Their Mating Illusion [Paranormal Protection Unit 2] (Siren Publishing Classic) (3 page)

Fuck me, Skittles thought. He hated getting wet. He really did. He didn’t mind swimming in appropriate attire but dunking himself in full dress…
Fuck a duck on a twisted stick!

Maya paced at the top of the boat. No longer was she in her Bella Donna costume but instead she was dressed as she normally was. Jeans, tennis shoes, Alabama Tide shirt, and pullover sweater. With her rugged knapsack close, she pulled out another handful of worms and looked to the skies again. Two minutes. She had to wait another two longer-than-fucking-hell minutes for her ride to get there. She prayed softly that it would go off without a hitch. She and Franco had planned everything out properly.

Felicity would be “leaving” on the helicopter. That would be the story told to the goon that she was dating at least. As far as anyone knew, Felicity had gotten back to her room, changed her mind on the relationship she was in, phoned her father, and flew off on one of his jet helicopters. Yep, that was the story at least. Bella Donna had been only contracted for one night so come morning the Captain of the ship would think that she had gotten off at port and none would be the wiser. Yeah, it was shitty of her to cast spells on people, but it had been necessary.

Chewing the head off another of her favorite red-and-white gummy worms, she looked to the skies and then her watch again. One minute. That’s all that she had left to wait. One stinking, lousy minute. What could go wrong in one minute?

Watching her from the shadows, Skittles frowned. The twins both assured him that her scent was right even though the outer shell wasn’t. Her antsy activity and the fact she had a bag waiting as she stared at the skies gave credence to their logic. Moving covertly, he got close enough and then, when she was distracted once more, he took her down with a spell.

Walking over, he stared down at her body and frowned again, definitely not the woman on the posters. Except for the nose, the jaw line, and the chin. Those all belonged to what’s-her-face on the posters. Waving in one of the twins, he let the man pick her up as he collected her bag and they went back into the shadows with seconds to spare as the helicopter landed. “Go, I’ll catch up,” he muttered to the Dragon.

Standing there, he watched the pilot lean forward slightly and then shift around, obviously looking for someone. “Sorry, buddy, but she had other plans,” Skittles purred with an evil smirk and, with another small spell, sent the guy on his way thinking that he’d collected her. Shaking his head, he followed along the same path as the twin toward the back of the boat. Time to get wet.
Yippee!

* * * *

“How pissed do you think she’ll be?” Mac couldn’t help asking as they all stared down into the room affectionately known as the fishbowl. Given the large dome of glass overhead, it was seriously fitting. It was also the only room that could contain a Warlock or Mage, a room that Skittles avoided like the plague. He didn’t even like being up top in the viewing room. The room gave him the heebie-jeebies.

“I’m thinking she’ll be out for blood,” Trey commented, looking down at the female sleeping off the spell on the bed. “Particularly the one that put her down in that room.” All eyes turned on Skittles.

“Oh shut the fuck up,” Quincy muttered from his spot as far back as he could be and still see the female.

Quincy watched as Bulldog entered the viewing room. After a time the large Dragon nodded to the men and said, “Good work out there.” He nodded to the Dragons just inside of the door as well as his Alpha team and Skittles. “So what do we know abou—” Bulldog stopped short as he finally got a good look at the woman sleeping below. “Oh, son of a goddamn motherfucking bitch!” he roared. “Who the fuck’s idea of a goddamn joke is this!” he demanded and whirled on the men in the booth. “Do you fucking know what you just did?”
Son of a goddamn bitch!
The Warlocks and Mage would be up in Godsdamn arms about this. “Fucking wonderful. Just what the goddamn hell we need. The fucking Royal Family pissed off at us for stealing their daughter.” He growled and looked to Skittles. “What the fuck? Don’t you fucking know who the Royals are? Why the hell did you bring her here? That’s not some fucking illusionist! That’s the sister of the ruling Warlock, you fucking twit!”

“So what?” he asked, shooting his boss a look. “She’s also the illusionist according to Huey’s and Dewey’s noses. She also has power which I felt on recoil when I put her down. She got Felicity out of there, so she was interfering in an active investigation,” he added pointedly. “If she’s an innocent she will tell us everything and you let her go. If not then she’s where she deserves to be. Besides, you know as well as I do, the Royal Family representative is a dick who seriously needs to be neutered and executed.”

