Not Your Ordinary Faerie Tale (22 page)

“How can Rafe help us?”

Luc shot her a look of surprise.
“As head of the Council, he’ll have a direct link to communicate with Mab.
He can put us in touch with her faster than trying to reach her ourselves.”

“A direct link?
What is he, some sort of official ambassador?”

“Someone has to maintain diplomatic ties between the worlds.
On
Ithir
, it’s the responsibility of the head of the Council.”

“Right.
Great.
Looks like we go talk to Rafe then.
Just give me five minutes.”

“What for?”

She was already heading for the bedroom.
“So I can get dressed.”

She heard him sigh.
“All right.
I’m going to call Rafe and tell him we’re on our way.”

“What makes you think we plan to take a human along with us?”

Even if she’d been deaf, Corinne couldn’t have missed the sarcastic, arrogant tone in Fergus’s voice.

“Because if you don’t, I’ll just follow you,” she explained.
“And then I’ll get all pissy.
When I get pissy, I’ll bitch about you to Reggie and Missy.
In turn, they’ll bitch about you to Misha and Graham, and then there’ll be this whole big interdimensional incident just because you got your shorts in a knot.”
She stopped in the hallway door and looked over her shoulder at him.
“So do you really want to go there?
I kinda thought we were pressed for time.”

She stalked back into her bedroom to the sound of Luc’s chuckle and Fergus’s curses in a language she didn’t recognize.
It was just as well.
They would probably just have pissed her off even more.
And she was already planning to stash a metric buttload of aspirin in her backpack to take with her.
Judging by the size of the headache Fergus had given her, that might spare him from her wrath for about an hour.
Two, if he’d learn to keep his mouth shut.

It amazed her that one Fae—namely Fergus—could be so obnoxious and set her teeth on edge in a nanosecond, while another—that would be Luc—could give her that scary, happy, glowing feeling in her chest.
She must have lost her mind.

As she pulled a pair of comfortable worn jeans out of her dresser drawer, she heard Fergus yell something impatient and rude from her living room.
Eyes narrowing, she decided to make it two metric buttloads of aspirin.
Just in case.

Five minutes, Corinne decided as she climbed out of the cab she and her two enormous companions had squeezed into for the trip to Rafe’s Upper East Side home.
That’s all she needed, just five minutes of peace, of uninterrupted privacy where she could sit down, take a deep breath, and try to figure out just what the hell was going on and when exactly she’d gotten on this ride that wouldn’t stop.
Was it really so much to ask?

Apparently.

Reggie and Missy were waiting for her when she, Luc and Fergus arrived at Rafe’s front door.
They’d barely gotten the damned thing closed behind them before her friends pounced.
Corinne looked to Luc for rescue, but the damned man was already huddled with her traitorous friends’ traitorous husbands.

“All right, Rinne, spill it,” Reggie demanded, crossing her arms over her chest and fixing her friend with an expectant stare.
“What in blazes in going on?”

“Yeah.
Why did Graham and Dmitri drag us all the way over here mumbling something about diplomatic ties, interdimensional incidents, and the end of the world as we know it?”

Missy mustered up an intimidating glare, but the effect paled a bit when she began rubbing her hand over her swollen belly.
She was currently three months’ pregnant and, ridiculously enough, halfway to term.
She looked at least six months along, which was just one of the results of getting knocked up by a werewolf, apparently.

“It’s a really long story.”
Corinne tried to ease her way past them and closer to Luc.
Even if the fink hadn’t come to her rescue, he’d make an awfully big obstacle to hide behind, if she could move quick enough.

“Not a chance,” Reggie snapped.
“Even if you could move faster than Missy, which I doubt, you sure as hell wouldn’t be faster than me.
So stay put and start talking.”

“Damn it, Reg!”
Corinne stopped sidling toward Luc and threw up her hands.
“You know how much I hate it when you do that!
I don’t care how cool you think it is, stay the hell out of my mind!”

“I’m not in your mind, you idiot.”
Reggie straightened up haughtily and looked offended.
“I don’t need to read you when you’re broadcasting so loud, a deaf dog could hear you.
You should be glad I didn’t bring up what else you’re broadcasting.”

“You don’t need to,” Missy put in, her face taking on an arch expression.
“I can smell it.
Our dearest friend has been getting down and dirty with the man in black over there.
And—” She paused, and Corinne tried not to notice that she was inhaling delicately.
“—the man in black is not quite human.”

