Not Your Ordinary Faerie Tale (5 page)

“My, my, it sounds like someone neglected to eat her Wheaties this morning,” Ava purred.
“What’s the matter, darling?
Come on, you can tell me all about it.”

“Wow, that is such an unappealing offer.
Thanks.”
Frankly, Corinne wasn’t certain she had the strength to think about the problem at hand at the moment, let alone hash it all out for an audience.
The restorative powers of Coca-Cola were legendary, but even it could only do so much.
Since the damned elevator seemed determined never to arrive, she’d need everything she had to climb back up to the office.
She turned toward the stairwell.

“Your sarcasm is noted and frowned upon.”

“Look, Ava, I don’t know what happened today to stir this all up for you again, but now is not a good time.
You can’t wish things back to the way they were, and neither can I.
All you can do is deal.
Regina and Missy are happy with their impossible men.
We can either be happy for them, or we can sit around and moan about how the world isn’t what we thought it was.
I barely have time to waste on the first one, let alone the second.”

“Oh, I know,” Ava pouted.
She could actually do that—pout with her voice as well as her face.
“Different strokes, love makes the world go round, to each her own, Ava is a bitch, yadda yadda yadda.”

“Correction—Ava is
the
bitch.”

“Darling, I think I’m flattered.”

“Don’t be, because I’m totally about to hang up on you.”
Corinne went ahead and tucked her soda against her side so she’d have a hand free to make that obscene gesture after all.
“But because you are, inexplicably, my friend, I am first going to give you twenty seconds to tell me why the hell you called me today to bitch about how Reggie and Missy abandoned your fantasy fix plan.
Like I said, that boat’s already sunk.”

“You said it had already sailed.”

“Ten seconds, Ava.”

“Well, of course I didn’t call about the fixes.
I’m so over that.”

Corinne turned to jog up her second flight and frowned.
“Stop.
Rewind.
Slo-mo playback.
Say huh?
If you didn’t call about the fixes, why were you accusing me of deserting you?”

“Are you not the woman who bailed on a modeling gig booked by her struggling young agent friend, forcing the agent to scrape up an appropriate substitute just fifteen minutes before the shoot started?”

Corinne nearly tripped over a riser.
“Ava, that was seven years ago!”

“There’s no statute of limitations on betrayal, now, is there?”

“Okay, hanging up now.”

“Wait.
Not so fast.
I called for a reason.”

“Oh, you mean a reason other than to bitch and moan at me?”

“Clearly,” Ava said, her tone changing from melodramatic to business-like in a heartbeat.
“I wanted to ask you about something.”

“No, Ava, I will not ask the editor to do a full-color spread on the Markham Agency.
Bye.”

“Will you stop jumping to conclusions?
This is another matter entirely.
A matter I thought my friend, the talented investigative reporter, could help me with.”

Corinne lowered the now half-empty soda can and made a face.
“No, I won’t rewrite all your press releases this month, either.”

“Then will you tell me if there’s some sort of weird serial killer running around Manhattan looking like a wet dream and pretending to be the guy on the Lucky Charms box?”

Corinne froze right there in the
Chronicle
’s doorway.
“What did you ask me?”

“You heard me.
Four of my models have bailed on bookings in the last six weeks because they said they were being stalked by an elf.
So either they’re insane, the coke has melted their brains, or there’s some freak who thinks Christmas-themed slave laborers in August is the perfect cover for a crime spree.
Or they’ve actually stumbled on to something they really shouldn’t know about.
Have you heard about any of your fellow media types sniffing around something like this?”

Corinne’s response was very pithy and, she thought, entirely appropriate.
She cursed like a dockhand, hung up on Ava, and slugged back what was left of her soda.
Then she shouldered her way through the fire door to the hall outside the office.
She needed to get back to her desk and the bottle of little white pills waiting inside.
To hell with her liver.
If even Ava’s bubble-headed models had sighted this “elf” bumbling his way around Manhattan, there was no way Corinne would be the only one on the story.
Something was going to break, and the annoying niggle of her conscience told her that she wouldn’t be able to live with herself if she didn’t give the appropriate Others a heads-up.

Picturing what she had to do next, Corinne groaned.
To hell with the aspirin.
What she needed was vodka.
Maybe there would be a bar on the way.

“Shit.
I need a drink.”

Luc cocked one eyebrow and tried not to look too smug, but he was glad to see someone else react to his mission the same way he had.
“I brought a flask of Faerie wine, if you’d like a belt of that.”

His companion scowled at him and opened a cabinet door to retrieve a graceful glass decanter of amber fluid.
“Thank you, my friend, but as much as I would like to pass out and forget what you told me, I don’t think it would help your cause.
The Council and I had hoped that we could resolve this issue before we reached this point.
We had not yet confirmed that Seoc had begun to mingle with the humans.”
He poured two glasses of brandy, the red-gold color less exotic than the crimson of Faerie wine, but also less likely to knock a grown Other on his ass.

