Witching Fire: A Wild Hunt Novel, Book 16 Read online

I slid on a pair of platform knee-high boots, black with silver buckles, and a silver bracelet. Finally, I stood back and stared at myself in the mirror. I was ready for the party, but on the inside my concentration was shot. Regardless of whether the Queen’s summons was for good or ill, I hoped that the meeting would be quick, and that it would happen soon, because I really didn’t want to wait to find out my doom.

  Chapter Three

  By the time I was dressed, Kipa had let in the first guests—Ember and Herne. I wanted to tell them what my mother had told me, but I didn’t want to dampen the mood, so I decided to put it off until later. Enjoying the party would take focus. There wasn’t much I could do about the Banra-Sheagh for now, so I tried to push all thoughts of the future out of my mind.

  “Where’s Angel?” I asked, looking around.

  “She’s on the way. She decided to drive herself so she could stop and pick up a package that got rerouted to the Express Delivery station instead of to our house,” Ember said.

  “How’s she doing?” I had been there when Angel’s boyfriend had been killed—in fact, I had witnessed the entire event, and so had Kipa. Neither one of us had been able to prevent a group of skeletal walkers from killing Rafé, and it wore heavy on our consciences, even though we had done our best to get him to medical treatment. I still felt guilty, though I knew guilt was futile, especially in a situation that had been as dire as the one we had been facing.

  “She’s all right. In fact, I wonder if she’s overcompensating. She seems too…unaffected. I mean, look at all the changes she’s been through. Rafé’s death, finding out she’s a quarter magic-born, and drinking the potion of life. I guess she’s sorting things out the best she can,” Ember said. “She’ll get through it—she’s talking to Marilee a lot. I don’t think Angel ever believed she had much power. That she has a magical heritage to draw on opens up a whole new perspective.”

  “Big changes do that, and so does trauma. And good gods, losing someone you love always brings trauma. I know all too much about that.” I paused as the doorbell rang. “Excuse me.” Grateful to whoever had showed up, I moved to answer the door. I didn’t want to talk about trauma tonight, given how on edge I was since my mother had told me about the Banra-Sheagh.

  I opened the door to find Vixen and Apollo standing there. Both were Ante-Fae and both were also Exosan. Apollo—the Golden Boy—was Vixen’s lover, and their sub. He was enrolled in college in a business management program. Apollo was stunning, with a perfectly symmetrical face and delicate features. His golden hair mirrored sunlight on a spring morning, and he had a model’s body. He could have been a supermodel, outshining anyone in the business, but he chose to dance at the club and go to school instead.

  “Hello, darling,” he said, air-kissing my cheek. Apollo and I had developed a good friendship over the past couple of years and he occasionally watched Raj when I was gone. I made sure never to give the wrong impression, though, because Vixen was very possessive of their boytoy, and even though they were a good friend, I wanted no misunderstandings.

  Vixen had chosen an androgynous form for the evening. A Taipan snake shifter, they had a deadly bite. Vixen was gender-fluid to the point of where they could change their looks, depending on their mood. Tonight, they chose a tall, lanky form, both beautiful and yet masculine, blurring the lines between gender. Vixen was also wearing enough sequins to blind a person.

  “Raven, it’s always a pleasure,” Vixen said, giving me an air kiss. They glanced around as they entered the house. “So sorry we’re unfashionably punctual tonight. Apollo has exams coming up that he must study for.” They paused for a moment, then said, “Tell me, is your goth boy coming tonight?”

  I sighed. Vixen didn’t like Trinity, another of my friends. Actually, not many people liked him. “I invited him, yes. I expect you to be civil in my house, Vixen. Trinity’s not to blame for his parentage.”

  Vixen let out a sigh, then said, “True that. He didn’t have a choice. Very well, I’ll be civil. Oh, I see Herne and Ember—I’ll go say my hellos to them. But Raven, my dear, I want to talk to you later about a matter involving a possible possession, so pencil me in, if you would, when you have some time this week.” They kissed me on the cheek and, picking up the golden leash that circled Apollo’s neck, they headed over to greet Herne and Ember.

