Cora made a skeptical noise. She removed three cards from the tarot deck on the table, only flipping over one: The Fool.

  They both stared at the card in silence.

  The Fool could mean many things. It could reflect embarking on a journey or be a symbol for placing trust in the universe, something Madeline had repeatedly failed at ever since it screwed her over. Right now, she saw its literal meaning. She was the fool for trusting herself, for reading anything into what happened between her and Shane.

  Cora said, "When the rest of the world tells you not to do something, to turn back, it’s far easier to give up than keep going." So soft it was tough to hear her, she added, "It’s easier to avoid things that might make you feel than to face them."

  Too true. Since she’d cast the curse, Madeline never stayed around for anything that forced heavy feels. Moments with Cora that got real sent her scurrying away. A few hours, maybe a day with her aunt, and she left.

  Only one thing didn't send her running. Once-a-year she let herself feel. Tomorrow, on the anniversary of her son's death, she could see his ghost. His high-pitched, carefree laugh rejuvenated her spirit.

  She reached into her mini-backpack and removed the charred remains of a Hot Wheels toy that had belonged to him. She gripped it tight like a lifeline. One more day.

  Cora flipped over the second Tarot card. The Lovers.

  "No…no, no. Just no." Madeline shook her head. "Not going there. It’s not like that with him…the lycan."

  "Say his name."

  She whispered, "Shane. Definitely not like that."

  Cora glared over the top of her pink-framed reading glasses and released an unfeminine snort-laugh. "Sounds like you’re trying to convince yourself there’s nothing there. You’re turning beet red at the mere thought of Mr. Fantastic Ass. The card might not be about physical love. It might mean a more general idea like you need to choose love. Love might bring out the best in you. Or…Lordy, girl, I didn’t know you could turn that red. How are the Fool and Lovers related in your mind?"

  "I don't know." Madeline tapped the Celtic ring on her right ring finger against the table, the only thing she had left from her father. "He likes me. I might be a fool and like him too. But it doesn't explain this weird phantom pain. Did I cast some sort of accidental spell? Is this a delayed side effect of the curse?"

  With a frown, Cora pushed back from the table and removed a yellow crystal pendulum on a chain from the bookshelf that was filled with odds and ends.

  Cora walked around her, letting the pendulum swing, and watched it change directions as she moved from one side of her to the other. Suddenly, she stopped, pulled the crystal into her hand, and flipped over the third card as she moved back to her seat. The card was Justice. With a nod, she said, "Interesting."

  "Am I being punished for casting the curse?"

  Cora held up her palm to silence her. She fumbled through a drawer in her herbal cabinet until she found a gilded four-leaf clover.

  After a low chant in Latin she spun the clover on the table in front of Madeline. When it stopped spinning it reversed direction on its own, stopped again, and vibrated.

  Cora slammed her fist down on the clover to make it stop. "Something or someone thinks they’re casting karmic justice onto you. There’s a new magical person on the playing field that cast a boomerang spell on you. I think it's forcing you to feel the pain happening to the Lanzo brothers. The magic isn’t of our kind. It’s more basic, more elemental. And I wonder…" She tapped the Lovers card. "Might be someone in love with one of the lycan boys. One of them might’ve gotten mated. Did you know that?"

  Her breath caught. Shane mated? The thought hurt a lot more than it should.

  "What else have you felt? What other phantom pain or injury have you experienced?"

  "Knife wounds, bullets, demon strikes, goblin bites, and torture."

  The last had been the worst. Her mind spun at the answer to so many phantom pains.

  "Someone wants me to feel what they go through?" She glanced down at her side, wondering if this was from Shane. It made her eyes bleary to even consider something might hurt him this much.

  But every injury each of the brothers got was her fault.

  "They did this as some sort of punishment. Because I’m evil?" She sank lower in the chair. Guilt had ridden her every single day since she cast the curse.

  "It’ll take time, but we can deal with a boomerang spell." Cora knelt next to her and took her hands in hers. "The curse isn't your purpose, love. It's the dragons."