“Fuck.” Bulldog growled and looked to his Royal Guards. “Aiden, Allister. Is she the illusionist?” When both of them nodded, he glared. “Anything fucking else that you want to say?” He growled angrily. “Like what the fuck you were doing while you watched her whisk fucking Felicity van Hemptyn off the boat.” He shot his gaze to Skittles and added, “And I thought you fucking said no one could open a Vortex without harming others. Looks to me like she fucking did.”

“I said, and I quote, that the likelihood of non-combatant casualties could, in theory, be too high for us to risk. But hey, whatever, it’s all on my conscience if I take out a three-year-old, right?” he asked, getting to his feet, magic starting to crackle around him. “What the hell do you care if I take out some granny celebrating her fiftieth wedding anniversary, right? I’ll be shouldering the blame if anything goes wrong after all, not you, because I was talked into it. Well I do not find that acceptable, so you can kiss my fucking ass, Bulldog, and hers, too, since you seem to be revving up for it,” he snarled out, barely holding onto the huge buildup of magic. Spinning, he stormed from the room, disintegrating the door in his anger and really not giving two shits.

Bulldog growled and shook his head. Stopping his guard, he said, “Let him calm down.” Running his hands over his face, he sighed. “I’m getting too fucking old for this,” he muttered and stepped over the shredded door and toward the stairs. Wonderful. Just fucking great.

Entering the room where the woman was kept, Talon, or Bulldog as he was known to his men, was surprised that she was sitting up on the corner of her bed. “You are safe,” he explained. “But I have questions,” he stated simply.

“Who spelled me? And questions on what? I was just waiting for a helicopter and then out of nowhere boom, darkness and now I’ve woken with a headache.” She fidgeted slightly and sighed. “And where is my knapsack?” She needed some candy, any kind really, but she truly wanted her gummy worms, dammit. “Where am I?” It was somewhere that knew about magic, that much she knew. Frowning, she cocked her head to the side and swore a vicious streak. “Son of a goddamn bitch. Talon?” She had only then in that moment realized who it was that entered the room. She then got up and began to pace. “Fucking hell. Why the Godsdamn hell have you got me in one of the Council’s holding cells?” Her only thought was that her brother had done something and blamed her, again.

“Because you have been a bad girl,” Talon told her, digging out a bag of gummy worms. “Here.” He passed them over to her as he grabbed a chair. Spinning it around, he sat down facing her, his arms crossed on the back of it. “Since it’s you, Maya, I’m guessing that the ‘sending her to her room’ illusion wasn’t what it appeared and that you actually sent the out-of-line daughter back to her daddy. Which, given who she’s been dating, now makes more sense. But you also interfered in one of our missions. Potentially you could have ruined it all,” he said to her in an understanding manner with a fine edge of steel. “You sideswiped my Warlock, thankfully after the capture and detainment, but you could have done it during the mission and that would have been severely punishable as you well know. So, tell me, why chance a Vortex with all those innocents in its path?”

“Because.” She chewed on one of the worms and moved to sit back on the bed, her back to the wall. “It wasn’t a Vortex,” she said with a grin. “And I call bullshit on you, Talon. I’ve known you my whole life. You taught me how to defend myself when big brother blacked my eye.” She wouldn’t voice the man’s name. He just might appear and that would suck. For her. “I call bullshit because we both know that you would have had a backup plan, and a backup for that one. You don’t do anything half-assed and we both know it.” She chewed another worm. “As for your Warlock.” She shrugged. “I do feel bad if I hurt him, but I contained it as much as I could, so that means that he was far too close to me when I did what I did.” She hoped that he didn’t ask her about the “not a Vortex” thing because then she would have to admit something she didn’t admit. Ever. “And I was there to save a friend. Felicity has been charmed. Someone has cast a serious fucking spell over her, making her that idiot bastard’s puppet.” She had seen it before, the pain that it caused. No, she had to not think of that. “So I sent her home. Uncle Franco is going to get her all the help she needs. He’s going to find someone to unspell her.” She hoped.

