Pink Princess Fairytini (Fairy Files #2) (8 page)

“Would you?” I asked. “I’ve never known brownies to be overly helpful.”

He shrugged. “I’m here now, aren’t I? Talking to you. Things are different here, the fae need to stick together.”

He stepped away from us, done talking. Frost and Vin’s expressions matched mine, doubt and wariness. “What’s your name? Where can we find you if we have questions?”

But the brownie walked away and didn’t look back. “I don’t like it,” Frost said. “It’s too convenient the way he showed up out of nowhere and gave us just enough to pique our interest.”

“But what did he stand to gain?” I asked. “Why lie to us?”

Vin shook her head. “I’m going to talk to Missella, and see if she knows anything about kidnapped fae kids. Frost, will you stay with Chloe? I don’t want her being left alone.”

“I don’t need a babysitter,” I said. “This has nothing to do with me.”

“And I have a job,” Frost said. “I can’t just drop everything to guard Chloe from someone who’s kidnapping kids.”

I had to pinch myself to be sure I wasn’t dreaming. Frost and I agreeing about anything was just that rare. Frost looked at me and smirked like he knew what I was thinking.

Vin sighed. “Because you’re going to talk to your mother, Chloe, and I don’t want you going alone.”

“Wait…what?” This conversation was giving me whiplash. “Why?”

“In case what that brownie says is true and this boy was kidnapped. Like you said, it’s too much of a coincidence that all of the kids are recent arrivals and fae. If they’re being kidnapped, it seems more likely they’re being taken by other fae than by humans. We need to know what’s going on in Rubalia.” She looked from me to Frost. “Go to Rubalia, but don’t trust what Althea tells you, investigate and see what you can find. There’s something off here.”

“Right,” Frost said. “There’s something off
here,
in the Non. Going to Rubalia won’t solve that.”

Vin shook her head. “I think you’re wrong, and it’s worth this boy’s life to go to Rubalia and look into it.”

“But if we’re wrong …” I said, my earlier desire to talk to my mother forgotten with my fear about the risk we took. Taking Frost away from this case when it might mean the boy’s life wasn’t okay.

“We’ve got no leads here,” Vin said. “Don’t you have someone else in your office you can put on this case, Frost?”

He shook his head. “They mostly do research for me, all the grunt work I don’t have time for. Amy sometimes works the odd insurance fraud case, but none of them have the experience I have. I can’t leave this case to them.”

“What about Harvey?” I asked.

“What about him?” Frost’s body tensed and his jaw clenched.

“He could work the case. He might uncover something we haven’t.”

“He’s also got restraints on him I don’t have. I can focus all of my attention on this case, but he’s got a boss to answer to.”

I nodded. “So I go to Rubalia alone.”

“Shit, no,” Frost said. He ran his fingers through his hair, causing half of it to flop in his face, which only seemed to annoy him more. He needed a haircut. “Call Harvey and have him meet us at my office as soon as he can.”

“You want to go to this…this fairy land to visit your mother who’s a queen there? Because you think she might know something about a boy missing here?” The brilliant smile Harvey had greeted me with when he arrived at Frost’s office was gone, replaced by a severe frown. He shook his head and then rubbed his hands over his face, as though he were trying to ground himself. “So you are literally a fairy princess.”

I nodded. “Right. Except I’m half faun royalty as well and the fairies don’t like mixed breeds, so—”

Harvey held up his hand. “No more. The fairy princess thing is all I can handle right now. What I don’t get is why I can’t go with you.” He shot a glare at Frost and I had the urge to slap him. Sure we were dating and I liked Harvey, but he didn’t get to glare at Frost when Frost was risking himself to help me and this missing boy. Only I got to glare at Frost.

“You have no fae blood,” Vin said. “You’d probably die if you tried to cross through the portal.”

“Can we be sure I have no fae blood?” Harvey said. “I’ve got some pretty freaky cousins.”

Frost leaned in and sniffed Harvey. “One hundred percent human as far as I can tell.”

Harvey leaned away. “Look, I’m trying to be okay with all of this. Frost is a werewolf, Vin is a faun, and my girlfriend is fae royalty, but please refrain from sniffing me or magicking me for the moment.”

