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  I began to laugh. Hard.

  “Nate, this is serious. I think it’s a… test. For you, specifically. She knows you’re arrogant, so this is your chance to show her a different side of you.”

  I nodded, still shaking my head. “I can do this. But I have to invite Carl. He might literally kill me if I don’t. He will take it more seriously than anyone. He can be my totem to help me get through it alive.”

  “That’s probably fine. Just don’t bring an army. Four total, including you. Just a tip, but probably your least arrogant friends… But those still able to hold their own in a fire-fight.”

  I grunted. “That is a very short list. But I’ll take care of it. One hour, you said?”

  “Yes. And be careful, Nate. I don’t think Mordred is playing the same game as you.”

  I sighed. “I was on stage. I noticed.”

  She hung up, and I spoke into the comms, informing everyone it was time to roll out. Because I’m an asshole, I didn’t tell them exactly what our meeting was, but that it was incredibly dangerous.

  I couldn’t let anyone see me leaving, so I pretended to head towards the restrooms. I slipped into a side hallway, and once confident I hadn’t been followed, I Shadow Walked into the parking lot to meet up with my crew, but my breath left me as I stared at the gleaming SUV.

  No matter how many times I saw it, I always wanted to stop and cackle maniacally.

  The Knight XV had been inspired by military vehicles but married together with the luxury interiors of high-end SUV’s like the Mercedes G-Wagon. It was breathtaking – both inside and out – and clocked in at over seven tons. It had floodlights, night vision cameras, run-flat tires, and really, anything else you might ever consider needing during the apocalypse.

  Unlike most armored vehicles – which were upgraded after the fact – the Knight was born armored, lovingly handcrafted from the axles up with protection in mind. Since all my friends were monsters with claws, fangs, and magic, and were typically hard on vehicles – what with all the fighting, running, fleeing, and wars – I’d deemed it a necessary investment.

  So… I’d bought ten of the hundred they had made.

  As a belated wedding gift, I had given one to Ashley and Gunnar. The other nine were in my personal convoy – safely locked away in an undisclosed location – so we were driving Ashley’s car.

  If they ever had pups, Ashley would be – by far – the coolest, scariest mom in the universe.

  Alucard rolled down the passenger window, laughing at the smile on my face. “You’re drooling, man.”

  I shrugged. “I can’t help it,” I admitted. Talon rolled down the back window, scanning the parking lot for witnesses. Since, you know, he was a bipedal cat warrior. I saw Carl stealthily peering over Talon’s shoulder like a creep, thinking I couldn’t see him. “How were they?” I asked Talon, ignoring Carl.

  “Alu-Carl behaved appropriately, but I did have to break them up a few times.”

  I ignored Alucard and Carl’s sudden vehement protests over the new nickname we had given them – like Brangelina for Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. I nodded knowingly at Talon. “Cards Against Humanity again?” I asked.

  Talon nodded. Alucard rolled up his window, sensing he was going to get no sympathy from me.

  I’d kept these three out in the parking lot to watch over the car – not that it needed it – because with all the negative attention I was earning, a car bomb wasn’t out of the realm of possibility. Or a tracking device of some kind.

  And Alucard hadn’t been very open with me about his recent travels – both to Italy and the East Coast – so he was on my shit list until he spilled the beans. I already knew the gist of it, that he’d run into enough trouble to require assistance from Gunnar and his entire pack of werewolves.

  But Gunnar had shrugged it off, saying it had been wrapped up in less than an hour, and it wasn’t anything to get worked up about.

  What I had wanted to learn was why it had been necessary to move an entire army of wolves to upstate New York so suddenly. What, exactly, had Alucard done to necessitate that? And did it have anything to do with stories of a forest of trees suddenly appearing on the Brooklyn Bridge not hours later. I trusted Alucard with my life – no question – but I also didn’t like him holding back information, so I was punishing him like a child.

