. 04

Yvette was on her way back to her tower, after returning Cahill to his cell deep beneath the surface of the mountain, when she ran into her brother. He was all in a huff, of course. As he should be. She

had

spent the past few hours with a man who wasn't him, after all.

Oh, and she was still wearing her white skirt and pink top, with pink sandals and pink lips to boot. Lance was no idiot, so he ought to have known that was all for Cahill's benefit, but perhaps he was too busy being jealous to give her the benefit of the doubt?

As she was switching over to black and blue, he grabbed her by the arm, roughly, and demanded to know where she'd been. "Do you have any idea what's happened?"

"Noooo," she said. "What?"

"Lena's been taken," he said, as though that were the end of the world. Like she was half as important as their mother. "Zach too," he added, as if just remembering that their brother existed and that Yvette maybe cared a little bit about him.

"Whoa," Yvette said, yanking away to free her arm. "How do you know they've been taken? Maybe the two of them just wanted some privacy." It probably wasn't a good idea, but she couldn't stop herself from adding, "Maybe if you were a little better in bed-"

The slap was entirely expected, but it still hurt.

In a good way.

Fuck, that made her want him. There was nothing healthy about that, of course, but she was who she was, and there was no sense denying it anymore. A child of Winter. A snow leopard. So Yvette grew a tail and claws and pounced on her brother.

This time, though, he was having none of it.

He'd hardly even noticed her outfit, either. Which was more than a little disappointing. The leather boots, with their half-dozen silver buckles apiece, sheer black thigh highs, tiny black and blue plaid skirt, and leather corset looked damn good, if she did say so herself. The sapphire necklace might have been a bit much, warring for attention as it did with her tattoo, but though she hadn't had a chance to look in a mirror yet, she thought it worked.

But all he could think about was Lena.

"Seriously," she said, wiping the blood from a cracked lip that was already healing, "they could just be under a cloak. They're not particularly hard to construct, you know."

He gave her the most patronizing look, as if to ask if she really thought the double entendre was clever. Which, okay, it might not have been. But still. Who the hell could break into the royal palace and kidnap two of the queen's children without anyone noticing?

"Our mother is not often mistaken."

Yvette forgot all about her clothes and her jealousy of Lena. "She-"

"YES," Lance snapped.

Well, shit.

A sudden sense of vertigo hit her. How could they not be safe

here

, in their mother's stronghold? She was the most powerful woman the Homelands had ever known.

"So what are you doing roaming the halls?" Yvette finally asked, channeling fear and confusion into anger and accusation. "Why aren't you out looking for them?"

"Because she told me to find you."

The floor fell away beneath her again. She felt weightless and yet was half-convinced that she was plummeting towards the base of the mountain at the same time. Was she in trouble with the queen? How could she have known what would happen? Did it matter? Were they even allowed to hide themselves from their mother's view while under her roof? In any of her courts, for that matter? What had she been thinking?

Lance slapped her again. "Pull yourself together."

This time, when she lunged towards him, it wasn't to climb atop him and guide his throbbing member inside her. She feinted towards his face then raked his midsection viciously, nearly disemboweling him. Well, okay, her claws hadn't bit quite that deep. They weren't long enough to do more than inflict a good bit of pain. His insides would, for the time being, remain

on the inside

. Doubled over and covered in blood, Lance nonetheless had the wherewithal to stare pure hatred up at her.

His blazing blue eyes nearly liquefied hers.

Yet Yvette held his gaze, because fuck him. It hurt, and spots would dance in her vision for a time after he relented, but she'd not give him the satisfaction of thinking he could intimidate he so easily. Even if he was older and more experienced than her.

"You only get to do that when we're playing around," she said in a voice so level and cold that she kind of wanted to give herself a gold star.

Her brother sneered as he stood back up. His hand tentatively fell away from a freshly mended abdomen, but it made no move to strike her again.

"It was probably some moonlit or sunlit infiltrator," Lance said. "We've been expecting them to make a move for some time." He said that as if it was obvious, even though she still had no idea why they opposed her mother. Were it not for Zach dancing around the edges of what he was allowed to divulge, she wouldn't even know what those terms meant. "But we can't rule out fey involvement. She wants you to question Cahill and Oberon."