My heart swelled at the way he’d called me his girlfriend like it was the most natural thing in the world, and I leaned over and kissed his cheek. The look he gave me, though, wasn’t warm, but wary, and my heart sank. I hated that he doubted me even the slightest bit. “No magicking, or sniffing,” I said. “We just want you to work with Mercury to try to find these kids, while Vin, Frost, and I go to Rubalia to find out what’s going on there.”

Harvey shrugged. “I’ll have to use vacation time, but I’m between cases at the moment, so that shouldn’t be a problem. Give me what you have on the case and I’ll look into it.”

Frost nodded and slapped Harvey’s shoulder. “Thank you. I appreciate it. If there were any way you could be the one go to Rubalia with your girl, I’d trade places with you.” The smile on Frost’s face looked strange and tense, but Harvey seemed to relax just a smidge.

“Honestly, man,” Harvey said. “I’m probably not ready for visiting the land of the fae.” He didn’t meet my eyes and relief washed over his features when his phone beeped. “I’ve got to take this.”

He left and Vin went with him, walking him out and heading home to get some sleep before she had to face Missella in the morning. “I should get to the restaurant,” I said, feeling a bit not myself after Harvey’s obvious insecurity about my fae nature. It wasn’t as though I’d expected him to be excited about the news, but it would have been nice if he’d been just the tiniest bit supportive.

Frost nodded, lost in thought. “He’s a tough guy, Chloe. Don’t take his attitude too personally. With everything we just laid on him, most humans would be freaking out, but he stayed and agreed to help. He’ll be there for you when it counts.”

I considered kicking Frost in the balls for butting into my relationship with Harvey and for seeing my insecurity, but I wanted to hear his opinion more than I wanted to hurt him. Just one more reason romance was bad, it made me needy and vulnerable. “What does that even mean, Frost? He’s a tough guy so he can’t look at me when I tell him I’m a fairy princess?” Yeah, I guess I was more pissed at Harvey than I realized, but I liked being pissed at Frost even more.

“He’s a tough guy. He doesn’t like anything, any problem, he can’t punch or shoot his way out of, but he cares about you and what you told him changes how he sees you. It changes what he thought he knew about you and that probably makes him uncomfortable. Don’t you think?”

I nodded.

“Right. He doesn’t like it that the woman he’s been pursuing for however many years has huge secrets, but he can’t cry about it or talk about his feelings, and he can’t punch you or kick you, so he has to withdraw for a little while, maybe go punch or kick someone else. Then, he’ll come back to you and he’ll be supportive the way you need, though it may not be all hearts and flowers the way you want.”

“Since when did you become an expert on men’s psychology?” I was hurt by Harvey’s withdrawal and annoyed at Frost for being so rational and making so much sense, and I couldn’t see the logic of what he was saying. I didn’t want to. “And I don’t need hearts and flowers. I’m not that kind of girl.”

Frost smirked and I took three steps back from him, so I wouldn’t slap him. “I’m a tough guy myself, princess, so I know what he’s feeling. And you need hearts and flowers more than any other girl I’ve ever known. You deserve an outpouring of love so heavy and deep you feel like you’re drowning, to make up for all the love you didn’t get from your waste of a mother.”

I took another two steps from him, but I was trembling with fury, and with some other emotion that I refused to consider. How dare he? He didn’t know me, and I didn’t need his pity for my past. I’d had a fine childhood, I’d never been abused or mistreated. “I’ll see you in the morning,” I said. “Meet at the portal?”

He nodded and walked back to his desk. I turned and walked past the three empty desks in the main room, trying to pretend I didn’t hear his parting shot. “I don’t know why I waste my breath.”

I could have used that as an excuse to go back and take my anger and hurt out on him, but I just wanted to get as far from him as I could.

I’ve got nothing against people who believe in true love, any more than I’ve got a beef with people who believe in zombies or unicorns. Just keep your beliefs out of my life
. –Chloe Frangipani

There is nothing worse than loving someone who can’t love you back
. –Althea Frangipani

I arrived at Ephemeral in such a daze from my heated exchange with Frost that I didn’t even notice something was wrong until I tried the door. It was locked. It shouldn’t have been locked. The doorway shouldn’t have been dark. There should have been a steady stream of patrons heading in and out of my club. I unlocked the door and went inside to find the place empty and silent. Something had happened and no one had called me? What the hell?