  Carl, for obvious reasons, couldn’t go into a room full of humans. He was a very strange, giant, lizard-man. An Elder. Even if it had been an event for Freaks, they would have all run screaming from the building upon seeing an Elder walking around. The supernatural community had a long memory, and Carl’s entire race had been banished from Earth, long ago.

  Talon didn’t have a human form either, and I hadn’t felt like taking a pet cat – his other form – with me into the speech.

  So, I’d put Talon in charge of Alu-Carl, knowing they would kill each other if left unsupervised.

  To teach Carl social cues, we’d tried explaining what was acceptable in casual conversations. It had been a long, uphill battle, and ultimately, an epic failure. We were now trying a different tactic, resorting to playing Cards Against Humanity with him, in hopes that he might pick up on what was definitely not ever socially acceptable.

  This usually resulted in fights and arguments when we had to explain why it was not okay for Hitler to be voted best preschool teacher, or any number of other bizarre, twisted outcomes that popped up on the cards during a typical game. Alucard had a very short level of patience with Carl.

  Carl, on the other hand, had more patience than anyone I had ever met. Meaning he didn’t understand when others were getting well beyond their tolerance levels.

  Carl still seemed to think the game was about how to overthrow humanity and was desperate to decipher the clues from the horrendous black and white cards.

  So, yeah. Talon was supervising them during the speech. My cat in charge of two adult men.

  I really needed to find a stable friend, one to keep us all in line. Because together, we were one big hot mess of a family.

  My earbud kicked on and I glanced over my shoulder to see Gunnar striding our way from across the parking lot. “We’re clear,” he said. “The rest will leave in small groups so as not to attract undue attention.” I nodded back to him, turning back to the vehicle.

  “Want to drive?” I asked Gunnar.

  “Nah. Go ahead. I need to think. Keep an eye out.”

  Alucard rolled down his window as he snorted into the comms, but he didn’t actually say anything about the one-eyed werewolf being our lookout.

  “Shut it, Alu-Carl,” Gunnar muttered, shutting him up. “You’re grounded, remember? No secret meeting for you. Nate’s even letting Carl go,” he teased.

  Alucard stared at me in disbelief. I nodded. “Unless you’re ready to finally spill…” I asked.

  Alucard grumbled unhappily, rolling his window back up. I shrugged, walking over to the driver’s seat. We had a meeting with a fairy. I had no idea what to think of the Chancery, but since they were Fae, and most of the Fae I had met either hated or feared me, I expected it to be an after party of tonight’s shit show.

  But with Mordred pulling strings in the background of St. Louis, I wondered if I wasn’t walking into another ambush like this speech had been.

  Chapter 8

  Two days. I had two days until Mordred was meeting me at Chateau Falco.

  It concerned me that he’d implied he knew about the Beast powering the house and hadn’t seemed the slightest bit worried. What allies or acquaintances of Alaric Slate had he talked to? Someone who obviously knew quite a bit about me. But had they helped Mordred willingly, or had he put them over a barrel, forcing them to serve him?

  I wasn’t in denial. I had plenty of people who had been waiting for this day – a day where they finally had an ally who might be strong enough to take me down. Mordred walking in, seemingly hell-bent on wrangling me into his posse was like a dream come true for my enemies.

  And n
ow, more than ever, I needed allies. Because if I didn’t get them, Mordred would.

  So, humility was in order. But I wasn’t going down with that ship alone. Oh, no. That’s what I had minions for. And Alucard – the lucky bastard – wasn’t invited.

  I settled a heavy glare on Gunnar’s single eye, ignoring the quartz-like stone eyepatch that was fused into his other eye socket. “Straighten your tiara. You look positively ridiculous, Princess Padfoot.”

  He opened his mouth to fire back but thought better of it after a quick glance to my right. At the cute, deadly child sitting beside me. Instead, he straightened his tiara with a discreet murderous glare aimed my way, silently promising me I would pay for this.

  “More tea?” the cherubic voice of the young child filled the room like a blast of winter air on a snowy day. She had thankfully ignored our exchange. But I would bet my life she had noticed every detail. She was a beautiful blonde-haired girl, tall and lanky, with big blue eyes. And despite her youthful age, I could already sense a deep reservoir of power inside her.

