“You are aware of what I’m going to attempt?” For just a moment he appeared surprised before that cold mask descended over his features once more.
She shrugged. “You’re going to do something or you wouldn’t be carrying her the way you are.”
“And how is that?”
She looked at him out of those huge, intelligent eyes. “Like she’s precious.”
Oberon nodded once. “Indeed. Now, if you would, take care of my Blade. I have much work to do if my plan is to succeed.”
“Yes, sire.” Cassie bowed. She knew when she was being dismissed. She turned to Oberon’s Blade, Kael, and gestured for him to follow…
Oberon flinched as the memory poured over him. He remembered how he’d felt when he first saw her, standing there with her hands in her pockets, looking for all the world as if he’d kicked her favorite puppy. He’d thought she’d make him weak, become a liability. After the disaster of his bond with Titannia, he hadn’t dared trust anyone.
He reached out and touched Cassie’s hair, smiling as she leaned against him. Never again would his truebond feel his chill. Cassie would learn just what it was to be wanted by the Lord of the Gray.
May the gods have mercy on them both, because for Cassie he’d fight even them.
Chapter Ten
Raven spent the night at the Dunne farm on the insistence of Shane and Aileen, Shane’s mother. Between the two of them he couldn’t resist. Shane dangled information in front of Raven like a shiny bauble, while Aileen made him feel like he was not only welcome, but wanted.
Even Raven’s mother hadn’t managed to do that. She’d been far too busy trying to keep them both alive. If she showed him too much affection, both of them suffered.
Now he was hoping to finally get some answers to his questions. It was just him and Shane this morning, the others having either returned to their own homes or gone back to working the farm. Even Jaden had refused to stick around, despite Robin’s orders. He’d grimaced and backed away. “Shane will fill you in,” had been his only answer to anything Raven asked him.
Annoying biter. Raven hoped he got fang rot.
But now, he was finally going to get some damn answers. “Tell me why Blackthorn sent the king away.”
Shane leaned back in his chair, cradling his mug of coffee in his hands. “To heal.”
Raven waited, but Shane merely stared at him with a cocky, know-it-all grin. “I have no problems pecking your eyes out.”
Shane’s grin widened. “That would piss your daddy off. And we all know how little you want to do that.”
Raven suppressed his shiver. “To heal how?”
Shane leaned forward and placed his mug on the kitchen table, his hands still wrapped around it as if for warmth. “You know the king lost his memories. He was found wandering not far from the palace by his bondmate.”
Bondmate.
Oberon had a bondmate?
Raven laughed. Oh, Titannia was going to be so pissed. “That is excellent.”
Shane smiled. “Yup. Even better, she’s a siren healer.”
Ah, now everything made sense. “She took him to the sea.”
“Exactly. And unless I miss my guess, they should already be on their way back to the Gray Palace.” Shane’s smile faded. “However, the vision I got told me Cassie may have been injured somehow.”
This time, Raven couldn’t suppress his shudder. If the High King’s bondmate was injured, things could get…dicey. “I’d better inform my father. He can have someone waiting to help them as soon as they arrive.”
“Tell Robin who the bondmate is. He likes Cassie, so he’ll be happy about it.”
Well. If Robin liked Oberon’s bondmate, that could only be a good thing. “Why couldn’t Jaden tell me all this earlier?”
“We had to give Cassie time to heal the king. There couldn’t be any outside interference, or things would have gone badly for both of them.” Shane shrugged. “Things could still end badly, but I’m a lot more hopeful than I was before today.”
So the healing had just occurred, or was so recent Shane hadn’t been sure of the outcome. “Let me call my father, then.”
Shane put his hand on Raven’s arm, startling him. “Tell Robin I’m the one who told Jaden what to do, and why. Tell him it was important. He’ll understand.”
Shane seemed pretty sure of that. Raven wasn’t, but he wasn’t about to argue with the Child of Dunne. “Got it.” He stood up and pulled his cell phone from his pocket. “I’m going to make the call outside, if you don’t mind.” This way, if Robin chose to yell at him at least it wouldn’t be in front of Shane.
Shane nodded amiably and got up for more coffee as Raven headed onto the back porch.
Raven dialed his father’s number and prepared to have his ass handed to him. He doubted his father would be all that thrilled to learn the king was, once again, on the move without protection.
Add in an injured bondmate, the new fucking Lady of the Gray, and Raven bet it would be more than his ass that was left smarting.
But someone was already on the back porch. Ruby sat on the railing, chatting away on the phone in a tone that said the other person on the line was close to her. “I’m serious, Mandy. I haven’t seen you in how long?”
Raven could barely hear the light, musical tone of the other person’s response, but something about it intrigued him. He edged closer to Ruby, hoping to catch another hint of who this Mandy might be. Was she a relative of Ruby’s? A friend?
