Chapter One
A trick and a trap. You’ll solve the mystery and never see the evil coming for you. The world will fold and bend in on itself and you will be left on the wrong side. Years will pass. Your wolf will howl but he will remain steadfast. Hell will come and you will weep, but never leave the path. Hold fast. The magician will rule but you can win. Take back the plane. Don’t believe the myth that there can be only one. There is strength in numbers. So much strength in the blood. Don’t let them forget. History plays itself out again and again, mothers and fathers giving more than mere advice to their children. They give blood so the story continues. The path is set.
Summer is almost here.
Grayson Sloane, Dark Prophet
Zoey
I’ve been through a lot in my time. Losing Daniel—first to death and then to the old Vampire Council—signing a contract with a demon, killing said demon, taking down the same Council and becoming the Queen of all Vampire. Hell, I’ve survived my children, so when I tell you that realizing Devinshea was missing was one of the worst moments of my life, you should understand I was beyond scared.
I sat around the conference table that morning the day after Dev disappeared, my heart in my throat as I realized how bad the situation was. It was only a few of us—Zack, Daniel, and that other one who wouldn’t have been there if I’d had any say in it. Myrddin Emrys had been sitting in the conference room when we walked in, almost as though he’d known we would gather here.
Or Daniel had called him back from the Hell plane where he’d been acting as Daniel’s emissary. That was the likeliest of scenarios.
“I’ve got some security footage of Dev. He came into the building. I’ve tracked him by scent from the front door to Daniel’s office. At some point after that, we started having some trouble with the cameras.” Zack Owens was up early. Or rather he hadn’t gone to sleep at all. None of us had. If it had been a normal day, we would have been happily sleeping in since the supernatural world tends to be pretty nocturnal. “I’ve got someone looking into what’s going on with the whole system, but it seems to be electrical. The super says we blew a couple of fuses because of the party last night, and he hasn’t gotten them back up and running completely yet. So it’s possible we missed Dev walking back out of the building. I can’t be sure.”
We’d stayed up celebrating a wedding long after the newlyweds had left for their hotel, taking Dev with them to perform fertility rites. While the newlyweds had been trying to conceive their first child, everyone in the Council building had been dancing and drinking and basically enjoying the night. The party had been to celebrate the wedding of my friend and Zack’s niece, Kelsey Owens, to her chosen men, the dark prophet and half demon, Grayson Sloane, and the alpha werewolf who’d been my bodyguard for years, Trent Wilcox. Yes, she married them both. What can I say? I’m a trendsetter. I’m married to two men—Daniel Donovan, the King of all Vampire, and my faery prince, the High Priest of the Fae, Devinshea Quinn.
I wasn’t willing to lose either one of them. It came as something of a shock because I’d gotten used to things being relatively calm. Yes, we had the odd coup attempt, but for the most part, we’d found a wary peace in our kingdom. We didn’t have our guard up, and that would prove to be a big problem because when you’re the royal family of the supernatural world, someone is always, always gunning for you.
The door opened and I had another ally.
“What’s going on?” Neil Roberts, my bestie, slid into the seat beside me. He yawned and looked generally annoyed to have been dragged out of bed, though he’d definitely been known to do that to me. “Someone told me Dev got lost. I thought he was going over to the hotel to do the fertility thing for the newlyweds. Did anyone check the hotel bar?”
I would normally have laughed. But I had checked the bar, and my vodka-loving husband hadn’t even stopped in for a drink. I know that because the security cameras at the hotel hadn’t malfunctioned. They plainly showed my faery prince walking out of the lobby and onto Main Street ten hours before.
“This isn’t a joke.” Daniel looked grim in the morning light. Despite the fact that he’s the ultimate vampire in our world, he’s not inhibited by the normal daylight issues. Most vampires would go poof in the light of day and leave behind nothing more than a pile of ash for our butler to vacuum up, but Daniel didn’t worry about UV rays. Feeding off Devinshea’s unique blood and sexual energy had given him the ability to daywalk. “Dev’s been missing for half a day now.”
“Missing is a very specific word, Your Highness,” a silky voice said.
I forced myself not to shudder at the sound of Myrddin Emrys speaking. The centuries-old wizard had once gone by another name. He’d been known as Merlin and he’d served as the advisor and teacher of a king named Arthur. There had been others who’d wielded the legendary sword, Excalibur, but Arthur was the most famous of them. Myrddin was tied to the sword. When the Lady of the Lake had given my husband Excalibur, Myrddin had become Daniel’s mentor, though he’d ignored us for almost a decade. I’d been perfectly happy with his absence.
When he’d walked through the doors of the Council building, into my home, I realized those years had been nothing more than a pause. Someone had hit play again, and I had to deal with a man who had far too much power over my husband.
I had to deal with the fact that Myrddin Emrys was dangerous, and no one believed me with the exception of Kelsey and my eleven-year-old son, Lee.
The good news was Kelsey is a badass. She serves as the sheriff of the supernatural world, though her technical title is Nex Apparatus. She’s a Hunter, which basically means her human momma got busy with a lone wolf who forgot to wear a condom. Her father had been one of the greatest men I’d ever met, and now I understood Myrddin had a hand in his death. He’d set up my former bodyguard to die because of a prophecy that claimed he could kill the wizard.
What he didn’t know—what Myrddin couldn’t ever know—was that Lee Owens’s soul now resided in his namesake. My son. My reckless, wonderful son was one of two beings in all the planes who might be able to kill the wizard.
According to Kelsey, Myrddin had gotten rid of the other potential slayer by sending him off the plane along with his mother. So my son was now the only person on the Earth plane who could harm the wizard. It made my Lee a big target.
“I’m not sure what other word I would use. Devinshea didn’t come home last night.” Daniel had turned to his mentor. “We know he left the hotel after the fertility ceremony. He stayed in the suite with Kelsey, Gray, and Trent for a couple of hours and then he left. It took him roughly fifteen minutes to walk back to our building.”
“Dev’s really missing?” Neil’s blue eyes went wide and he turned to me. “I saw him before he left with Kelsey and the guys. He seemed perfectly fine.”
“I’m surprised he didn’t have a driver,” Myrddin murmured. “At that time of night there are any number of criminal elements about. He didn’t have a bodyguard with him?”
That last question came with a sly look Zack’s way. Zack was in charge of the Council’s security. It was often a thankless job, especially when it came to the royal family.