Aaron's Kiss Series Boxed Set (Books 1 - 7) (82 page)

~CHAPTER EIGHT~

Tristan left the castle as soon as he could. Her scent was everywhere. He couldn’t figure out how that was even possible as she had only been there for just under an hour. And in that same time frame, he had lost her. He wanted to scream out his frustration.

Aaron was in his study when he materialized in the main hall of the estate. He went in search of Duncan first, who directed him to the master.

“Master Tristan, if you don’t mind my saying, you look rode hard and put away drippy.”

Tristan could only stare at the man. He’d heard that Duncan had a new friend, Eon, the newest member of the local pack, who had been telling him idioms to use, slang, he had called it. Sometimes he messed them up a bit, but was cheerfully happy when someone helped him out. The half grin Duncan was sharing with him made Tristan think Duncan was having fun at his expense.

“It’s wet, not drippy, rode hard and put away wet. And yes, Duncan, that’s just how I feel as well.” Tristan walked into the study like a man going to his own execution. He felt that way also.

Tristan sat down in one of the chairs across from the desk and looked down at his clothes. He was rumpled. Not only that, but he had another stain on his shirt. Damned woman was not only driving him crazy, but she was changing him as well. He reached down and tried to straighten his tie and looked up startled when Aaron cleared his throat. There was a smile there that Tristan thought he could gladly punch off the man’s face.

“I…” Tristan stared off into space for a full three minutes before he continued. “I’ve found my mate. She’s…she is…she has every right to be angry. I was stupid. And insensitive too. I asked her if she killed him. I’d like to think I knew her better than that. But I don’t…feathers, they were beautiful, you know. So is she, beautiful, I mean. I…she can shift. Had I not seen it, I wouldn’t have believed it, but she was covered in feather and then swish, she was flying away, taking my heart with her. I’ve come to realize I did too. Love her.” He was taking a deep breath when Aaron interrupted him.

“Bailey, the girl you asked me to search for, I take it?”

“Yes.” He wondered if that was what had pissed her off. “The information you sent was incorrect. She isn’t human, nor did she kill those men. I know that…I knew it then. That’s not to say she didn’t kill anyone, but not those two. She’s a hired gun, Aaron. A fucking hired gun.”

Sara hadn’t said much since she’d come in. Tristan liked the woman. She was very sweet, but could be a real bear when it came to her children. He wasn’t sure she was really listening until she turned to Aaron and smiled. “I think you need to go and read a story to our wonderful children, love. They need you.”

Aaron winked at her and kissed her nose then he looked over at Tristan. “Sara is my mate and I love her dearly, but she has connections that she shares with very few people. She is going to share them with you now, Tristan. It’s a trust that I’m giving you that I give to very few. One of my mate being with you without me there to protect her. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

Tristan did. It was a great honor to be left with a vampire’s mate, a greater one when the vampire was a master. Tristan nodded.

“You have to understand something else,” Sara told him after Aaron left the study. “What I’m about to tell you is something we don’t share with anyone outside of this Kiss. I’m going to take you to the magical realm that is part of me, a part of all of us. And you will hear, see, and learn things that could very well rip apart the fabric of magic for everyone. Understand?”

“No. No, I don’t. I don’t understand anything right now. But I…I’m willing to keep an open mind. I’ll try and keep an open mind.” Tristan shook his head. “My life was so strict, so orderly, and then I met Bailey. You know, Mrs. MacManus, I don’t think it will ever be that way again, and I find myself hoping it isn’t.”

“Please call me Sara, and honey, you ain’t seen nothing yet.” She reached over to the wall nearest the desk and tore a hole in the air. She just opened a portal and there it was, the castle that all magic was governed from.

Sara stepped through first and then Tristan. They were met by a company of men, the Royal Guard, she’d told him. They were there to protect her as the queen’s cousin and to escort her and Tristan to the family room. 

Tristan gaped at everything and everyone. When he looked up, there were perhaps six thousand tiny flies, but when he looked closer, he realized they were fairies. Tiny winged men and women going about their business, whatever that might be. Walking in front of him was a centaur and a smallish man and they were deep in conversation.

“He’s a dwarf; his name is Paul. The centaur is Jakoal. They are in the Courts of Law-making area. And those aren’t fairies, they’re heather pixies.” He looked at her, startled. “Yes I can read your mind. Over here there is nothing you can shield from me.”

“Why am I here? I don’t understand what this has to do with Bailey and me. You know something, don’t you?” Tristan wasn’t sure what he wanted to think about here, not if she could read his every thought.