  "The ones I can speak with?" The words from Shane's demon about being a dragon healer echoed in her head as they had been for months. She had "helped" a few dragons over the years. They would find her with some small health problem wherever she was in the world. She'd repair their problem and then they gave her a stone. Her backpack held over thirty of them. "I fixed a few of them when sick or hurt."

  "You are the only witch that can speak with dragons."

  "They are elegant creatures. What's the purpose in communicating with, possibly healing a few dragons? That doesn't help the world in any way. Humans don't even know they still exist."

  "Our purpose isn't supposed to benefit humans. Dragons are one of the most magical of all non-human creatures to exist. Stands to reason they would need their own being to help them."

  Maybe she should spend more time with the dragons. She did find it peaceful to talk to them about their lives. If humans came after her when she was with them, they'd eat her enemies. For the first time in ages, the tightness in her chest loosened.

  Cora took her hand between both of hers. "If you weren't being chased, you could spend more time figuring out the dragon healing aspect of your life. Give me permission to annihilate the entirety of MI6. There'll be no one left to hunt you. Or I could cast a nasty curse to affect anyone who thinks of hurting you." She tapped her lip. "Or I could eliminate the lycan brothers, which will resolve your guilt. If they're dead you don't have to spend your life running or worrying about their stupid curse."

  "No!" The image of Shane dead twisted her gut. "It's my problem. Not yours. It's not their fault they got cursed."

  Cora rolled her eyes. "Fine. The lycans are your problem. Although, I think you've mishandled it for long enough. Will you please let me erase that MI6 unit?"

  Madeline stared at her hands. "They're just people doing their jobs. I don't want them killed for that." The queen wanted the lycans to be her legacy to her successors. Like the king, newly crowned six months ago after the queen’s death. Which is why the late monarch commissioned a special unit in MI6 to hunt Madeline down.

  "How about I cast a spell so they can't see you anymore?" She grinned.

  "I'd like that. Why haven't you done it before?" Why didn't I think of it? An invisibility spell.

  "First, I've never thought of it. Second, I need your participation to cast that type of spell, which means you have to stick around long enough for me to make it happen." She pulled another card from the deck but didn't show it to Madeline. Cora's face blanched.

  "What is it?"

  Cora lifted Madeline’s burner phone off the table and typed. The whooshing sound of a sent text echoed in the quiet room.

  "What’d you do?" She ripped the phone out of Cora’s hand.

  "You need to get your magic back and get rid of this boomerang spell. The card suggests Shane is the key."

  She read the text: I need you, Shane.

  Oh, no.

  "How do you know his cell phone number? Even I don't know that."

  "Sometimes things like numbers come to me. Witchy skills, honey." She winked. Cora took the phone back and typed once more. Another whoosh indicated a sent message. She reached out and squeezed Madeline’s hand. Her eyes turned ancient. "That ought to get him to you. Go find your magic again. Only he can help you get rid of the boomerang spell. The curse, though? I'd leave that one alone."

  She buried her burning face in her hands. "You shouldn’t have sent those."

  "Be careful when you face him. Those brothers are so bloody honorable that they won't kill you outright, but if they find out you might be able to lift their curse by dying, that honor will disappear. They'll tie your ass onto a golden altar and sacrifice you to be free. I strongly suggest you keep that part a secret." She opened a small case that contained various smudges. "If you can give me another twenty minutes, we'll do the spell to give you a reprieve from MI6. But…" She leaned in to make eye contact, her gaze ferocious. "I refuse to lose you over a curse. If you die for them to be free, I will hunt them down. I guarantee their fledgling magic can't contend with mine."

  Chapter Six

  Shane shifted on his stomach to improve his view of the reading room below him at the British Library in London. He’d been resting on the second level in the silent after-hours darkness for almost a half hour. A few lights came on, blinding him. He worried his cover behind a low bookshelf wasn’t good enough, but most people rarely looked up.

  His brothers didn’t know he was here tonight. He'd revealed to them he hadn't died a mere few weeks ago. They were relieved, but a simmering resentment that he’d left in the first place remained. They'd known about the demon possession and witnessed him become unstable, but they disagreed he needed to ditch them to find control.

