Never Enough Touch

 

 

MULLINS OFFERED to clean up while Edward looked at maps to try to find the possible whereabouts of a fairy hill in the middle of the Sierra Nevadas. It wasn’t going well. After the tenth try, Edward looked up from scrying over the most recent map he could find, to see a stunningly handsome young man washing dishes in the cabin kitchen, and had a heart-thumping moment of disconnect.

This is Mullins. I’ve loved him forever. He’s mine.

Mullins bit his lip in thought, and Edward felt another terrible pressure on his chest.

He can’t go back. He never should have been there in the first place.

Everything Edward had learned thus far, both of heaven and of hell, told him that a person’s self-perception, their empathy, their forgiveness, all had a hand in determining where they should end up. Nothing about Mullins’s story the night before told Edward he should have been in hell.

Mullins was right—something about his fall, his stay, his association with Leonard felt both random and destined. Right down to Mullins’s rather crafty and dogged determination to not do anything he couldn’t forgive himself for.

Nobody with that sort of integrity deserved to be in hell. Even the hell of his own making should have been forgiven and absolved when time and experience and maturity had shown him that what seemed to be an unforgivable sin had been a painful lesson, exacerbated to insanity by mob rule.

It all seemed so odd, and Edward’s mind wandered to and glanced away from the most random part of the story.

He gritted his teeth and focused on that thought. Dammit, he was too old a wizard to allow his attention be… what? Deflected? Abruptly the thought came into focus.

“Mullins?” he asked, feeling out of sorts. “Did you ever figure out who the red man was?”

“He was blue at the end,” Mullins said. “Wait… no… sunset orange.”

Edward heard it then.

There was a blankness to Mullins’s voice. A magic-induced blankness.

“That’s not an answer, love,” Edward said, keeping his voice gentle and firm. He needed Mullins to see it.

“He came to my sister’s window,” Mullins said.

“You told me that. Why?”

The blankness eased. “She was so sweet.” There was a smile in his voice. “Everybody loved Ruthie.” And now, sudden animation. “I wonder… we’ll have to see what happened to her. I mean… I know it was the last thing on the list, but… but we’ll get to find out what happened to her!” He turned toward Edward then, all thought of the red man or the blue man gone. “Do you think—when Harry’s better, I mean—we can scry for my descendants? I mean… I had other sisters but….” His face fell. “For some reason, I just keep thinking…. Ruthie was supposed to survive. She was supposed to grow old and have children, and they were to have children, on down the generations. Four hundred years in hell—I have to think he kept his word and let Ruthie survive. Surely she must have lived, loved, had children. I would love to see my Ruthie’s children.” He turned his face away. “Sorry—you’ve all been so focused. It’s not fair of me to—”

“I think we have to,” Edward said, to make him smile. “It’s part of the spell.”

Mullins brightened. “Oh, it is! Good.”

Edward stood and moved toward him, dismayed when Mullins turned his shoulders, warning him way. “But it’s okay if you want it just for yourself.”

“Only if it’s necessary,” Mullins said, still looking away.

A century and a half of falling in love and a month of playing boomerang around the planet, and Edward was going to let him get away with that?

Edward moved behind him, invading his space, wrapping his arms around Mullins’s waist and digging his chin into his shoulder. He felt a restless twitching against his leg, and while part of him thought, “Aha, there’s his tail,” most of him was focused on the feeling of Mullins in his arms and the necessity of having him open up.

“There’s no sin in the question,” he murmured against Mullins’s ear. “Harry looked up his sisters about seventy years after we came to live with Leonard and Emma.” His voice dropped. “They both died in their twenties. No children. He… he was hurt. I understand—the hope and the fear. But I think… I think that the interference in our hunt was sort of a good sign. So was your story. Your midnight lover promised your sister would be safe. He might even have come to save you from that demon.”

“In which case I’m the dumbest fucking—”

“Shut up,” Edward said gently. “You wouldn’t let us destroy ourselves over our mistakes—you don’t get that option either. You were young and scared and hurt—and in over your head, I might add. If a blue man appeared next to my window when I worked at the Golden Child and said, ‘Hey, let me make this not suck for you,’ I would have been all over that shit like a clean diaper. Don’t be angry at yourself for wanting to enjoy something new and exciting. Fidelity is a luxury of maturity, experience, and self-knowledge, none of which you had a zillion years ago.”

Mullins half glared at him. “You’re so damned reasonable! You make it sound like it’s all so normal.”

Edward felt the flush of embarrassment wash over his cheeks. “I… I was not reasonable as we were searching,” he admitted. “I… I drove Harry. I didn’t say anything and he’ll never blame me for it, but I… I worried about you, beloved. I was so afraid to hope for so long, and then… I was impatient, love. It’s why I’m not champing at the bit now.”

Mullins’s mouth twisted wryly. “Is it the only reason?”

Edward kissed him, savoring his taste all over again, and then pulled back. “Finish the dishes,” he said a little breathlessly. “I need to write something down—carve it into the table if I have to. Then….” He raised his eyebrows suggestively.

“Plans?” Mullins asked, a flush washing his pale cheekbones.

“I will see that tail,” Edward vowed. “I have to. I’m walking funny after last night, and it’s your turn.”

Mullins turned away, completely mortified, so he could upend the washtub and clean out the sink.

And Edward went back to the table and wrote carefully on his legal tablet at the same time he wrote on the tablet in his mind:

Who is the red man and why is he trying to help us?

Mullins wiped down the counters and Edward went back to the map, scrying with a clear mind. In a few moments, a wash of triumph heated his skin, and Mullins’s arms around his neck felt so much a part of that, he didn’t even startle.

“You see that?” he asked, excited.

“I see I’m being extremely forward here,” Mullins pouted, and Edward grinned and turned his head for a brief, hard kiss.

He pulled away and rubbed his lips against the back of Mullins’s hand before pointing to the map.

“You see that?” he asked. “That spot right there?”

“Yes—you haven’t marked it once.”

Edward laughed, almost manically. “Nope. I’ve marked to the north, the south, the east, the west. Twelve times I cast a scrying spell, and twelve times the charm landed decisively—decisively I tell you—everywhere but this quarter-sized spot right here.”

Edward glared at it, because ha! He had it now, dammit!

“It’s….” Mullins moved a hand so he could trace the spot with a finger. “It’s oddly blank, isn’t it? This is a fairly detailed map, and something this size should show changes, a mountain, a gulley, a road, a driveway—something. But no—just the same graded green.”

Edward snorted grimly. “I would imagine if I looked this up on the computer, I’d find the satellite just handily doesn’t intersect any bit of this. Nothing to see here, folks—trees and brush right off the road, driving by a full-blown fairy hill with nothing to show for it.”

Mullins leaned further, his chest heating Edward’s back, his cheek rubbing against Edward’s ear. “That is some serious power,” he said in awe. “For one thing, that’s nearly twenty thousand acres, if the proportions are right. For another, that’s not just us. That’s….”

“Everybody,” Edward breathed, nodding. “That power keeps everybody out.”

They were quiet for a moment.

“Your mother trusted him,” Mullins said, as though he was trying to keep his fears at bay.

“Of course.” Edward rubbed his cheek against Mullins’s barely stubbled jaw. Shaving. He would have to learn. “I’m not thinking that this is a fearsome thing. I’m wondering what our thirty or so acres here in Mendocino would look like if someone were trying to scry for us.”

Mullins let out a little chuff of air into his ear, and all Edward’s skin began to tingle.

“You’re thinking it’s protection.”

“Absolutely. Think about it, Mullins—an elven king, and more than that. Vampires? Werewolves? Brownies? In 1850 he was willing to go to town and risk exposure to try to keep his land and people safe. If he’s gotten more powerful—and more people—what do you think he’ll try to do now?”

“Mm….” Mullins let out a strained chuckle, and his hands moved to Edward’s chest, where he started kneading. Edward’s brain—so clearly focused until now—became a pleasant blank. “I’ll be honest, beloved. I want to puzzle this out like you do, but at the moment, I’ve developed more pressing concerns.”

Edward stood and stepped around the chair, then caught Mullins’s chin between his fingers. “Seems we have the same interests,” he murmured, a sweet shiver coursing down his spine. Mullins closed his eyes and raised his face for the kiss, impressing Edward with that implicit trust he’d shown all along.

Edward and his brothers would finish what they’d started. They would break off all ties to hell, leaving Mullins free and clear and safe in the Youngblood family circle.

But now, this moment right here, was not the moment for great quests.

It was the time to take his lover to their bed and make him truly, irrevocably Edward’s.

Edward kept kissing, backing Mullins up to the bed, still rumpled from the night before. He grabbed the hem of Mullins’s shirts, dragging them up over his head and steadying him as he went over backward before yanking at his own sweatshirt, his jeans, his boxers, letting them puddle on the floor in his urgency.

His fingers trembled as he fumbled with the faded pair of Francis’s jeans Mullins had put on when he dressed. “These look very good on you,” he said, finally freeing the button-fly. “You look better with them off.” With a yank he added the jeans to the puddle on the floor and stretched out, pressing his lips to Mullins’s soft, bare neck.

Mullins shuddered in the open air, pulling Edward closer to him, like Edward would cover his nakedness. “We just did this,” he murmured, tilting his head back, giving Edward access.

“Not enough.” Edward took a pink nipple into his mouth and sucked hard, waiting for Mullins to writhe and moan.

He was not disappointed.

Mullins’s body had learned from their adventures the night before. He moved a little slower now, like he had just enough space between thought and sensation to fit some self-control.

Good.

Because Edward wanted to take his time.

He took Mullins’s cock into his mouth—but he didn’t suck hard, didn’t squeeze. Just laved, putting enough pressure to keep things interesting, but not enough to amp up the excitement, to raise the stakes.

He tortured.

Mullins’s quivering body started to jerk—his arm, his hand, his foot—as he pressed against the bed, trying not to take over.

“You want something?” Edward taunted, his own erection pushing against the bed. “Anything in particular?”

Mullins gasped, inarticulate, and Edward kept laving. He dribbled enough spit between Mullins’s thighs to run his fingers through it.

