Eventually he rolled one shoulder in a particularly negligent shrug. “I’ll think about it. But if I do approve your request, you’ll owe me a tithe.”

  “I thought I already owed you the tithe? Didn’t we just agree to it?”

  He smiled again and appeared almost boyish. “You only owe me the tithe if I agree to my end of the deal.”

  “Oh.”

  “Right. Oh.”

  I still really, really didn’t like the sound of the whole tithe thing but I needed what I needed and if Fox came through for me, then a deal was a deal. And I thought I knew of a way to sweeten the pot. “This, uh, this case involves Taliyah,” I offered.

  His eyebrow raised in obvious interest. “Does it?”

  “It does,” I continued and then realized I was probably going to have to admit to him that I’d broken the magic that was keeping her from becoming Olwen. And I was pretty sure he was going to be angry with me.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Fox poked around in his ice cream abomination, hunting out what looked to be a blob of caramel sauce holding together pieces of pink popcorn. I had to look away to avoid making a face. Supernatural gifts and magic aside, how in the world could he bear to put that lump of disgustingness in his mouth? I felt like I was desiccating into a sugar mummy just watching him.

  When I glanced back, there was definite amusement dancing in those golden eyes. He licked a bit of cotton candy ice cream off the back of his spoon with a grin.

  “You said you had a question for me, too.”

  Right. This was the potentially dangerous part. I took a deep breath and squared my shoulders. “I know you’re friends with Jonathon Moses.”

  ‘Friends’ might not be the right word, but I knew through Poppy that Fox spent a lot of time working with the head of the Hunters Guild of America. And the truth of the matter was that I could hardly stroll up to most hunters and ask them questions, not when they weren’t fond of demons. Fox was in a weird position, since he was supernatural himself, so I was hoping he might be able to shine some light on what I needed to know.

  At the mention of Moses’s name, Fox’s face shuttered, going from real amusement to a politely smiling mask that, if it had been a little less terrifying, I would have dubbed a ‘retail face’.

  “That isn’t a question,” he said, so pleasantly, it felt like a trap.

  I pushed past the conversation warning sign. This was literally a matter of life and death, there wasn’t time to be squeamish or diplomatic. “I know that for a while there, the Hunter’s Guild had a particular hatred for vampires. I just, I was wondering if a hunter had possibly been dispatched very recently to take out a vampire in the Hollow.”

  Fox dropped the mask from his face, a little wrinkle forming between his brows as he rested his spoon against his lower lip. “Hmm. I’ll need the details before I can answer.”

  I winced. That was what I was afraid of. Roy wouldn’t be particularly thrilled with me giving details of the case to someone with close ties to the Hunters Guild, especially because in his mind, this was a Council situation. And Taliyah might actually shoot me, or turn me into a block of ice if she gained enough control over her powers anytime soon.

  But I was pretty sure Fox could help, he just needed information to do it. In for a penny, I guessed.

  “The victim was a vampire who was found propped up on a chair, inside a panic room a couple of days ago inside a new haunted house attraction.”

  “A haunted house attraction in Haven Hollow?” Fox repeated with a chuckle as I nodded and he cocked his head to the side. “Ironic.”

  “Anyway,” I pushed.

  “Anyway,” he answered as he cleared his throat. “How was the victim killed? And was the victim a man or woman?”

  “Woman,” I answered, trying to get the lump out my throat so I could continue. “She had a stake through her heart, and a bulb of garlic in her mouth.”

  Fox frowned and then shook his head. He tapped his spoon against the side of his sundae dish and sat back, expression serious. “It was almost certainly not a hunter who did it, then.”

  A little quicksilver shiver of surprise went up my spine. He sounded so certain. “How do you know?”

  “Hunter policy,” he started delicately with a shrug.

  “Hunter policy?” I repeated, frowning.