"And

Oberon

?" she asked.

Then immediately wished she hadn't. Whatever points she'd earned putting him in his place went right down the drain.

Lance snickered. "Figure that's a little out of your weight class?"

"No," Yvette said, though even to her own ears, she sounded more than a little like a child who stubbornly refused to swallow its pride. "I can handle him." That sounded a little more convincing. "I just thought the queen would want to question that one herself."

"She's got more important things to do."

"And you?"

Damnit, but that wolfish grin

was

pretty fucking hot. She kind of wanted to knee him in the testicles. But she was starting to remember how good it felt to be on top of him too. Or beneath him. To have his hand around her throat and two of his cocks stretching her cunt and ass at the same time. He was so strong. So assertive. So dominant.

"I've got to look for Lena."

"And Zach."

"

And

Zach," Lance agreed.

Was that not what their mother would be doing? No, of course not. If she thought the attack had come from the Eternal Garden or the Shadowed Glade, it was there she would go. To make her wrath felt. They'd regret trespassing on her territory, Yvette was sure.

So. She was supposed to go right back to Cahill. And play bad cop to her own good cop. Meanwhile, Zach was somewhere out there, at the mercy of who-the-fuck-knew, and she was supposed to trust Lance to bring him back safe. She wasn't sure where things stood between her and Zach anymore, but she didn't like that at all. If there came a point where had to choose between saving Lena and saving Zach, she knew what choice Lance would make.

"So? What are you waiting for?" he asked.

The air before her was empty a moment later.

"Fucking asshole," Yvette said. Even though her pussy was throbbing and her breathing belabored. She'd never met a more infuriating individual than the man who might or might not be her father. Nor one excited her so powerfully and so unpredictably.

Yvette looked down at the outfit she now felt she'd put entirely too much thought into and decided it wasn't worth changing things up again. True, she could keep the ruse going for a while longer if she slipped back into some pink and white, or whatever, but play time was over. Under different circumstances, she'd have been all too happy to let Cahill go right on thinking that, deep down, she was a good girl. But he might actually know something that would help her get Zach back. And whatever the future might or might not hold for her and her brother, she had to do what she could to get him back.

Besides, no one embarrassed her mother like that.

An eye blink later, she stood in his cell with him. He was right where she'd left him, shivering under his blankets, trying his hardest not to stare at the cold hearth that had never been, and never would be, home to any fire.

Yvette almost pitied him.

And most certainly envied her mother. The woman knew how to break a man down slowly. Yvette really couldn't see herself ever being patient enough to make a guy stare so forlornly at a useless fireplace, hating himself for wishing it housed warm flames. He'd be too deep in pain to worry about such things were she in charge.

As he was about to be.

"Hey. Thought you-" he began. The rest of the sentence trailed off in a breathless gasp as unseen hands clasped his balls tightly in fists as frozen as the walls of the palace above.

"What. Do. You. Know?"

"Uunngh," came the reply.

Hmm. Well, she probably shouldn't have expected anything more. Perhaps a

little

restraint was in order. Yvette willed the fists to ease up just a little. He'd still feel the biting cold of their immaterial presence, and know that at any moment they could apply enough pressure to pop his testicles like grapes, but he'd also be able to breathe.

After filling his lungs all at once, then slowly expelling the air, shoulders dropping as he deflated, Cahill finally met her icy blue gaze. "What do you want?" he asked.

To his credit, there was no more than a hint of pleading in his voice. And no surprise, protest, or betrayal. He'd been taken in by her act, yes, but he understood deception. Granted, he pretty much had to, given that the fey were reputedly all about blurring the line between perception and reality, wakefulness and dreaming. At least, according to Shakespeare, her one and only source of information on such matters. All the same, Yvette was kinda sorta almost impressed that her fairy prince was taking things more or less in stride. As well as a man could, when lying in bed, his berries clasped by frozen fists.

"Information," she said. "Mostly."

Cahill raised an eyebrow at her.

"To be honest, I was hoping to get more of a reaction when you realized that I've been playing you," she admitted as she pulled a pedestal up out of the floor with a thought. "But that would've only been a fringe benefit," she added, taking a seat on the cold stone.