Very carefully, he traced a path between Mullins’s cheeks.

“Edward!” Mullins protested, just as Edward breached him. “Ah! Oh sweet hells!”

He bucked up, then down, the momentum of his hips driving Edward’s finger in farther.

Edward lifted his head and wiggled his finger. “Now, Mullins,” he panted, trying to keep his voice even, “you need to be clear. Was that ‘Sweet hells, yes!’ or ‘Sweet hells, no!’”

He pushed in a little more. “Yes!” Mullins cried, and Edward rewarded him with another finger.

He could feel Mullins’s tail thrashing under his knuckles, but he ignored it.

What was important was that Mullins let Edward love every bit of him—the flaws, the moments of weakness, the tail, and all.

Mullins moaned, and Edward licked his cockhead with lazy intent.

“Was there something you wanted?” he asked. Two fingers, moving back and forth. But not stretching. Not really fucking. Just… tormenting.

“Augh! Edward! Please!”

Edward pulled back—but kept his fingers where they were. Mullins was naked, thighs spread in the pale daylight of the room. One wicked hand had moved to his pink nipple, where he plucked and pinched while Edward ministered to him with clever fingers and willing mouth.

The other hand was knotted in the sheets, pulling rhythmically as Edward moved inside him.

“Please what?” he taunted.

Mullins opened blue eyes and snapped hotly, “Fuck me, Edward. God, I need!”

Edward grinned with satisfaction and squeezed Mullins’s cock slowly, base to tip, while Mullins thrashed below him.

“Edward!” he wailed.

“Of course, beloved,” Edward said mildly. He let go of Mullins’s erection, reached for the slick on the dresser, and prepared himself cursorily.

Then, with a little more care, he drizzled some on his fingers and penetrated Mullins again, stretching with purpose.

“Nnn….” Mullins went absolutely still. “I’m going to come,” he panted.

“Not. Yet.”

Edward pulled his fingers and moved into position between Mullins’s spread thighs. “Look at me, beloved,” he rasped.

Mullins’s eyes flew open again, and Edward pushed against his entrance. “Edward?” Uncertain and aroused, he tugged at Edward’s heart.

“I’m here,” Edward said gently. “I see you. I see all of you.” His pale skin was blotched with arousal, and he needed activity and food to shore up his muscles, give his wiry, muscled body substance and weight.

But he was beautiful, wanton, generous in bed, and Edward loved him, tail and all.

Mullins nodded, eyes fluttering shut. “Please,” he whispered, and Edward pushed gently in.

Ah! Hot! The furnace of his body almost undid him. But Mullins pulled on his thighs and let out a terrible, wonderful keening sound, a begging sound, the kind of inarticulation that begged for more.

“Good?” Edward asked.

“Harder,” Mullins begged.

“Yes!”

Like a horse let loose on the track, Edward plunged forward, harder, faster, thrusting in to the hilt. Mullins cried out deliciously, needing every inch, every thrust, clenching and rippling around Edward’s hard flesh.

“Ahh! Please! Everything!”

Edward couldn’t have held back if he’d wanted to. Again and again, his movements became frenzied, almost violent as Mullins bucked beneath him begging for more.

Edward slammed forward, stopping deeply embedded in Mullins’s body, and took the hand knotted in the bedding very carefully. “Stroke yourself, beloved,” he urged. “Don’t hold on to the bed or you’ll never fly.”

Another one of those glorious sounds and Edward watched as Mullins stroked his own cock hard and slow.

Edward pulled back, back, back… then slammed forward hard, and Mullins broke loose, his hand a blur, spend spurting from his tip.

“Now!” Mullins begged, and Edward lost himself in the frenzy of the fuck, back and forth, sweat running into his eyes as he performed the sweetest labor of all.

Mullins’s cry of completion was nearly a scream, and his clench and ripple around Edward’s cock aroused Edward to the point of pain.

Edward cried out, orgasm blinding him, all sense leaving his limbs. He poured come into Mullins’s spasming heat, rewarded by the hot jet of semen that coated both their chests.

Edward fell forward, burying his face in Mullins’s neck and letting out a happy, laughing moan.

“Gah! Beloved! That was glorious. It almost killed me, but it was glorious.”

Mullins half laughed into his ear. “We’re both dead,” he panted. “Dear hell, that was intense.” Their breathing grew calmer, and Mullins nuzzled his ear. “You didn’t see the tail,” he murmured.

“Feeling it was the point,” Edward told him, pulling out and rolling to the side. “I know it’s there, Mullins. I’m not frightened yet.”

Mullins’s eyebrows attempted to knit themselves, reminding Edward of when they’d twitched as a beast’s. Edward laughed and smoothed them back, blushing with the intensity of Mullins’s blue eyes.

“I’ve killed for you, you know,” Mullins said baldly, as though trying to gauge a reaction.

“You’re expecting me to be surprised?” Edward had looked up the massacre at the Golden Child after Mullins had let slip that everyone involved was dead. Blamed on a madman with a fistful of knives, the carnage had been horrific.

But not a working girl had been touched.

Other crimes, other deaths—traffickers who had gotten away from the Youngbloods and had simply disappeared. Once they had busted a ring belonging to a fairly large crime family in Kansas City. The girls had been freed, and Harry, Francis, and Edward had been in hiding while Edward and Harry tried to hack into the ringleader’s computers and find some way to bring the whole lot of them up on charges.

An unknown enemy had burst into the boss’s favorite restaurant and taken out every made man, St. Valentine’s Day style.

Not an innocent person was touched.

Harry had read the reports and arched eyebrows at Edward, who had shrugged. “He doesn’t like it when we’re threatened,” he said in explanation.

“Given the lack of collateral damage, we’ll call it good,” Harry replied, and they’d gone back home.

Now, Edward looked into Mullins’s wide eyes and tried to reconcile that knowledge with what he saw within.

“You were protecting us,” he said softly, and Mullins bit his lower lip and looked away.

“My boys,” he said after a moment. Then he smiled slightly, meeting Edward’s eyes again. “My boy. If I’d interceded for good, I would have been taken from you. But vengeance—vengeance is a top-tier sin. Nobody minded if I went in and protected you under the guise of vengeance.”

Edward felt a wicked smile coming on. “That’s very devious, Mullins.”

Mullins’s answering smile was freer, bolder—and just as wicked as Edward’s. “Well, I am a demon, you know….”

Edward leaned over and took his mouth—wide and smiling and unpinched by the worry that seemed to so consume Mullins as a beast. “I never would have known,” he said softly, and then the kiss deepened.

And they made love again.

This time Edward got to stroke his tail.

 

 

THE NEXT morning, Leonard showed up at their door in the ancient pickup truck that he kept running with a combination of mechanics, science, and magic.

Not even Leonard could say how much of which.

Edward had packed a couple of changes of clothes for them both, and Leonard told them cheerfully that his brothers were packing another new minivan with Edward’s beloved case and plenty of snacks.

“Beltane went out this morning and came back with several boxes of doughnuts. You should probably eat one just so he can pretend they aren’t all for him.”

Edward squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. “The amount of sugar that boy can put away boggles the mind!”

“Sugar? I swear, thirty-six ounces of meat last night. Emma said she felt like she’d broiled an entire cow.”

Mullins chuckled, as he was meant to. “Francis doesn’t eat like that?” he asked curiously.

“No,” Edward replied in disgust. “Francis only eats fish. From the very beginning—even when we were in the Golden Child. Fish and vegetables. And eggs and milk, but mostly fish. It’s like he really is a cat.”

Leonard and Mullins made twin grunts of a noncommittal nature, and Edward cocked his head. “That was… disturbing,” he said in revelation. “You both make the same sounds when you’re avoiding talking about something. Did you get that from hell?”

“Revealing too much about your emotions isn’t prudent in hell,” Leonard said mildly. Then he took a fortifying breath. “You just made another piece of Francis fall into place. Elves are mostly vegetarians, you know.”

Edward’s eyebrows went up, and he felt a moment of sadness for his littler brother.

Leonard patted his arm in sympathy. “No worries. I suspect your meeting with the elves might be very productive in more than one way.” Leonard paused in the act of swinging into the pickup truck. “You do know where to find the elves, don’t you?”

Edward nodded smugly. “Damned straight I do.”

He and Mullins piled in, Mullins on the outside, head practically hanging out the window.

“I really do need to see about how to let him shapeshift into a dog,” Edward said, realizing he hadn’t even looked up how that would be done.

Leonard cocked his head. “It’s not a conscious thing,” he said surprisingly. “I think it’s… compensation. The Goddess’s get can be bitten. With witches and wizards, I think it’s more of a… a predilection, if you will.”

“Good,” Edward said, liking the idea. “We already have four cats. Two dogs will make us much better balanced.”

Leonard let out a chuckle, but it sounded strained.

“What?” Edward demanded.

“You and Beltane should drive there,” Leonard told him. “Harry needs to sleep.”

“Is there something wrong?”

Leonard shook his head but then sighed, indicating the “no” was a lie. “We think it’s just fatigue and healing. He was shot and then dragged through several dimensions. And while Suriel healed him—”

“Francis healed him,” Edward said, remembering that had been yet another surprise.

Leonard grunted. “Of course. Of course, that explains it. Francis doesn’t know what in the hell he’s doing. He’s never even had a cold.”

“Harry and I have had plenty,” Edward grunted resentfully.

“Yes, I know. Very human. Being familiars didn’t spare you both until your human immune systems built up, just like Emma’s. But Francis never suffered what you did—”

“But he did get sick!” Edward remembered. “Remember—right when we were expanding the house! For about a year he was thin and pale and constantly threatening to puke. You and Emma were at your wit’s end.”

“I remember,” Leonard said softly. “He got better right after we wallpapered your room. Emma was so excited—she liked the colors and, oh my God!” He shook his head. “Edward, you don’t use guns.”

“I know,” Edward said, as though speaking to a child. “We have magic.”

“I mean Francis has never held a gun. Did he touch the bullet in Harry’s shoulder?”

