Oracles' Light [PUP Squad Alpha 8] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (14 page)

“Because I need answers. Why did you betray me?”

“I already explained that in your dream, Dex.” Her husband flinched at her words but didn’t deny knowing what she was talking about. “Do you think the Victoria who poisoned our daughter and the Judiciary who is a threat to Cassandra are the same person?”

“It’s a very real possibility. I believe that Tory influenced the situation to get someone she could manipulate into an administrative position.” Emmallina glanced over at the witch currently sobbing in Dyson’s arms and couldn’t disagree. Cassandra didn’t seem capable of doing the job she’d been given.

“Dex, I need you to look into the evidence against me. Someone set me up. The question is why? Were they trying to destabilize the pixie kingdom, or am I caught up in the conspiracy to kill the Oracle’s receptacles?”

“Why did you leave that night? You did exactly what Cantor said you would do. If you’re innocent, how was he able to predict what you would do?”

Emmallina shook her head sadly. She knew in her heart that her husband still loved her, but as the king his first loyalty would always be to his people. It was what made him such a good leader.

“Cantor knows how much I worry for my children. If he’d had someone watching me, he would have known I would do anything to help Conni.” She stepped forward, placed her hand against her husband’s cheek, and gave him a sad smile. “Conni is alive, but she’s very sick. We believe Victoria used a spell to insert the effects of fireweed into her DNA. It would never have shown up if she hadn’t been reduced to miniature size.”

“Miniature?” Dex asked angrily. “Who did that to her?”

“Someone who was protecting an innocent human,” Emmallina said quietly. Ronan had been protecting the woman he loved from a crazed assassin, so Emmallina felt no anger toward him for the outcome. She blamed only one person—whoever had drugged her daughter in the first place. “Dex, she’s dying. In her miniature form she can’t cope with the fireweed withdrawal. We’ve found a possible cure, but I need your help.”

“What do you need?” he asked without hesitation. Yes, he would always put the welfare of pixie kingdom first, but Emmallina knew he would find a way to help his family at the same time.

“I need to gather every female relative willing to help.”

* * * *

Dyson watched the pixie king and queen talking, but unfortunately couldn’t hear the conversation over the wailing woman in his arms. Cassandra might have been an old girlfriend, but her over-the-top response to the situation was grating on his nerves. It didn’t help that she was wearing a boatload of perfume sickly sweet enough to make him want to gag.

He tried to ease her away from his chest. Maybe if he could get her literally standing on her own two feet, she might manage to do it emotionally as well. But despite his superior strength, she clung tighter, crying louder as he tried to move her away without bruising her.

Benjamin gave him a sympathetic look but didn’t offer to take over.

“Take her back to headquarters,” Benjamin said as they watched the king and queen of pixies hug each other and then continue talking. “I’ll wait for Emmallina and join you there shortly.”

Dyson really wanted to refuse his commanding officer’s order—from memory Cassandra didn’t travel well via slip—but he really didn’t have any other choice. It wasn’t until he reached the outskirts of Sugarvale, with Cassandra moaning and retching thanks to her extreme travel sickness, that he realized he wouldn’t be able to take Cassandra through the Oracle’s receptacles’ barrier until one, or maybe all, of them allowed for it. He grabbed his cell phone, dialed West’s number, and hoped the bear-shifter was in a good mood.

Unfortunately, West wasn’t just in a good mood, he also thought Dyson’s predicament quite hilarious. At least he did until Hannah invited Cassandra to stay with them. Relieved to be able to hand the woman over to somebody else, Dyson cleaned up as best he could, and then waited at headquarters for Benjamin and Emmallina’s return.

As one hour rolled into two, he started to worry that Benjamin had made a tactical error in sending him away. When Lilly blinked Devlin, Benjamin, Emmallina, and at least eight other pixies into the room, Dyson wasn’t certain whether to laugh or reach for a weapon. Ever the soldier, he did the latter, but Benjamin shook his head and smiled as he introduced Emmallina’s three other daughters, her mother, mother-in-law, and three sisters.