  In his defense, he’d never actually left them. He spent time organizing the Alliance over the past year but had used the group to ensure his brothers' safety on numerous occasions, not that they'd known. He'd remained in the shadows, protecting them, and doing things like helping Nova escape her prison and pushing her toward Roman. Which had unexpectedly led his brother to find his mate.

  He could've told his brothers he'd be here but remaining hidden from the monarch and their handler had become habit. Their last handler tried to kill them mere weeks ago with a missile, and in the aftermath of the ambush his brothers had learned he lived. Who knew what the new handler might try.

  The change Madeline wrought to the curse for him, and only him, enabled him to have flexibility to ignore the monarch's direct order to show up for a meeting. He wasn't sure how far he could push snubbing orders.

  He touched the stylized solar cross he'd gotten inked onto the top of his right hand a decade ago. The powerful protective symbol invoked the energy and magic of the sun to rid oneself of negative energy and shadows. He whispered, thinking of his patron saint, "May I see the path of right and keep them safe."

  His oldest brother and unchallenged leader of the four of them stalked in and yanked out a chair. Roman pushed his signature knee-length coat out of the way before he sat in the chair that was way too small for him. The coat housed scores of inner pockets filled with magical trinkets to fight whatever type of paranormal creature they encountered. He announced, "I’m bleeding again."

  Roman lifted his shirt to peek beneath bandages where blood had leached through. "That troll blade last night was different. They must’ve changed up their poisons since it won’t heal. Should’ve been gone last night."

  "Maybe we’ll have time to seek out the mage later to have him fix it." Ky, their weapons expert, caressed one of his beloved pistols. He gazed through strands of long dirty-blond hair as if itchy to leave the open space of the library. Although Ky had found love and mated a beautiful lycan a month ago, it hadn’t evened out his edginess, the paranoia that kept him alive. Give him a gun or a knife and he had a gift to sense snipers and bull's-eye any target. "I don’t like this. This is the oddest place for the first meet and greet with the new handler."

  "Weird, yes." Flynn, a year younger than Roman, rolled a lollypop from one side of his mouth to the other and plucked at one of several eyebrow piercings as he spun around before choosing a chair. He rotated his baseball cap backward over his shaggy surfer cut hair and sat. "You detect anyone targeting us, Ky?"

  Ky would sense he was up here. This brother of his could pick up the vibrations of any watcher and know their skill level based on some sort of basic magical instinct that Shane never understood. Ky cast a glance in Shane’s direction before declaring, "No one around who plans to hurt us."

  Within seconds, Flynn’s cell phone had his full attention. No doubt he was checking camera angles on the library. As the team’s security and computer expert, he probably had all cameras in the vicinity under his control.

  "I doubt they’ll ambush us in a library." Roman shifted around in the chair with a grunt.

  "Where’s this Thomas Phillips guy?" Ky asked as he rolled his wrist to view his watch. "He’s late."

  Boom.

  An early-thirties man with short cut brown hair and a patchy beard tripped over two chairs as he entered. Their new handler, the liaison between the monarch and themselves, was only the second one in the almost fifty years since they’d been cursed into serving the Crown of England. Thomas righted several chairs. His messenger bag hit the carpeted aisle with a thunk, indicating its fullness. "Goddammit."

  It came out in a muddled north England accent. After researching the guy to prepare for the meeting, Shane found out he was ex-Yorkshire police. He'd quit a few months ago after a prolonged hospitalization with a gunshot wound. For some bizarre reason, the monarch thought this human would make an excellent replacement handler after their last one tried to kill them. Shane had his doubts about Thomas’s ability.

  "The beard isn’t a good look on him," Flynn muttered low.

  Shane wanted to point out Thomas looked stressed to the breaking point. Shaving had gone out the window. The man’s outfit had seen at least a day or two of wear. The job was getting to him, and he hadn’t even met them yet. The brothers weren’t sure the guy could handle this, but what choice did they have?

  Working with giant egos like his brothers, someone on the team had to be the voice of reason, the one down the middle who could keep them grounded as a team. Shane hadn’t always liked his job as the uptight straight shooter, but they needed it. Sometimes it was tough, but he believed in doing things for the right reasons, not simply because some human with a symbolic crown told them to do it.