“No,” Mullins said, like he knew where this was going. “He just pushed it out with his healing.”

“Elves don’t do lead,” Leonard said simply. “They don’t do guns. It makes them sick. He’s not all elvish—he’s at least half human. It’s probably the only reason he can get in a car. But we painted the house—back then, paint had a considerable bit of lead in it. So he doesn’t understand immune systems. When we heal you boys from bullets, and Suriel as well, I’m sure, we take into account the possibility of infection. Harry’s shoulder was healed of trauma, but his immune system wasn’t.” Leonard shook his head. “Hold on while I talk to your mother.”

Leonard’s attention turned inward, and Edward and Mullins exchanged glances.

“Harry is coming with us, right?” Edward said worriedly, after Leonard’s eyes focused on the dirt road again.

“He was coming anyway,” Leonard replied. “But this way, Emma knows what to send with him so he doesn’t overdo it.”

“He’ll be all right,” Mullins said softly, and Edward turned to smile at him. It was such a kind thing to say.

“I’m pretty sure your soul is fine,” he replied, hiding his own worry. Dammit, Harry!

 

 

HARRY WAS getting last-minute instructions from Emma as they drove up to park next to a gleaming white Toyota Sienna. Edward made an unhappy sound.

“White? Really? It’s so boring. Remember when cars came in colors?”

Leonard rolled his eyes. “Remember when cars were pulled by horses and this trip would take you boys three weeks instead of two days? Because I do. How do you like our new minivan, son?”

“It’s glorious, Dad,” Edward said dryly. Mullins smirked as he got out of the car, and both of them walked to where Suriel stood, looking anxious.

“Every four hours,” Emma warned, waving a small thermos. “Every. Four. Hours. Do not skip. Do not tell Suriel it tastes bad. If you’re feeling queasy, tell Edward to pull over. If you start feeling feverish, Suriel—”

“I have it right here.” Suriel held up a bag with home-made tablets that Edward remembered from childhood. He also held up a bottle of over the counter ibuprofen, because sometimes science could be fun!

“Good. Now this trip should only take eight hours. That’s one dose in three hours, one dose an hour before you get there, one dose three hours after you arrive—”

“I can tell time, Emma—”

“Shut up, Harry. I don’t care if you’re all in the middle of an elvish orgy, what are you going to do when the alarm on your phone goes off?”

Edward saw Harry’s body jerk as the obvious adolescent answer almost popped out of his mouth. He took a deep breath, though, and was respectful to his mother. “I shall get up, buck naked, go to the car, and get my medicine,” he responded dutifully.

Emma shook her head in irritation. “I. Am. Not. Shitting. Around. You were some place the earth was blue and the sky was red—”

“And the air smelled like barbecue chips and lilies,” Edward supplied.

Emma grimaced. “See? And you all get here, and nobody bothers to even tell me you were shot and then dragged to an alternate dimension. Just, ‘Oh, Harry’s tired from spellcasting and blood loss,’ and no shit Harry’s tired from spellcasting, that boomerang is not an easy thing, and you were sick, and you’d lost blood, and I’m so angry at you for getting in that car right now I can’t even speak!”

“As if,” Leonard muttered under his breath, but Harry was up to defending himself too.

“Elves, Emma,” he said wistfully. “You may be over them, but we’re not. Please?”

“Fine,” she muttered, kissing him fiercely on the brow. She pulled away and looked at Suriel. “Go get water and give him the febrifuge and ibuprofen now. He’ll sleep the whole way there.”

Suriel nodded unhappily. “Harry—”

“Elves,” Harry repeated stubbornly. “Also”—and he looked almost melancholy—“I really would like to know how the brownies are doing. I mean, we’re only guessing they ended up at Green’s.”

Edward watched as both Suriel and Emma slumped forward in the classic posture of defeat. “Aw, Harry,” Emma said softly, kissing him again, but this time with tenderness. “Take the medicine, get some sleep. You’ll see elves when they get there, I promise.”

Suriel loaded Harry into the back of the minivan and came out to load backpacks and suitcases—and Emma’s small cooler of food and whatever was in the bottle that she’d insisted he drink.

“You boys are going to find a place to stay, right?” she nagged, and Edward nodded once, because Harry was out of commission and it was his job now.

“Yes. Don’t worry.”

“Oh! Wait!” Emma reached into her pocket and pulled out an envelope that she handed to Edward. “It’s a letter, and three strands of my own hair in trade—”

“Mine or Mullins’s would probably be more appropriate,” Edward said, “but I’ll tell him.” He kissed Emma on the cheek. “We’ll take good care of Harry—”

“And Francis and Beltane,” she said, looking worried.

Edward shook his head. “Emma, we’ve done far more dangerous things than—”

Emma shook her head. “No. You don’t understand. Elves are perilous, Edward. Elves are always perilous. And this is no ordinary elven king. This is Green—a hundred and seventy years ago, he had thirty people to protect. I made some enquiries last night—remember that bloodbath in Redding two years ago?”

Edward nodded. He’d mentioned it to Mullins.

“That was Green’s people—and they weren’t killing for sport. They were hunting a rogue vampire—one who turned children.”

They all shuddered as the implications hit them.

Emma nodded. “See? Apparently Green turned his best fighters loose on the little vampire kiss in Redding, and only the pure of heart walked away. This is serious. Take this seriously. This isn’t a poor drunken fraternity of brownies in your room. These are elves, and vampires, and for all I know every shapeshifter under the sun, and they work on different rules than we do, and I don’t know how to prepare you.”

Edward nodded soberly and then grinned. “But then, we’re witch’s familiars. We might be new to them too. And an angel. And a demon. It will be a triumph in interspecies communication.”

Emma cocked her head and widened her eyes. “So reasonable,” she muttered. “And so deluded. I love you, Edward. Take care of your brothers. And for fuck’s sake, drive safely—if we wreck this one I’m going to have to assume another alias to buy another car.” She looked up suddenly. “Beltane, Francis, come here and hug me. My God, you boys, have you forgotten everything?”

“Sorry, Mum,” Bel said, lifting his mother up in a rib-cracking hug. Francis waited until he was done, pretending it didn’t matter, but when Emma turned toward him, he launched into her arms, rubbed his cheek against hers, and bussed her on the forehead.

“Yes, Francis, I still love you,” she said softly. “Keep your brothers safe. And Beltane too.”

Francis twitched a little when she said it, but neither he nor Beltane responded. Emma rolled her eyes—and then hugged him even tighter. “Love you,” she said resignedly, and he smiled as she let him go.

And finally they were loaded into the minivan, Edward at the wheel. As he pulled onto the road and onto Hwy 1 he felt the tingle of the wards on his parents’ property and then a sudden oppression, hitting his chest hard enough to stop his breath. In the air around the minivan, spots danced, thin places in the membrane between the hell dimension and the earth dimension, showing only the shadow of the grotesque denizens searching the air frantically for them.

“Wards, everybody!” Harry shouted hoarsely. “Protective magic up! Jesus, can you feel that?”

Everybody’s personal wards against demons went up so fast the minivan probably glowed from outside.

Edward kept the van going and felt their shields for gaps because the demonic presence pounded at him, searching, searching, searching for their missing number.

“Mullins, Harry—pull out.”

Harry smirked from the back, and Edward felt a flare of anger. “We are not twelve. You are weak, and not only will the shield drain you, they can feel your weakness, so just drop out of the spell. Mullins, if they think it’s you, we’re toast.”

Their power wavered and then stabilized, and probably thanks to both the van’s movement and the strength of the four people pouring power into the wards, the air around them brightened, became strong again as the dimensional wall was shored up.

Next to him, Mullins let out a strained breath. “That was bad,” he rasped. “So bad. Do they know where we are?”

“Nope,” Edward said with grim satisfaction. “They know where we were. And they probably knew that anyway. They couldn’t penetrate the wards of our property, so they were lying in wait.”

Beltane’s booming laugh was a comfort. “Well they weren’t ready for our shit, that’s for certain. Damn, that was a strong shield. You know, when my class in Oxford tries to do a co-op like that, we usually can’t keep a puddle at bay—that was really amazing.”

“Good,” Francis said shortly. “Maybe Emma will stop trying to send you away.”

Bel’s laugh went evil. “So, can we have this discussion now? You can’t keep up the force field and go cat on us, and you can’t block my voice like you can my telepathy. I’m going to repeat this: I don’t want to go. Maybe if we act grown-up and talk to my parents about why we don’t want me to leave, they won’t keep putting their foot down.”

Francis let out a yowl of exasperation—but he stayed human, which was great, because Edward could feel the force field around them, and while it was strong—damned near impenetrable—now, he wasn’t sure what losing one more person would do for it.

“Bel!” Francis hissed. “We don’t want to talk about this now—”

“Oh yes I by God do,” Beltane said grimly, and Edward had a chance to reevaluate all those moments of thinking about him as his little brother. He was an adult now, of what? Twenty-two winters? He would live immortally, as Emma would have if she hadn’t given her power up—first for Leonard and her three familiars, and then in order to live as a mortal to have Bel—but that didn’t make him any less able to know his own mind now. “Is there anyone in this car who does not know that Francis and I are lovers?”

“No,” Harry responded behind them. “And there’s nobody back home who doesn’t know either.”

Francis’s mewl of unhappiness was very catlike—but his control over his human form and the shield that kept them safe never wavered. “That’s not fair!” he wailed. “You’re not supposed to—”

“What?” Edward demanded. “Know? Because you both made it damned hard to miss. Say anything? Well, we haven’t, but apparently living in the shadows isn’t good enough for Beltane, and it shouldn’t be good enough for you.”

“Jesus, Francis,” Harry said, his voice rasping as he coughed. “The whole family celebrated Suriel’s return. We’re welcoming Mullins with open arms. Don’t you think we’d want to celebrate you two as well?”

“But I like home,” Francis said softly, and Edward’s chest ached.

“So do I,” Bel told him, voice assuming a patience Edward was damned proud of. “I wouldn’t make you leave. There’s enough room in the house for us as brothers if we can’t be lovers. Don’t you have some faith in me?”