“Corinne!”
Reggie gasped, fighting back a smile.
“I thought you only wanted to get involved with human men.
I thought you said Others weren’t your type.”

“She’s clearly been fibbing.”

Blushing scarlet, Corinne was all ready to turn around and head right back out the door when Luc called her name.

He turned away from the men’s huddle and held his hand out to her.
“Come here.
I think this will all be a lot easier if we explain to everyone at once.”
He turned back to Rafe and raised his eyebrows.
“Think we can move into the living room and sit down?”

Trying desperately to act casual, Corinne ignored the stares of her friends and Luc’s outstretched hand as she crossed to his side.
He didn’t get offended, just wrapped the hand around her instead, resting his palm possessively on her hip.
She pretended not to notice, but she couldn’t help seeing the way Rafe’s dark eyebrows shot up, and his normal expression of lazy amusement took on a decided note of curiosity.

“By all means,” the suave werecat said, gesturing for the others to precede him through the double doors that led to his living room.
“Let’s make ourselves comfortable.
Can I offer anyone a drink?”

“Sure.”

“Yes.”

“Absolutely.”

“Hell, yeah.”

Rafe chuckled.
“I’ll just open the bar, shall I?
That way we can all help ourselves.”

They made an odd little party as they filed into Rafe’s immaculately decorated living room.
The damned thing was about twice the size of Corinne’s entire apartment.
Was it, like, a rule that all the Others in Manhattan had to be obscenely rich?

Rafe settled himself behind the bar and began setting decanters and bottles onto the inlaid top, while Fergus took about three steps into the room and leaned his shoulder against the fireplace mantel.
He seemed determined to be a pill.

Reggie and Missy tried to herd Corinne toward the sofa, but Luc actually came in handy and steered her to a love seat, taking the place beside her and draping his arm casually over her shoulders.
She saw Reggie start to protest, but Misha hooked an arm around his wife’s waist and sank down on a retro-looking curved armchair, pulling her onto his lap.
When Reggie opened her mouth to protest, he shook his head and gave her a quelling look.

Graham just led Missy to where he wanted her to sit, helped ease her down into the chair, and sat on the floor at her feet with one knee drawn up to his chest and his arm draped over it.
It looked like a casual pose, but Corinne saw he had Missy completely hemmed in and gave a sigh of relief.
Luc noticed and flashed her an amused look.

“Champagne, I think.”
Rafe’s voice rumbled through the tense silence, and Corinne looked over to see him holding aloft a black glass bottle.
“Would anyone care to join me?”

“You think we have something to celebrate?
You should know this matter is too grave not to be taken seriously.”

“I take many things seriously, Fergus,” Rafe replied, bracing the bottle against his thigh as he eased the cork from the top.
“However, I fail to see how all hope is lost.”

“Then maybe you don’t really have a grasp on the situation.
Would you like me to explain?”

Corinne felt her eyes widen.
“I know red hair is supposed to indicate a quick temper,” she muttered to Luc, “but I had no idea it also equated to rudeness and criminal stupidity.”

“Watch it, Emily Post,” he murmured back.

The man made more pop references than she did half the time, and wondering how he’d become so conversant in human culture threatened to drive her crazy.
She reminded herself to ask him about it later.
Right now she wanted to watch the fireworks.

“I hardly think I need any explanations from you, Fergus, nor is this the time for us to listen to you throw a tantrum,” Rafe purred.
Not the way a cat being stroked purrs, but the way a leopard feasting on the entrails of his kill does.
“However, if you feel the need to question my understanding, I would be happy to discuss it with you.
Later.
Alone.”

Corinne shuddered and decided to be very sure she wasn’t around for later.

“Can we get down to business?”
Luc asked, cutting through the tension and drawing all eyes off Rafe and Fergus and onto him and Corinne.
She fought the urge to squirm.

“I think that is a marvelous idea.”
Dmitri shifted Reggie on his lap and spoke over the top of her auburn head.
“Perhaps you could fill us in on what is happening, Luc.
Rafe already told us of the reason for this most recent visit of yours to our world, but I suspect something important has happened if both you and Fergus felt the need to call us all together here.”

