“I offered to go with him,” Zack said.
“Dev didn’t want to stop the party.” I’d been there when Dev left. I’d kissed him and he’d promised he would be ready to play some fertility games with me when he got back. I wasn’t about to throw Zack under a bus. He hadn’t done anything wrong. “And this is a safe part of town. Dev knows how to handle himself. He doesn’t have a bodyguard on him twenty-four seven. He made it back to the building according to the security cameras. They didn’t go out until after he walked in.”
Even if he’d had trouble on the streets, he wasn’t exactly an easy target. My faery prince hubby is pretty much a demigod. Years before he’d taken the ancient Irish deity Bris into his body, and the fertility god gave Dev supercharged powers that went beyond the ability to make people horny. Though don’t discount that. It can be difficult to focus on battle when you suddenly want to get down and dirty with the enemy. But beyond the powers of lust, Dev can call all things green to his aid. It might sound like a minor power, but it can freak out a bad guy when the trees start attacking or they find themselves wrapped up so tightly in rose bushes they can’t breathe. And what that man can do with poison ivy would make most baddies think twice about facing down my honey.
“We have very different definitions of the word safe, Your Highness. There seems to be nothing at all safe in this time. And I don’t trust those camera things. They can easily be manipulated by anyone who wished to trick us into believing Devinshea made it home. Certainly a man closely associated with the royal family shouldn’t be moving about after midnight by himself. There are any number of factions who would love to take down someone so close to the king. Devinshea’s unique nature alone makes him a target.” Myrddin was a handsome man who appeared to be roughly in his mid-forties. He was a man frozen in the prime of his life, with wavy dark hair and chiseled good looks. He was also crazy judgmental most of the time. He turned my way and I could feel all his judgey goodness focus on me.
“His unique nature also makes him hard to take down,” I replied.
“Dev is a badass.” My bestie always backed me up. Neil was one of the few people who knew how I felt about the wizard. He and Sarah understood. I’d left Zack out of my “We Hate Myrddin” club because he was far too close to Daniel.
“I’m sure Devinshea’s powers are formidable,” Myrddin said in that passive aggressive way of his. “But anyone can be overwhelmed, and Devinshea would be an excellent hostage to any number of forces that would seek to influence the king. He should be guarded at all times, as should the queen.”
A chill came over me as I realized how Myrddin could use this incident against me. I don’t like politics, but I’ve learned over the years how to recognize when someone is manipulating a situation to force me into a corner. Guarded at all times also meant watched at all times. It meant putting me in a position where I couldn’t make a move without Myrddin knowing.
“He wasn’t far from the Council building and I know he made it back here,” Daniel argued, but not in that crazy, “I’m going to rip your throat out for questioning me” alpha-vamp way he would with anyone else who suggested he didn’t properly take care of his precious blood.
That’s what he calls us, Dev and me. We’re Daniel’s lovers, spouses, partners. We’re his everything and he’s ours.
“Danny talked to him. He called Dev as he was entering the building, so we know he made it.” I remembered it vividly, though at the time it seemed like nothing more than a normal domestic situation. Lee had left his tablet downstairs in Danny’s office and I knew he would want it the next day. I’d asked Danny to have Dev pick it up on his way to the penthouse.
Devinshea wouldn’t have gone back out into the city without telling us. Never. He wouldn’t have up and decided to take an impromptu trip or decided that it would be cool to head up to an Oklahoma casino. He wouldn’t have tried some new bar or hooked up. If he’d been needed down in Ether, the nightclub he ran, he would have texted Daniel to let him know he wouldn’t be coming up to the penthouse yet. Dev was always thoughtful. There was no question in my mind that something bad had happened.
And every minute we didn’t find him was another minute he was taken further away from me. The fact that the security cameras hadn’t gone wonky until after Dev had made it inside raised all my alarms. Something bad had happened to him here in the building where Myrddin had so recently taken up residence.
“Have you called in the Nex Apparatus?” Myrddin asked, and it seemed to me he was taking over this meeting in a way he shouldn’t. But then that was what he did around Daniel. He took over in small ways, never enough that he couldn’t hedge if called out about it, but enough to sway any conversation the way he wanted it to go. “I understand it’s her…what did you call it?”
Daniel leaned in as if he was thrilled to be able to help. “Honeymoon. It’s what newlyweds do in this time period. They spend a week or so off on their own. It’s their version of bonding time.”
Bonding time was what vampires had with their companions. Not that we’d had either a honeymoon or bonding time, but then when I married Danny I hadn’t exactly been aware I was doing it. Even my marriage to Dev had been something of a surprise, and it had come with a full-on public proof of sexual compatibility ceremony.
Myrddin nodded. “Ah. The couple, or threesome in this case, wants to spend time together alone. I take it this is why the young wolf is running about without his parents. Does he know he’s supposed to wear clothes? I was told this is a cultural norm in this period, despite the choices of some women.”
Like I said, he was a judgey asshole who didn’t appreciate miniskirts and tank tops.
Fenrir was the young werewolf Kelsey, Gray, and Trent adopted recently. He was a young wolf king, the werewolf equivalent of Daniel’s vampire king. He was stronger, faster, bigger than other wolves. He would one day lead them all as the alpha, but for now he was a nine-year-old boy who didn’t like pants but did adore Lee. They’d been fast friends, and in the weeks since he’d come to live here at Council headquarters, that friendship had deepened. We were watching over Fen while his parents enjoyed a couple of weeks in a tropical paradise.
Or would have if Devinshea had made it back to the penthouse the night before. “She’s already on her way.”
Zack stood up. “I need to go meet her. I’ve got to tell her Marcus is missing, too. I’m not sure how she’s going to handle that.”
The vampire Marcus Vorenus and Kelsey had a relationship that went pretty deep. He’d been her trainer and her lover before she’d settled into her power and realized she was deeply in love with Gray and Trent. She still had a place in her heart for Marcus. I did, too. Daniel wouldn’t be alive and king without the support of Marcus.
See, there’s a mentor. I didn’t get why Danny needed Myrddin when he’d had Marcus. Marcus had taught him everything he needed to know about how to navigate vampire politics, and Dev had taught him how to be a king. Myrddin had been needed to fix Danny’s heart at one point, but as far as I could see the old dude should go back into retirement.