“Hello, Kelsey,” he said absently. “I’m glad to see you’re all right. When did the king and queen join us, and do they have a way back to the Earth plane? Keep your voice low because if we can leave, I want the option, and I doubt our new friends would give that to us.”
I glanced over to where the security guys were inspecting the cool as fuck hovering motorcycles that I wanted to get my hands on. I wondered if we could ride that bad boy through the portal. “No, they were dumbasses like the rest of us and fell through the painting. Oh, and fun new fact, Dean was right about there being something in Dev’s head. It was called a thrall stone and Myrddin’s been using it to control the king and Dev. Another fun fact, the king is human.”
I now had Marcus’s full attention. “What?”
I shrugged. “Something happened on his way through the gate, something that shifted his body back to its human form. He’s not real happy about it.”
Marcus’s head fell back, and he started to curse in Italian.
I thought I should give him all the bad news right up front. “Also, the super powerful witch who’s been Summer’s mentor stole the book we need, and she’s been controlling Dean through one of those stones, though I suspect she didn’t put one in Summer.”
In my periphery I could see Dean holding out a hand to the dude who was with the werewolf. They seemed to know each other, and I had to hope it was a friendly relationship.
“Summer’s mind is free, but I’ve started to wonder about her body,” Marcus admitted. “I’m worried if the witch wasn’t who she said she was. She’s the one who convinced Summer to bind her magic. Summer has been with her for years. Are we absolutely sure?”
I was sure he didn’t want to have to give Summer the bad news about her bestie. Luckily I wasn’t trying to sleep with her. I could totally take that job. “We are one hundred percent sure. I found the stone she used myself, and then she attacked me and stole a book that we have to get back.”
“Summer is going to be devastated,” Marcus said with a frown. “She does not trust many people. At least her parents are here, and that can soften the blow.”
“We need to figure out if she was using Summer. Maybe the queen can help us with that. They look like they’re getting along well.” I glanced over to where Summer was smiling up at the king. I’d never seen Daniel Donovan look so happy as I did when he stared down at his daughter’s face. For a human dude, he was practically doing the Twilight glow thing. Of course Marcus didn’t look half bad either. “Everything going all right with her? Did you take over the mercenary dudes’ brains and make them do your will?”
His lips quirked up. “Absolutely not. I was unable to break through the shielding Mr. Taggart and Adam have. The werewolf is named Kaja. She and her daughter broke us out. I did manage to take over her vampire husband’s brain, but hers was closed to me. She threatened me with grave bodily injury, and I believed her. No, my dear, it was logic that truly brought us here.”
“Logic?”
“Yes, apparently our erstwhile mercenary has a companion, and she’s a bit of a scholar,” Marcus explained. “She believes she understands what’s happening with the convergences. She convinced her husband not to turn us over. Unfortunately, one of his employees wanted the bounty on Summer. The werewolf is representing the interests of the Seelie kings. She was embedded in the company, and she is the one who saved us from being taken by the witches.”
He laid out everything that had happened for me, including schooling me on the fact that there were different faery planes, but we would be dealing with the most powerful of them— Tír na nÓg. Marcus had some questions about the King of all Vampire suddenly not being a vampire, but I was as lost as anyone else.
“Vorenus, I want to know what she did to the bikes.” Taggart strode up, interrupting our deep discussion of whether or not I should stab the king and try to turn him. “They stopped on their own and we can’t figure out how.”
“What do you mean they stopped on their own?” I wasn’t going to wait for an introduction to start asking questions.