Luc’s host, and his first stop on his trip through
Ithir
, happened to be one of the few inhabitants of the mortal world who would neither attack, nor be particularly surprised when a Faerie portal opened up in the middle of his office.
As the head of the Council of Others, Rafael De Santos had grown used to unusual occurrences.

“I think that’s what we all would have preferred,” Luc said, accepting the snifter Rafe handed him.
“As it is, I’m beginning to think getting seriously drunk might be the only thing that can help.
At least if we’re shit-faced, we won’t realize how much this sucks.”

The Feline shifter looked at him over the rim of his glass.
“Even dead, this would suck, my friend.”

“True.
Speaking of dead and sucking, though, how’s Dmitri doing?
I heard he got married.
And I think someone said his bride was mortal.”

Rafe grinned and nodded.
“He did indeed marry, earlier this spring.
And
was
remains the operative word.
He wed a charming young woman, who can now discard any worries over encroaching crow’s-feet and age spots.
They had a lovely ceremony.
Great caterer.
Even better scenery.”

“Scenery?”

The grin widened.
“The bride has some remarkably attractive friends.
One of whom is currently expecting the Silverback Alpha’s first cub.”

Luc felt his eyes widen.
“Graham bit it, too?
With another mortal?”
He shook his head and downed a gulp of his brandy.
“What is this human world coming to?”

“Mating season, apparently.”

“Does that mean you’re feeling the call of the wild yourself?”

Rafe shrugged.
“We cats are more solitary than the Lupines, and the jaguar is more solitary than most cats.
The wild only calls us for short stays, not permanent ones.”

Luc stifled a chuckle.
“Yeah, so I’ve noticed.
But I admit that’s a relief for me.
I know you want Seoc returned to Faerie with all possible haste.
Which means I can use all the help I can get finding the bastard.
The last thing I need is for you to go off after some cute little furry thing and leave me to do this on my own.
Or worse yet, some cute little mortal thing.”

“Be careful, my friend.
Your arrogance and Faecentrism are showing.”

Luc shifted in his seat.
It wasn’t that he disliked humans, precisely, but he couldn’t understand how an Other like Dmitri or Graham could possibly have a lasting relationship with such a…such a mundane creature as a human.
What could they possibly have in common?

“But you needn’t worry,” Rafe continued, twirling his snifter.
“The Council will, of course, completely support your mission.
We want nothing to happen to the Queen’s nephew, especially not while he is on our turf, as they say.
Now that Mab has sent you after him, I’m certain he will be easily found.”

“You obviously don’t know the Queen’s nephew.”

“I have not had that pleasure, no.
But if he is moving among the humans now, as you say, I have a feeling an introduction will be inevitable.”
His eyes firmed, even as his mouth remained in its customary subtle curve.
“Rest assured that if you have trouble with your mission, I will step in on behalf of the Council and see to his removal myself.
The situation appears to be reaching a flash point.
Since we had not yet heard of Seoc moving among the humans, we can still hope his presence has gone unremarked.
If they begin to take note of him, our secret will be in jeopardy.
No matter how many among the Council talk of the necessity of Unveiling ourselves to the humans, Luc, I shouldn’t have to tell you that the Council would look very unfavorably on having such a monumental decision forced upon it prematurely.”

Luc could hardly miss the underlying message there.
“If you were all so anxious to have him back in our hands, why didn’t you do something about it?”

Rafe’s shoulders lifted in a lazy, boneless shrug.
“We discussed the problem at length, but we believed we still had time to deliberate.
Plus, we agreed that things would go much more smoothly if we didn’t try to handle this ourselves.
The last thing we want is to have an interdimensional incident on our hands.”

Luc frowned.

“Like the kind we’d get if reports reached Mab that her nephew was being returned in a bucket,” Rafe explained with a pointed look.
“Some of our people have difficulty remembering their manners during a good game of chase, Luc.
Even a Fae prince can look like prey if he’s running fast enough.”

“Great.”
Luc drained his brandy and set the glass aside.
“So because you can’t manage to keep your fangs to yourselves, I’m on my own until I fail miserably?”

“Of course not.
As I said, we will assist gladly in whatever way we can.
The Council simply feels we should not be handling such a potentially delicate matter on our own.
Dmitri, damn his pale, chilly hide, has also volunteered his assistance.
Which is the least he could do, considering he left his position as head of the Council to me when he married.”
Rafe rose, crossed to a heavy, mahogany desk, and rifled through a drawer.
“Of course, his idea of ‘assistance’ and mine do not exactly match.
Now that he has the distraction of a new bride, he often takes a kind of hands-off approach to assisting.”

“That doesn’t sound very helpful.”

Rafe’s teeth flashed, white and sharp, as he handed over a small, white card.
“Feel free to point that out to him.
His number is on the back.”

“Thanks.
I’m overwhelmed.”

Luc was spared a response to his sarcasm by a throat being carefully cleared in the doorway of the large office.
Rafe turned to acknowledge the intrusion.

“Forgive me, Mr.
De Santos,” one of the uniformed club staff said quietly.
“I was unaware you had company, but I’m afraid there is someone else here asking to see you.”