  Kipa slid up behind me, his hands on my waist. He leaned in. “You have some interesting friends.”

  “I lead an interesting life,” I whispered back.

  “That you do. Vixen reminds me of a couple of the gods. The Ante-Fae are quite a bunch.”

  “We are, aren’t we?” I grinned up at him. “We live on the outside of the world, even when we’re smack in the middle of it.”

  The doorbell rang again and I kissed Kipa’s cheek. “Be a good wolf and get that, would you? I’m going to set out the food.”

  He slapped my ass. “You sure I’m not the Big Bad Wolf?”

  “Oh,” I whispered back, “I love it when you’re the Big Bad Wolf.”

  Laughing, he headed toward the door as I slipped into the kitchen, where my mother was organizing the food. I stared at her. She was wearing an apron over her leather jeans, and the juxtaposition of imagery threw me for a moment.

  “You are the least domestic woman I know,” I said. “Yet…somehow the apron fits with the outfit.”

  Phasmoria laughed. “Right. And I’m Tinkerbell. I didn’t want to drop anything on my pants, and I wasn’t about to let you do all the work.” She paused, then asked, “You do love your friends, don’t you?”

  I nodded. “They’re all good people. They’re part of my family. They’d have my back if I needed help, without ever asking why.”

  Phasmoria paused. “I’m glad. I can’t be here all the time, or even most of the time. And you’re still…”

  “Young, I know. But I do my best to stand on my own two feet—” I paused as Angel bustled into the kitchen, her arms filled with bags. “Angel!”

  “I brought desserts. I know you probably already have goodies, but…”

  As Phasmoria took the bags from her, I gave her a hug. “I’m glad you came, and we can always use more. Did you bake them?” I peeked in to see several varieties of pie.

  She snorted. “You think I’d bring you store-bought pie?”

  “Nope, just reassuring myself. Those will go fast. Come here, taste the chowder and tell me if I need to add anything.”

  Angel was a natural-born chef. As she obligingly moved toward the stove, I stepped aside, giving her room in which to work. Angel was gorgeous. Like Apollo, she, too, could have been a model. Her white maxi dress was held up by gold buckles on the shoulder straps, and the color stood out in contrast to the warm glow of her rich brown skin. Her eyes were brown, as was her hair that coiled down to her shoulders. She had gathered it back with cloisonne combs, which I remembered had been a present from Rafé.

  I leaned against the counter, watching her taste the chowder.

  “This is good, but a dash of lemon pepper would go a long way,” she said. “Where’s your spice cabinet?”

  I pointed toward the narrow drawer at the end of the counter. I had a galley kitchen, large enough to do some decent cooking in but far from a gourmet kitchen. She found the bottle of lemon pepper and added a dash to the chowder, tasted it again, then added another shake.

  “There, that’s good.” Turning around, she let out a groan. “I hope you don’t think I meant it wasn’t good to begin with—”

  “No, you told me it was good. I believe you,” I said, laughing. “I’m not so vain about my cooking that I’m going to get my nose bent out of shape when you think of a way to make it better. You’re like…the Cooking Channel incarnate.”

  She snorted. “Thank you. I love to cook and I’ve done a lot of it over the past couple of months. It helps me cope.”

  “I’ll take these crudité platters out to the table,” my mother said, delicately stepping around me with them. I waited till she
was gone.

  “How are you doing? Honestly?” Angel and I shared a special bond over Rafé’s death. He had been her boyfriend, and he had been my late fiancé’s brother, the one link I had left to Ulstair, who had been killed by a serial killer over a year before. Losing Rafé forced me to realize that Ulstair was truly gone. But I had Kipa to steady me. Angel had lost her lover.

  She hesitated, then tilted her head. “I’m surprisingly okay, to be honest. I keep waiting for his death to fully hit. Oh, I’ve cried, but I keep waiting to have a breakdown that never happens. At first it was hard, but…can I tell you something I haven’t even told Ember?”

  “Of course.”

  Angel glanced around to make sure we were alone. The party was in full swing and nobody was in the kitchen but us. “I’m sad, but I don’t feel…heartbroken. I feel like I should be, and I feel guilty that I’m not.”

