I found myself sitting on his lap, his arms wrapped around me and his face pressed to the crook of my neck. He breathed in my scent. This was what he needed when he was anxious. Had Dev been here, Daniel would have brought him close, too.
“He’s not dead.” I needed to say the words, needed to believe them because things didn’t look good. Zack had tried to track him and the trail had stopped in Daniel’s office. It was like he’d walked in there and disappeared.
“No, he’s not,” Daniel said like he could simply command it to be so. “We would feel it. Something’s going on.”
And wasn’t it odd that it started happening after Myrddin showed up? “I want Kelsey to look into anyone new to the Council. You know, anyone who’s shown up in the last few weeks.”
Daniel’s head came up. “You think someone’s come in to hurt us?”
I thought Myrddin was here to cause trouble, but I couldn’t say that to Daniel for fear he would go straight to the wizard. In almost all cases, my vampire husband plays things super smart, but Myrddin was his weak spot. From the moment they’d met, Daniel standing over the crystal coffin that had housed the wizard for centuries, Myrddin had a hold over Daniel that I couldn’t understand. It was precisely why I hadn’t talked to him about what Kelsey had told me weeks before—that Myrddin would come after our son, Lee, if he ever found out he held the old Lee’s soul in his body.
Most people don’t get to meet their kiddos before they’re born, but I might have done the Heaven plane a couple of favors. That was how I knew my beloved bodyguard had come back to Earth as my son.
It was my turn to protect him with everything I had, and unfortunately that meant leaving Daniel out of the loop. It was hard because I’d gotten used to telling Daniel everything. We’d left behind the times when I would work in secret, sometimes in direct opposition to my husband. I’d settled down, but it looked like the old Z would have to make an appearance if we were going to survive the wizard.
“You know someone’s always plotting against us.” In this case, I could hide behind the truth and make Kelsey’s job a bit easier. If Daniel found out she was looking into Myrddin, she would simply say she’d been ordered to look into everyone new at the Council. I took a deep breath and tightened my hold around Daniel. “Where is he?”
Danny held on to me. “I don’t know, but I promise you, we’ll find him and soon. I’m not going to rest until Dev’s back here.” He cursed under his breath. “What the hell are we going to tell the kids? How long can we put them off?”
I had no idea what to say, but I knew we would have to say something if we didn’t find him quickly. Evan was so young she might be put off with an excuse and a cookie, but Lee and Rhys would quickly figure out something was wrong, and goddess help us all if Lee decided to fix things. “Let’s hope Kelsey works fast.”
We sat there for a moment, both of us praying to anyone who would listen to give him back to us.
Chapter Two
Summer
I would love to tell you my life has been awesome. I grew up on a Faery plane, but I use words like “awesome” because I’ve traveled a lot. When I talk about travel, I don’t mean getting on a train or in a carriage and going to some nice lake or beach for a vacay. I’m talking about going to whole other planes of existence. I’ve been to a bunch of them in my time. That’s what happens when you spend the majority of your adult life on the run. You get to see a lot of the universe. Sure, mostly I was hiding and praying no one would find me, but I got in some touristy stuff, too.
There’s this supercool plane full of vampires—not like the ones on the Earth plane where I was “born.” Yes, I use air quotes because my birth was quite odd. Mom didn’t have hours of labor after which she pushed me out of her body while breaking the hand of the man who’d put me up there. No, my birth was totally different. Basically Mom got all the fun stuff and none of