  “Please, my Lady,” I said, readjusting the plastic bangles on my wrist – all of them were bright pinks, golds, and purples, and all liberally doused with glitter that I would never – ever – be able to wash off. I had about a dozen of them on each wrist.

  They felt like shackles as I extended my shot-glass-sized empty plastic teacup. She topped it off with more of the imaginary tea, and I pretended to sip it, maintaining character.

  Carl – an albino, humanoid, lizard warrior – held up a small compact mirror, inspecting his pale, scaled face, which was comically painted with bright purple uneven blotches over his cheeks and ruby red lipstick splashed over his thin lizard lips.

  Elders were considered so dangerous and feared that hardly anyone would tell me anything helpful about them. I knew tidbits about him, like not to ever try to manipulate his mind with magic unless I wanted to see what eternal insanity felt like.

  I had brought him down to Hell with me. And in those fiery pits of despair, suffering, anguish, and horror, I’d heard Carl sing for the first time. A Sound of Music jingle.

  As he slaughtered dozens of monsters’ intent upon killing us.

  He’d also casually shown me that he could tap into my magic, repurposing it to his will. But right now?

  The notoriously deadly Elder was having the fucking time of his life. At our tea party with a dangerous child whom we needed to impress in order to get an audience with her mother – a member of the Chancery. I’d spent some time trying to figure out who the group was, and what their intentions were. All I’d learned was that they were the outcast Fae in our world, those not welcome back home in that savage, brutal paradise they called the Land of the Fae.

  I was pretty sure Carl was smiling as he closed the compact mirror with a sigh, sliding his plastic teacup across the table for a refill. The child obliged, and Carl turned to the stuffed unicorn sitting at the table beside him, striking up a serious conversation about high heels.

  I was equally sure those were bloodstains on the stuffed animal’s neck. I shivered, pointedly ignoring that fun fact. Maybe it was just red makeup…

  Gunnar muttered something under his breath, folding his thick, beefy arms. The motion almost knocked over our table – since it was barely tall enough for us to fit our thighs under – and I hissed suddenly, shoulders tensing and tiny stool of a plastic chair wobbling as I risked a peripheral glance at the small child beside me.

  She was staring at Gunnar now – with disappointment.

  Which might just mean his immediate execution, no matter how big and tough he was. No matter how big and tough any of us were. Because this little child was very powerful. I didn’t know exactly what kind of powers she had, but she had them in spades.

  I held my breath, waiting to see how unstable she was. She cleared her throat, setting down her teapot and meticulously folding her hands atop one another on the table as she regarded Gunnar.

  “Now, Princess Padfoot, that wasn’t very ladylike, was it?” she said with all the empathy of a firing squad.

  Carl was openly scowling at Gunnar, sniffing disdainfully.

  “I’m sure it was an accident, my Lady,” I offered in a very neutral tone, since that was the only name we had been given. We, on the other hand, had been given Princess names, and we were in her Royal Court. Beneath her station and properly grateful for the audience, of course. “His depth perception is not what it once was. Right, Princess Padfoot?” I asked in a warning tone, glaring at the big, bad Werewolf.

  He nodded very slowly before flashing a believably embarrassed frown at the child. “Of course, my Lady. It will not happen again.”

  “On that,” she said, leaning over the table like a creeping shadow in a dark alley, “you are correct, Princess Padfoot.” And there was absolutely no chance of mistaking the threat.

  The promise.

  The ensuing silence threatened to smother me.

  Ding! I almost soiled my pants at the alien noise, only to realize a second later that it was from the fake oven in the other room.

  The child leaned back carefully, but excitedly. “Oh! That will be the crumpets. Please excuse me, Princesses. And do behave in my absence,” she said, somehow managing to make the comment into a veritable threat.

  Murmurs of agreement went around the small table, and I risked a glance at Talon.