  He nodded. “Is to decapitate vampires. If they do take out a vampire’s heart, which is usually reserved only for the very old and the very strong—the master vampires, if you will, then the hunter would do so with the use of a gun, as in, they’d simply shoot the vampire’s heart out of the body. It’s safest to always keep at least a body length away from a vampire, and that goes double during a kill.”

  I sat back, feeling a little queasy. My ice cream had melted into a mess, and the sight of it turned my stomach. I still hadn’t even tasted my coffee.

  Fox didn’t seem to have the same problem. He took another spoonful of his ice cream monstrosity, scraping the sides of the dish, as if trying to get all his money’s worth. “It’s the garlic that’s interesting, really.” He waggled his spoon at me like a conductor’s baton. “Garlic isn’t particularly harmful to vampires, much less deadly. It’s just smelly, which I would imagine is quite irritating to any creature with particularly sharp senses.”

  “So that means?” I started, not following his line of reasoning.

  “That, to me at least, would indicate that your killer is an amateur, and quite possibly a mundane. Putting garlic in the mouth is an old human superstition, after all. Most supernatural beings know it’s just that.”

  I blinked at him, surprised. “You think a human could kill a vampire?” Viviana hadn’t been particularly old, not in master vampire terms certainly, but she was older than a century from what her family had said. Regardless, she was far stronger and faster than any human.

  “Taken by surprise and suddenly, in a place where the vampire felt safe?” Fox chewed some gummy bears carefully, his expression serious. “Yes. It’s possible.”

  A shiver slid down my spine like someone had dropped an ice cube down my back. Even sitting in a pleasantly warm ice cream parlor on a sunny day, I suddenly felt cold.

  Fox scraped up the last dregs of ice cream and candies before setting the empty dish aside. “I’d need to see the house, and to search the girl’s belongings.”

  “Search her belongings?” I blinked, startled at the abrupt shift. “Wait, why?”

  Fox braced his hands on the table, his golden eyes fierce. The lines of his face pulled tight, and if I’d ever had any doubts that the man was dangerous, those doubts went up in smoke. He might dress himself up and play the part of human, but this man was a royal Fae, a prince of the court of Autumn. And that meant he was beyond powerful.

  “Because,” he said, tone grim, full of autumn’s icy chill, of dark nights and fading light. “If I’m right, you don’t have a hunter on your hands, but a murderer. And if that’s the case, then the killer was most likely someone your victim knew.” Then he took a deep breath and that Cheshire Cat smile was back in full force. “Now, let us talk more on Olwen.”

  “Taliyah,” I corrected him.

  “Taliyah,” he repeated.

  I took a deep breath and decided to tell him what I’d done.

  ***

  Strangely, Fox hadn’t been at all angry with me when I told him I’d broken the magic surrounding Taliyah and now she was in full knowledge of what she was soon to become. On the contrary, he seemed almost joyous over the fact that I’d told her and I had to wonder if he simply hoped she’d now know who he was—her intended. I had a feeling that most things that interested Fox were probably motivated by his own self interest.

  Fox pulled up the driveway of the old-Colonial-turned-haunted-house, and as I made out the shape of Taliyah’s squad car already parked in the driveway, my stomach dropped so fast, I was surprised it didn’t make a cartoon whistling sound.

  Because Taliyah being here, when I was about to walk up with Fox, was bad.

  Very, very bad.

  Like, someone might end up shot, bad, and there was a better than half chance that the person would be me since I’d brought all of this on in the first place.

  I’d hoped that Fox could help me out with this case on the down-low—that he’d never have to come face to face with Taliyah in order to do so. And yet, here we now were.

  I was cursed.

  That was the only explanation for it.

  I’d have to stop by Poppy and Wanda’s to see what they could do for me, because there was no other way that so many things could go so badly without some sort of supernatural force working against me. Maybe Ophelia had reached out from beyond the grave to spite me from doing away with her dingy, monochrome office décor, or for having a hand in her death.