He regarded her impassively. She could almost think her mother was wrong about him.

Yvette suddenly saw two overlapping images, as though she were looking at a poorly edited old film reel, or perhaps a skillfully altered digital image. The more solid Cahill, in the foreground, looked the same as ever. He was unbearably handsome, if a bit taller and darker-skinned than she liked. His eyes were the wrong shade of blue, but at least they

were

blue, and though she'd have liked to see what he'd look like with more facial hair, there was definitely something to be said for the whimsical bit decorating his chin and jaw line.

The hazier background image wasn't

too

different, perhaps, but Yvette might have had a harder time remembering that she'd come here to interrogate a prisoner rather than get her rocks off if that had been the dominant version. This Cahill was even taller, which didn't do much for her, but he was also hairier, which did. And he had the most impressive rack of spectral antlers sprouting from his skull. Their tips extended up into the roof of the cave, making it impossible to tell just how huge his embellishments were. And something told her that the difference between the real Cahill and this wilder version was even more pronounced below the waist. As in hooves for feet and lots more fur. Nothing else, of course.

Just as suddenly as the second Cahill appeared, it winked out.

"You're trying to break free," she said aloud.

Of course he was. How stupid could she be? Did a small display of animal virility, hyper-masculinity taken to mythological proportions, have such an effect on her? Well, okay, yes, it clearly did. But it shouldn't have.

A flute appeared in his hands.

Yvette reacted immediately. She didn't know exactly what he could do with that, but she knew it couldn't be good. That there was real power in music, at least when made by the right immortal, was clear enough. Her mother wouldn't favor Quincy the way she did otherwise. And she was pretty sure the fey had a special affinity for music. The length of green wood flew from his hands so fast it made the air buzz for a brief instant. Then it broke apart, raining splinters and kindling down beside the fireplace.

So. There was a reason her mother had sealed him off from his own Libido, and it wasn't just to fill him with despair. He was dangerous. Not due to any great capacity for violence, but for seduction, either directly through sheer sexuality or indirectly through enchanted music. She had to keep her guard up with this one.

No, she had to do more than that. She had to go on the offensive.

And she did.

First, she squeezed. Really,

really

hard. His scream of agony nearly pierced her ear drums, but that made her smile even as she winced. While he recovered from the nearly crippling blow, Yvette fumbled around until she found the thin layer her mother had wrapped around his Libido and fed it as much energy as she could. Whether it would have been enough had she not been building off her mother's previous efforts, she wasn't sure. Probably not. But reinforcing what was already there was something she could handle. She immediately felt the difference. The warm, pulsating presence of his energy vanished, and she realized she ought not have felt it in the first place.

And wouldn't have, if she hadn't cracked the seal earlier, up in her room.

Her mother had authorized her to have some fun with the guy, but she'd never meant for Yvette to empower him. Whatever was wrapped around his Libido worked just like the membrane surrounding Winter, only in reverse. Energy could leave his Libido, but none was meant to enter it. Or something like that. Yvette wasn't really sure exactly what she was feeling as she probed her mother's handiwork, but she knew it was sophisticated and had served its purpose perfectly until she'd gone and torn through it by mistake.

Was she really ready to take her place at her mother's side? To serve Lady Winter faithfully and effectively? How could she be, when she couldn't even figure out how to keep a broken man from posing a threat? Her cheeks burned with shame and indignation.

"You," she spat, "I went easy on you."

Maybe it hadn't been out of the goodness of her heart, but she

had

made his time with her a lot more pleasant than it needed to be. Than it should have been.

"Fuck...you," he said, hands clamped over his gonads. Or what was left of them.

Yvette down off her stony perch and strode over to the bed. She towered over him, tall though he was. The pain she'd inflicted on him had him hunched over, shoulders folded inward and head hung low. He looked small, weak, and pitiful, and that made her feel strong. It didn't matter that there were huge differences between them physically.

He was her bitch.

Then she remembered yet another source of power she had over him.

