I might be strong, but I was also inexperienced. Having raw strength wouldn’t mean anything if I was going up against someone with actual skill. After a long, heart-crushing moment, Fox shook his head, and I couldn’t stop the relieved breath that rushed out of my throat.

  “I still have enough regard for your late parents that I won’t wage war against you or your court,” Fox said, but the anger was still dancing in his eyes. “However. Autumn is withdrawing all aid, and I will not come to help you, or the Hollow, until you dissolve your bond with the Blood Warlock.”

  His words sent an unpleasant little jolt through me. I hadn’t mentioned Maverick.

  “How did you know?” I started.

  “I sensed the ritual Wanda used to link you both together—the signature of the magic is hanging around you,” he snapped.

  “Oh.” It was all I could think to say.

  But, really, that wasn’t the best news I’d heard all day. I’d wanted to keep Maverick’s name out of things. He’d done me a huge favor, and I didn’t want him getting dragged into garbage Faerie politics over it. Who knew if Fox planned to pay Maverick a little visit. If that happened, I wasn’t sure who would be the victor. Maverick, as far as I knew, was pretty damn powerful.

  “I don’t want you bringing Maverick into this,” I started.

  Fox glared at me. “I have no interest in bringing the warlock into it.”

  That was a relief. But it also wasn’t great to hear that Fox was so pissed off that he was taking his ball and going home. I might not like the guy; he was high-handed, stubborn, and determined to see my entire life as some unimportant detail to be discarded. But he also didn’t seem to be a bad person, as far as I could tell. For one thing, Poppy seemed to think very highly of him and she was usually a good judge of character. Not that that really meant anything, but it was something.

  And I’d heard that Fox had come to Haven Hollow’s aid in the past more than a few times, and he’d helped me the last time Janara’s right-hand woman, Lady Evergreen, and her little band of usurpers had tried to kill me.

  The truth of the matter was that I hated that we were parting like this—but, I also didn’t see any way around it.

  Fox turned to look at me, his face carefully neutral. “Until the bond is dissolved, we are no longer allies.”

  Why did that sound so ominous?

  Before I could say anything, he vanished in a flurry of gold and russet oak leaves that swirled into the corners of my office with a soft hissing sound.

  I watched them settle against the floor, dry and brittle, and couldn’t help but feel just a little hopeless.

  Chapter Twelve

  Be it Portland or Haven Hollow, all towns and cities were alike in one thing; the holidays always involved extra paper work for law enforcement—usually stuff we’d left for the last minute but had to complete before the end of the year.

  Don’t get me wrong, I was glad to have something to keep my mind off all the other ways my life was imploding. And quite frankly, after Portland’s collection of assault and domestic violence reports, anything the Hollow threw at me was a walk in the park by comparison. It was all pretty small potatoes. Some mischief, some vandalism. One report for the theft of Mrs. Delong’s Christmas gnome, which after the year I’d had, I almost filed under an abduction case before she clarified that it was a yard ornament.

  Just a yard ornament.

  So, while there was a ton of stuff to do, the work was almost relaxing in its own way. Like meditation. But filled out in triplicate.

  I needed something to distract me from all the crap piling up in my personal life. If the meeting with Fox Aspen wasn’t bad enough, I’d also had to clear my voicemail inbox of a bunch of messages from Jonathon, who’d decided to start annoying me in a different way. Instead of litigation, he was just going to harass me into a stroke, sending one filthy sexual message after another, trying to convince me to go back to him. Detailing all the things that he would do to me if I did.

  It seemed like once he realized I was immune to his power, he went into panic mode and now wouldn’t leave me the hell alone.

  Ugh. After I deleted the last obscene message, I felt like I needed to take a decontamination shower.

  At the sound of my deputies laughing, I felt a little smile come to my face. It was nice to hear a normal sound—a sound I used to take for granted. As to their laughter, cops tended to joke around a lot. Sometimes it made it easier, to deal with the ugly stuff you saw on the job. Cracking jokes was distracting and made everything a little less real. Gallows humor, they called it. So, when the laughter started out in the precinct, I didn’t think much of it. Eventually, Officer Kelley knocked on my door, his face a little too straight.

  I raised an eyebrow.

  “Hey, Chief,” he said in the way guys do when they’re trying desperately not to crack up but failing miserably. “I, uh, I think someone sent you a stripper-gram.”

  He dissolved into another bout of laughter, and I pushed away from my desk with a loud scrape of the metal chair legs. Now that I knew what had everyone cackling like a pack of hyenas, I wasn’t in the mood for it. And if someone had actually decided to prank me with a stripper gram, I’d make sure they regretted it.

  For a single instant, I was terrified it was Jonathon pulling something in person after I hadn’t responded to any of his messages. But no, this wasn’t his style. He was way too full of himself to do anything that might get him jokingly labeled as a ‘stripper-gram’.

  I strode out of my office and headed for the front desk. I barely made it four steps before my steps stuttered and I swore under my breath.

  Cardinal was waiting at the front desk, trying to chat with the sergeant on duty. But that wasn’t what had me ready to slap my own forehead. No, the slap to the forehead was reserved for her outfit.