  Regardless, I now had to figure out a way to keep Taliyah from Fox and vice versa. I might have screwed things up royally by breaking the curse on Taliyah but I was going to do everything in my power to keep her away from the man who was her intended because I was fairly sure he was the last person in the world she would want to see.

  The whole Fox situation was the last bombshell I hadn’t managed to drop on poor Taliyah the other day. Princess Olwen of Winter was betrothed, since birth, to Prince Reynard of the Autumn court, and they were meant to be married before her coronation.

  And now here I was, about to walk up to the front door with the man in question, while Taliyah was still probably trying to figure out how not to walk around in a constant blizzard.

  I had to somehow get rid of Fox, distract him as I figured out a way to get him to leave. Maybe I could pretend this was the wrong house? But there weren’t any other Colonials in the area, definitely none that doubled as haunted houses, and Fox didn’t strike me as a man who enjoyed or tolerated being jerked around.

  I had to do something, though.

  Taliyah hadn’t exactly reacted well to finding out the truth of who she was. She’d already suffered a spell backlash, a complete upending of her family and life, and had to deal with magical winter powers suddenly coming on line. How the heck would she react to being confronted with the man she was supposed to marry?

  I didn’t want to find out.

  The sound of the driver’s door opening yanked me out of the spiral of my thoughts, and a fresh wave of panic slammed into me as Fox stepped out of the car. I pawed at my seat belt, numb fingers fumbling with the clasp. I was about two seconds from just using succubus strength to rip through the belt when it finally popped free, and I all but fell out of the car.

  Fox was tall, and a lot of that height was leg, so I had to sprint up the driveway to catch up with him. If I’d been human, there was a good chance I would’ve broken my ankle, running in high-heeled boots on the gravel. But, not being human, I managed to catch up with Fox, and sort of half slide myself into his path.

  “What, uh, what are you doing?” I asked as I stopped him from walking around me by taking a step to the right and then grinning up at him like I was some sort of maniac.

  He shot me a puzzled look, one auburn brow sliding up into an arch. “What I promised to do. I’m going to examine the crime scene, and see what I might be able to learn from your victim’s personal belongings. There might be some clue as to who might have wanted to kill her.”

  “Right, right. But, see that car?” I pointed, inanely. There were only two cars in the entire driveway, after all and Fox’s was one of them.

  He looked back and then returned his gaze to me. “I do.”

  “Right… well, that squad car belongs to Chief Morgan. And you’re aware who that is?”

  Fox’s grin grew. “I am.”

  “Okay, so if Chief Morgan is back, then she’s probably doing her own investigation, right?”

  “One would assume.”

  “Annnnd then it probably follows that she wouldn’t like you interfering. Like, not at all.”

  That was the understatement of the century. Maybe the last one, too. Taliyah was intimidating before the whole ‘Sovereign of a Faerie Court’ thing. I didn’t want to see what her anger could do with all the frozen might of Winter behind it. Getting turned into an ice sculpture would really put a crimp in my long-term plans.

  “So, maybe we should wait?” I continued, smiling at him hopefully.

  “Wait?”

  “Yeah and come back later when she isn’t here. We don’t want to get in her—”

  Fox vanished into thin air, leaving only a little cyclone of red and gold leaves to spiral slowly to the earth.

  “Way,” I finished as I grabbed a double fist full of my hair, and somehow managed not to rip it out. “Ugh!”

  This was bad.

  This was really, really bad.

  Because Fox hadn’t left.

  If he had, he would’ve just gotten back into his car and driven his handsome Fae butt back down the driveway and disappeared around the bend in the road. But, no, he’d probably used his power to materialize into the interior of the house, no doubt because he didn’t want to continue dancing the merengue with me. I hadn’t expected him to use his dematerialization skills, because only the most powerful of Fae royalty could manage it, according to Bea.

  “Damn it,” I hissed between my teeth, and darted for the front door.