“You’re not the one who can’t be human,” Francis said shortly. “And I’m done. I can’t. I can’t have this conversation anymore.”

Bel let out a sigh of frustration, and then, to the car in general, said, “If you’re not human, then human isn’t what I want. I’ve met other warlocks, Francis. I’ve met other witches too, for that matter—that’s why Mum wanted to send me to Oxford. But I haven’t met another Francis. I haven’t met anyone who does the things to my heart that you do. Don’t tell me that’s a bad thing because I won’t believe it.”

The silence in the car was electric.

Finally Francis let out a breath. “Fine. Whatever. They know anyway.”

Edward could practically feel everybody’s patient eye roll, but it was Mullins who spoke up.

“Francis, you may not be Bel’s brother anymore, but you are definitely Emma and Leonard’s son. Remember, nobody in this car is strictly human. That doesn’t seem to be a sticking point with them.”

“That’s kind, Mullins,” Francis said, and even Edward could hear his voice soften. But when he spoke next, he was obviously done for the moment. “This is a thing in my heart. There are many things there—it’s a confusing place. Someday, maybe I’ll tell you all of them. But for right now, I just… just want Bel. He’s my one clear thing. Can I have Bel and not talk for now?” He sounded near tears. “Harry’s sick. I got used to him not being close to death. And there’s bad things after Mullins. And he’s not a beast anymore. I liked the beast, Mullins. He comforted me. The world is changing; can I not keep my one clear thing?”

Bel’s sigh filled the car. “Okay, beloved,” he said gently. In the back there was shifting, and when Edward checked the rearview, he saw Bel and Francis in their customary pose—Beltane with Francis in his arms, drawn back against his broad chest. “But please sort out your words in the next ten to fifteen years. Forever is a very long time in this family, and I’d rather spend it happy than waiting.”

So grown up. In his head he felt the gentle mental nudge of Mullins, who had spoken to him like this sometimes as a demon, but never as a man.

What are you thinking?

Beltane is an adult. We watched him be born—Harry, Leonard, and I acting as midwives. We watched him take his first steps. These last months, we’ve been thinking, ‘What will we do about Beltane and Francis,’ but the fact is, they’re grown. Thinking about Francis as the one to protect is many long years of habit—but his heart has obviously been protecting itself just as long. I’m thinking their road together is probably more fraught and more difficult than we ever imagined, but that it is—of all of us—most singularly their road. I needed help to claim my beloved, and my brothers all jumped in a minivan and chased me around the world. But Francis needs help claiming his beloved, and first he must claim himself, and there’s nothing any of us can do about that.

Mullins’s very warm hand on his knee surprised him, and he had to remember to keep his eyes on the road.

But that didn’t stop him from taking one hand off the wheel for a moment so he could briefly lace fingers with Mullins, who apparently had known all of that in Edward’s mind, but had wanted to hear him say it anyway.

 

 

CALIFORNIA’S TOPOGRAPHY changed drastically between Mendocino and Foresthill. From rich green forests with giant redwoods to sparse hills filled with oak and scrub. From the oak and scrub to the flat farmlands, and from the farmlands to the Sacramento valley—more farmland, but with the delta and the river to give some hope and some greenery to the scene. And then up again, to the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas, to red dirt and pine, dusty in the summer, and now, in the spring, rich and ripe and cool with promise. There were lakes here, and the memory of snow.

Mullins looked about eagerly, remarking upon each change, upon the temperature outside when they stopped for gas or to use the bathroom. He would remember places—Sacramento in the 1800s, for example—but he’d been released from hell spottily, and his journeys had always been missions.

Watching him enjoy himself, take time to see where he was and how it connected to where he had been, marked quite a change from the young man who hadn’t even known where he’d lived during his earlier mortal life.

Edward’s heart filled with quiet delight each time he remarked on the changes of the age, the people, the landscape.

And it filled with purpose every time he felt a charge against the shields that kept them all safe, as long as they stayed close together when they were stopped.

Harry slept for much of the journey, but when Suriel woke him for medicine, Edward noted that he gave the febrifuges again too.

At their second stop—this one for food too, since Bel and Francis were both starving—Edward helped Suriel out of the back since his long legs were cramping, and looked in on his brother, still asleep.

“How’s he do—”

“Worse,” Suriel said shortly. “He’s responding to the medicines but….” Suriel shook his head. “Like Leonard said—infection. This one seems particularly stubborn—and I think he’s right about it being supernaturally driven too. You boys have successfully warded off a variety of diseases—starting with the ones I healed you of the night Emma found you. Every little cold you got, every sniffle, was driven away by the magic in your bodies giving your immune system a tremendous boost. This isn’t earthbound, and it’s not like the other viruses that have evolved, and your systems along with it. I’m pouring what I can into him but….” He bit his lip, uncharacteristically uncertain.

“You’re helping to shore up the wards in the car,” Edward realized. “Well, maybe we can have Mullins do that so you can heal Harry—”

But Suriel was shaking his head. “No. Because if we sustain an attack right now, he’ll be helpless.”

Edward swallowed. “Dammit. He had to see the elves—”

“He had to be here for you.” Suriel’s usually serene face sharpened. “Please tell me you understand that, Edward.”

Edward swallowed, remembering that meeting in the Market, when he both cursed his brothers for interfering and blessed them, because damn if he didn’t love them.

“I do,” he said softly. “Let’s get to Foresthill and see if maybe Green can help. Emma seemed to place a lot of faith in him.”

Suriel nodded. “He’s strong, your brother. We can hope.”

Of course Suriel had always been made of hope, but Edward and Harry, they’d needed help.

After they’d gotten gas—and sandwiches, of course, for Beltane and Francis—and they were on the road again, Mullins turned down the roar of 90s grunge rock—Harry’s favorite musical time period to date—and asked him softly, “How’s he doing?”

“Not well,” Edward told him, gnawing on his lip. He didn’t want to tell Mullins about the hope that Emma’s Elven King could heal him. They were going to ask him for three hairs—it seemed invasive enough without adding, “Oh yes, and help our brother out too because getting this far was rough going.”

“You know this isn’t our last stop, don’t you?” Mullins asked him anxiously. “Maybe we should have Emma pull Harry back and we can go looking for my sister’s descendants instead.”

Edward shook his head. “Have a scrying spell all ready,” he said. “I put it together before we even started the quest. We need to talk to Green and get Harry better, and then we’ll be good to go.”

“Edward,” Mullins said, his voice sharp and sober. “Look—if it’s a choice between Harry’s health and me spending more time in hell—”

“Who makes that choice!” Edward muttered, stomach sinking. “Why would you even say that?”

“Because the world’s an unfair place, and when you dabble with angels and demons that kind of thing shows up,” Mullins retorted. “And look, I have hope now. I can go through another four centuries if I know I have you at the end. Don’t sacrifice your brother because you think this is your only chance. That’s all I wanted to say.”

Edward shook his head. “I refuse to believe we have to do this again,” he growled. “I would. I’d do it a thousand times over. I just….” Even over the music, even over the engine noise, he heard the tenor of his brother’s breathing change, grow a little bit worse. “I’d just rather not visit corn chip and lily land again,” he muttered. “I just….” His heart constricted. “I love you more now than ever, Mullins. How am I going to say goodbye one more time?”

The heat of Mullins’s hand on his knee shored him up. “By knowing it’s not the last time. Knowing it never will be. I will always come when summoned, Edward. Always.”

Edward remembered that discussion—how summoning a demon when he was being detained in the depths of hell could be the cruelest torment of them all.

“I don’t want to hurt—”

Mullins shook his head, his voice trembling. “Remember how well that worked for Suriel and Harry?”

Because it hadn’t. Harry had refused to call Suriel, knowing what it cost him—and Suriel had fallen in love anyway.

Edward swallowed, his throat tight. An hour—they had an hour up Highway 80 and then half an hour on Foresthill Road. Surely God, the fates, Goddess, or even the mysterious other could not gang up on them for an hour and a half, right?

He felt a hit to the wards outside the minivan and fought it off, then faced what Mullins had just said.

“We will never give up,” he said, meaning it. “Even if we’re sent reeling all the way back, at least we know the way.”

“Exactly,” Mullins said, sounding strong. “They can keep my body in hell as long as they need to. We both know my heart is free and sound in your hands, Edward. That alone will sustain us.”

Edward nodded and laced his fingers briefly with Mullins’s.

Then he put both hands on the wheel and stepped on the gas. They were so damned close to help.

 

 

ONCE THEY took the turn into Highway 49 and drove over the double bridge spanning the canyon, the entire minivan took a breath.

“Oh my God,” Beltane said on an exhale of relief. “Can you feel that?”

“It’s like… not wards, exactly,” Suriel said in wonder. “But like the wards we’re near are so damned strong they sort of scrubbed anything in the area.”

“I can feel them,” Francis said dreamily. “Can you all see it? That mountain over there—it’s glowing.”

Edward kept his eyes on the road—but he eyeballed the mountain Francis was talking about. “I see a faint shimmer,” he admitted. “But not a glow—”

“It’s practically blinding!” Francis objected, then let out a breath. “But at least you can see it,” he said, almost disconsolately.

Beltane shifted his knees into Edward’s seat for the umpteenth time, which probably meant he was pulling Francis closer. “I love that you see things differently,” he murmured. “It gives us all better vision.”

Oh, bless the boy for being Emma and Leonard’s son. Until the two of them had their confrontation that morning, Edward had no idea that part of the peril of elves would come from within.

 

 

A FEW miles past the bridge, before the start of the town proper, Edward saw a small service road winding between two hills and turned left onto it. The road was graveled but not paved, and as Edward drove, he had to fight an almost uncontrollable urge to turn around.

“No!” he said after a moment. “I’m not turning around because you are as plain as day, and dammit, we can see you! Please! We don’t mean any harm, we’re just asking a favor!”

As if in answer, a large wooden gate appeared, as though a veil had been torn off of it, and Edward had to screech to a halt, leaving just enough space for it to swing open.

The gate had a spring latch and looked as though it swung both in and out, and Edward looked at Mullins—and then at Francis through the rearview.