  She was wearing a spangled silver top with no sleeves, and a plunging neckline that had a fluffy white fur collar that framed her cleavage in a way that I suspected required magic to pull off. Her glittery skirt barely covered the tops of her thighs and had a slit up one leg that was dangerously high. Her thigh-high boots had enormous, chunky plastic heels that were filled with water and snowflake confetti. The Russian style white fur hat she was wearing had more fabric than the rest of her outfit put together, and I was pretty sure if she was anyone other than a Winter Fae, she’d have been hypothermic from just walking across the parking lot.

  Not to mention she was lighting up the precinct like a bloody disco ball, and I was pretty sure some of the officers were going to hurt themselves from laughing so hard or from gawking even harder. I could see them hovering, leaning out of cubicles and over desks, trying desperately to see what my reaction was going to be. No way was I going to give them one. It would just make everything worse. I was already going to be hearing about this for months.

  “Happy Holidays, Chief,” someone called and set off another round of baying laughter.

  “What do you get for the Police Chief that has everything?”

  “Aw, Chief, you shouldn’t have!”

  “Talk about a holiday bonus!”

  I took Cardinal by the arm and steered her back outside. At least out there, we could have something that was adjacent to a private conversation so long as we stayed away from the windows. Furthermore, it wasn’t like the temperature was a problem for either of us. Besides, no way was I risking taking her into my office. I’d never hear the end of it.

  “I’m assuming there’s a good reason you’re here,” I started grimly as I marched her around the corner of the building and out of sight of the front windows as I then rounded on her. “A really good reason.”

  Cardinal fixed me with a look. She appeared nervous, but resolute, which was impressive, considering her outfit. “We need to talk.”

  I swept my suit jacket back to brace my hands on my hips and told myself to count to ten. I had enough shit piled high on my plate and dealing with Jonathon’s newest flavor wasn’t on my list. “Unless you’ve talked Jonathon into leaving town, then I don’t think we have anything to talk about.” I couldn’t handle even one more moment of supernatural nonsense. I was officially fed up. Jonathon skipping out would be at least a quarter of a headache gone.

  I couldn’t block my ex-husband’s number, not while we still technically had some legal matters to settle, but boy I sure was tempted. If I wasn’t worried about him letting something slip out of spite, I’d have been tempted to send a few officers around to explain what harassment was, and why it was against the law. If I got one more explicit text, I might just send them around anyway, and damn the consequences.

  Cardinal waved an impatient hand, her face screwing up in a delicate scowl of disgust. “I broke up with Jonathon the other night.”

  “Oh.” That wasn’t what I’d expected to hear.

  “He was an ass…”

  “Is that what you came—”

  “No,” she interrupted. “What I need to talk to you about concerns our court.”

  Wow. Somehow, she’d managed to find something I wanted to talk about even less than Jonathon. I’d have been impressed if it weren’t so aggravating. “Listen, Cardinal—”

  “No, you listen,” she said, her voice tight. “Er, please,” she continued with a little apologetic smile, like she’d just realized I was still a princess. “You’re… well, you’re not being a good monarch.”

  It wasn’t her accusation that caused my mouth to shut so fast that my teeth almost clicked together. It was the desperation I could hear beneath her words, like a deadly undertow in a frigid lake.

  Cardinal’s hands twisted together, and she started turning a chunky ring with stones laid out in a snowflake pattern around and around on her finger. “Word has started to get around about your broken engagement with Prince Reynard, and Autumn’s withdrawal from their side of the pact.”

  “He said he wouldn’t wage war against us,” I said, frowning.

  “It doesn’t matter—it’s still really bad. It puts Winter in a very precarious position.”

  Something like worry and frustration was rolling around in my stomach like the worst case of acid reflux. I got that no one in Faerie was impressed with me not happily hitching myself to some man I’d barely even met, but I was beyond done with all of this mess. “I don’t know what you want from me, Cardinal.”

  Part of me was surprised that the ring hadn’t worn its way through her skin, with the way she was twisting it. Cardinal shook her head, and I saw the mirror of my own frustration in her eyes and the tight hold of her mouth.

  “You don’t seem to understand.”

  “You’re right—I don’t and no one seems to want to explain a damned thing to me.”

  “You’ve lost Autumn’s support, Taliyah, and that leaves any of your loyalists in a really, really bad spot.” She bit her full lower lip hard enough that the skin blanched pale. “If Janara gets free and takes your throne, good people… loyal people, will die. And all because you didn’t want to fulfill your duties.”

  Her words landed like a slap to my face and stung just as badly. The grip on my temper slipped a little. “That’s not fair,” I snapped, taking a step forward as I breathed in deeply and shook my head. “It isn’t fair to ask this of me.”

  “It’s not about being fair,” she started, but it was my turn to interrupt.

  “I didn’t ask to be queen. If the Winter Court wanted me to be this perfect Fae royal, then maybe they shouldn’t have dumped me into a household of humans with definite opinions about freedom and individuality.”

  I was breathing hard, sharp little bursts of air through my nose. My hands were clenched into fists at my side, so tight they were shaking. Adrenaline and something colder sang through my veins, kicking the wind up around us as little flurries of snow whipped through the air like a warning.