  The door was unlocked, thank hell for that, and I wrenched it open to dart after Fox. He was probably headed for the basement, since that was where the family’s actual living quarters were, so Viviana’s personal belongings would be down there too.

  I bolted through the house, down the twisting and turning corridors that made up the haunted house and followed the cheerful little path of autumn leaves, until I finally managed to arrive at the carefully concealed access door that would take me downstairs.

  My heels clattered against the wooden steps as I ran down them, praying I could get Fox out before Taliyah saw him and freaked out about, oh, any number of things, such as: being face to face with her promised betrothed, or me randomly showing up at a crime scene, or me bringing an unknown civilian into a crime scene.

  Taliyah had her choice of things to freak out over really.

  I was so busy watching my feet and trying not to slip on the red, orange, and gold leaves scattered on the steps, that I didn’t notice the person stopped dead on the bottom stair until I crashed into his back.

  I got a face full of buttery soft brown leather, and I sputtered, jerking back from having my face mushed into Fox’s back. I was a step above him, which made me just tall enough to look over his shoulder and see what had stopped him in his tracks.

  I could tell he was staring at Taliyah where she stood, her arms crossed over her chest, as she glared at both of us with a gaze so cold, it should have frozen us solid on the spot.

  Chapter Fourteen

  I couldn’t really blame Fox for staring.

  I couldn’t help but stare at Taliyah, too.

  The changes that had started the previous night had become even more dramatic today. If it hadn’t been for the glare and the badge, I wasn’t sure I would have recognized her at all.

  The last traces of blonde and brown had faded entirely from her hair. The no-nonsense shoulder length cut was gone, too. Instead, she had a glittering fall of pure silver that went almost to her waist. I couldn’t believe there’d been such a dramatic change in her hair in just a day and if I hadn’t known better, I would have thought she was simply wearing a wig. Her hair shone like snow under the moonlight, with its own hushed radiance. It looked so soft, I had to curl my fingers into my palms to fight the almost irresistible urge to reach out and touch it.

  “She really is Olwen,” Fox whispered and I was fairly sure Taliyah hadn’t heard him. For that, I was grateful.

  All the faint lines from around her eyes and mouth were gone. No longer the forty-something she’d been, Taliyah now looked like a woman in her early thirties, probably, face flawless, like a marble statue. Even her body had changed. She’d been thin before—some might have even described her as gaunt but not any longer. Now she appeared trim but curvy and athletic, the poster woman for a life of health.

  Her skin almost seemed to glow in the dim light of the basement. Taliyah was pretty before the spell broke, but now she was breathtaking. Literally, in Fox’s case, it seemed.

  I winced because I could imagine how she was taking all these changes and, no doubt, hating them.

  I didn’t know her well, but she struck me as someone who liked to be in control, and having your face and body change after almost half a century, as well as finding out you were a completely different species? Well, that would be enough to knock anyone flat. Not to mention the fact that she was going to have to get a handle on the Faerie ability to use glamour to conceal her true, Fae self, like, pronto, or every mundane she’d ever met was going to freak out about her new, ten years younger, look.

  Oh, hell, what about her sons? Had they woken up not recognizing their own mother?

  Fox sucked in a ragged breath, suddenly lurching back to life again as he seemingly remembered himself.

  “Olwen,” he whispered, his tone close to reverent.

  I cringed, not quite bringing my arms up to shield my ears. I didn’t know what the shape of Taliyah’s freak out would look like when confronted with the sight of her betrothed, but I was just hoping we’d all be able to walk away after the dust settled.

  But if I was expecting an outburst, that isn’t what I got (thank God). Instead, Taliyah just gave Fox an impatient look, her hands braced on her hips (a little too close to her service weapon for my comfort) when those absolutely glacial eyes landed on me.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” Her voice snapped like frozen branches shattering. “This is a crime scene, Fifi. And you brought a civilian with you? What were you thinking?”