I pulled out my phone to call Pierson, but he appeared from the kitchen before I could. “Hey, Chloe,” he said. He looked exhausted, pale, and shaken.

“What happened?” I asked, immediately thinking the worst. Some angry husband had shown up and shot the place up, or a woman had gone crazy and attacked one of my employees. “Why didn’t you call me?”

“I’m sorry. I should have called right away, but I thought I could handle it and, when I realized I couldn’t, I couldn’t get away to make the call.”

“What happened?”

“After the meeting, I helped Charles clean up the kitchen and get ready for the night. He’d already prepped everything and we had time before opening, so we went over to O’Grady’s for dinner and a game of darts.” He shook his head. “We never should have left.”

My heart pounded with fear and stress. Ephemeral was my baby and I had a bad feeling that someone had hurt her. “What happened?”

“Someone stole all the top-shelf liquor, about a grand’s worth, and they took our blenders, smaller coolers, and our smallest broiler. Random stuff that I don’t see anyone fencing. They took a bunch of other stuff, too. Almost like they’re trying to set up their own bar.”

“Did you call the police?”

He nodded. “I didn’t want to bother you. I knew you were helping Frost find a missing kid and I figured this was a police matter anyway. I called and they said they’d send someone over to check it out. When someone knocked on the door a few minutes later, I thought it was the cops.”

My heart sank, and I was pretty sure I was going to throw up. Losing several grand worth of equipment and supplies was bad enough, I couldn’t handle any more. “Who was it?”

His shoulders slumped. “The health inspector, Chloe. The fucking health inspector. I explained we’d had a theft, but he insisted on checking the place out. I figured we were fine, because Charles and I had cleaned up before we headed to dinner and you know as well as I do that we follow all of the regulations.”

I nodded. I was a stickler for cleanliness.

Pierson sighed. “The health inspector found enough violations to shut us down. Whoever stole our stuff also set us up.”

I saw his lips moving, I heard the words, but I was sure I’d heard wrong. “That’s not possible. Who would do that?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know, but unless we can prove we were set up, we’re shut down for three weeks before we get another inspection.”

I dropped into the nearest chair. Being shut down for three weeks meant a loss of revenue I wasn’t sure we could handle. That on top of having to replace the liquor and equipment, might be enough to end Ephemeral. But worse than any of that was the damage to our reputation that came from being shut down. We’d lose patrons because of it and we’d lose more who thought we were closed for good and found new bars to love. My chest got tight, and I found it suddenly hard to breathe, as I pictured my dream ending and my club closing permanently.

Pierson pushed my head between my knees. “Just breathe, sugar,” he said. “We’ll figure this out. We’ll be okay.”

I tried to suck in a full breath and calm down, but I didn’t share Pierson’s certainty.

Once I could breathe normally again, Pierson took me on a tour of my own club and showed me the violations the inspector had found and the holes where the missing equipment had been. We made plans to meet up to fix the violations and buy new equipment as soon as I got back from Rubalia.

“Why don’t you come over to my place?” Pierson asked. “We can eat junk food and drink cheap wine and reminisce about the good old days of Ephemeral.”

I wrapped my arms around Pierson, overwhelmed with gratefulness and love for this man who’d worked so hard for my club and loved it as much as I did. “I’m not ready to mourn Ephemeral, yet,” I said. “But if we have to close this place for good, I’ll take you up on your offer. Tonight, I need to get some sleep.”

Pierson nodded against my shoulder and gave me a hard squeeze before he released me. I pecked his cheek and we walked out together. I was two steps from the front of the club when someone called my name. I turned to see a woman in a flowy red party dress, and kitten heels. “Hi,” I said. “I’m sorry, but the club’s closed.”

She shoved an envelope into my hand and stepped back. “Not here to drink,” she said. “You’ve been served.”

She turned and left. I watched her and wondered what I’d done to deserve the kind of night I’d had.

Sometimes good things come to good people, but bad things are not prejudiced, they will cling to whatever body is nearest. Karma is a fickle beast
. – Chloe Frangipani