Neither of them enjoyed the crispness of Oberon’s new dress requirements. Robin, being a freewheeling Seelie, would rather prance around nearly naked. Wrenn, being taller and stronger than most mundane and fae alike, had found comfort in modern high-performance athletic apparel. Two centuries of corsets and idiotic shoes had finally given way to stretchy, shimmering jackets, leggings, and butt-kicking boots.
“You are here—” Robin smoothed his luscious black curls away from his cute little horn nubs. They weren’t always cute or little, but he tended to glamour more toward “sweet young man” than full Bacchus these days, “—because the dryads are back.”
The intelligence dryads and naiads sent out to gather information after Samhain would trickle back in over the next few days. Two coming in early didn’t mean anything.
Robin tossed her one of his prissy looks. He leaned close to her ear, still faux-shocked at her lack of enthusiasm. “I sent this pair into elf territory.”
“What?” There were agreements. Nothing particularly binding—the elves were not stupid enough to make deals with the fae—but they did offer each other respect. No nosing around. No spying. General good neighbor stuff, which it seemed Robin had decided to ignore.
He could have gotten into real trouble if they’d been caught.
He waved his hand dismissively as if he’d take on any pain if it helped her get the information she needed.
Elves did not freely show their business, or their magicks, but she’d already gathered enough evidence that the North American enclave had harbored vampires—and that those vampires had likely bitten the elves on the ass. “Did that video of the little elf girl get Oberon to authorize sending in investigators?”
Robin screwed up his face in an expression that said maybe, maybe not.
“What does that mean?” she asked.
“It means,” he ushered her into the antechamber of the dryad’s reporting sanctum, “that the why in all this is above both our pay grades.”
Robin Goodfellow had found her wandering in the forest outside Edinburgh the night she escaped her captor. Robin had never once asked for favors. He was now, and had always been, a gentleman. When Oberon offered her a place in his court, she’d declared herself of Robin’s band as her thank you.
Which meant she knew the access that came with the Goodfellow name. “Above our pay grade” did not often apply. She nodded and followed Robin across the shimmering red and green magic that was the gate into the dryads’ sanctum.
Robin held his finger to his lips. One did not speak inside the sanctum. One only listened.
Two quick steps and they stood under the massive stones that made up the henge in which the dryads reported. The two intelligence agents in their antlered armor stood in the center. They mirrored each other’s movements, as was their way, and sent their report into the curls of magic flowing through the sanctum like ghosts of an aurora.
They told of the elves’ land, and a blizzard. Of how, with elves, the forest and its animals lived protected from the pollution and murder of the mundanes, and how the land understood that soon, not even its magicals could stop the coming death and damage.
Wrenn shook her head. Mundanes were destructive to the natural world.
The dryads continued: The land spoke of werewolves and elves and witches gone mad. Of concealments they could not read and of the wolves masquerading as genies.
Then they spoke of a vampire.
Dracula.
Wrenn shuddered as if she’d fallen under a frozen lake’s ice. Only parts of Dracula existed anymore. Parts the man who had enslaved her had found.
It’s him, she mouthed to Robin. She now had proof that he’d survived that night in Edinburgh—and evidence that he might still be out there terrorizing the world.
Robin touched his lips again, and leaned his head toward the dryads.
There was another, the dryads reported. A big man who was mundane, yet not. A man who heard the dryads, and saw their magic.
Robin squeezed her hand.
No, she thought. The vampire her captor had created was bad enough, but this man—this monster—was why he’d kidnapped her in the first place.
She had no memory of her life before she’d come to live in Edinburgh, but she knew that all the pain, all the imprisonment, all the abuse happened because her captor had promised the monster a bride.
Robin nodded once. He understood.
He pulled his phone out of his pocket. He tapped on the fae app he used to call up gateways, then turned it so she could see.
The closest gate to the elves’ home was some distance north, situated on a trail inside protected land labeled Paul Bunyan State Forest.
Thank you, she mouthed.
Victor Frankenstein had held her captive. He’d unleashed a demigod of a vampire. And he’d lied about the death of his first mistake.
A mistake, like the vampires, harbored by elves.
Wrenn Goodfellow turned on her heels. She’d never, not once, made others pay for her pain and existence. The men of Frankenstein did.
So now she hunted monsters.
Death Kissed
When Wrenn Goodfellow comes looking to clean up Alfheim, it’s up to Sheriff Ed Martinez to keep her away from not only Frank and the elves, but also the people he cares the most about—his family.
DEATH KISSED available now!
Get Free Books Subscribe to Kris Austen Radcliffe’s Newsletter
You will be notified when Kris Austen Radcliffe’s next novel is released, as well as gain access to an occasional free bit of author-produced goodness. Your email address will never be shared and you can unsubscribe at any time.
Sign up for Kris Austen Radcliffe’s Newsletter
The Worlds of Kris Austen Radcliffe
Smart Urban Fantasy:
Northern Creatures
Monster Born
Vampire Cursed
Elf Raised
Wolf Hunted
Fae Touched
Death Kissed
God Forsaken
Magic Scorned (coming soon)
Genre-bending Science Fiction about
love, family, and dragons:
World on Fire
Series one
Fate Fire Shifter Dragon
Games of Fate
Flux of Skin
Fifth of Blood
Bonds Broken & Silent
All But Human
Men and Beasts
The Burning World
Dragon’s Fate and