“Francis? Given that you’re seeing a glow when we’re seeing heat distortion, maybe it’s less dangerous for you to get out, you think?”

Francis pulled out of Bel’s embrace, almost eager. “So, like I can help?” he asked, excited.

“You’re always a help,” Harry wheezed from the back. “This time, you have very special qualifications.” He hauled in a deep breath then and coughed, and Francis turned toward the back seat.

“You sound like Suriel,” he said almost gently. “We need to fix you so you sound more like Harry.”

And with that he opened the door and trotted to the gate, swung it toward Edward, and then ran to secure it and gesture them in.

“I’ll close it behind you,” he called as Edward rolled down the window. “Don’t worry—I’ll come find you after you park.”

A balm rolled in through the window—that’s the only way Edward could describe it. Soothing, fresh—a spring smell. Sun on rocks, cinnamon and roses, mustard flowers, pine trees and solid red earth. All of it combined headily, and Mullins and Beltane struggled to roll down their windows to flood the car with the freshness of hope.

From the back, Harry took one of his first decent breaths for the last hour.

“Oh wow,” he mumbled. “That’s amazing.”

The driveway was lined for the first quarter of a mile—a sort of ground cover, rich and pale green with pink or yellow flowers, seemed to spring up between pine trees on one side and oak on the other.

“That is so wrong,” Beltane said flatly.

“What? I think it’s pretty!” Suriel responded.

“Yes, but it’s not natural!” Mullins shook his head. “I scribed a lot of botany over the years—that is Scotch Heather, and it usually grows in the sandy soil of the coast, where it’s temperate. It gets mighty hot here—”

“But it’s not,” Edward pondered. “It was getting to be around eighty degrees after we cleared Redding. It’s much cooler here.”

Bel let out a low whistle. “Temperature control—I like it! That’s nth level shit right there.” He looked behind them. “Francis has turned. Can I go out and run with him?” He let out a wistful sigh. “Please, Edward? It’s been hard on us both. We don’t talk well with words.”

Edward slowed enough for Beltane to get out, and in his rearview mirror he watched the big blond dog run to touch noses with the small Siamese cat.

“They’re going to need to find words eventually,” he muttered, but they all knew he was as helpless as the rest of them.

Instead, they looked forward, to the end of the path, and Edward missed Bel’s low whistle.

“Look at that,” he said softly, and behind him, Harry struggled to sit up.

“That house is built into the top of the hill,” Harry said in wonder. It appeared as though a window wrapped around half the mountain—probably the main living level—and most of the rest of the hill sloped up to a smooth dome.

“Those trees up there are… unusual,” Mullins said. And then, “But damn. Look at the gardens.”

As the minivan rounded the last bend, they saw the driveway passed directly in front of the house to a garage that seemed to be the ground floor of the house—completely under the hill. A smaller house sat across the driveway—fairly large, in fact, a red-painted farmhouse complete with white trim—but dwarfed in comparison to the greatness of the house inside the hill. Beyond the driveway sat what should have been the front yard, if a front yard was bigger than a football field and boasted its own pond, complete with a small orchard and a great stretch of grass surrounded by patches of flowers planted in orderly chaos around the lawn.

“That’s stunning,” Suriel said in awe. “Just… oh my word. Harry. That’s beautiful. I have no words.”

“Look,” Harry murmured, weak but happy. “Elves.”

Elves having a picnic, from the looks of it.

Under the shade of several of the trees in the orchard, by the pond, someone had laid a large quilt for people to sit on. As Edward parked the car near the entrance to the underground garage he counted three men, two gigantic wolfish dogs, two young women, and two children.

Infants, actually, complete with car carriers set beside the blanket.

One of the young women was nursing, talking to her companions freely, and as Mullins and his brothers disembarked and waited for Bel and Francis, Edward frowned.

“Does that look… doesn’t that look….” The people were arranged in a loose circle, and the young mother was the focus.

The much taller men on either side of her were part of it, but she was the one the others were deferring to.

Even the big wolflike dogs.

“She’s their queen,” Mullins said with no hesitation whatsoever. “And the men on either side of her—”

“Are elves,” Harry said happily. “Look, Suriel. We’re going to meet elves.”

One of them had butter-yellow hair, so long even the braid pooled next to his thigh as he sat. The other had dark hair just long enough for the sides to be pulled up into a partial queue. The dark-haired one was holding the other infant, smiling at it with complete attention, and Edward had another moment of trying to make sense of the scene.

The woman nursing the infant looked up at them then, and from this distance it was hard to gauge her expression, but after a few words to the man with the butter-colored hair, he turned and beckoned them all to the intimate little picnic.

They completely disembarked—Suriel carrying Harry more than supporting him—and Beltane and Francis trotted at their heels as they approached.

When they drew near, Edward saw that the woman nursing the infant was not small just because she was sitting—she was small period. And she wasn’t just sitting on a pillow—she was sitting on a clever cushion, meant to shore up her back and give her arms support as she nursed. She smiled up at their group as they approached and then frowned as one of the dogs leaped up and trotted over to rub noses with Bel.

And turned abruptly into a naked, glowering human with dark-blond hair, green eyes, a tattoo on his wrist, and various scars on his bantam-weight body.

“What are you?” he asked Beltane, in a tone that brooked no nonsense. “You don’t smell wolf or shapechanger that I know, and you are not human.”

“I am too!” Beltane snapped, abruptly six feet three inches of angry blond human. “And at least I wear clothes!”

The werewolf met Bel’s eyes with a no-bullshit glare, and to Edward’s surprise, Bel’s head drooped in submission.

“My apologies,” he murmured, and Edward half expected him to turn into a dog and roll over to his back. “You were rather abrupt.”

“You are on our turf,” the werewolf said. “And we don’t know you. How did that happen? How did you even see the entrance to this place?”

Behind him, the blond elf stood up gracefully, and the dark-haired one gave the infant he’d been cooing at to a young man with rust-colored hair and did the same. Together, blond one slightly in front, they approached Edward’s party, and Edward leaned his head back and tried not to swear.

And they thought Beltane was tall.

“And they’re still walking toward us,” Harry muttered. “Jesus.”

“You can stop there,” the woman called behind them, and Edward was relieved to see the men smirk a little. They were being intimidating on purpose—that was actually good to know. “We don’t want to scare them off.”

The two men were stunningly beautiful.

The one with blond hair—it had to be Emma’s Green—had grave emerald-colored eyes, and the elvish features Emma had described: pointed chin, pointed ears, wide-set, over-large eyes. His skin had the faint greenish cast of peaches in the shade. The elf next to him had the same features—but his pale skin had a hint of tan, and his eyes were the colors of a pond in the shadows.

Suddenly the blond one frowned. “There is… dammit.” His eyes unfocused, and Edward knew that look. Behind the Youngbloods, a set of stairs came down from the level with the wraparound porch, formed a landing, and then made their way to the ground. Another man—elf—trotted down the stairs and screeched to a halt next to the blond elf.

“Who in the fuck are they?” he asked, and thank God he wasn’t as tall as the other two, but his eyes swirled with turquoise and copper, the same disconcerting sparkles that Green’s emanated.

“That, Arturo, remains to be seen,” Green said quietly. “But this one is very, very ill, and we need to care for him first.” He approached Harry gravely and then looked at Suriel, his eyes widening. “May I?” he asked, and it was unclear which one he was talking to, but Suriel nodded unhappily.

“Please. He was exposed to… to unknown bacteria. We… we should have left him at home but—”

“I wanted to see elves,” Harry said wistfully. “They’re beautiful, aren’t they, Suriel? How are the brownies? We missed them.”

Arturo and the elf next to him burst out laughing. “That was you?” the shadow-eyed one asked. “Oh, they were so sad for a while. They adored your household.”

“Our fault,” Harry said, smiling faintly. His cheeks were alarmingly pale. “We wanted to reward them with pie. But they got drunk, and we could see them, and it just didn’t seem right anymore.”

“Well that’s one mystery solved,” Green said, laying his hand on Harry’s brow. Harry shivered, and Green nodded at the other two. “He needs me,” he said softly. “Arturo, Bracken, could you stay out here and entertain our guests? Suriel, was it?”

“Yes, sir—I’ll come with—”

“Please do,” Green said. With a simple movement, he scooped Harry into his arms like a child. “And after he’s asleep, some of your brethren up in the Goddess Grove would love to visit with you.”

“Oh!” Bracken said, palm to forehead. “Of course! That’s what’s missing. They practically leave a void in the sky! Oh, my brother—what happened to your wings?”

“He gave them up,” Harry said, unhappy. “He gave them up for me.”

“Mm.” Green nodded to Suriel. “Come with me, my children. When we’re done with you, we can attend to everybody else. That includes you, little brother,” Green said grimly, not even looking behind him. “We need you to be yourself for this meeting, no matter how uncomfortable you are.”

“The hell!” Francis suddenly stood, indignant, on the edge of the quilt, where he’d been batting at one of the baby’s hands with a sheathed paw.

“The fuck!” said the young woman on the cushion, and then, as Edward turned to exert some control, he watched as the other young woman on the quilt turned into a cat.

Not a small housecat like the Youngblood brothers did.

A giant housecat, like no housecat Edward had ever seen in the world.

Her sundress puddled around her back end, and she began to methodically clean her paw, gazing at Francis with smug eyes.

Harry let out a weak chuckle, and Green kissed his brow. “So hot,” he murmured. “And brave too. Teague, you and this one will be fast friends, I think.” Abruptly the naked man who had greeted them was a wolf again. He let out a woof and placed himself at Green’s heels. “The rest of you, have fun. Learn about each other. Arturo, Bracken, make sure to keep the defense system strong—there is something out there beating at our periphery, and I’m not in the mood to fuck around.”

“I am,” said the young woman with the infant at her breast. “Can I kick some ass, Green? Just a little? It’s been over a year.”

“Not without company, beloved,” Green called, and even as he turned back to the house, Edward saw the small, grim smile. Apparently he knew about warriors who ran headfirst into situations without backup.