  Well, he was actually in his cat form – a giant Maine Coon – rather than his bipedal warrior form. So technically, he was Sir Muffle Paws at the moment. He was lounging in a plush, glittering kitty throne. But his tail whipped back and forth like a metronome, flared out to the max, especially when the child sauntered out of view.

  The tutu around his waist even quivered at his agitation.

  “What – the fuck – are we doing here, Nate? I don’t do tea parties. I’d rather slice her into pieces and play with her vertebrae. I’ll gladly switch places with Alucard. No one would even know.” His tiara almost fell from his head, and even though he was in his mundane cat form, he managed to straighten it before it could fall, making his threat sound laughable.

  Carl frowned, shaking his head. “Nate said the Daywalker is grounded. No crumpets for him.”

  I glanced over my shoulder to make sure the child was still out of sight, and then I turned back to Talon. “If any of you Neanderthals ruin this for me, I will personally torture and maim you. To get an audience with her mother, we need to give this girl the fucking tea party of the century. So, drink your goddamned tea, fix your fake eyelashes, and smile.”

  “Fucking tea parties,” Gunnar muttered, adjusting the aforementioned eyelashes.

  “Ex-nay on the ucking-fay,” I snarled in an urgent whisper.

  The silence of my pals made it very obvious that our hostess had returned. Also, the sound of her plastic tray of plastic pastries hitting the floor was a good indicator.

  I whirled to see the child panting as she glared at me. “Did someone say… Fae?” she hissed.

  “Oh, bother,” Talon purred in a low, sarcastic tone, his claws digging into the cushioned throne, popping off a few of the sequins. “And I was just getting into character…”

  Chapter 9

  The child was practically hyperventilating, her cheeks flushed. Her hair slowly began to rise, as if she was standing too close to an electric fence. “They took everything from us. Our home! I hate them.” Then she slowly lifted her dainty hand, pointing it at my face.

  “Now, look…” I began, holding up my hands in a calming gesture. “We weren’t talking about—”

  “I can’t believe you would be so rude,” Carl hissed, glaring from Gunnar to me. He had his legs crossed and was still holding his teacup with two claws, his pinky claw extended. I shot him a quick scowl before turning back to the angry, powerful child before us.

  I desperately reached out to Wylde, that other part of me that had a deep understanding of Fae magic. We weren’t two people, but you could say I had a split pe
rsonality. My parents had birthed and raised me in Fae, naming me Wylde. I lived there into my teens, gaining a mastery over Fae magic. But then my parents had used some nifty – and highly illegal – artifacts to fuck around with time, so that when they brought me back to the real world here in St. Louis, I was given the chance – unknowingly – to relive my childhood here, on Earth, as Nate.

  With no knowledge of already being raised once in Fae.

  Talk about keeping secrets.

  So, although I had only seemed to scratch the surface in relearning my Fae gifts, this entire other part of me had recently been revealed – a savage, ruthless, cunning form of myself that thought, acted, and lived like the Fae. Amoral was one way to think of it.

  Sociopathic was also accurate.

  But since I didn’t know what kind of juice this little child could deliver, I wanted a way to squash her temper tantrum without harming her – and pissing off her mother.

  Because the whole point of this fiasco was to earn an audience with mommy dearest. So that I could gain her alliance, possibly learn more about the Chancery, and maybe even gather some much-needed information about Mordred.

  I had almost overlooked the fact that Mordred’s mother was Morgause – a legendary enchantress with ties to the Fae. At least according to a few books I’d read. Maybe the Fae would know a weakness I could exploit.

  I carefully lifted my own hands, ready to defend myself, hoping I could use some Grammarie to nullify her attack. Grammarie was the art of making things be, as opposed to Glamourie, which was the art of making things seem. And right now, I was hoping that Grammarie could also make an attack… well, un-be.

  But that other part of me must have been napping, because I didn’t have the faintest idea where to begin. Sometimes I just knew how to do something really cool with my Fae magic, or that other part of me would kind of guide my hands into doing something like a gentle nudge to the elbow.