The Rebel Queen (Outlaw #1) - Lexi Blake Page 0,119
to witness this message of his. “What does he want?”
“A meeting, of course,” Sasha replied. “He wants the king, the queen, and Devinshea to come to Dallas. He’s promising a neutral place. He’s allowing you four guards and will submit to wards around the meeting place if that will make you feel more secure.”
“Sending a body doesn’t instill a lot of hope in me,” Danny said tightly.
“Yes, well, I believe the body was meant for me, and it’s possible Myrddin plans on throwing me under the bus, to use an American saying.” Sasha wore a grim expression. “First he’s telling me that he knows more about my network than I think he does. Second, I believe he’s going to try to convince you I was always the problem and that he’s tried to hold everything together. He will do this in an attempt to ascertain if he still has control over you.”
“But what he truly wants is to keep the throne.” Dev knew the truth of the matter.
“He has to in order to fulfill his agreement with the demons,” Rhys replied. “He doesn’t get a do-over with them. They won’t simply allow him to hand the throne back to you and go on as we did before. They want what he promised them. So you have to understand that no matter what Myrddin says about wanting to meet with the dads, he really wants Mom.”
“I concur,” Sasha agreed. “Myrddin’s plan will involve getting his hands on the queen. He believes she’s the key to finally doing what he promised.”
“Well, I’m certainly not going to put my wife in the same room with him,” Danny announced. “So I don’t think I’ll be taking any meetings.”
But I needed him to take that meeting. He was forgetting one of the rules of thievery. It was always better to steal from someone who wasn’t there. “It would help me to have Myrddin out of the Council building. I would assume this neutral place isn’t the Council building.”
“No, Your Highness,” Sasha replied. “He’s proposing to meet at a park in public in the afternoon. This particular park is small and highly visible.”
“I wouldn’t even consider meeting him in private.” Danny sat back. “If we meet in the daylight, in a public place with humans around us, it could work. I’m going to assume nothing’s changed in the last twelve years concerning humans and their knowledge of the supernatural.”
“It remains the one thing all of the supernatural world agrees on,” Zack replied.
“It is still our highest law.” Sasha’s words were tinged with the grief he still felt for his daughter. Tasha was human, and though I was sure he checked in on her, he couldn’t ever be near her again. He couldn’t talk to her or get to know who she was now. She was lost to him.
My children weren’t lost. I’d found them again. I did have the chance to get to know them.
Sasha would kill to have only lost twelve years with his daughter.
“So we have to assume Myrddin will follow it,” Danny continued. “Otherwise, even he can be punished.”
“I thought the whole point was to give the Earth plane over to the demons.” I didn’t trust Myrddin to follow anyone’s rules.
“He can’t do that until he can lock the celestial planes out. I can assure you the angels will do something if the humans are at risk. At least I would hope so,” Dev said.
I had to shrug. I was the one who had dealt with angels the most. “They have odd rules. We can’t predict what they’ll do. I have to think they have some knowledge of what Myrddin wants. They’ll likely leave it up to us to save the plane.”
By us, I didn’t mean humanity as a whole or some giant supernatural army. I meant those of us sitting around the table. I had done Heaven’s work more than once.
“We can’t count on angels to do the work here on the Earth plane,” Danny agreed. “So that means we have to move forward with our own plans, and that includes Zoey getting her hands on the grimoire and Gladys. If I take this meeting, she would have some time without Myrddin in the building.”
Dev looked Sasha’s way. “By doing this in the daylight hours, it takes you off the board. I believe that’s his point. It means our guard will have to be made up of shifters. He will bring his strongest witches.”