Not fun for anybody involved.

Edward smiled hesitantly and extended his hand to Arturo. “Hello. I’m, uh, Edward Youngblood. That’s my brother Francis over on the quilt, my brother Harry who just got carted into the house, and our brother Beltane behind me. And this is Mullins, my….” He bit his lip and caught Mullins’s eyes. “My beloved,” he said. “We’re… well, we have a boon, of sorts?” The antique word embarrassed him. “We have a huge favor to ask the guy who’s about to do us a huge favor and hopefully save Harry’s life.”

Arturo broke the awkward silence after the speech with a rich laugh. “That’s amazing. I can’t wait to hear this story—you bring an angel and a shapeshifting half-elf to our place—”

“Don’t forget whatever is beating at our shields,” Bracken said, frowning.

“Yes, Goddess forbid whatever the hell is beating at our shields. And you just drive up our driveway like it’s no big deal? This is going to be the most entertainment we’ve had in a year.”

“Entertainment is good,” Bel said, nodding.

Arturo glared at him. “The last entertainment we had was not good. People died. Many. Many. People. And the entertainment after that was when the twins were born, and that was not good either.”

“Many people died?” Bel asked with a wince.

“Only one,” said the girl on the cushion. “But he was trying to be my obstetrician, so that was fun. Come over here, you guys. Are you hungry—”

“Starving!” Beltane said eagerly. “Do you have food? We like food!”

“A big yellow dog?” she said, tilting her head. “Why of course you were a big yellow dog. I don’t see why you wouldn’t have been a big yellow dog. It all makes sense now.” She turned to the other werewolf next to her. “Jack, honey, could you go ask Katy if she can throw together a big plate of food for everybody? She can have the sprites or brownies send it down. I know she’s busy.”

Jack woofed and nodded, then looked around, grimacing.

“You don’t have to change until you get to the house,” the woman said, but the wolf shook his head in resignation.

He changed form. Not nearly as smoothly as the giant cat—who remained a giant cat—or as fast as the other werewolf. It was a slower process, not a magical instantaneous shift. Edward realized that, in this matter, it was the difference in the magic.

In the wolf’s place, a tall young man stood, with dark hair framing blue eyes from a part in the middle. “Nice to meet you,” Jack said with an awkward little bow. “You’ve met Arturo and Bracken. This here is the Lady Cory, her uh, consort, Nicky”—the young man with rust-tipped black hair and freckles who was now holding the other infant nodded—“and her lady’s maid, Renny.” The giant cat turned her paw over and spread her claws. “I’m Jack. I’m naked, and I’ve learned not to care anymore. This is what I get when I go on a run with my husband and we decide to come see what’s doing on the big quilt, and I swear to Goddess, next time we’ll just be rude and run back to the house and put on clothes.”

Cory and Nicky burst into laughter and leaned against each other, chortling. “Oh my God!” Nicky burbled. “Jack! That was amazing! We’re gonna make you open the fucking door like Lurch the butler from now on!”

“Fuck off,” Jack said resignedly, starting for the stairs. “I give up. There is literally not a soul in this place who hasn’t seen my balls.”

Cory and Nicky continued to chuckle as he started up the stairs, and Bracken grunted and came to sit next to Cory again.

“Come on,” he muttered. “Sit.” He glared at Francis, who was looking around wildly, as though trying for an escape. “You too, little brother. If he took away your cat, he took away your cat, and you’re going to have to be human for a while. We’d really like to talk about that as well.”

“How’d he do that?” Francis asked almost desperately, and Beltane threw his arms around Francis’s shoulders and held on tight until they both sank down on the edge of the quilt.

“How’d you become a shapeshifter without going totally batshit insane?” Cory asked, no longer the little earth mother. “Because we’re really curious about that.”

“That’s a problem?” Beltane asked, frightened.

“Has been with us. How long’s he been like that?”

“A hundred and forty years,” Edward said levelly, and to his relief Bracken and Cory both laughed.

“You’re probably safe, then,” Cory said, looking soothed as well. “So you can settle down, little brother.”

“Why do you keep calling me that?” Francis snarled.

“Because you’re half-fey. You didn’t know that?” Bracken arched dark eyebrows, looking skeptical.

“We only just now began to suspect.” Edward swallowed, feeling the onus of being the leader with Harry out of commission. “It’s been a lot of years since we all became familiars—we figured he would be okay.”

Cory tilted her head, suddenly compassionate. “He’s not okay,” she said softly. “But it’s not because of you. Family isn’t defined by blood—believe me, this hill knows that lesson very well. But there are things about elves that it helps to understand. Between physiology and software, life can be very difficult in the human world.”

“We’re not precisely human,” Edward reiterated.

“Neither am I,” she said amicably. “Come. Green’s going to be a while—your brother’s going to need some healing there. And I’d really like to know what keeps beating at our shields.”

Mullins made an unhappy sound. “Would you believe the forces of hell?”

“No!” Cory clapped the hand not holding the infant to her mouth. “Fucking seriously? You hauled the forces of hell to our doorstep so your brother can see elves? Oh my God. You guys have got to tell us this story!”

“And quickly,” Bracken muttered. “Aren’t we going to have company soon?”

Cory opened her mouth to answer, and then looked down at her breast in surprise. “You little shit,” she murmured happily to her baby. “You just popped off there and fell asleep, didn’t you, little lady?”

Deftly she tucked herself back into her bra and her T-shirt one handedly, and held the baby up to her shoulder.

“Barf rag,” Bracken muttered, grabbing a square of flannel from the car seat next to him and repositioning the baby on it. “You know she’s gonna need it.”

Cory nodded and spoke to the Youngbloods. “Almost a year old, and her stomach’s too delicate for anything not me. C’mon, Silver, let’s have that burp so you can go sleep under the trees.” She smiled happily at them as she patted the baby’s back, and Edward got a chance to see her up close.

By conventional beauty standards, she was really very plain—freckles across a broad peasant face, that tumble of blonde/brown/red hair pinned over her crown, and a wide, generous mouth—but her smile as she talked about her daughter was… lovely.

“How’s Drian?” she asked Nicky.

“Asleep, thank Goddess.” Nicky leaned forward and placed the child he was holding into the car seat. As he did so Edward realized the baby seemed much longer than Beltane had at ten months, although his face seemed just as mature—and that he had pointed ears and the triangular features of the elves but, oddly enough, freckles across his delicate little nose.

He looked up at Cory, who was still patting her daughter on the back, and realized that Bracken was sitting intimately close to her, and so was Nicky.

Green had called her beloved.

Green, Bracken, Nicky, Cory—these children were theirs.

He blinked hard and had a thought to his brother in Green’s care.

“What healing methods does Green use?” he asked, and Cory tilted her head back and laughed softly. The laugh did more to transform her from simply lovely to stunningly beautiful, and Edward swallowed.

This was a woman like Emma—a woman to be reckoned with.

“None that those being healed would object to,” she said cryptically. “Don’t worry, Edward. We have few laws here, but sensual and consensual is one of them.” Her mouth twisted. “Now about those demons from hell—we’ve got a guest coming. Is he going to have trouble getting here?”

“Oh shit,” Bracken muttered. “I completely forgot about Sam.” He banged his forehead gently on her shoulder while Nicky groaned.

“Because the son of chaos and man is going to do so much to help this situation,” he said. “The other. Fuck a bird, people—we were just having a goddamned picnic.”

“The other better not be fucking you,” Bracken snapped back. “You’re taken.”

Nicky grinned. “Yes, husband, yes I am.”

Cory rolled her eyes. “You two flirt all the damned time, but do I have twenty-four seven live porn in my room? I don’t think so.”

Edward felt heat wash his face, and he couldn’t even look at Mullins. Next to him he knew Beltane’s eyes had grown really large, and Francis was practically catching flies.

Across from them, the cat who used to be a girl let out a feline snicker.

Cory put her hand over her mouth. “Oh dear. I’m sorry. You guys, I think we’ve sort of… I don’t know. Short circuited their brains. Edward, are you okay?”

Edward swallowed hard, not sure how to tell her that in his day, orgies were private affairs. “We’re… we’re sort of a monogamous bunch, my lady,” he said after a moment. “Sorry—”

“No, I’m sorry,” she murmured graciously. “Most people who can see this place, enter this place, they’re not put off by sex in any of its forms. We were being rude.” She let out a sigh. “And off topic. We really do have the son of chaos and man on his way, and we’ve got about four or five hours before he gets here because that little shit learned how to drive, and I’m betting he’s going to make San Diego to Foresthill in record time—”

“We could tell him not to come,” Nicky said reluctantly, and Cory shook her head with some violence.

“Are you shitting me? He woke up this morning and said, ‘Oh, hey, I have to be at Green’s Hill right the fuck now,’ called us, and stole his mother’s car. When that kid’s got a pull under his breastbone you don’t fuck around. Does everybody remember Redding?”

Even the cat groaned.

“Fucking Redding,” Bracken said with feeling.

“So I’m thinking it’s time for us to stop blowing the guest’s fucking minds and start listening to how we have the forces of hell pounding at our shields.” She shuddered for a moment—a full-body, visceral shudder—and Bracken and Nicky responded immediately by putting a hand each on her arm. Bracken leaned forward and kissed the back of her neck, and Edward saw the subtle glow of power around her and made a connection.

She was holding the shields together. They were feeding her power.

No wonder she swore like a sailor. If Edward wielded that much power while parenting two infants, he’d have a one-word vocabulary.

“I think,” Edward said carefully, “that we have to start at the beginning.”

“It’s a good story,” Beltane said, arms tight around Francis. “The first time I heard it I cried.”

Suddenly the cat across from them was a girl again, not even bothering to pull her sundress modestly against her barely-there breasts. “You are someone’s precious little summer child and honey baby sweetie face, aren’t you?”

Beltane nodded at her, smiling. “Yes—my parents and brothers adore me. How did you know?”

The girl shook her head and turned back into a cat, the better to look superior while she washed her hind leg.

Edward realized what that position would look like if she stayed a girl and blushed.