“The calling-together was Rafe’s idea, but I’ll admit it was a good one.
From what Fergus told me, I have a feeling it’s going to take all of us to wrap up this mess.”
Luc reached out a hand to accept the glass of champagne Rafe handed to him and passed it to Corinne.
“And we don’t have a lot of time.”

Across the room, Graham sighed and rested his right hand on Missy’s distended belly.
“Then I suggest you make with the storytelling, buddy.”

Corinne watched and listened and sipped champagne as Luc filled the others in on the saga of Seoc, Hibbish, Rabbi Aaronson, and the Faerie doors.
Everyone but Fergus listened intently, their faces growing grimmer as the tale came out.
No one seemed pleased to hear about what was going on, and Corinne found herself feeling almost sorry for Seoc.
She certainly wouldn’t want these five men—well, these four men and a sorry-assed excuse for an ill-mannered Fae—to add her to their fecal rosters.
Just the thought made her shiver.

Luc must have noticed, because he tightened his arm around her and began to rub his hand up and down her arm, as if chafing some warmth into her.
She grimaced when she saw both Reggie and Missy make note of the motion and exchange
Aha!
glances.
Maybe if she climbed over so she was sitting directly behind Luc, they’d forget she was there.

When Luc finally stopped speaking, Dmitri grunted.
“I can see why you were concerned,
brahtok.
The Queen’s nephew is breaking at least five clauses from the concordance between our peoples.
I think Rafael would agree that the Others are as anxious as you are to see him stopped and returned to Faerie.”

Rafe nodded over the rim of his champagne flute.
“Of course.
We will be happy to do all we can to help you.”

Luc turned his gaze to Dmitri.
“Will it involve more this time than giving me your phone number and wishing me luck?”

Dmitri chuckled.
“If more is required, of course it will.”
He cast a knowing glance at the arm Luc still had snugged around Corinne’s shoulders.
“But I believe you have managed to discover quite a bit all on your own.
Do you disagree?”

Luc smiled lazily in return.
“No, I don’t suppose I do.
Remind me to thank you later,
brahtok.
”

“Excuse me,” Corinne snapped, looking from one self-satisfied male face to the other, “but I’m sitting right here, and I’m not brain-dead.
Do you think you could refrain from talking about me as if I were an object?
At least while I’m in the room to hear you?”

Luc brushed his lips against her temple, and she could feel his suppressed laughter.
“Maybe.
It’ll be tough, but I’ll make the effort.”

A strange squeaking noise made them both turn to look at Reggie.
She sat in Dmitri’s lap, struggling to get to her feet, but he held her easily with his arms wrapped around her waist.

“That’s it!”
Reggie cried, grabbing her husband’s wrists and attempting to pull his hands off her.
“I want to know what you’ve done to Corinne!
Have you cast some sort of weird Fae love spell on her?
Have you?”

Dmitri tried to hush her, but he was having trouble speaking over his laughter.
Reggie ignored him.

“What makes you think I had to use magic to make her love me?”
Luc asked.
“I think I may be insulted.”

“Oh, no, you’ll know when you’ve been insulted,” Missy growled from the other side of the room, “because I’m about to insult you big time.
What kind of dirty, rotten, manipulative, rat-faced bastard plays with someone’s emotions like that?
You ought to be ashamed of yourself!
Graham, let me go!
I want to hit him.
Hard.”

Corinne groaned and tried to squirm out from under Luc’s arm, but he was having none of it.
“Would you all stop it?
You, too, Mr.
Grabby Hands.”
She glared at Luc before turning back to her primary targets.
“And you, my supposed friends who went and got involved with figments of the collective human imagination long before I ever met the guy you want to punish, who the hell do you think you are?
If I want to fall in love with a three-toed tree sloth, I’d like to see you try to stop me.”

Breathing hard, she jerked back and felt her eyes widen.
Had she just shouted that she was in love with Luc?
Had she?

“We don’t care who you fall in love with,” Missy said.
“Though the tree sloth thing might take some getting used to.
But we do care when you have a spell cast on you by some unscrupulous Fae Lothario.”

“For your information, there is no magic involved here,” she retorted.
“Luc couldn’t use magic to make me love him if he tried.
He’s already told me his illusions don’t work on me.
So there.”

She realized that the
so there
might come across as a little childish, but when faced with the choice between saying it and sticking her tongue out, she went with the verbal jab and patted herself on the back for her restraint.