  I let out a slow breath. “I understand. I felt the same way after Ulstair died. I missed him, and I still do. I loved him, and I still do. But now I wonder if I was ever truly in love with him, because my heart healed far faster than I expected. While I miss the friendship we had, I don’t miss the relationship.”

  “You don’t think that makes me a bad person, then?” Angel searched my face, and I realized she was looking for a way to forgive herself.

  I took her hands. “Not at all. You loved Rafé, but he wasn’t your forever-person. That doesn’t mean you didn’t care about him. It doesn’t mean his death didn’t matter.”

  She ducked her head, then smiled. “Yeah, that’s a good way to put it. We had a rocky road—coming from different cultures, with him being Fae and me being mostly human. And then when he went through the torture, it changed him and even after counseling, he was never fully the same. I guess he couldn’t be. He wasn’t as present, you know what I mean? I always felt like he was standing outside of himself, watching the rest of us. And it couldn’t just be the PTSD. Look at you—you went through something as bad, or worse, and you’re here. You’re not a million miles away.”

  “I got counseling—” I started to say, then stopped. “When Rafé lost his brother, that’s when things first shifted. They were tight, you know. They protected each other. Something shifted back then and it just kept shifting.”

  “I’m glad you understand. Everybody expects me to be brokenhearted and to cover myself in black and they tell me I’m hiding from my feelings,” she said. “Ember and Herne tiptoe around, like they’re afraid if they kiss in front of me, I’ll break down. I wish to hell they’d stop coddling me.”

  “Tell them,” I said. “Ember’s your best friend. You need to be straight with her. Don’t let the resentment build up. They aren’t going to think you’re a horrible person. Not at all.” I wrapped my arm around her waist. “The truth can be difficult, but it’s ten times easier than living a lie so you protect other people’s expectations.” I rinsed out the massive soup tureen—it was bone china with a cranberry and snowy woods motif. I jerked my head toward the living room. “Come on, help me serve the food before they riot.”

  I held the tureen steady as Angel filled it. Then she removed the bread and fish fillets from the oven while I retrieved the fries from the air fryer and emptied them into a bowl matching the tureen’s pattern.

  I recruited Kipa to carry the food to the table. We were serving buffet style and had set up two long folding tables so that we could sit in the living room and watch the tree as we ate. I changed the music over to a soft ambient background music—mostly instrumental—and we called people to dinner. My mother fed Raj his cat food without even a hint that he should join us as I made the rounds.

  Llew and Jordan had arrived, along with Talia, Viktor and Sheila, Yutani, and Trinity. Vixen was good to their promise, and didn’t cause a ruckus, and as we all sat down to dinner, I relaxed, trying to push away the worry over what my mother had told me.

  * * *

  The lights of the tree and the candlelight on the table seemed to relax everyone. After we finished eating, the men cleared the dishes and folded the tables, and we all had dessert in the living room. I didn’t have enough furniture so we had brought the chairs from the dining table over, and the folding chairs as well.

  True to my prediction, Angel’s pies disappeared at a rapid rate, and then people moved on to the tortes and the pastries. We were discussing anything and everything we could think of that would allow us to avoid talking about the war against the Dragonni.

  “So, there I was, stripped down to my golden bikini briefs, when my ex-owner showed up and challenged Vixen to a duel,” Apollo was saying.

  “True, but what that scumbag of a demon didn’t realize is that I’m a snake shifter and even a demon’s no real match against the venom in my fangs,” Vixen said, letting out a rich laugh. “Taipans are far more deadly than most people think.”

  The doorbell rang and I excused myself as they continued to spin out their story.

  I opened the door. Four tall guards were standing on the porch. They looked almost Amazonian, but I knew they weren’t Amazons—not with incredible tattoos that I recognized as Celtic in origin. The knotwork ran up their arms and the shortest one must have been six feet. The women wore silver winged helmets and black trousers with silver tunics, and they were carrying dirks, sheathed at their sides.

  A shiver ran up my spine. They carried heavy magic. It rippled over my arms, making the hair stand to attention. The magic wasn’t chaotic like Pandora’s energy, but whoever they were, these guards weren’t lacking for defense.

