Sebastian (Bowen Boys, #5)(38)

“My lord, the faerie has not been to the pizza place for many days. Do you think that she has been terminated?” It took him several seconds to realize that Bill had meant fired, not killed. “She is mostly in the computer place where we have been.”

He nodded. “Perhaps she just took another job to be closer to her mate. I would if I were her. It’s comforting to have someone you know close by.”

Bill flushed when Wanera winked at him. He wasn’t sure what possessed him to do something like that, but he enjoyed the man’s company a great deal and was learning a great deal from him.

When the door slammed open behind them, Wanera stood and pushed Bill behind him.

“She comes, my lord. Mistress comes.”

Wanera looked down the hall and could see his boss coming toward him. He looked at Bill.

“You have to hide. You know that she doesn’t like you.” Most of the beings disappeared just as his boss, Lady Darkness, came through the door.

“What the f*ck is going on around here? I’m gone for a few decades and it looks like you’ve made changes to everything I liked. And what the hell is up with all these name tags? They mean nothing to me. Get rid of them.” Five beings ran from the room and he watched them with his eyes, wishing he could go with them. “Aren’t you going to offer me a seat, Wanera? And a drink?”

He pushed the computer chair he’d been sitting in moments before to her and then went to find someone to get him a bottle of something for her to drink. Bill usually took care of this and he’d sent him away. The moment he stepped through the doorway to see what he could find, he heard a whisper of his name. Bill was standing there with a large glass in his hand.

“Thank you.” Bill nodded. “Find the others and tell them I’m sorry. Then all of you stay hidden. Hide in my room if you must.” He turned back to the epicenter and handed her the glass, then sat in the other chair across from her as she sipped.

“You’ve been busy spending money, I see.” He looked at the computer she was glaring at. “What on earth do you need something like this for? Does it kill things from here?”

“No, mistress, it does not.” He nearly told her about the videos they’d been looking at when he realized she would find no humor in them. “I’ve been using it to find information on…on bad guys.”

“And what have you found?” She leaned forward in her chair, and he was sickened by her odor. “There has to be something if you’ve spent all this money.”

At random he clicked on one of the icons that he’d asked Bill about yesterday. He thought this one was the database to the police station. He was glad when he saw that when it opened, it was just that. He showed her how they were able to follow the most heinous crimes without leaving the room.

“Some humans have no regard for the law, and that’s just….” He’d just caught himself from saying that was just horrible. He let her think whatever she wanted as he clicked on other parts of the page.

When had he changed? He knew that he had and wasn’t unhappy with it. He wasn’t lonely anymore, and he laughed. He tried to remember, before he’d gone to see the male faerie, when he’d slept so well and had been so…well, he was happy. He realized she was speaking to him and turned back to her.

“I asked you if you’d found a bride to breed with. Last time I was here you were saying that you were looking. Well?” Wanera decided at that very second that he didn’t want a bride that he didn’t know to come there. “Well, *, I’m speaking to you.”

“No. I’ve been looking, but there doesn’t seem to be many brides out there that would come to live in this realm with me.” Sad but true. “I’ve decided that I might retire before my time is up.”

She stood so quickly that the pain in his chest was secondary to the shock of her advancing on him. He lay there with his chest bleeding, wondering what had happened. She jerked him up by his throat, and he was glad for once that he didn’t need to breath.

“You listen to me, you f*cking poor excuse for a demon. You find you a bride and bring her here. I want you to bring several of them so that one of the f*cking bitches will breed and live long enough to sire you a child. I will not be thwarted on this, do you understand me?” He tried to nod but couldn’t, but she must have seen something. “You’ll do this or so help me, I’ll kill you myself by peeling every inch of skin off you an inch at a time.”

He was thrown across the room and hit the crates that were being loaded with the older computer and things that they no longer had uses for. When she came toward him again, he curled into a ball, afraid that she was going to start now on killing him.

“If you do not have a bride here within a month, I’m coming back here and killing you. And when I do, I’m going to kill each and every one of your little beings until I get to that little cock sucker that I hate more than I do humans.” She kicked him again. “Don’t think that I don’t know that you hid them away.”

He didn’t move but lay there as she kicked him half a dozen more times. By the time she left the room, he was hurting so badly that he almost wished for death. He looked up when Bill and a couple of others came into the room.

“Don’t let her find you.” Bill said she was gone. “I have only a month to find a bride or she’s coming back to kill us all.”