Page 53 of Druid Dreams

“Stop that!” Stone barked out and the guys turned quizzical faces to me.

“Worth it,” I whispered in a singsong voice. I bit my lips together to stop my smile from spreading as the doorknob twisted.

The door swung open dramatically, slamming into the concrete wall behind it. Stone and Novak were standing just outside the threshold, looking pissed. So fucking worth it. After a solid minute of silence a symphony of laughter reverberated around the room. Novak leaned down to look at the bottom of his skirt and grimaced as he tugged on it. “Could you have bought a shorter dress?” He asked, annoyed with the peep show he was giving us.

“She tried,” Vaughn wheezed out. “You should be happy I was with her when she bought them.”

Those cosplay maid outfits were the jam. The black dress was poofy at the bottom due to the attached petticoat. The white apron had ruffled edges and crisscrossed in the back before tying off in an oversized bow. Stone stood in his dress and combat boots looking completely unaffected, twirling his duster between his fingers like a baton. The frilly little headband in his hair was what really set my giggling fit off. Novak’s was tied around his neck like some sort of choker. He pulled at it while tapping the toe of his boot on the floor in agitation.

“I really hope the information you got was good, otherwise I’m going to be livid.” The Vampire looked pointedly at me and I shrugged as I struggled for a witty comeback. “It’s not,” is all I could manage as the laughter in the room started up again. He was there for half of my interrogation. He should know it’s shit information.

After a few more minutes we all tapered off. I wiped the tears from my eyes and battled the urge to chortle when the Demon took his duster and swiped it across Novak’s face. That pissed him off, and he swung the handle end of the cleaning device at Stone. He skirted to the side away from the blow, chuckling lightly at the angry vampire.

“Okay, okay,” Stone surrendered. “I’ll stop fucking with you. Sloane, please start talking so everyone will stop looking at us like that.” He pointed to Levi’s open mouth.

“Right, so, I was able to compel Kelvin into giving me a few answers. Mostly they just lead to more questions but this is the gist.” I took a deep breath before plunging in head-first. “The person who is behind this drug is male. He’s a fae-mage hybrid. His mother is a summer fae, and he and Kelvin were half-brothers on his father's side. He didn’t come to pick up the crystals, instead sending his half-sister, Kadence Moore, to retrieve them. He said they started testing the drug on vampires a couple weeks ago, but there hasn’t been any confirmation on that yet. Simon is looking into it now. Their father’s name is Alric Moore.”

“How do you know this guy's mother was a summer fae?” Vaughn was befuddled as he glanced around the room.

“I can explain hybrids to you,” Stone started as he ran feathers over the desk in the corner of the room. Clearly he’s taking his job seriously. “When Sloane told us Kelvin was a vampire-mage hybrid she stated it in that particular order for a reason. In the supernatural world, outside of the other realms, hybrids come in a variety of mixtures. The mother’s species is always listed first and the father's second. So, when you have a vampire-mage, you know the mother was a vampire and the father was a mage. If the species were reversed, mage-vampire, then the mother would be a mage and the father would be a vampire.” Stone finished with a shrug of his shoulder and continued dusting the surfaces around the room in his short dress.

“What does any of the other information mean to us?” Vaughn inquired.

“By having his Da's name we can look him up in the guild headquarter’s archives, but we’ll have ta travel to the guild headquarters ta do that.” Palmer didn’t look happy about the possibility of going to Belfast.

“Right, but we also have his sister’s name,” I reminded him. “And we know she’s a part of this too. Before we look for Alric Moore we need to find Kadence and put a stop to the shitstorm she’s going to cause with the Vampires.” It was a logical move. Baton Rouge was closer and easier to travel to. I needed to check up on the coven council as well, since my father wasn’t back yet. I need to call Papi too, and tell him everything that’s gone on.