  “Yes, how can I help you?” Even as I asked the question, I knew. They were sent by the Banra-Sheagh.

  The one in the frontmost position straightened her shoulders. “By order of the Banra-Sheagh, I command you in the name of Her Majesty to accompany me to Reímseil-Tabah, to stand before the Queen and answer the charges brought against you.”

  I stared at her, unable to speak. Charges brought against me? What the hell had I done? Finally, finding my tongue, I turned around and called for my mother.

  Chapter Four

  I had no intention of letting the guards waltz through my front door, but they had other plans and before I realized what was happening, they pushed their way into the house, firmly but quietly. Crap, I thought. Even if I told them I was in the middle of a dinner party, they weren’t likely to apologize and agree to come back later.

  Herne and Kipa immediately bristled. The cousins stared at the guards with suspicion and Kipa stepped around me, inserting himself between us.

  “Who are you and what do you want with my mate?” he said. “You do realize who I am?”

  One of the guards blinked, but the one who had ordered me to come with them barely even showed a response.

  “Yes, you’re Kuippana, Lord of the Wolves, and this is Herne, Lord of the Hunt. We know who you are. Now step aside. We’re here to escort Raven BoneTalker to Her Majesty, the Banra-Sheagh,” the guard said.

  Herne paled, but Kipa seemed oblivious to the guard’s words.

  “You’re royal guards to the Banra-Sheagh?” Herne asked.

  The guard shifted from one foot to the other. “Yes, and we have been ordered to take Raven BoneTalker into custody.”

  Herne gave me a quick look. “What the hell is going on, Raven?”

  “I don’t know—my mother warned me today that they were being sent, but she didn’t know what they wanted either,” I said. My irritation was rapidly giving way to fear and I felt myself spiraling down a dark hole. I felt like a child, facing a big, bad monster. “Mother, what do I do?” I asked as Phasmoria pushed herself in front of Kipa.

  “What do you mean, showing up like this and threatening to arrest my daughter?” She shook her finger at the lead guard, her eyes flaring. The guard held firm.

  “Do not interfere, Queen of the Bean Sidhe. This is not your affair.”

  “It most certainly is my affair,” my mother said, gritting her teeth. “Raven is my daughter and you will treat
her with respect.”

  “Very well, you may accompany us. But if she doesn’t come with us now, we’ll drag her out in chains.” The guard reached for her dirk.

  Attached to her belt were silver cuffs. At least they weren’t iron. “I’ll go, but my mother’s coming with me.”

  “That is acceptable,” the guard said. “Two allies may accompany you.”

  I turned to Kipa, who was scowling. “Will you come?” I glanced at Herne. “Will you ask Angel to lock up, and ask Apollo to look after Raj and the ferrets in case we’re detained?”

  Herne’s eyes filled with worry. “Of course,” he said.

  My mother turned to the guard. “Give us time to dress for the weather.”

  The guard grimaced but acquiesced. “Be quick about it.”

  Phasmoria hustled me toward the foyer closet. “We don’t dare take more than a few minutes or they will drag you out in chains. Hurry now, grab a jacket. I’ll explain to Herne what I told you as we go.”

  I rushed to the foyer closet.

  Angel came up, frowning. “What’s going on? Are you all right?”

  “Truth? No. And I’m not sure. My mother, Kipa, and I have to leave.” I gave her a quick hug. “Herne can explain a little after we’re gone. Tell everyone I’ll be back as soon as I can. Give Raj a hug from me and explain I didn’t have time to say good-bye. He worries so much ever since what happened with Pandora.”

  “Of course—” She paused as the guards moved toward me.

  “I have to go,” I said, hastily slipping into a vintage military coat in steampunk style. Glancing back at Raj, who was frowning, I hustled the guards outside so he wouldn’t see them if they decided to handcuff me. My mother and Kipa were waiting. Kipa reached for me, but the guard stepped between us.

  “Do not touch the prisoner,” she said. “Are you ready?”

  “Ready,” I said. I had my purse with me, but I had left all weapons behind. It wasn’t a bright idea to show up at a palace packing heat, blades, or anything else.