  I pulled my power back, forced my breathing to slow. I was in control.

  I looked down at Cardinal, my face tight with the effort of holding myself in. “I deserve to decide who I love, and what I do with my life. Just because my life isn’t what you all want me to be, doesn’t make it any less mine. You can’t ask me to just abandon it.”

  There were tears in Cardinal’s eyes, glistening crystalline drops. She shook her head, never breaking eye contact. “You’re selfish,” she rasped, her voice trembling with her own desperate fury. “The blood of anyone who dies from this is now on your head.” She shook her own head. “And people will die, Taliyah, you’ve just basically made it so.”

  Without another word, she spun on her ridiculous heels and stormed across the parking lot, heading God only knew where. I watched her until she stalked around the corner and out of sight. All my anger evaporated then, condensing instead into guilt that dragged my shoulders down. I raked a hand back through my hair, and my fingers got tangled before I remembered I’d stuffed it all into a knot at the back of my head. I couldn’t even cut it to keep up with it because it grew back too fast.

  But my hair wasn’t what was concerning me.

  I hadn’t considered what refusing to take my throne would mean for the little guys like Cardinal. I’d just wanted to keep my life, my freedom. I hadn’t really bothered to think about the Winter Court itself, or the non-royals within it.

  Maybe Cardinal had a point. Maybe I was being selfish.

  I just wasn’t sure what I could do about it anymore.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Time slipped by, as I wrestled with my decision.

  I felt bad about it, I did, but I also didn’t regret what I’d done. It wasn’t just my life, after all. When I’d adopted Sean and Charlie, I’d made them a promise to look after them, to love them, to put them and their best interests first. Abandoning them, or uprooting them so they’d never see their friends or their new family again… well, it wasn’t good for them, never mind the threat to their lives. So, what was the solution? Keeping them locked up and ‘safe’ somewhere? That was no way for a child to live. That was no way for anyone to live.

  I did what I could to keep myself busy, and it wasn’t difficult. There was always something to be handled. Work, Council meetings, spending time with the boys, attempting to make cupcakes for a winter party Charlie’s school class was having. Then giving up on attempting to bake said cupcakes and opting, instead, to visit the bakery.

  I didn’t make much progress on getting control of my magic. I hadn’t seen Bea since our last conversation. I’d tried calling her once, but she never responded. That hurt, but I tried to understand. With Fox and more notably, the Autumn Court, withdrawing its support from the Hollow because of me, it made me persona non grata, and it would have put Bea in a really unfortunate position as my mentor.

  Unfortunately, I didn’t really know any other Fae in the Hollow, at least not any who were willing or able to teach me. The Nymphs and Dryads that had taken over the old nursery seemed nice, but unless I wanted to learn how to keep an orchid alive, or grow some mint in my windowsill, there wasn’t a lot they could do for me.

  So, even though my power kept growing, surging inside me every time my emotions slipped their leash, there wasn’t much I could do except fumble around on my own. At least I hadn’t filled the house with snow, again. There was that.

  A day or so after my confrontation with Cardinal, I woke up from a dreamless sleep in the middle of the night, filled with a sense of looming dread. My breath had caught in my throat and for a split second, I worried someone had broken in. But there was no sound, no movement. Whatever it was I was sensing, it wasn’t an immediate physical threat.

  I kicked myself free from my comforter and rolled out of bed. If anything, the feeling of impending doom was growing. It was like being in the shadow of a tsunami, watching the darkness grow, and knowing the black waters will fall over you any second. But in my case, the tsunami was invisible. I couldn’t see it, but damn could I feel it.

  My breath grew harsh, my throat feeling like sandpaper as I burst out of my room and down the hall to where the boys were sleeping. I cracked the door open, not wanting to wake them up, but driven forward by a horrible sense of wrongness. My parents had already left for their trip to Florida so I didn’t need to worry about them.

  Both boys were sound asleep, Sean in his wild sprawl of limbs like a drunken starfish, and Charlie wrapped around his stuffed bunny, barely the top of his head visible. I snuck a little closer, tiptoeing across the carpet to make sure everything was alright, even though I still couldn’t shake the feeling that it was anything but. Sean let out a little snore, and that particular fear faded, at least. My boys were okay. They were safe.

  But the feeling didn’t go away. It just kept building, and building further, until I felt like I was going to scream.

  Unsure as to what in the hell was going on or why I was feeling this way when everything appeared to be hunky dory, I hurried back to my room to grab my cell phone and started throwing on clothes. My pajamas were comfortable, but they weren’t really appropriate in an emergency—even though I wasn’t necessarily sure this counted as an emergency because I had no idea what was wrong—just that something was. I dialed Maverick’s number, and stuffed my phone between my cheek and shoulder while I shimmied into some actual pants.

  He answered halfway into the first ring, even though it was late. Or early, depending on how you looked at it.

  “Tally?”

  “Hey.” I did up my pants and started lacing my shoes. “Sorry for waking you up.”

  “You didn’t,” Maverick answered, without a hint of the teasing he usually had in his voice when we spoke. “I was already awake. For the same reason you are, I suspect.”