She motioned for him to precede her into the large but cozy room. There were four people already in there waiting for them.

“This is James and Phillip and their spouses Savannah and Elizabeth. Phillip and Elizabeth are my grandparents. Mel is late, I see. Well, she is the Queen of Magic. Please have a seat.”

Tristan remembered Bailey telling him to go to the queen of magic or something. He didn’t get a chance to remember before a tray of drinks appeared before him.

“I understand that you are mated to the Printer. Oh my, that is amazing. What’s she like?” Savannah said in awe as she reached for a glass of amber liquid and took a plate of cookies. “Like everyone else, we all assumed that the Printer was a male. To think all this time she was a female.”

“The Printer? I don’t understand. The hit man, that’s my Bailey? Bailey is the Printer?” Tristan wished he could drink alcohol and a half glass of clear liquid appeared in his hand. He looked at the woman across from him.

“Go ahead, young man. Here you can eat food and drink something other than what you normally drink.” Tristan set the glass down with a thud. Savannah grinned as she continued. 

“Yes, Bailey, your mate, is a known assassin in our realm. We call on him…err her to help with our rogues. She was nicknamed the Printer because that is the front she uses, a print shop.”

“When the information she needs is sent to her partner, it is sent to a print shop called Fine Printings, Inc. We use the girl quite a bit when we have a rogue that needs to be taken care of. I should have made the connection when Pete told us about the woman and Salvatore. She is good, very good,” the man called James said. “I had heard that she is a chameleon. Is that true?”

Aaron had told Tristan about this man. James had a healthy fascination with all creatures and was working on a book to keep track of them. Pete was actually helping him, setting up a program on the computer to make access much easier and faster. Tristan felt like the rabbit that fell down a hole.

“No. Not a chameleon. She’s a falcon…I guess one of her forms is a—how do you get a job like that? I mean, do you put an ad in the paper? How do people check your references when all your clients are dead? But I suppose that’s the point, they’re dead.” Tristan had the overwhelming need to giggle.

He sat there for several seconds, thinking about her. Bailey really was a hired killer and these people, these beings, had hired her. She had been shot the other day, shot by the person she was hired to kill, or the police, but either way, they were directly involved in her getting hurt. 

“She knew the consequences going in, Tristan. It’s not like we didn’t make things clear to her when we approached her.” He stood when a woman of regal bearing walked in and sat down. “There were three of them when they started this, a were named Tyler Smith and a Cynogriffon called Griff. We have never met neither Bailey, nor Tyler for that matter. Griff is the only one we have dealt with as he is our only direct contact through the front. He’s very protective of her.”

“A Cynogriffon? I’m not sure…isn’t that a mythical creature?” Tristan asked as he could almost feel the hole widening even further.

“Griff? No, he’s as real as you or I. Griff is half eagle and half wolf, an extremely strong and a very intelligent creature. He is very loyal to the other two, or was. He never told us anything about them, not even when they were hurt or killed.” Mel reached into the small basket that hadn’t been there before, Tristan was sure of it. She pulled out an apple and another one appeared to take its place. He decided not to see it, simply not to see anything else or he would surely go insane. Elizabeth continued the tale.

“Tyler was murdered several months ago during an assignment he was conducting in the States. The only reason we heard about it was because we were asked to stop making payments into his account. It wasn’t until his death certificate was sent to us that we discovered he had been killed. He had been shot twice in the head at close range. We tried to get in touch with the Printer, Bailey I suppose, but she had been working in another country. They all have been working for us for about fifteen years and her record is impeccable.” A stack of folders appeared before him.

“You talk about her as if she is a Brownie troop leader, not some woman who murders other beings for money.” He just stared at them, ignoring the stack beside him.

“I brought you those,” Mel said quietly. “They’re the last ten beings that she ‘murdered,’ as you called it, and why we had to call her in. The last one is Salvatore Madison. He was a black mage, dealt in the art of black magic. He was the man she killed the night you went to Paris to save Bailey, the guy that Pete told you about.”

Tristan picked up the heavy folder and against his better judgment, opened it. As soon as the first picture appeared, he wished he could shut it again and found himself instead flipping through them. They were not only horrific but beyond what a person should know how to do to a body. 

“As you can see, he likes his victims small and helpless, much like Pete Marshall’s body type is,” Mel pointed out. “He played with them, peeling their skin from them while they were alive. He used their terror and pain like you use blood. Their essences sustained him. We couldn’t catch him. His magic in your world protected him and just when we would get close enough to bring him in for a trial, he would disappear.” 

