Winter Wedding, стр. 22

“What’s up?” Chaz’s voice echoed between her ears.

“I opened the communication to your sister. We had a vision that shows me getting shot in the field between here and the main house.” Dayton rested his hand on her leg.

She kicked it away.

“We were both there. We didn’t see who shot me, but Cheryl went into attack mode and leapt out of the vision, which then disappeared,” Dayton projected.

“I’ll give the information to Coral. She’s been in and out of consciousness lately. Drew is wigging out over it,” Chaz said.

“What’s Coral doing?” Cheryl asked, trying to break the open communication so she could speak to her brother privately.

“I can take a hint.” Dayton stood, tossing his hands wide as he stepped into the kitchen. The sound of clanking rattled her nerves, but she was determined not to let him get to her.

She had every right to be mad, and he had no reason to pout about it.

“How goes things out there?” she projected in a whisper.

“Not good. We’ve got two more Royal Fairies who have been murdered. One on the property, and one just outside. Both have identical fang marks.”

“How fresh are the kills?” she asked.

“Fresh enough that we know it’s not the man inside with you. How are you holding up? Find out anything interesting?”

“Well, I’m able to produce fairy dust, and according to Dayton, we’re all Wolfairies.”

“That actually explains what’s going on with Drew. We thought all the dust he collected had penetrated his body and then decided to come out and build a crate around Daphne and the twins for fun. But it doesn’t explain why Mom is all of a sudden blinking fairy dust. Damn. I thought I’d seen it all.”

“Dayton and I found some information that leads me to believe that Mom is indeed a Royal Fairy and that Aria was also a Wolfairy. I can’t confirm it all, but I’m starting to believe it.” In the hole that Dayton created, Cheryl saw Chaz step into the stream of light. “Can you see me?”

“Faintly.” He paused about fifty paces away. “There is something you should know.”

“What’s that?”

“Gerri Wilder called and wanted you to know that she found your fated and he’s Dayton.”

“I already know that,” she said, trying to hide her excitement, which was quickly squelched as a rumble of trepidation rolled through her heart and mind.

The one true Queen.

Holy fuck. That was too much to deal with.

“And we’ve mated,” she said.

“You don’t sound or look thrilled.”

“He says he’s the one true King of the Wolfairies, making me his Queen,” she admitted. She and Chaz had always been close. They had been the ones to leave the nest first, not wanting to deal with who they were in relation to the rest of the pack. Chaz had sworn he’d never step up as Alpha, and all that changed when he went on a blind date with Daphne.

“That’s a big pill to swallow.”

“In the back of mind, I’m wondering if he’s full of trickery. He didn’t tell me he could communicate with you, and that doesn’t sit well with me.”

“At the time, I think he did the right thing. I’m going to go back to the main house and find Coral and Drew and see if one of them can home in on that vision so we can make a plan for when the protective wrap dissipates.”

“If we can do this, then I bet Dayton and I are strong enough to punch through the wrap at any time.”

“I’m sure you can,” Chaz said. “But I want you to stay put. No one but us knows that the wolf everyone fears is locked up with you. I want to keep it that way for as long as possible. I’m hoping it will help flush out who it is before anyone else dies.”

“Where does everyone think I am?”

“Holed up reading and researching with strict orders to be left alone.”

“That’s a good plan. But I’m warning you, if Dayton knows we can bust out, I’m going to crush him until he begs for mercy.”

“Go easy on him. He’s been either alone in the woods or trapped inside something or someone. He’s doing what he thinks is best.”

“Wow. You’re being so accepting of all of this,” she said.

“If he’s the king, then I get to focus more on other things. It takes a big load off my plate. Besides, it will keep you back here at the farm where you belong.”

“I can’t believe you just said that.” She glanced over her shoulder.

Dayton held a mug to his lips as he stood over the table, flipping pages of one of her art books.

“We need you. And it looks as though an entire species needs you.”

“Ha! Just think. You’re a Wolfairy too and that means you’ll have to bow to your queen.”

Chaz laughed. “I’ll do that when you bow to your Alpha.”

“This is too weird.” She waved her hand, closing the portal. “That’s kind of cool.” She flicked her finger. Fairy dust formed into a circle the size of a golf ball. She shoved it at Dayton.

He held up his hand and flicked it back toward her.

“Shit,” she grunted as the damn hot dust grazed her skin. She considered trying again, but decided it really wasn’t worth it. “Tell me the truth. Can we walk through the protective wrap?”

“We can,” he said, setting down his mug. “But I want to stay in here. We might have read all of this, but we don’t know what it all means.” He held up a book opened to a page with two people lying in a bed together.

She gasped. She’d seen the book of drawings sketched by an artist from the fifteen hundreds. The book had been found in a private library of an eccentric werewolf, along with a few others that related to the Royal Fairies. When she’d first seen the image, it freaked her out how much she’d looked like the figure on the paper. What she hadn’t noticed before was how