He seemed to accept my answer. “Do vampires here have mental abilities?”
I shook my head. “They’re more like humans in that fashion, though they live off the blood of animals mostly. They’re high tech, as they would say. The vampires of royal blood tend to take a consort. You would call them companions.”
“You are a companion. Do you have a master, Summer?”
I was the one baring my fangs now, though I had none to speak of. “I call no man master.”
His hands came up as though I might attack him. “It’s merely a term used in formal circles where I come from.”
“Is it? I’ve studied and asked questions. You are not the first earthbound vampire to make it to the outer planes.”
“We’re trying to remake the relationship,” he explained. “When your father took the crown, he made it clear that the days of enslaved companions were over. No companion on the Earth plane can be taken without consent.”
Good for my father. I wished he was king here, too. “We don’t have the same protections here. At least not on some of the outer planes. Consorts can be purchased, and that means they can be stolen and sold.”
His shoulders seemed broader than they’d been before. “I will not allow that to happen. You will be in no danger if you come with me. I will take you back to your parents and you will see that the Earth plane is your home. The vampires there are under King Daniel’s control, princess. Your family is very informal, but that is what you are. You are Princess Summer Donovan.” He sighed. “Donovan-Quinn. As you can already tell, Devinshea will be claiming you as his own.”
It was traditional in Fae society. When there was a ménage, the parents all shared the children no matter who the biological parent was.
What would any of them think if they knew what I’d done? Apparently my parents had become royals, had taken over the supernatural world on the Earth plane. Would they welcome the Destroyer?
I didn’t have a chance to ponder that further because I heard a great whooshing sound come from the surface of the lake and then a massive white horse was charging at me. I saw his eyes, deep as night and three times as angry. He whinnied and his mouth came open baring strong white teeth.
I screamed. I was very mortal and as the kelpie caught my arm in his teeth, I knew I was about to prove it.
Chapter Ten
Zoey
I stared down at the pixie currently resting on my hand. “You know what to do?”
Arwyna made that squeaking sound that always let me know she was on board with my plots. Arwyna was the queen of the pixie kaleidoscope who made their home here at the Council headquarters. They served their Green Man and his goddess, who happened to be me. The butterfly-like creatures often clung to me at all hours of the day. I was never surprised to glance in a mirror and see them on my hair.
Lee stood at my side. He’d been raised around the pixies and they seemed to like him every bit as much as his brother, the baby Green Man. The fact that the pixies had never rejected my human son made me love them all the more. And I trusted them. Arwyna seemed to understand that even her good priest could make mistakes.
Her wings fluttered and I raised my hand. She took off, her ruby-red wings whisking her away along with her three most trusted lieutenants. I’m sure she had some other name for them, but I viewed them as my tiny army. The non-Fae creatures of our world tended to see the pixies as nothing more than pretty accessories. Or food. I’d had to threaten the wolves with bloody vengeance to keep my pixies safe.
I noticed that a single amethyst-colored pixie had remained on my son’s shoulder. “You’re staying?”
Lee glanced over and sighed. “That’s Dannan. He’s worried I’m going to die.”
Dannan’s tiny face looked up at me as if to agree with his charge fully. He was an older pixie, one of Arwyna’s generals. Now that I thought about it, I often saw him hovering somewhere around my human son. “When did you get a bodyguard?”
“When I came back from Wyoming,” Lee admitted.
Well, I couldn’t blame them for watching after him more closely, but it made me wonder what they knew that they weren’t telling me. Or perhaps I was being paranoid. The pixies knew how worried I was about Myrddin. Dannan’s overwatch of my human child could come from that. “Will he be okay in the cloak? Pixies don’t tend to like to be confined.”
I could practically feel the ice coming off the elder pixie.
“He’ll be fine,” Lee said as though I should have known better than to question him. “You couldn’t convince him to leave anyway. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we all have one now. Me and Rhys and Evan. I think Arwyna assigned them to each of us.”
She was as worried as I was. I looked down at the pixie sitting on my son’s shoulder. “I thank you for watching my children.”
His head bowed slightly, acknowledging my gratitude.
I moved to the closet. We were in the bedroom I shared with Danny and Dev. My closet was a monstrosity of luxury. It was bigger than my first apartment, and I hid many more secrets here. There was my personal safe where I kept important documents and my higher-end jewelry. It was also where I’d put the bag of holding. I pulled it out of the safe.
“It looks so normal.” Lee reached out to touch it.
It did. It was nothing more than a small tote bag, and not a particularly beautiful one at that. It was ordinary canvas with roped handles. If I’d left it with my other handbags, it would have looked out of place among the Louis Vuittons, Chanels, and Yves Saint Laurents. Dev tended to make sure I had the most fashionable clothes and accessories imaginable. He took special care to dress both myself and Daniel because he understood that image was important for the royal family.
“Do you think she would like me?” Lee asked.
I took a deep breath and promised to make sure that after we’d done this job, that damn cloak was going somewhere Lee couldn’t get it. “So you were listening in.”
I grabbed my pick and torque wrench. I hadn’t used them in forever, but I would be using them today.
“A little, but I knew about Summer before today. We all do.”
“Rhys and Evan know?” I’d tried to keep my children out of this. I knew if we were ever able to find our first child, that I would have to tell them about her, but I didn’t want to get their hopes up.
“Not Evan. I mean she’s heard us talk but she still doesn’t get it,” Lee replied. “Sean knows, too. We had to tell him so he could get Uncle Declan to explain what a transference box was. And no, I wasn’t wearing the cloak when I first heard about Summer. You’re not as quiet as you think you are. You were sitting at the kitchen table with Dad. It was last year. You cried and talked about her. I think it was her birthday.”
The world threatened to go watery because I knew exactly what night he was talking about. I’d been thinking about the fact that my daughter would have been a teenager that day and I’d been sitting at the kitchen table an hour before dawn, crying my eyes out. Dev had gone to bed, but Danny had known what that day was. He’d found me and we’d talked about our girl, wondering where she was and if she was being taken care of. He’d held me until I could finally sleep.