“They’re here to try and save Connistanterina,” Benjamin said by way of explanation. He turned to the pixie queen. “If you need anything…”

“I will call you,” Emmallina said, looking hopeful for the first time since Dyson had met the woman. “Do you think Eric would mind being dragged from his bed in the middle of the night? I’d really like to get started straightaway.”

“Eric won’t mind. I’ll call him and let him know what’s happening.”

“Thank you, Benjamin,” she said with an emotional croak in her voice. “Whatever happens, I want you and the rest of PUP Squad Alpha to know that you will always have my respect, and my gratitude.”

Benjamin nodded in understanding, and then the group of pixies followed Emmallina out the door.

“Thanks, Lilly,” Benjamin said a moment before Devlin wrapped his arms around her, and they blinked out of the room. He turned to Dyson. “Where’s Cassandra?”

“Fortunately, Hannah offered her a place to stay.”

Benjamin smiled briefly. If the situation wasn’t so damn serious, it would almost be funny. It was impossible to remember what had attracted Dyson to Cassandra in the first place, but he remembered very clearly why they’d broken up several decades ago. Around him, the woman had no emotional fortitude. In the brief time they’d been together, Cassandra had taken to crying whenever she had a situation she couldn’t handle. For months, Dyson had stepped in and taken over, dealing with anything and everything that came Cassandra’s way. In the end, he’d left her in the hopes that she’d learn to behave like an adult, rather than the clinging child she’d acted. Despite nearly being as old as Dyson, their relationship hadn’t even progressed in a physical way because he’d ended up taking on the role of big brother rather than partner and lover. In fact, their history together could barely be considered a relationship at all.

When she’d been promoted, he’d actually thought she’d found her backbone and grown into a confident woman. Judging by the way things had worked out, that hadn’t been the case at all.

“Go home to your family,” Benjamin said in a tone that made it clear that wasn’t a suggestion. Dyson nodded and turned to the door. “Oh and, Dyson, nice work today.”

Dyson nodded again. It wasn’t often that Benjamin offered praise. They were all well-trained, experienced soldiers who knew their own worth, but occasionally, it was good to get an acknowledgement of a job well done. Considering the emotional toll the night had taken on him, Dyson was grateful for Benjamin’s brief words.

He let himself in the front door of his, Kristen’s, and Angus’s home and breathed in the unique scent of his woman. Dyson wasn’t the least bit surprised to find Angus lying wide awake with Kristen asleep in his arms.

“Welcome home,” Angus whispered with a grin. But his smile faltered when the smell of Cassandra’s perfume caught his attention. “Please tell me you weren’t required to go that far undercover.”

His words were spoken with a half smile, but Dyson could sense the hostility behind them. He had no intentions of cheating on Kristen—not ever—not even as part of an assignment.

“No,” he said, shaking his head, grateful for Angus’s willingness to at least let him explain. “Cassandra Lipton ran into some trouble. It seems she held herself together long enough to find me and dissolve into tears.”

“I suggest you go have a shower before you wake up Kristen,” Angus whispered quietly.

“Too late,” their woman said sleepily. “But Angus is right about the shower. That perfume really doesn’t suit you.”

“Hi, sweetheart,” Dyson said without stepping closer. “I promise you, it’s not what it seems.”

Kristen woke up fully, her eyes zeroing in on his even in the dimly lit room. “Dyson,” she said as she climbed out of bed and stepped into his arms. She hugged him hard for a moment before leaning back to look at his face. “I know that your job occasionally involves rescuing damsels in distress, and I know that both you and Angus will do what you need to get the job done. But I also trust you to know where that line is drawn. I know you love me and that you won’t hurt me like that.”

Dyson held his woman close and marveled at her amazing heart. This was why he’d fallen in love with her. She was his perfect match and he vowed to never do anything that would hurt her. He cuddled her for a moment longer, content to be home after such a tumultuous assignment. When she started to laugh softly, he tilted backward to try and see her face.

