“I’m so sorry,” Daniel was saying quietly.
“Is everyone all right?” Dev asked, looking behind me at Daniel. I was sure Daniel had filled everyone in on Halfer’s activities.
“Joel is dead.” Daniel’s voice was a flat monotone. “The house is gone. Justin worked fast or it would have been a whole lot worse. He got the girls out. Jean-Marc is burned pretty badly, but he’ll recover. I moved everyone over to Chad’s.”
“We’ll find a new place tomorrow,” Dev assured him.
I let my head fall back against Daniel’s chest. Exhaustion swamped me, but the blood was doing its work now. I could feel myself healing, and the pain was replaced with a warm sense of well-being.
“Take her, will you, Dev?” Daniel asked, and Dev picked me up and started toward the car.
I looked back at my husband. Danny’s body was rigid with tension. He caught my eyes but there was nothing encouraging in his face, just a flat, hollow look.
Guilt pressed on me. I’d been reckless. I should have vetted the entire situation better, but I’d been eager to get ahead of Halfer, to prove that he couldn’t best me in my own world. And Danny had paid the price. Joel had paid the price.
Daniel pulled his cell out of his back pocket and punched in a number. Dev was putting me in the car as Daniel began to speak.
“This is Donovan. My access number is 75502E45. Yeah, I’m going to need a cleaning crew. Send everyone you have to I-35 about three miles out of Fort Worth. You can’t miss it.” He paused and sighed. “It’s not for me. Yes, it’s my wife again. Just call Vorenus. He’ll clear her. Hell, call Marini himself. I don’t care, but if you don’t get your ass out here, I can tell you what the front page of the Star-Telegram is going to be tomorrow morning.”
Daniel snapped the phone shut. He frowned down at me. “I have to meet the crew at the drop sight. I’ll see you at home.”
I shook my head. “Dev has to go with you. He has to fix the oak grove.” We couldn’t leave it there. The mutilated road could be explained away, but not a bunch of trees.
“I did that while Zack chased you down. It took me thirty seconds, but I worry the drivers saw me. They need their memories wiped,” Dev said.
Daniel nodded, and then he was gone again. Dev closed the door. He got around to the other side and joined me in the backseat. Zack and Lee were in the front, and Zack pulled away, driving us back toward Denton. We were going to take the long route home to avoid anyone remembering the car.
Lee looked back at me. “I’m sorry, Zoey.”
“You couldn’t help it.” I’d gotten him into a bad situation, too.
“You should have left me,” he said in a voice that told me he respected me because I hadn’t. He turned back around and let his head rest against the seat.
“If you ever try anything like this again, I swear to the goddess I will lock you up,” Dev started and I knew he was going to blow off some steam. “I’m going to be saying no a whole lot in the future, my mistress. I’m going to become the king of no. Do you understand me? Let me go over all the ways you tried to kill yourself tonight.”
Dev yelled, letting all of his terror out in a torrent of words. The list of things I’d done was really long and went on for many miles, but I did one right thing as Dev was screaming.
I reached over and clicked my seat belt closed. I had learned that lesson.
Chapter Nineteen
I stared out the window of the large SUV, taking in the sights of the mountains, but I couldn’t really concentrate. I leaned my head against the cool glass pane as the driver turned up what I hoped was the final road. John McKenzie’s place was really isolated. Dev held my hand as he looked around as well. I could see he was satisfied with the beauty of the place. I, for one, was not looking forward to spending the next week in a tent.
Of course, it would probably be better than the last week. Dev had spent the entire night of my blown heist yelling at me and giving me all kinds of ultimatums I knew he would never follow through on. At one point, he was taking me to an unspecified location where he would keep me barefoot and pregnant for the rest of my days. He’d given me all kinds of guilt trips, but when the time had come to go to bed, he climbed in next to me and held me close. When morning had come, he woke me up in the sweetest way and was back to being Dev. I was coddled and cuddled and loved until I cried out all my tension.
Daniel was another story. Daniel was doing what he always did. Daniel was pulling away.
For the last week, he hadn’t slept with us, preferring to use the interior room. He still fed and he still had sex with me. When he was making love to me, there was no question in my mind that it was love. He was passionate and said all the right things in the heat of the moment, but after, there was a coldness and a distance that left me feeling brutally alone. Danny had worked with Dev relentlessly to get ready for this meeting, but he wouldn’t share a bed and he wouldn’t go out with us when we took the night off.
He blamed me for what happened to Joel, or he blamed himself. Either way, I felt his absence and I was going to have to find a way to work through it.
Then there had been the unexpected nuisance of the purification ritual I’d been informed I had to follow for seven days prior to the fertility ritual.
Unlike the other rituals we performed, which I will admit have been informal and mostly for our own pleasure, this one had a few caveats. Ingrid had shown up four days ago with a box she said was for me.
When I opened it there was the most beautiful gauzy white gown. It could have been a nightgown, but it was more formal somehow. She’d made it for me and it fit perfectly. It was oddly old-fashioned for the ritual we were to perform, but it made my skin glow and showed off my breasts in a fashion I knew would make my faery prince’s mouth water. When I gazed into the mirror, I thought I looked a little like a bride on her wedding night.
Then Ingrid explained all the things I couldn’t do between then and the ritual. No meat. No alcohol. I was supposed to spend an hour a day in quiet contemplation. I have no idea what I was supposed to contemplate. I had to scrub my skin every day with some kind of exfoliant containing sand from Dev’s sithein. I asked if I was to abstain from sex as well, but Ingrid glared at me like I was slightly off and told me there was nothing impure about sex. I was beginning to wonder what all the fuss was about and would have complained, but Dev was so enthusiastic I found myself unwilling to disappoint the only man who was happy with me.
“Wow, this place is beautiful,” Sarah said from the third row of seats. She and Felix had come along as part of our retinue. We weren’t allowed to bring vampires other than Daniel, so we had filled out our party with a small group of friends. In addition to Sarah and Felix, there was Lee and Zack. Declan would be along shortly, and I’d been informed that the organizers of the Gathering were honored to be hosting the future king of Faery. Unlike vampires, the sidhe tend to be welcomed wherever they go.
Albert had gone ahead of us to make sure everything was ready. The thought of our proper butler pitching tents made me giggle.
The car stopped in front of a magnificent cabin. I call it a cabin because of the materials used to make it, but it was a mansion really. McKenzie wasn’t going to miss the million he was paying us.
Lee got out first. After a moment, he gave the signal for the rest of us to move. Dev rushed around to help me out and I waited patiently because it was important to him. There was a middle-aged wolf with a clipboard walking toward us, a wide smile on his face.
“Your Grace,” he said to Dev, using the title bestowed on a high priest. In this case, his status as a high priest superseded his princely title. “It is such an honor to have you here. I am Matthew, Mr. McKenzie’s assistant. He’s waiting in the house and requests your company before you join the others.”