The Felix frowned.
“I had no appointments this evening.
In fact, I told no one I would be spending any time here at all.
Did this person give you a name?”

“She did not, sir, but she seemed insistent.
She did inform me that it was Council business.”

Luc sipped his brandy and watched his host’s face.
The other man’s expression remained impassive, but Luc could see impatience turn to curiosity in his cat-like yellow eyes.

“Forgive me,” Rafe said, nodding to Luc.
“The head of the Council’s time is rarely his own.
Please enjoy your drink while I step out and deal with my unexpected visitor.
I’m certain I won’t be long.”

Luc grinned.
“And I’m certain how long will depend entirely on how attractive this ‘she’ turns out to be.”

“Actually, it won’t,” a decidedly female voice retorted from over the footman’s shoulder.
“Because she isn’t here for a game of touchy-feely.
She is doing her good deed for the century, and then she is going to go the hell home before she catches anything in this…ridiculous place.”

Luc stood even as Rafe turned to face the newcomer.
The footman spent a split second looking mortified before he spun and made a grab for the intruder.
The woman stepped sideways and knocked his hands away with a clenched fist.

“Watch it, grabby,” she growled.
“I don’t know where you’ve been lately.”

“At the front door, I expect.
You may return to your post, Jameson,” Rafe said smoothly, nodding at the still-mortified and now disgruntled servant.
He stepped forward with an outstretched hand and smiled at the latest visitor.
“Corinne, what a pleasant surprise.
I hardly expected to see you here at Vircolac tonight.
What could have brought you to our little club?”

“Nothing short of a loaded handgun or a conscience full of misplaced loyalty,” the woman said.
Or, more accurately, grumbled.
She shot Rafe a suspicious look, then spared a glare for Luc.
“I didn’t know you’d be in some kind of meeting, like a normal person.”

Luc raised a brow and indulged himself with a quick study of the bad-tempered female.
That she was human was obvious, almost as obvious as the crushing weight of discomfort that radiated from her.
She looked less than pleased by her surroundings, and equally un-enamored of her present company.
Behind the scowls, though, Luc saw something that caught him off guard.

He knew Rafe had said that Regina’s friends all seemed to be remarkably attractive for humans, but for Lady’s sake, Luc was Fae.
He lived among the most beautiful females in creation, served as elite guardsman to one who probably reigned as
the
most beautiful, so he certainly shouldn’t be feeling this surge of lust for a human.

Besides which, humans were just so…human.
They had nothing special, not compared with an Other or a Fae or any of the other legions of creatures living in the worlds.
No powers, no gifts, not even any real talent to speak of.
Like many in Faerie, Luc had always thought of them as being a bit primitive and undeveloped.
So why the hell did the sight of this woman to go directly to his groin?

She didn’t so much surpass the normal notions of human female beauty as expand them.
She had warm, slightly olive skin and thick, dark hair the color of the onyx Mab wove into her crown every Samhain.
She was taller than the average human woman, too, though still a good foot shorter than he, and she had the sort of solid, human figure many Fae thought of as coarse and common.
Luc found it tempting.
Her curves made his hands itch to trace them, and her very substantiality seemed to call to him, made him ache to feel her press against him, heavy and warm and real.
He wanted to hold her, to taste the curves and angles of her clear, classical features, to learn the earthy truth of her scent and the richness of her flavor.

What in the Lady’s name was wrong with him?

Luc tore his eyes from temptation and struggled to regain the distant amusement he’d felt when he’d first heard her voice, before her appearance had distracted him.
He glanced at his host.
“So, Rafe, is this a friend of yours?”

The woman stiffened, but Rafe merely smiled and drew her carefully into the office.
“Come,” he told her, in a soothing, faintly cajoling tone Luc guessed was lost on her.
“You must allow me to introduce you, and then you will sit comfortably and tell me what troubles you.”

Luc watched her step forward, her reluctance obvious.
He half expected to see her look over her shoulder to be sure nothing intended to jump out at her and begin tearing her to pieces.
Briefly, he considered being insulted on his host’s behalf.
It appeared their guest clung to some unflattering suspicions about the Others.
But, he concluded, he was neither Other nor her host, so he decided not to muster up the energy.
Especially since he could barely stand to look at her without his palms itching.

“Luc, this is Corinne D’Alessandro.
She is a very dear friend of Graham’s and Dmitri’s wives, which, of course, makes her a very dear friend of mine,” Rafe continued, ignoring the look of surprise his guest gave him at hearing his introductory words.
“Corinne, please meet Lucifer.
Luc, as we call him, is here…on business, but we’ve known each other for a number of years.
He’s perfectly harmless.”

Luc tried to decide if that assessment amused or insulted him.
No man liked to be thought of as harmless, especially not when he made his living with a sword in his hand.
He didn’t think this woman was buying it anyway.
Her gaze sized him up suspiciously, and she made no move to shake his hand.
Maybe her attitude would do something to cool his ardor.