“I’m sorry, but that perfume really is awful. Do you think if I stepped into the shower, you might follow me?”

He grinned as his love for this woman grew exponentially. “Always,” he whispered. “Always.”

* * * *

Dex DeKardoin returned to his palace chambers and wondered if the PLA were following his movements, too. It seemed unlikely, but it probably wasn’t worth taking any chances. He needed to act quickly and decisively. He needed to find the people who’d set his wife up, and then he needed to shut them down.

He could feel the wards surrounding the PLA building, so he slipped to Cantor Robinson’s home and decided to do a little investigative work of his own.

“Get up,” he growled menacingly. Cantor roused slightly—certainly not the reaction Dex had expected from a trained assassin—and cracked his eyes open just a bit.

“What do you want?” he asked tiredly.

“I want to know what’s going on.” It seemed even more urgent now than it did just a few minutes ago. The man who ran the PLA should have been more alert, even this time of the night. He hadn’t even engaged the wards on his own home before he’d fallen asleep.

“Can you come back tomorrow?” the man asked as he rolled onto his stomach and seemed to go back to sleep.

Bewildered by Cantor’s complete lack of self-protective instincts, Dex took a step back and reassessed the situation. Emmallina had told him that all of the assassins who’d been captured and miniaturized were suffering from the withdrawal symptoms of fireweed. A full-sized pixie wouldn’t suffer the same symptoms, but they would show other signs of fireweed addiction—one of which was extremes in mood. When a pixie was taking fireweed, they were bursting with energy during the day, but slept like the dead at night, and their moods were greatly enhanced—happy was ecstatic and sad was suicidal. Considering the fact that Cantor had barely been able to contain his glee when Dex had signed the assassination order against his own wife, Dex was fairly certain the man was on the stuff. Whether it was voluntarily or not remained to be seen.

Dex dragged the man from his bed, dumping him unceremoniously on the ground. “Get up!” he yelled, tapping his foot in annoyance. The man moved angrily, but his energy level barely let him move into a sitting position. “What is her name?”

“Vict—” Cantor started to say, but cut himself off quickly.

“Is she the one who ordered that my wife be followed?’

The man shrugged. “Not really,” he mumbled sleepily. “It was
my
order.” He lifted a hand to rub at his eyes the way a sleepy young child would do. “But she was right to suggest it. The queen is a traitor to her people. She deserves to die.”

It took all of Dex’s control not to kick the man, but beating on someone clearly incapable of defending himself wasn’t really Dex’s style.

“Where is Victoria now?” Dex asked.

“Why would I know that? She comes and goes as she pleases. It’s not like we’re married.”

“You’re sleeping with her?” Dex asked, unable to keep the surprise from his voice.

He heard the gun discharge and felt the demon shot hit him between the shoulder blades almost at the same time. The white-hot burn spread outward rapidly, heat scorching his insides as he tried not to lose consciousness.

“Yes, he’s sleeping with me,” a female voice said from behind Dex. “And you, little king, have outlived your usefulness.”

He managed to get a look at the woman’s face as his knees gave out. He had no doubt that Victoria would know how to kill a pixie, but he had to try and escape. He fell through a slip path, his hope fading as his body started to collapse into ashes and the heat reached his brain. If the witch was able to follow his slip path, he knew these were his last moments.

Angus stood back from the table in the conference room and did a quick head count. All five Oracle’s receptacles were here, each with both of their husbands. Add that to the three werewolves, three vampires, and the teenage dragon-shifter sitting in the corner wearing headphones, and he literally stood in a room with twenty-three of the twenty-five current residents of Sugarvale. The only two people missing were Kristen and Dyson.

They were still lying in bed. Angus had no doubt Dyson was awake at this very moment, guarding their woman, but after the situation report Benjamin had just given them, Angus knew the man needed sleep. He wanted this meeting to be over quickly.