Talia waved her hand to the counter where a fruit tray, a cookie platter, and the coffee awaited. “I brought snacks,” she said. “How are you doing this morning?”
“The extra sleep helped.” I eyed the goodies and decided that one waffle and bacon for breakfast hadn’t been quite enough. The Fae had faster metabolisms than humans, and our appetites showed it. As I loaded up cookies and fruit salad onto a paper plate, Yutani, Viktor, and Rafé joined us. Angel was last.
“The elevator is locked and I armed the bell outside the stairs so we’ll hear if anybody wants in that way.” She fixed herself a cup of tea and we all gathered around the table.
Herne was just about to bring the meeting to order when my work phone rang—we all had two phones, our personal cells and our work cells. This helped avoid any clients getting hold of our private numbers. I pulled it out, frowning, and glanced at the caller ID.
Ashera.
“Whoa…I need to take this.” I jumped up from the table and walked over to the counter so they could keep on talking. “Hello?”
Ashera answered, her voice low and sensuous. She was a blue dragon—one of the Celestial Wanderers. The Dragonni were divided into several types. The Celestial Wanderers were the blue, silver, and gold dragons. They were generally friendly to mortal-kind. The Mountain Dreamers were also human-friendly, and they were made up of the green and black dragons. But the Luminous Warriors took after their father, Typhon. The white, red, and shadow dragons had little use for any form other than dragon. They were the ones who we had to worry about at this point.
Ashera had helped us out when Pandora kidnapped Raven, and she was currently living over on Bainbridge Island with several other dragons who were determined to keep their father from destroying the world.
“Ember, we’ve heard about the vrykos, of course. You know that this is Typhon’s doing.”
“Yes, we figured as much.”
“Well, I was planning on coming over to talk to your agency tomorrow at four, if that’s convenient. I have some information that you’ll want, but it’s not something I’m comfortable talking about over the phone.” She paused, waiting.
“Let me talk to Herne and make sure we aren’t already booked.” I turned to Herne. “Ashera wants to meet with us tomorrow at four, here.”
He looked up from where he had been poring through an article on his tablet. “Angel, we don’t have any appointments then, do we?”
Angel checked her tablet and shook her head. “All clear. Shall I put her down?”
“Yeah, do,” I said, returning to my phone. “Ashera, we’ll see you here at four p.m. Thanks. By the way, I was thinking we needed to run something by you that we saw last night during a fight in a graveyard.”
“I think I know what it is, and we’ll talk tomorrow. Meanwhile, tread carefully. I can’t say more than that, but tomorrow—I’ll tell you everything.” And with that, she disconnected.
My stomach knotted as I stared at the phone. The very tone of her voice had chilled me to the core. I knew—as sure as I knew my name—that it had to do with the dragon we had seen flying overhead. A shadow seemed to fall across the room, and suddenly the sunshine outside seemed too harsh. The brighter the sun, the darker the shadow, I thought.
Chapter Ten
After I told the others what Ashera had said, the speculations flew high and thick. Herne listened for a few minutes then put his fingers to his mouth and whistled the meeting back to order.
“We’ll find out tomorrow exactly what she means, but for now, back to business. So, I want to go over this morning, first, and then we’ll talk about what happened last night. Today, Jana Wildmere arrives at four to discuss forming a Shifter Alliance militia.” He gently tossed his tablet on the table. “First, about the parley with Névé and Saílle.”
“Oh that’s right,” I said, suddenly remembering he had been scheduled to meet with the Fae Queens early. “How’d that go?”
“Just about what you’d expect. Long, tedious, aggravating. But in the end, we hammered out a truce for six months. They refused to look beyond that, but frankly, I consider even six months a win, given those two. They will not wage war—outright or covert—against one another until Imbolc. And the parley included assigning me control of both their militias, which will be combined into one,