Cory let out a sigh. “I’m sorry, Edward. If you wanted to continue?”

Edward opened his mouth, and Mullins put a hand on his, lacing fingers, making him pause.

“My beginning,” he said softly. “Then yours.”

Oh. Edward brought his knuckles to his lips and kissed. “Of course, beloved. Bel and Francis haven’t heard this. It is time.”

He yearned for Harry next to him, being caustic and steady, but looking at the Lady Cory and her men, he thought maybe they would help fill the void while Harry was being healed.

Mullins squeezed his hand again and began.

When he got to the part about the red man—or the blue man, as it were—making love to him in a field of night-blooming flowers, and then confessing to his lover the next day, Cory sighed.

“That sucks,” she said softly. “I’m sorry. I mean, no, it wasn’t okay to go kiting off with the next supernatural being at your window, but seriously. Supernatural. I mean, I bet he fucked like a god.”

Suddenly she stopped and looked at Bracken, who widened his eyes.

“Yes,” Bracken said, so shocked his voice came out stiff, like wood. “Your lover fucked like a god. Of course he did. No reason he wouldn’t have. Fucking Christ.”

They stared at each other for a fraught moment, speaking bibles full of truth without a single word, and then turned their attention back to Mullins.

“Go on, sweetheart,” Cory said with renewed purpose. “Besides company, the kids are really only asleep for another forty-five minutes or so. Burning daylight.”

Mullins continued, and Edward felt his hand grow damp when he spoke of selling himself into servitude.

Cory nodded. “Okay,” she said softly. “So, you were a demon. That’s the shit right there. I’m impressed. Tell me about hell. Was there a grand pooh-bah there, or was it mostly run by demons?”

“Run by demons,” Mullins said promptly. “That’s one of the first things you figure out. There is no grand pooh-bah. You end up in service of whoever recruited you. There’s no compulsion to do evil. There’s punishment if you disobey, but you’re immortal. You’ll survive. Escape is possible—Edward’s father and I worked as scribes, and we wrote the spell down, verbatim, to file away. It was trivia, given to us to annoy us into screaming boredom, but what we scribed was real.”

Cory’s mouth pulled up. “Oh, I don’t doubt that for a moment,” she said grimly. “So, tell me about Edward’s father.”

Mullins talked then about how he and Leonard covered for each other, and how Mullins had gathered Leonard up and taken him to the clearing that fateful night, because he was afraid Leonard might be too weak to answer the summons, and he didn’t want to see the hordes of hell loosed on Emma.

“So, once Leonard was human, completely, that was it? No hordes of hell?” she asked, meeting eyes with Bracken again.

“No. I fled into the forest, to lead them away while Suriel and Emma finished—”

“So, Emma knew Suriel too?” Nicky asked, looking at them like they were reading his favorite romance book aloud.

“Yes,” Edward said, picking up the thread. “She and Suriel had helped Mullins and Leonard gather the ingredients to put in the hex bags—”

“How come you don’t use hex bags?” Nicky asked Cory.

“Because Goddess is kind, and I’m just a sexually powered nuclear fusion generator,” she retorted pertly. “Seriously. Can you see me organizing a fucking hex bag? Following a list? She knows what sort of weak clay she has to work with and doesn’t give me any goddamned more to worry about than I’ve already got.”

Nicky held up his free hand in self-defense. “Okay, you’re right. If that’s the difference between God’s magic and Goddess’s, I’d have to admit, it was apportioned appropriately all around. They seem better suited for all that spellcasting stuff, and you’re pretty damned good as a power generator. I can deal.”

“I’m so relieved,” Cory responded dryly. “Now go on—how did you boys end up being there? I mean, you’re telling the story—I assume you were there.”

“All except Beltane,” Edward said, and Bel smirked at him and piped up.

“I’m Emma and Leonard’s actual flesh and blood son. I’m the only one here who’s as young as I look.”

Nicky snorted. “Twenty-two?”

“Yes—”

“I’m twenty-four. Cory’s twenty-two—”

“Three?” she said. “Please—I have to be twenty-three already.”

“Fine,” Nicky sighed, rolling his eyes. “Twenty-three. Grandma.”

“Fuck off. Edward, go on.”

Edward raised his eyebrows, and he and Mullins exchanged self-deprecating glances. Okay. Emma squared. She was Emma on speed. She was literally a small goddess, sitting in the garden nursing her children.

Humbling was not even the word for it.

“We had just escaped a brothel,” he said, biting his lip.

The people on the blanket sobered immediately. “How old were you?”

“Well, Harry and I were around fourteen, and Francis was a few years younger. We… we were trying to get Francis away before he had to work for his living too.”

The concern on Cory’s face sharpened, and she and Bracken had another one of those eyeball-to-eyeball conversations. She turned to Francis, a study in gentleness.

“Were they in time, little brother?” she asked softly.

Francis looked away.

“That’s… that’s a terrible thing for one of the Goddess’s children.” She grimaced. “It’s a terrible thing for any child, any person. But elves are… are wired very sensitively. You’ve survived, sane. Well done, little brother.”

Francis seemed to melt into Beltane’s arms at the praise, and Edward’s heart ached a little. Maybe he needed more of that and less of their actively voiced worry.

“So, about the cats,” Cory said, pulling them from their lapse into quiet. “Was that part of the spell to bring Leonard back?”

“It demanded a great deal of power,” Edward said. “And she was the only one there. She knew that it would strip her completely if she didn’t store the bulk of it somewhere. We were hiding in the bushes, and she stored it in us, making us her familiars. Then she offered us sanctuary, if we would only stay with them long enough to teach us what to do with our new power.” Edward looked at Francis. “Leonard only just told me that they did that more for us than for Emma.”

Francis rolled his crossed blue eyes. “Even I knew that,” he said, as though bored.

“For you?” Cory asked, smiling.

“They… they made us into a family,” Edward said after a moment. “And later, when she and Leonard wanted to have Beltane, they knew they’d have to give some of their immortality into making him. We all… shared, I guess. So they didn’t become old overnight. And we learned—it’s more an art, really. But the thing is, I think with all of us here—my brothers and Suriel—we can bring Mullins over and… you know. Redistribute. It wouldn’t be too big a sacrifice for any one of us. I think it’s a ratio of—”

Cory held up her hand and smirked. “Oh please. No math. Believe me, Edward, you don’t have to break down power distribution and collective sharing. I know you have no idea who we are, but if you believe nothing else, believe me when I tell you we know. So, why did you all come here anyway? You could have done this from home!”

This sounded so trivial in the face of Lady Cory’s competence. “We need three hairs from an elven king,” Edward said grimly. “That’s all. But as soon as we left home, we felt the forces of hell slam into us. We hadn’t been planning to bring them here but—”

Bracken rolled his eyes. “They would have shown up here sooner or later,” he grunted. “And your sick brother?”

“We didn’t think he’d be quite so ill,” Edward said with a sigh. “At first we thought it was because he’d exhausted himself. He was teleporting us all over the world to get the damned ingredients, and then he got shot by poachers and—”

“He sent us somewhere so he could rest, and it was sort of an alien dimension,” Beltane said. “It smelled totally disgusting, and we think he picked up bacteria there that he can’t kick.”

Nicky shook his head, enchanted. “It’s like every time one of them opens his mouth, a better story kicks in. How do they do that?”

Cory eyed him grimly. “Nicky thinks they’re entertaining, Arturo. Do you think they’re entertaining?”

The powerfully built elf with the copper-lightning eyes gave her a measuring look. “Remember when you set those infected werewolves on fire and catapulted them into the lake?”

“Yeah,” Cory said, a beatific smile on her plain face. “That was fun.”

“That was mildly entertaining. I have the feeling that was like watching a video on television compared to what’s about to happen.”

“Which will be?” Cory cocked an eyebrow at him, and Edward got the feeling of two seasoned generals, sizing up a battle.

“It’s going to be a grand stage spectacle,” Arturo said grimly. “Like Cirque du Soleil without the hot women.”

Cory’s eyes grew wide. “Awesome.” She turned back to Edward. “So, are we your last stop? Because I’ve got to tell you, I don’t see you leaving this place until we’ve changed this one fully human and gotten rid of the motherfuckers pounding at our shields right now.”

“No,” Mullins said, looking at Edward unhappily. “We need… well, a descendant, or a descendent of one of my family members—”

“Don’t worry,” Cory said. “We’ve got it handled.”

Bracken smirked. “I was wondering about that—the resemblance is uncanny.”

“Right?” Nicky nodded animatedly. “She said his name, and I was like, ‘Holy shit!’ It’s like… well, fuck.”

“Fate,” Cory said grimly.

“Or the other hand of fate,” Bracken retorted, and she rewarded him with a grin.

“Wait!” Edward held up a hand. “Please—what are you talking about?”

“Oh.” Cory rolled her eyes. “Mullins—his descendent is currently speeding toward the hill in a stolen car. The resemblance is fucking freaky. Don’t worry. Sam—he’s the son of a human and the other. He’s a pain in the ass, but you’ll love him. Sweet kid. Has your eyes.” And then, before they could collect themselves, she turned to Edward. “I have one question.”

“Fine.” Well, not fine. Mullins’s descendent was on his way? What in the hell?

“Okay, I’ve got several questions. I’ll try to go slow. Number one—I’m going to assume that you’re using… well, God’s magic, which doesn’t sound right because I went to church, but it is basic spellcasting that’s based on a patriarchal world view. So that’s what you’re using to shapeshift, right?”

“Right,” Edward said, wondering where this was going, even as Cory breathed a sigh of relief.

“It’s not blood-based,” she said to Bracken. “Little brother’s change. All of our problems have been with blood-based changes.”

“Oh thank Goddess,” the girl on the blanket said, suddenly a girl again. “Because seriously, I was waiting for him to wig out on me.”

“If you don’t let him turn into a cat soon, he might,” Edward said frankly, but Cory shook her head and turned to Francis.

