. “This maid pulled a gun…” She pointed to the weapon now in Lana’s hand. “She seemed pretty freaked out about something.”

“Jennet?” Aidan asked. All the women shrugged, even Elise, whose shoulders rubbed against his chest.

“It’s the same bitch who was sleeping with the gardener.” Greg snarled as he stood and eased Fianna up beside him, his arm wrapped possessively around her waist. “Her scent is all over the place.”

“Where is she now?” Aidan asked.

“Dead.” Lana bared her teeth. “But I wouldn’t have gotten to her in time. Fee threw herself in front of the bullet. Honest.” She traced an
X
across her chest. “Elise healed her, but I think it was pretty close.”

Meagan nodded. “Get Elise cleaned up and put to bed, Aidan. And go talk to Dina—she’s hiding under the covers hoping everything’s going to be okay.”

“I think we could do with showers and sleep all around,” Ric agreed. “You have someplace to lock up the prisoners?”

Morgan the guard nodded. “There are a couple hidden cells in the basement. We can throw them in there until morning.”

“Bring in more guards from Rosemeade if you need them,” Meagan said. “I left instructions that they’re to answer to Wallis or Toby if need be. I want eyes on those bastards every minute.”

Aidan nodded his agreement. “And don’t forget Dylan, the groundskeeper. Round him up and throw him in the cell as well.”

“You got it, boss.” Morgan and the other guards turned and headed back down the stairs. “You want me to send a couple guards up here?”