Tristan looked at Sara from a picture of a young man. “That’s Tyler, one of his many victims. I believe he was also one of his lovers. Someone, and now I can only assume it was your mate, found enough information for us to sanction his death. It took her a month, and he was setting up his next plaything when she took him out. Without her, another of our kind’s mate would be dead, my friend Pete.”

Tristan put his head in his hands and leaned forward. He was thinking he could really use that drink, and then he thought of drinking from her. The way she responded to him and him to her, and then he thought of the way he had hurt her, hadn’t trusted her. Without raising his head, he told them all he knew.

“She is a creation—a test tube child. They were someone’s idea of an elite race of beings to go to war. And no, she doesn’t know who they were…but she may have an idea, but I don’t know. I never… They considered her a failure because of something they hadn’t counted on.”

James was making notes, Tristan saw, when he looked up. When he paused, James looked over at him. “And the failure? What was it?” The room seemed to be waiting for his answer. He didn’t like giving out that bit of information. It could be the life or death of her.

“She’s a mortal. Her wounds heal like them, as does her busing. She told me she can be killed and that as my mate…as my mate, I will continue to be an immortal. She also told me to find you, Mel, and ask you to dissolve out bond.”

“Is that what you want, Tristan? Not that I would, but is it?” Mel asked him.

“No,” he answered her without hesitation. “No, I don’t. She isn’t a chameleon per se, but a mixture of immortal DNA. She can fly; I’ve seen her do that, and she claims…no, she said that she can shift into any living thing. I’m sorry to say that I didn’t believe her when she told me. All I could focus on was that she was a hired gunman. Oh, and because I sipped from her, her powers are now mine. And before you ask, no, I’ve not tried to do anything. I didn’t believe her. Not then.” He looked up at Mel, his heart heavy. “I’ve lost her, haven’t I?”

“No, not if I can help it. We need her, Tristan, but more importantly, she needs you. Without you two paired, you will die, and she will as well. The Fates have deemed this bond necessary. As for her mortality, she isn’t. A mortal, I mean. When you bonded with her, she took your powers as well.” Mel grinned as she tossed an apple at him. “We just hired her to work someone in the Netherlands. She will be back here in a few days. That doesn’t leave us much time to plan.”

~CHAPTER NINE~

Bailey was hidden in the shadow of a large building waiting for her assignment to walk out so that she could get this one over with. She never thought of them as people unless she was feeling low, which had been happening a lot since she had left Tristan’s home two days ago. It seemed much longer sometimes. Anyway, her target was taking his own sweet time and she had too much time to think.

She was willing to admit that he had hurt her, but she wasn’t willing to examine why it had hurt, or that he above all people, had been able to. She knew that she could be a bit harsh, maybe even slightly rude…okay, she was a bitch, she admitted, but she’d never asked for this. Bailey smiled when she felt a small touch of her mind and recognized the link. Griff, her friend, her only friend.

“Mistress, is this a bad time? I know that you are on assignment, but there is an issue you need to be made aware of before you return home.”

“Never for you, my friend, never for you. What can I do for you?” S
he saw a group of men come out of the building, but none was her target.

“There has been someone in the print shop as recent as late last night. I do not sense anything taken, or any damage done to the equipment. There was a thorough search, though, but without malice or meanness of any kind. What would you like for me to do?”

Her first thought was Tristan, but she doubted he’d care enough after seeing her fly away and what he had gotten from the detective by now to care enough to search for her. Then she thought that closing it down and just quitting would be good, but she knew that she couldn’t. She was still alive and breathing.

“Change the locks, contact the Realm, and let them know…Griff, did you feel anything, maybe any magic or ‘others’ there?”
Griff was quiet. She knew that he was feeling the room, mentally touching each item to see what he could feel. He was probably angry with himself for not thinking of it too. She grinned bigger. It wasn’t often she could outsmart him.

“Ah, yes, mistress, magic, or rather magic used to hide itself from us. You think the Realm is looking for something? You work for them, do you not?”

“We work for them and yes, I agree that it doesn’t make any sense. Don’t say anything for now. Let me think this through.”
Her target came out of the building and she had to move. “
My assignment is moving, so I have to go. Keep me updated and can you ward the doors around the outside and in? Give them a little something to remember us by next time, will you?”

“Oh, of course, it would be my pleasure.”
His excitement was evident in his voice.
“Would you like them to remember with any certain part of their body, or may I decide?”

Bailey laughed out loud, startling a few people from their meal. “
You decide and have as much fun as you’d like. Later.”

“Goodbye and thank you.”