“You’re coming to Nebraska, and that’s final.”
The whimper in response almost made him laugh. He’d had a similar reaction to the news he had to go to Nebraska. “But I hate soybeans.”
Ruby was laughing. “Amanda Pierson, you get your ass on a plane or I will send someone to fetch you!”
“Will he be hot?”
Raven’s brows rose. He’d be willing to fetch the owner of that sexy voice for little Ruby. If she looked as good as she sounded he might be willing to do much more.
“I thought you were dating that Viking.”
“Pfft. The Viking’s mighty spear turned out to be a toothpick. Fun size it was not.” The disgust in Amanda’s voice was tinged with amusement.
Ruby was laughing so hard she almost fell off the railing. “You are so bad.”
“Yup. I’m a naughty girl who has no place in wholesome, soybean-laden Nebraska.”
“Mandy. Please?”
Amanda sighed. “Fine. But you
so
owe me.”
“Yay!” Ruby bounced in excitement. “I’ll see you soon.”
The women exchanged quick good-byes, and Ruby slid off the railing. “Sorry, did you need something?”
An introduction to Amanda would be nice, but Raven could wait. He had a mission to fulfill before he could find the self-proclaimed naughty girl and properly introduce himself. “I have to call Robin.”
“Ah. Tell him I said hi, and to bring Michaela back for a visit when he can.” Ruby patted his arm and headed into the kitchen, leaving Raven to call his father and ponder why he so desperately needed to meet a woman he’d never even seen.
Oberon pulled up in front of the Gray Palace and sighed wearily. It had been a long, arduous drive with Cassie still unconscious. All he wanted to do was curl up around her and fall asleep for a day or two.
From the look on the face of the man waiting by the open door he’d be lucky if he was allowed to sit down for the next week.
Oberon slid out from behind the wheel and nodded. “Hobgoblin.”
Robin’s brow rose. “My king. You seem to have acquired something in your absence.” Mischief danced across his Hob’s face as the wind blew his red hair around him.
Oberon made a disgusted noise, secretly delighted that Robin was happy for him. He’d seen his Hob’s eyes dart to the woman slumped in the front seat, the flash of green that darted across the blue of his eyes. “She is one of a kind, isn’t she?”
Robin threw his head back and laughed. “That she is.” He stepped forward and offered his hand. “Welcome back.”
Oberon found himself tugged into a quick hug. Robin had been more worried than he’d let show. He returned the hug, touched that his old friend felt so strongly about Oberon’s return that he’d needed to touch him. “It’s good to be back.” He stepped out of Robin’s hold. “Do we have any clues as to who might have poisoned me?”
“Then it was poison?” Robin’s gaze darted once more to Cassie. “Was she able to give you any insight as to how it was administered?”
“Since there are no puncture wounds, she believes it might have been through something I ate or drank.”
“Checked you over thoroughly, did she?” Robin smirked.
Oberon narrowed his eyes. “Hobgoblin.”
Robin sighed. “Michaela is waiting for us.”
“Why?” He couldn’t stand it anymore. The itch to hold Cassie was far too strong. She hadn’t voiced so much as a whimper in a couple of hours, and the lack of anything from his bondmate was beginning to worry him.
“Raven called. I sent him to the Dunnes to find out where you were.”
Ah. Of course. “And Shane told you either myself or Cassie was injured.”
“And that you two had truebonded, yes.”
Oberon shook his head. “We are bonded, but I’m not sure how.” There were steps to a bonding that hadn’t yet taken place. Not that he hadn’t dreamed of it. The last three nights had been filled with Cassie, hair tangled across their pillows, her expression filled with passion as he made love to her.
“If you don’t know how a bond takes place, my friend…” Robin, that irrepressible rogue, was laughing at him.
“That’s just it. We are bound, but certain steps haven’t occurred yet.” He opened the car door and carefully lifted his truebond out.
“A Tuatha Dè gift?” Robin sauntered beside him, alert to any possible danger. For the first time since he’d found himself wandering on the side of the road, Oberon truly relaxed.
Oberon grimaced. “Making love is still part of the bond, Robin, even for us.”
“Ah.” Robin eyed Cassie. “Yet here you are, and there she is.”
“Indeed, but it’s a riddle for another day.” Oberon strode quickly toward his private quarters. “For now, we need to concentrate on Cassie.”
“And find the traitors in the court.” Robin’s black nails, normally short and blunt in his human Seeming, had become claws. Sharp fangs decorated his wicked smile, and his eyes had gone from winter-sky blue to glowing, angry green.
“Who did you set on that task?”
“Tristan Malmayne and Kael Oren.”