“Little brother? You may wander the grounds. You may walk up the hill and get an education. You may even swim in the pond, although there is something in there that might eat you. You can go in the house—stay away from the darkling. But you need to stay human until Green says otherwise. Don’t worry—the cat isn’t his to control, but this is his home, and he will have his say. I know this is hard—very hard.” Her firmness softened. “Even Renny there knows how hard it is because Green’s done it to her. But there are things in your heart that Green needs to address, and he can’t do that if you’re not yourself, understand?”

Francis nodded unhappily, his eyes tearing up. Beltane wrapped his arms around Francis’s shoulders, and it was a testament to how rattled Francis was that he simply rested his head on Beltane’s chest and patted it disconsolately.

Cory met Edward’s eyes with grim compassion. “How long has he been allowed to do that? Retreat into the cat when things got uncomfortable?”

Edward shrugged. “A hundred and forty… one. One hundred and forty-one years.”

Her eyebrows went up. “It’s good, living forever.”

Wait. “You don’t have an extended lifespan?”

And she tried to make her own shrug insouciant—but failed. “My only regret is that I’ll be dragging Bracken into mortality with me. Nicky will live as long as Green does, so they won’t be alone. We take what we can get. I’m only saying that your brother is wet-wired to respond to a king—and a king’s job would be to make him face himself. I know….” She grimaced. “Mothers like to think that they’re all their children need. But Francis needs Green in his life—at least for a little while—or he’ll never be able to fulfill the promise of him and Beltane. Your family needs to think about that and decide how you want to proceed. Green will be available whenever he’s ready.”

Edward swallowed, heart aching in spite of the other things going on in his life. “Beltane has three more years being educated at Oxford—there’s a coven there related to Emma, and he’s promised he’ll stay out his training. Francis… we can come with him, here, while Bel’s away.”

She leaned forward and patted his cheek. “So good. You all are so good. You all work that out how you need to. This isn’t a prison sentence. Think of it as a stay with relatives if you want. But you do need to think of it.”

“What’s your other question?” His heart hurt too much as it was.

“It can wait until after lunch,” she said, scrambling to her feet and moving the cushion to make room. Out of nowhere, several platters of food arrived—crusty home-baked bread, cheese, thick cuts of meat—even a trencher of sausage patties that Bracken eyed with distaste but everyone else looked excited about. “I’m starving—but when we’re done, you need to explain how you make hex bags. Because the minute Sam gets here with his big blue eyes, we’re gonna scalp Green and it’ll be game on.”

The food was delicious. Edward and Mullins sat shoulder to shoulder, making quiet conversation about everything, from the seasoning in the sausage to the softness of the bread. Even Francis came out of his funk a little to lean forward and eat the cheese sandwich Beltane made for him.

Bel, of course, would have eaten the entire repast—but Bracken and Nicky kept snagging food and slipping it onto Cory’s plate. It almost seemed to be a game with them, except sometimes Cory would catch them and scowl. As lunch was wrapping up, Cory held her hand out, and Edward watched in fascination as a tiny being, surrounded by sparkly silver light, landed on her palm.

“Hello there,” she said softly. “I wanted to thank you for all your hard work today. Can you thank your brothers and sisters for me?”

The little creature nodded excitedly, and Cory smiled. “Would you kindly ask Katy and Jack to come out, then? I was going to spend the day out with the children, but I think I’m going to need some help today.”

More excited bouncing, and this time Cory grimaced. “No, my love. I think we’re going to need to work in the new vampire room for the time being. The children hate that room, and I don’t blame them. If you could have some science tables and a cauldron and maybe some Bunsen burners moved in there—remember not to touch the iron or steel, my darlings. Ask Teague to organize the werecreatures for you, okay?”

More happy nodding, and little sparkles seemed to fly from the tiny winged person. “Also, if nobody’s done so yet, tell the angels in the grove that there is another angel here on the hill. His beloved needs healing, but they may want to say hello before all this is over.”

This time the thing in her palm drooped and made a sad little buzz.

“You’ve seen him, then? Yes, his wings are missing. But that is his story to tell. We have enough new stories to work with—you should ask him yourself. But wait for his beloved to feel better. Nobody’s happy when their lover is ill.”

The creature’s nodding turned more subdued, and Cory made an air kiss at it.

“You’re perfection. Can you remember all that I told you? Good. Thank you again for all you’ve done, yes?”

And the thing flew off, leaving loopty-loop trails of sparkle glitter in its wake.

“Do you think he… she—” Edward floundered.

“She,” Cory said. “She will remember everything I just told her, and will even remember what I let Nicky and Bracken sneak me for seconds and what I did not. She will also remember to bring me root beer on ice, which makes me sound like the queen of everyfuckin’thing, but I asked for it once after lunch and they haven’t forgotten it in the two years since.” She nodded. “The sprites are lovely people, but I live in fear of ever offending one. Their memories are longer than Bracken’s johnson.”

“That’s saying something,” Nicky told him sincerely. “How do you know we’re going to need all that science stuff, by the way?”

Edward had been wondering the same thing.

“Look at him,” she said, nodding at Edward. “He’s practically got a frock coat and those little steampunk extend-glasses. You do need a science station, right, Edward?”

Edward felt his face wash hot. “I understand some witches just sort of throw things in the pot—”

“But you are much too sensible for that,” Cory said with a regal tip to her head. “We all understand.”

“It’s a good thing you don’t have to do any of that,” Nicky muttered in disgust. “You’d probably blow us all up.”

Cory let out a snort. “Like I need a spell book and a cauldron to do that.” She grew serious and turned to Bracken. “Nicky and I can help the boys cook up the hex bags—I want the elves to stay clear.”

Bracken shrugged. “I’ll sit in the outer room.”

“Bracken—”

“You’re keeping our shields running too,” he said implacably. “I will be nearby.”

She let out a frustrated sigh. “Arturo—?”

“I’ll be listening for Sam,” he said, nodding. “I’m not sure what’s going to happen when that boy gets here, but I’m pretty sure it will make ‘very interesting’ look like an afternoon sorting your socks.”

“She doesn’t wear socks,” Nicky said blankly. “She makes them for all of us but doesn’t wear them herself.”

“That, birdman, is the point.”

“You’re all hilarious,” Cory muttered, then scrambled to her feet to give Nicky and Bracken a hand up. Renny—the girl who preferred to be a cat—had slid her sundress back on, and she stood too, checking to make sure her hair was in a ponytail. Once they were all standing together, Edward got another shock.

Nicky was a smaller than average man—maybe Edward and Harry’s size. Bracken was well over six feet tall.

Cory and Renny were tiny women, standing five foot one or two at the most. Cory had wide hips—hell, she’d borne twins—and a smallish bosom, and was, in general, a lot smaller than her sizable personality.

“What?” Cory asked, wiping at her mouth self-consciously. “Did I spill food down my shirt?” She checked that too.

Edward did it unconsciously—he came from an age where men bowed to women. Mullins followed suit, and so did Beltane and even Francis.

“Thank you, my lady,” Edward said when he’d straightened. “We came asking for a favor, and you’ve given us everything. You’re our salvation. We… we’re in your service.”

Cory nodded in return. “Do you boys have any idea that there is a ring of vigilantes rescuing victims of human trafficking? The victims have turned up, safe and sound, counseled and placed with foster families—but the men can never be found. Sometimes, the smallest of children talks up a storm about a fluffy white cat.” She stuck out a gentle finger and booped Francis on the nose. Francis turned his head and blushed. “You’ve saved a few half-elves who have found their way to us,” she told them. “Good guys have to stick together.”

With a sigh she walked to where Nicky had placed the car seats in the shade and crouched to kiss her children on the cheek as they slept.

Edward got a good look at the little girl this time, and realized that she looked… well, almost completely elfin. There were no freckles, no broad cheekbones. When her eyes had been open, they’d been brilliantly blue.

Two people approached from the steps as Cory straightened—Jack the irritated werewolf and another tiny woman, this one Latina with a soft, heart-shaped face and enormous sloe eyes.

“No playing in the garden today?” the woman asked sadly.

Cory shrugged. “Not today. Thank you for lunch, Katy—I was sort of hoping you and Jack would join us.”

Katy shook her head. “No—I like this new kitchen job. Sometimes, it’s just nice to sit in the kitchen and eat with your husbands, you know?”

“It’s a perk,” Cory said, and then her mouth quirked. “It’s a perk for shy people who don’t like to meet strangers.”

Katy gave a lethal grin, and Edward’s heart stuttered a little. She was stunning. “You know Teague, my lady.”

Cory met Jack’s eyes over Katy’s shoulders. “Yeah. Teague.”

Jack shrugged. “Do you want us to keep them outside?”

Cory let out a sigh and fidgeted. “I…. It’s a lovely day,” she said plaintively. “Or rather, a lovely late afternoon, almost evening.”

Edward looked around and realized she was right. Lunch had stretched on—stories had made it longer. Evening was perhaps an hour away on this early spring day.

“They’re just going to want to play outside for a bit before it gets dark,” Cory said. “I… the shields are being poked at constantly, though. I don’t want some sadistic pus-pile jumping out and grabbing one of them instead of Mullins.” She looked over her shoulder. “No offense, Mullins.”

“None taken, my lady. If I may—they can’t actually touch children. They can lure them, they can tempt them, but they can’t touch them. They can’t cross thresholds, so the house is safe.

But even in the gardens, I’ll be honest—I didn’t even know elves existed until recently. I don’t think they’d go after an elfin child even if one was given to them in a box.”

Cory gave a sigh of relief before speaking to Katy. “Excellent. Just don’t wrap them in any boxes and they’ll be fine.”

“Not a problem, my lady. And you know me and Jacky—we stay close.”

“You’re the best,” Cory said with a hug. “Thanks, you guys. I think Teague and Arturo are going to be checking the borders, so make sure you keep in touch with them. At the first sign of wonkiness—”

“We take them inside and watch a movie. We’re good at the nanny thing, Cory. You know us.”

“And I’m a micromanaging hosebeast.” Cory shrugged and then turned to the group. “Okay, folks—we’re going in through the garage. You can get the full Green’s Hill tour later—you’ll love the place, I’m sure, but right now, let’s make some fuckin’ magic.”