She closed off their connection as she shifted.

Bailey was still grinning when she started across the street toward her target. He was fast, like a were fast, but she was a little faster while in flight. When he loped down an alley, she didn’t follow, but stayed on the outer perimeter high on a balcony. Shifting back, she reached for a mental link to him and found he was with someone else. She followed the string to the other being he was talking to and listened in on their conversation.

“I don’t think you understand,” her target was saying. “I said this is the way it will go down, and that is the way it will happen. That stupid cow won’t even know what happened, but she will when I’m done with her.”

“We have to get rid of the other body before we take another. I mean, seriously, Josh, they start to smell fast when they’re gutted like that and the neighbors might not like it. That’s all I’m saying.” The other man having a concern for his neighbors nearly made her laugh. They were both dumbasses.

“So, fucking get rid of it. Shit, do I gotta make all the decisions ‘round here? It’s not like we can use it anymore. Dead is dead, ain’t it?” Josh snarled at his buddy as Bailey leaped to the ground as mist surrounded her.

“Oh, you have no idea how true that statement is,” Bailey said as she walked out of the mist from behind them.

Bailey was behind the first guy before he knew she was there. Taking his chin in her hand and with a quick jerk, his neck was broken. That’s when Josh decided to run, like that would stop her from finding him too. Decapitating the dead man with a quick blade to his throat, she shifted and took off after her target.

As a product of the lab, Bailey couldn’t just keep her clothes on when she shifted, but anything in her hands or directly touching her skin stayed with her as well. If she’d had on her backpack, however, it would stay behind. It wasn’t touching her so it wouldn’t blend into her animal. Things in pockets, if they there wasn’t too much metal, went with her as well. It made her armed and dangerous at a second’s notice.

She caught up with him about a mile outside of the city limits. He had shifted as well and as a wolf, thought he could out run her. He’d been so wrong. Not only was her vision better than his as a falcon, she was much faster even with a back wind current.

When she landed outside the cave he had crawled into, she shifted back to human, pulled the darkness from the interior around her, and tightened down her shields. She didn’t want him to hear her coming any more than she wanted him to get away. She moved toward the opening and went inside.

She was halfway in when she felt the hair on her neck tingle. Something was there too. Something dark and mean was close to her. Bailey had just pulled back when a huge claw that had come out of nowhere sliced through the air and missed her neck by a mere inch. She quickly realized it must have smelled the blood from the first kill on her clothes.

“So the Printer is a woman.” A high-pitched voice said from beyond. “And a very pretty one at that, yes, yes, pretty indeed, she is. Oh, how I will enjoy the taste of you. Hummm, a tasty printer you will be.”

She heard it lick its lips and smack them together. She reached out to it cautiously and found something she had never encountered before, a red dragon troll. They lived in caves or hill sides, carving out their homes or hovels with their sharp claws. The red troll was about medium height, but hugely fat and extremely lazy, waiting for his prey to come to them rather than hunt. Yet this one knew who she was. Even more curious was that he knew what she did. But she had a job to finish and no time to screw with him just now.

“What’s the price, troll, to go about my business?”

That was another thing about them. They loved to make bargains. And they cheated at everything. And if one wasn’t careful, a person could lose a great deal more than a bit of blood if the mood struck them.

“Ah, and she is smart. But you would need to be, would you not? Good, good, play you will with me? You wish to pass, my tasty morsel? Well, my price would be to answer three questions truthfully and correctly.” The smell was nauseating; her stomach rolled a little at the tight confines of the cave that smelled of death, sweat, and old blood.

“No, one, and I’ll only answer it correctly.” She leaned to the right when she felt him moving toward her. “Two sides to every coin, troll. My truth could be your lie. Ask your one question.”

He seemed to mull this over before he answered her. “You play unfair, but you are honest. I will ask one. You seek a being; you want a reward. You have its life, who will give you yours. What is he?”

She knew what he was asking her. She had no doubt of that. He was clever, this one, but still slightly stupid. She wanted to answer him quickly, but he’d be angry. She must make him work for it, or he wouldn’t allow her passage without exacting another price.

“I seek no one but the were who came before me. I can track very well and he is here within your walls. Or have you made lunch of the fur ball? If that is so, then I need not play.” She turned to go and smiled when he stopped her.

“No! I want my bargain.” She heard what sounded like a foot stomping. “I will give you the other I have. I have treat for later. It will be a good trade too. You shall see, play the game, and you will have it for the answer. Deal, Printer?” He pleaded with her.