“That’s a solid start. I already know a little about Kadence Moore, but you aren’t going to like it.” Novak stopped pretending to dust the computer monitors to face me fully. It’s hard to take them seriously in these outfits. I smiled at him. “Don’t start,” he pointed his duster at me, feathers first. I covered my face with my hands to smother fresh giggles. “Anyway, I think Kelvin was her twin brother, or that’s what I heard. She’s on the coven council. Has been for decades. She’s anti-Sloane when it comes to Nathaniel stepping down, so she’ll definitely be an issue if that’s where we’re headed. She is a crazy cunt.” He emphasized the last sentence in a deeper voice than his usual smooth tone. I didn’t like the thought of going in unprepared. That wasn’t enough information about her.

“We’ll have Samuel and Charles meet us in Baton Rouge. Jack and Grim too. She won’t be able to detest my position. I outrank her as coven heiress. If she wants the position then she’ll have to challenge me just like an alpha fight.” I felt comfortably secure in my ebony tower, I could admit that. She won’t win though. I refuse to lose. “The rules are different, but the outcome will be the same. If she challenges me then she’ll die. If she’s behind this fucking drug being leaked to vampires then she’ll stand trial, with me as her judge. If she’s found guilty then she’ll die by my hands with the same audience.” I’m indifferent about the outcome. If she’s anti-Sloane then she’ll eventually be on the receiving end of my special brand of punishment regardless of her affiliation with the epidemic.

“You sound pretty sure of yourself,” Levi commented.

I shot him a fang-filled, lethal grin. “I might not be the villain, but I’m the antihero of this story, Levi. My kill list is a mile long. I’ve been trained to use more weapons than I can count. I am the biggest, baddest predator on the planet. I’m not even bragging about that - it’s just a fact.” I retracted my fangs and stood. As I walked to the corner of the room to grab a laptop, I spoke softly. “If I seem sure of myself it’s because I am.” I looked pointedly at him. “I’m faster, stronger, and smarter than she is. I’m an impossible combination of supernatural strengths. I’ve been molded for these kinds of fights my entire life. The supernatural world works very differently than the human world around us. Right now, you’re in a room full of future leaders.”

I let that sink in as I opened the laptop. I wanted to keep track of all the information we’d gathered so I didn’t lose any with the coming mess. Palmer took it from me and began typing everything out. The Shifter was deep in thought and hadn’t said a word since before Stone and Novak walked in. “What are you thinking about, Briggs?

“I’m thinking about this: Why did a summer fae breed with a different species, other than their own? How many offspring does this Alric guy have out there? Where should we start looking to find this mysterious hybrid male? Who could be behind the shifters that were introduced to the drug? A drug that needs a name, by the way.” Briggs ticked his questions off his fingers until he was sitting with only his middle finger in the air. “And, what can we do from here?”

He had many good points, and he was right. Those were questions that needed answers. I didn’t have them though. “We’ll begin by looking for Kadence Moore. It’s the easiest starting point. Finding out who gave the drugs to the shifters will be difficult, but we could follow that path next. There’s no way to know for certain how many children Alric has sired. Some of them may not be registered. I’ve never heard of a summer fae mingling outside their race, much less with a different species. I have no idea how to find someone that I know next to nothing about. We can’t do shit from here tonight.” That summed up all that I knew about his questions.

I wasn’t happy about the unknown, but I was glad that I didn’t have to walk through it alone. It had taken me no time at all to grow attached to having these guys around, and that scared me. Except York. I still want to throttle him into next week. I know that feeling will change soon, and we’ll eventually fall back into the easy contentment that we had before. I just want to be mad at him for a little longer. It was going to take more than a few hours for me to look at him and not feel my chest being ripped open. I understood why he didn’t tell me what was going on. What I cannot comprehend is how he thought that was the best decision he could make.

Sloane

Monday Night

After I left the basement, I climbed the million stairs to get to the rooftop patio. The night sky was bright and there were more stars shining down on me than I could fathom. I flattened myself out in a lounge chair and searched for constellations, doing the absolute most to keep my mind blank. I don’t want to think about anything.

“I thought I’d find you up here, in the dark.” York admitted from the doorway as he turned the outdoor lights on.

“I’m not ready to talk.” I protested diligently, covering my face with my forearm. “Not even a little bit.” It came out muffled, but I knew he heard me.

York huffed irritably and circled around my chair. “We need to talk,” he persisted.

“No. We don’t,” I complained, “Not right now, please.”

“Sloane,” he pleaded with me.