“Explain that ‘not a Vortex,’ please,” Talon said, ignoring the rest as he zoned in on what she was avoiding telling him. “I had a backup plan, true,” he admitted as he watched her scrambling mentally to find an explanation for him. “But it was slim at best given the number of innocents on board. My Warlock was our best shot. As it was, he’s in one hell of a pissy mood with me right now so you’d better tell me what you meant. Because he told me the risk wasn’t worth it but if you did it when he couldn’t, I might have to have him terminated.” Not that he would but she didn’t know that. He had a reputation for being ruthless and vicious. That would help him here.

“I will explain it when all the little ears above us leave,” she told Talon. “And it’s something that I will tell you, and only you,” she gave him. “Not another breathing and living soul,” she put out there. “Because it is not something that I share. Ever. Period.” Something that even her brother, the dickhead, didn’t know she could do. “Because if it were known…” Well, hell, she might as well put the fucking slave collar on herself if it was known just what she could do. “And you can say that you would have him terminated all you want but you forget that I know you, Talon. You were there to tend my wounds after a fight with the asshat that rules my people. You wanted to champion me but didn’t because I asked you not to. Trust me, I know you and know that you wouldn’t terminate one of your people for making a mistake. For treason, abso-fucking-lutely, but not for a mistake.”

Watching her without blinking, he tapped his comms. “Clear the room and black out the glass,” he ordered. Rolling his eyes, he looked up to the room where his men were. “She’s in a room where no magic can be performed, dickwad. I seriously doubt she can take me.” Sighing, Talon cracked his neck to disperse the anger he was feeling. “Are you trying to aggravate my last nerve?” he asked in a sugary-sweet tone. When they heard that tone of voice he used, everyone snapped into gear and seconds later the red light on the wall went out. “Spill, now,” he ordered her, feeling seriously tested and every nerve frayed to the very edge. The Dragon wasn’t happy with all her hedging and almost lies. It wanted the truth, now!

“Well you know who I am,” she started and ate another gummy worm. “But what you don’t know,” she whispered now and moved in closer to the edge of the bed. “When Daddy died…” She decided that she should explain from the beginning. “You knew how powerful he was. He was truly blessed by Gaia, he was amazing.” She breathed softly. “And he could do things that no other Magic User could.” Which was the truth. “That was why he was King of the Mage and Warlocks. His father before him, and his father before him.” There was a pause from Maya before she continued, “Anyway. When daddy died, I was there.” She pulled out another worm and looked at it, placing it on her palm and looking to Talon. “As you know, magic is shared. It’s passed from one generation to another. Taught from one parent to child.” Hesitation and uncertainty were on her face and when she spoke it was a whisper of a sound. “But sometimes…” She stared at the worm and watched it come to life, negating the magic around her, and whispered to him. “Sometimes it’s pushed from one to another. When daddy died he knew that I would need protection. He knew who killed him.” Maya saw the look on Talon’s face as the earthworm now wiggled on her palm. “Therefore he gave me the magic that had been passed from father to son, magic that originated with Gaia.” Another long pause as if she were gathering her thoughts. “And with that magic I can do one hell of a lot more than the average Magic User can.” She turned the worm back to a gummy worm. “But no one can know.” She sighed. “If they did, well you know what would happen.” Her brother would collar her and then he would try to decimate the Council. He was a greedy, power-hungry bastard. “I opened a personal slipstream, not a Vortex so much as a fold in space that only one person can slide through.”

Staring at her for long moments, Talon considered everything and then nodded. “Use any of that around here and you know the consequences,” he said quietly. “While I applaud you helping a friend in need, the timing could not have been any worse. This will not go over well, Maya, especially when your brother gets wind of it. For now, I need you to remain here. You’re not under arrest, but legally you are being detained until I file my report. It sucks, I know, but it has to be done properly.” Getting up, he put the chair back into place. “I’ll have dinner sent in for you.”

“You know that he will kill me the first chance he gets, right?” Maya sent back to Talon. “And with having me ‘trapped’ here…” She shrugged. “He’s going to come for me, I just hope that you are ready when he does because I have got to tell you, I will slip away as soon as I feel him.”

* * * *

Several hours later

Skittles paced around the courtyard and fought to rein his temper in. Fucking Talon questioning him like that. Who the fuck did he think he was! Okay, so he was the big bad Dragon King, big fucking whoop. Shit…He was the big bad Dragon King who he’d just mouthed off to and practically threatened with bodily harm. Shit on a motherfucking stick, he was dead meat!