So the troll had eaten the wolf. Good, less work for her. But what else could he have that he had kept for a treat? When she reached beyond him, she felt nothing. Whatever he had captured, or had fallen into his hands, was deep into the belly of the cave. But if he had it to trade then maybe she could help the hapless soul who lay there.

“All right, troll you shall have your bargain. I have its life, who will give me mine. What is he? That which will give me mine is a vampire.”

“But what of the rest of the riddle? You must answer it all. Play fair!” She heard him shift hard against the wall, and it sounded as though he stomped his foot again. Bailey wondered how old he was, and thought he couldn’t be much older than maybe three hundred years old.

“We had a deal. You only asked one question and I was to answer it, and I did. If you wanted a riddle answered, then you should have said a riddle, troll, not a question. You got what you asked me. I told you what he is. Now, give over your treat, a deal is a deal.” Her anger was evident in her tone.

He roared, making rocks tremble in his wake. Sparks rained across the stone close to where she was as his long, sharp claws angrily scraped down the stone walls in his fury. She nearly told him she’d play his way, but didn’t like spoiled beings any more than she did spoiled humans.

“I will make no other deals with the Printer. No deals for the Printer, no more indeed. She does not play my games well. She does not cheat me, but she does not play fair.”

“Troll, I am sorry, but I played fair.” Bailey thought to reason with him anyway. “But I will give you another try. A question from me then. I will give you my first name for your trouble if you tell me one answer question. I will play fair, red troll.” Why did she suddenly sound like Dr. Seuss?

“Deal! I will have my fun with you. You are a good being. Yes, good being indeed.”

“I am the Printer, but how did you know? I gave you no clue, yet you knew when I first walked into your lair. Tell me how you figured it out.”

“Ah, that is not so hard. Everyone knows of you. You have a smell of all of us. You are the maker of rights, righteous to the innocents of all the other beings. Yes, we all know of you and your were. You have the friendship of a Cynogriffon, do you not?” Glee filled his voice. “He is very powerful, yes, powerful in magic. We all love you, tasty or not. I do not wish your name, though it will make me envious of those who do not, but I will tell that you offered you to me. Yes, yes, I will.” 

Yep, they were both trying out for Dr. Seuss, or the little green guy from the Star Wars movies, whatever his name was. All they needed now was a light saber and things would be complete. She so needed a vacation.

“Thank you, troll. I am in your debt. You honor me with your kindness. If I may have your treat, please, I will bother you no more. But if I am in need of you, may I call upon your hospitality?”

“Yes, yes do. I will be honored to help the Printer. Yes, help you, I will. Thank you. You may have my tasty treat, hummm my treat.” She heard him lumber away, taking most of the offensive smell with him.

What he tossed to her from the depths of his lair was a woman, a vampire to boot. The woman was in horrible shape, but alive. The troll was right in her being a treat for him. Eating a blood-sucker was a treat indeed for a troll. Bailey was suddenly glad that she’d made the deal with him. But she needed to get her help or she would die.

“Griff, I need a vampire and a donor at my location right now. Can you do that for me? I have a very weak female vamp and it has been about ten days since her last feed.” S
he carried her out into the night and laid her on the cold ground.

“Yes, mistress, I will have someone there immediately.”

It was ten minutes before the two men showed up. One was a master of this realm, the other a human servant. The human servant knelt before the woman and gave her his throat. Bailey looked away as the woman drank deeply, yet still didn’t have the strength to get home on her own.

The master, Leighton Chalmers, a large Dutchman who had been around since the twelfth century, had also heard of the Printer. Sheesh, it was getting so a girl couldn’t go anywhere without someone hearing of her.

“I am in your debt, my lady. Laverna is a very important female in our Kiss, as you are in yours, I’m sure. You shall have safe passage to the realms here in the Netherlands for your lifetimes, and my protection as well whenever you need it. I shall let the other beings know of your kindness to us.” Leighton bowed low before her and kissed her hand in gratitude.

“I am very glad for your offer. I am, however, not a part of a Kiss. I live and work alone, sire. You have my gratitude, as well as the troll who found her. I would ask that he remain unharmed for as long as he lives. He could have kept her for his own rather than give her up.”

Leighton looked at the mouth of the cave and shuddered. She didn’t blame him. Trolls smelled bad and their eating habits were horrendous. He told her he would honor her request, as would all the other beings.

“I thank you. Now, I’m sorry, but I must go. I have to get back to another…I’m on an assignment.” She shifted into her falcon and left him standing on the hillside. He looked at her oddly as she flew away, but she was too busy to think about what it might mean.