  "Give him a chance," Roman hissed under his breath as he crossed his arms. No humor in him tonight.

  Good for Roman.

  Thomas grabbed his stuff and froze, staring at the three brothers. Human instinct was kicking in. If lycans didn’t completely mask their inner predator with glamour, human intuition took over. It was the source of the niggling feeling that made humans scared of noises in the dark. It was that moment when they knew they were in the presence of something that could track and kill him on a whim with a power far superior to anything he could muster. And when faced with three of them…

  Thomas shook. He tried to speak, but nothing came out.

  Flynn pointed his lollypop at him. "Don’t pee. Please, mate. Remember, you’re protected by the Crown. So long as you are we can’t hurt you. It’s one of the rules of the curse."

  "Why’d you tell him that?" Ky asked. "I kind of wanted to see if he’d piss himself."

  "Enough," Roman thundered. "We’re real, Thomas. But we’re not the ones you need to fear. None of us will attack you. Sit. I’m Roman. The one with the sucker in his mouth is Flynn, who does tech and IT things. That one caressing his gun is Ky, who's good at killing things."

  "What is it you do?" Thomas asked.

  "Whatever’s needed to get the job done." Roman clasped his hands together and scanned around as if expecting an attack to come at them.

  Thomas dropped his heavy messenger bag onto a reading desk and sat stiffly in a plastic chair, balancing on the edge as if about to bolt. They all stared at each other in silence until he said, "I don’t want to do this. Shouldn’t have agreed to it. This job isn’t worth the pay to have to…deal with you guys. I preferred not knowing you existed."

  Roman groaned out a sigh. "You were benched after you got shot. Do you want to spend the rest of your career in a police building writing up other people’s cases, or do you want to spend it in an office with unlimited budget making the world safer?"

  Thomas visibly swallowed. "How does one become like you are? If you bit me, would I turn into one of you?"

  "No." Roman didn’t roll his eyes, but his voice sounded like he did. "It’s genetic. Like all the nonhuman species, you can’t be made. You’re either born into it or you’re not."

  "Technically, there are some nonhumans that come about unnaturally," drawled Flynn. "What about necromancers?"

  Roman shook his head and muttered to himself.

  "If we’re getting technical, then angels and some demons started out human," said Ky.

  "All right," Roman snapped. "There are exceptions, but you can’t become lycan. Some humans like to dabble in magic, especially entry-level magic, but they’re not very good at it. Don’t try it." He cocked his head. "You took the job because you needed real purpose in your life. There’s none greater than this." He rubbed his wrist as if the curse burned him in punishment for some reason. Sometimes if they thought negatively toward their handler or the monarch, it did that. "Why are we meeting here? In the open?"

  Thomas worked his jaw back and forth a few times. "It’s a hell of a lot less creepy here than that mausoleum a quarter mile underground they call your headquarters. I discovered I can get access to almost anywhere in London. Interesting how working directly for the Crown gets me things I couldn’t have ever imagined."

  "The creepiness of that place is their way of communicating how much they hate us," Roman said.

  Thomas crossed his arms. "That place reeks like someone dumped a shit ton of flowery air freshener down the toilet to mask a sewer leak."

  Shane liked this guy.

  Flynn and Ky snort laughed.

  "The toilet’s been out of order for at least a decade since a pipe broke. Only flushes on Sundays." Roman’s lips might’ve twitched upward. "Your predecessor rarely had anything down there fixed."

  "It’s disgusting. Don’t even get me started on the mold issue or the cockroaches."

  Roman said, "Redesign it. Fumigate it. Upgrade it. Do whatever the hell you want with it. You’ve got millions in the budget that the guy who ran it before you chose to siphon into his salary instead of investing into upkeep or remodeling. I suggest upgrading the security. Just don’t touch the depository. That’s the room with the weapons. That space is off limits to everyone other than us. Don’t touch anything on the shelves. There are things in there we've collected that we can’t figure out how to destroy, and if they get back into the world, well, it’d be bad."

 

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