“Interesting choices.” The young Malmayne lord had worked as an agent for Gloriana before leaving the White Court and becoming a Blade. He’d almost destroyed the mating between Shane and Akane Dunne, unaware of her unusual reaction to ingesting gold. He’d battled the half-dragon to a stand-still, proving himself one hell of a warrior. And when he’d realized how wrong his queen was about the Child of Dunne, he’d turned away from the White and joined the Gray, and Robin’s Blades.
He was also the lord of the Gray Court’s Malmayne clan, small though it was. The majority of
that
clan had chosen their other lord, Henri, and the Black, much to Oberon’s dismay.
Lord Kael Oren was a pooka, and one of the most subtle, adept shifters Oberon had ever met. He’d assisted Robin in the mission that brought the Hob his mate, and had only recently been accepted as a Blade. Technically, he was still in training. Pairing the young pooka with Lord Malmayne was a good move on Robin’s part.
“A test for them, if you will.” Robin winked. “With their lofty birth, none will think twice of them moving through the court.”
“And much can be learned if you’re a chair at the card tables.” Gossip ran rampant at the parties of the High Court fae, and Kael would be perfectly placed to hear some of the juicier bits. His ability to change form to inanimate objects had assisted Robin in the search for the young Prince Evan, saving the prince’s life. The Prince had immediately joined the Gray Court, fearful that his aunt, Queen Gloriana, would have him declared tainted by the Black who’d held him hostage. Everyone knew Gloriana was not compassionate toward those who were tainted, not even her own relatives. In return, Kael had also joined the Gray, becoming a Blade trainee. So far, Oberon was pleased with the young lord’s progress.
“Indeed. I would have used Etienne as well, but the man seems to have disappeared.”
“Oh?” That piqued Oberon’s interest. He waited for Robin to open the door to his private quarters and followed him in.
“As you, I find it…curious.”
“Hmm.” Etienne Valois was a French Sidhe who had joined the Gray Court on his majority, leaving behind his birth clan to become part of the Levasseur clan. He had worked with Akane Dunne and Jaden Blackthorn, the latter very reluctantly. His dislike of vampires was rivaled only by his hatred of Titannia, or so Oberon had thought. “Could it be a ruse to throw us off the track?”
“Make a Blade disappear right after you, thus throwing the Knights of Oberon into the position of being forced to defend themselves?” Robin flopped into a chair near Oberon’s bed. “The thought had crossed my mind.”
If the Court believed that the Knights of Oberon, aka Blades, had turned on him, they would try and tear not only the organization, but Robin, their leader, apart. Some of them would do so reluctantly, some with relish, but it would happen. And if it was a Blade who had done this, Robin would be the first one to investigate them all, even the ones who were currently out on assignment or on leave, like Akane. He would be an avenging fury, worse than if the traitor had not been a Blade, for Robin thought of all of them as his children. It would break his Hob’s heart if it turned out to be one of his own who’d poisoned Oberon.
For Robin’s sake, Oberon prayed it was some courtier who’d taken a bribe, or become tainted by the Black.
Oberon carefully placed Cassie on the bed. He brushed his hand across her cheek, concerned over how cool her skin had become. She was pale, almost as pale as when her Seeming dropped, and aqua strands of hair streaked through her Seeming’s brown.
“Oberon?”
He looked up to find a familiar female grinning at him. The tiny, silver-haired female with bright gold eyes was practically bouncing on her toes. “Lady Goodfellow.”
She squealed and dashed across the room, throwing herself at him. He reached out and caught her before she could fall. “We were so worried about you!”
“I can see that.” He hugged Robin’s bondmate tightly to him. How could he not have realized how loved he was? Had he closed his heart off that much?
Michaela squeezed him one more time before stepping back. The golden eyes and silver hair of a Tuatha Dè were stunning on Robin’s once-mortal bondmate. “All right. Where’s my patient?” She took a good look at Cassie. “Is this her?”
Oberon nodded, too worried to speak.
“Let me take a look.” Michaela sat on the edge of the bed, gently pushing Oberon aside. She put her hand on Cassie’s forehead, frowning in concentration. “Oh, ouch.” She grimaced, her expression becoming pained. “What did you do to her?”
“We bonded out of order, and I believe she’s being overwhelmed by it.”
Michaela bit her lip, her skin glowing as her power began to fill the room. “She’s drowning in song.”
He kept himself still as possible as Michaela worked, the powerful female showing her strongest gift, that of healing.
The aqua hair faded away, and color returned to Cassie’s cheeks. She was breathing easier, her chest rising and falling in a steady, deep rhythm that he hadn’t even realized had been absent.
Saving Michaela was turning out to be the best thing Oberon had ever done. The Tuatha Dè blood he’d awoken within her had given her a powerful healing gift, one Oberon both admired and envied. He couldn’t wait to see what else she was capable of as she grew into her gifts. He’d need to work with her some more, help her hone not only that gift but the others her Tuatha Dè blood granted her. Not even Robin was aware of everything his bondmate was now capable of.