It was that moment that I was reminded I hadn’t come through the painting alone. There was a butterfly attached to my hair, a ruby-red pixie, the queen of her kind. She had been a constant companion for years, as I was also known as Her Grace when I was in Fae society. Devinshea was the High Priest of Faery, and I his acknowledged goddess.
Arwyna fluttered her wings and flew for the door Kelsey guarded.
“That’s not what the prophecy says,” Dean replied stubbornly.
I didn’t care about prophecy. Prophecy had gotten us into this clusterfuck in the first place.
Kelsey looked at me, a grave expression on her face. “The world will fold and bend in on itself and you will be left on the wrong side.”
I felt anger rise quick and true. She wanted to throw that at me now? “I don’t want to hear anything about a trick or a trap. Gray’s been peddling that nonsense for years. I’m not going to let it stop me from trying to fix this.”
Grayson Sloane was one of two prophets who walked the Earth plane. He was also Kelsey’s other husband. Like me, she had two. Trent, one of the strongest werewolves in the world, and the dark prophet, Gray. For the last several years he’d warned us of a coming evil—a trick and a trap.
I was not going to allow myself to be trapped here.
“I know this one by heart,” Kelsey continued. “Years will pass. Your wolf will howl but he will remain steadfast.” She pointed to the wanted poster featuring Trent. “My wolf has protected your pack. This is the event Gray foretold, and we now have parts to play. You know Gray’s prophecies can’t truly be altered. They can only guide us.”
Arwyna was flying around the room, seeming to look for something. We stood in the room that used to be the armory. It was in the lower levels of the building, under Ether, the club my Fae husband ran. Now it seemed to be some kind of office and storage area.
Daniel paced the floor, his jaw going tight even as he spoke. “Wasn’t there something in that prophecy about a magician?”
Kelsey nodded. “The magician will rule but you can win. Take back the plane.”
I didn’t want to take back the plane. I wanted to go home and be with my children. I wanted to be their mom and have fun with my husbands and…
I was pregnant. I was pregnant with Daniel’s child.
While we’d been on that distant faery plane, our daughter’s magic had taken my vampire husband and turned him briefly human. It had been a terrible change since we’d been in danger and Daniel had been the vulnerable one for once. But we’d taken the chance we had, and our faery prince had overseen fertility rites for us.
I was pregnant. Kelsey was pregnant. She had to understand. “Kelsey, if this is true, you’ve been away from Trent and Gray for twelve years. Fenrir is grown now. You lost all that time with your son. You have to want those years back.”
“Of course I do, but I don’t think that’s going to happen, and we need to consider the fact that we’re now standing in enemy territory. We need to find a way out,” Kelsey insisted.
For the first time in our acquaintance, Kelsey’s steadiness bugged me. “How can you be calm? Your son is on a wanted poster.”
“Yeah, but he’s wanted for something I would do too, so I can’t judge him.” Kelsey opened a metal cabinet and quickly went through the contents. She sighed and closed it again, not finding what she wanted. “I’m calm because I have to be. I have to get us out of this building. And honestly, that freaking prophecy has been haunting me for years. Now I understand it. There’s a little peace in that.”
I shook my head because I didn’t get her logic at all, but the painting was nothing but a blank canvas now, and none of us understood the magic behind it. We weren’t going to be able to jump back through it and get a do-over. Dean wouldn’t be willing to do it even if he understood how.
Kelsey was right. We needed to move.
Arwyna flew up and disappeared into the air vent.
I went on my toes because I couldn’t scream at her. “Hey, we don’t know that’s not dangerous. Come back.”
Daniel went still. “Devinshea, maybe you need to see if that sonic weapon you stole is working.”
Kelsey shook her head. “If it’s anything like the one I stole, it’s out of charge. It’s the first thing I checked.”
Dev had a small sonic gun in his hand. He’d taken it from some vampire mercenaries we’d had a run-in with on the outer planes. “Mine’s dead, too. But it had a full charge when we came through. How could both of them fail?”
Daniel moved to the door, cocking his head and likely opening his preternatural senses. “Are there plants you might be able to use? Someone’s coming. I don’t recognize the scent.”
Dev brought his hands up, sending his power outward. Devinshea is a Green Man, and in addition to his fertility powers, he could call all things green to our aid. It might seem like a soft power, but Dev could do a lot of damage with vines and roots.
Kelsey picked up the nearest object she could find. It was a stapler.
“What are you going to do with that?” Daniel asked, his brows rising.
Kelsey shrugged. “I’ll probably throw it and then use my fists, but I feel better with a weapon.”
“Zoey, I think you should move to the back.” Daniel was tense, his shoulders straight and claws out.
I didn’t want to move to the back. I wanted to go through that painting again and restart the damn day. Once it had been a slow-moving scene of a beautiful woman running through a field. Summer. Now she was in her rightful place and the painting was empty.
“Now, Z.”
Dev moved at Daniel’s barked order. He placed himself in front of me, and I could practically feel the frustration rolling off him. “I can’t use my magic. Something’s blocking me.”
Dev crowded me, sending me further back, and I caught sight of another stack of wanted posters.
Wanted for Espionage and Sheltering Enemies of the King
The Vampire Known as Sasha
Bounty paid only on a live recovery
Sasha. His real name was Oleg Federov. At least that had been his human name. He was the only new vampire to rise in the last few years, and Daniel had turned him on the night of his death in Munich. He’d stayed in Europe. At least he had been in Venice at Marcus’s home when we disappeared.
Sasha had once been a spy, a member of Russian intelligence, and then he’d worked with a group of former military men for a long time.
Where would my children have fled in those early days? Would they have gone to Venice, hoping it was safe? Was that where they’d found the Russian warrior? I glanced around and discovered whoever ran this office loved to make wanted posters. “Sasha has a poster, too. And Albert and Hugo and Henri.”
“What about Eddie? And Gray?” Kelsey asked, and I could hear the worry in her tone.
Because at least if there was a poster, it meant they were probably still alive. “I don’t see one for them.”
Daniel held up a hand, a sure sign that he wanted me to be quiet. I took a long breath, trying to picture where we were in the building. If it hadn’t changed, we wouldn’t have a ton of choices for how we would escape. There was a stairwell and the elevators. Those were our options, and by options I really meant we would need to take the stairs. If they were guarded, there would be no way out of a fight.