"As I recall, you promised to help me escape," Yvette said with feigned confusion. "But I'm not going anywhere. What's that going to do to you? At what point is the promise officially unfulfilled? Does the pressure just keep growing and growing until it becomes unbearable? Are you going to start bleeding from the ears and eyes?"

Cahill stared pure hatred up at her, but his hands hadn't left his crotch.

"Hmm? What's that? I can't quite hear you."

He swung his legs to the side and with a laugh Yvette jumped back. Then she realized he wasn't trying to kick her, but to stand up. Did he plan to take her away forcibly? Would that discharge his obligation? It didn't matter. So long as her mother's membrane was in place, neither of them was going anywhere.

Him especially.

Yvette tapped a finger against her blue lips and Cahill's started to turn roughly the same color. Minus the gloss and shine. The color drained from his skin and his hair froze. With a soft pop, his fingernails cracked and various bones snapped. His limbs locked up, his mouth froze in a silent scream, and he quickly turned into a icy statue, much like the bodyguard that had escorted him into the courtyard earlier. That was no way to get information from him, of course, but Yvette was too angry to care. He'd made a fool of her, when it was supposed to work the other way around. Fuck him, his promise, and all his people.

With a mental flick, she shattered her fairy statue into a million pieces.

#

Caronwyn felt something pass over her. It took her a moment to realize that it was just a breeze coming in through the open window, not some unseen pair of eyes piercing her best glamour. She probably ought to have assumed that right away. By Faerie standards, the Autumnal courts were not just windy, but blustery. The fallen leaves that made the place what it was were always drifting past her, whether she was indoors or out. And though it was a bit unsettling to see so much death around her, all that should be green painted instead in red, brown, gold, and orange, that didn't mean she'd fallen under Winter's gaze.

Still, she wasn't entirely comfortable believing herself beyond Daphne's ken. Especially since she was currently looking to escape her notice by hanging in one of the many sitting rooms in a vast palace belonging to one of the damned woman's most loyal servants.

At least, so far as the rest of the Homelands was concerned, that's what Iva Farrier was. Caronwyn had been led to believe otherwise. But she was only so convinced as of yet.

True, the woman seemed different enough from Titania, Daphne's other collaborator. And behind the right glamours, she said all the right words. But the thought of trusting anyone outside Clan Walker, no matter who she was, held less and less appeal.

Every second she spend in Autumn felt like a betrayal. It was wrong to leave her children in Savannah, knowing that they'd never been as safe from Titania as she and Cahill had believed. Yes, they were in capable hands. But her mother hadn't always come out on top when the two of them had tangled in the past. And while Clan Walker's numbers had not been so plentiful in her lifetime, there were too few adults to back Aeife up.

Yet, at the same time, every second she'd spent in Faerie felt like a betrayal as well. Cahill needed help, sooner rather than later. Did she not get that? Was she not equally worried about Oberon? How could she sit there and do nothing?

No, that wasn't fair. She wasn't doing

nothing

. Her mother was keeping them all safe from Titania while Fi and Seamus played diplomat to the Eternal Garden and Oona and Gallech did the same for the Shadowed Glade. There were worse ideas than waiting to see whether the Sun and Moon would move against Winter.

Like asking Iva to do the same.

But she'd consulted her talismans and they'd never spoken to her so clearly. True, she was no more a druidess than her son was a horned god. Than Aeife was a fairy godmother. Not in truth. Sometimes she believed, though, and belief was powerful. Belief had brought her daughter back from the dead. Her talismans had been right too often for her to ignore the reading. Especially with Cahill's life hanging in the balance.

So here she was, in the land of dying things, waiting on a Matriarch who might or might not wish to see her lands blanketed in snow, against the wishes of a mother she knew to be wise and patient. Perhaps even without her knowledge, though it was even harder to imagine Aeife failing to discern her whereabouts than it was Daphne.

The leather bound books stacked neatly on the shelves before her should have occupied her attention, but Caronwyn couldn't get her nerves to settle down enough for that. Some day, she'd think about the knowledge assembled before her, offering itself to her, and she'd kick herself. Just at the moment, though, she knew there was no way she could focus long enough to accept their gifts. All she could do was stare at them with unfocused eyes and wait for an end to Iva's audience with the very woman they sought to conspire against.