Chapter One

Bailey wrapped her fingers tight around the ceramic cup in her hand. She inhaled the scent of the fresh, hot coffee, closed her eyes and dropped her head to the glass pane in front of her. She pulled her knees tight into her body, curling into the corner of the window seat. The icy glass against her forehead forced a deeper sense of melancholy into her bones. She hated being home. Where he was.

Jonas Fee, the ever-present, ever-constant, all-consuming patriarch of the clan Fee. The man that, in a fit of pique, had thrown a knife at her. A hand slipped unconsciously from her cup, fingers finding the now familiar threaded scar on her shoulder. Four years she carried this scar, barely two inches wide, ropy and tight. She could still see his face, eyes wild, mouth contorted and spewing furious vitriol. All because Bailey Fee wanted to pursue a career in Veterinary Science, instead of taking her place in the “family business“. Jonas never did take kindly to someone defying his will.

She snorted. It was almost startlingly loud in the small third floor bedroom. The scar ached from time to time, an unfriendly reminder that being related to the Fee patriarch could be hazardous to one’s health. Until that moment four years previous, Bailey had never experienced the gut burning feeling of hatred. But…she hated him. Passionately. In the privacy of her mind, Bailey could happily admit she hated her paternal grandfather.

That was the same day Bailey took the money out of her college trust and booked a one way flight to Honolulu. She had never thought she would ever again sit in the same window seat that had been her childhood haven. Never thought she’d see these same four walls. She lifted her head away from the window, and opened her eyes. She still had boy band posters on the wall. It would be embarrassing if she could only rouse any form of emotion other than pure unadulterated hopelessness.

A soft tapping on the bedroom door pulled her from her morose reverie.

“Enter.” Her voice cracked, her throat locking around the word. She took a swift drink of the nearly tepid coffee she still gripped in one hand. Clearing her throat, she tried again. “Come in!” The door to her current sanctuary flung open in a wide arc, bouncing noisily off the wall. “Bless it! Silas, the least you can do is not break the damn door.”

“Oops.” Silas grinned unapologetically. “What’d you do, B, grease the hinges? Geez.” Bailey rolled her eyes at her cousin as he awkwardly shuffled into the room, a plate piled with eggs, sausages, and bagels held out in front of him. “I come bearing a peace-offering.” He gestured at the plate before pushing his shaggy black hair out of his eyes.

“It’s not you that needs to broker peace.” She replied, slightly petulantly.

“Awww, B, come on. He only stabbed you once, and that was by accident.” He expertly side-stepped her luggage and held the plate out to her. “Imagine if he meant to do it. You wouldn’t be here, being the brat I know and love, that’s for sure!”

Bailey snorted again, derision written all over her face as she took the plate. “He could’ve killed me, Silas.”

“But he didn’t. And he did apologize. And kept up a rather lavish lifestyle for his favorite grand-daughter. For a full three years after that grand-daughter blew her entire college savings doing the Gods know what in Hawaii. I should know, I balance the damn books for the family business.” He admonished lightly, grabbing her feet and physically turning her away from the window, plunking himself down next to her on the window seat. “Sure, you might’ve had a reason to be pissed. Hell, stay pissed for all I care.” He gestured roughly at the room. “But keep in mind, Bailey Fee, this is all yours. This god-awful house. The business. The running of the entirety of good ol’ Clan Fee.”

“I never wanted it.” Bailey replied softly, spearing a sausage with her fork. “I hate it here. I hate him.”

“Really? Over an accidental stabbing?”

“He threw a knife at me!” She turned to Silas, eyes blazing. “He freaking stabbed me.”

“In the shoulder. You know he’s done much worse for a helluva lot less. Not everyone gets to disrespect him the way you did, B. You know that, right? You basically spit in his face after the twelve years he raised you. He’d been preparing you for the transition of power for years!” Silas scrubbed his hand over his face. “You know what’ll happen if you don’t do the transition soon. Your dad’s not alive, dude. He can’t do it. You’re the only one that’s a direct descendant. If you don’t accept the transition…” Silas trailed off, staring at the plate in Bailey’s hand as he tried to gather the right words. “It all ends. All of it. You know that.”

“I know, why do you think I’m here.” Bailey ground out before standing to slam the plate on her bedside table. “Why the hell do you think I came back?! Why do you think I gave up my own damn slice of heaven to haul ass back to these hills when I’d caught word of his stroke?”

“A slice of heaven that the man you hate so damn much paid for, y’know. Just in case we’re counting. Did you really need to lease an apartment for three thousand a month? Isn’t that just a tad ridiculous?”

Bailey rolled her eyes again, and let out a frustrated sigh. “Dude.” She crossed her arms. “Anyway, has everyone made it in yet?”

“There were only two on assignment, they should be here later today.”

“Who?”

“Dallas and Charity.” Silas replied, rubbing the back of his neck. “Jonas doesn’t have long. You need to get out of your feelings or go sort them with him. He’s unresponsive, but you can rage at his body.”

“Are the portals still holding fine? And how many crossovers are expected today? I need a rundown, and maybe access to the logs for the last few weeks, just to make sure we don’t have any lingering vacationers.”

“No vacationers, just regulars, and it’s a rest-day on the other side, so no expected crossovers until tonight.”

“Who’ll be coming?”

“You’re not going to be happy, B. Maybe we should just leave it. You won’t even be seeing them anyway, too busy transitioning.”

Bailey bit her lip and groaned. “For criminy's sake. It can’t possibly get any worse. I hate it here!” She flung herself on the bed, prepared for the nerves to make themselves known. “Of course the only possible witnesses would be the Royals. All of them, or can we count ourselves lucky and they’ll send just a single representative?”

“They have to witness, B. You know it’s going to be all four. You know this already.” Silas sighed. “Jayce, Beckett, Tobin, and Gemma.” He ticked off the names on his fingers. “And each of their retinues.”

“Gemma?” Bailey sucked in a breath. “When did she ascend?!”

“A lot can happen in four years.” Silas shrugged. “Apparently Winter’s Court is a little more cutthroat in recent years. You can’t predict the nature of the UnSeelie. You know this. At least it’s Gemma. She practically grew up here. Jayce is going to be the issue. Gossip has it that he’s yet to find his Queen. You know the Spring Court doesn’t allow a Lordling to sit for too long if there’s not a fertile Queen on the throne. Throws off the balance or some shit. They were speculating for a while it might be Gemma, but when she came to visit a few months ago, she said there was no Spark for them.”

Bailey picked up the plate and started picking at the food again. “I wonder what the Spark is like.” She shoved a bite of bagel in her mouth, waving the rest of it around erratically. “Wouldn’t it be great if we could find our perfect partners like that? No guessing, no dating. Just Spark and that’s it.”

“I dunno, I like sowing my oats, if you know what I mean.” Silas waggled his eyebrows and smirked.

“As long as you aren’t plowing your fields without making sure the equipment is properly protected, I don’t see why not. But yuck…I never needed to imagine you plowing anything. Seriously though, we can’t handle any accidents around here.” Bailey squinted in Silas’s direction. “No unclaimed babies running around. Gods only know we don’t need the bad press, especially if the kid turns out to be an Inherent. You get that, right? You took the same half-ass health class I did.”

Silas pursed his lips, “You’re an Inherent, B. You were almost unclaimed. Would it be too awful, really?”

“For the human? Yeah, probably. Without proper care, you know Inherents kill their mothers.” She gestured at herself. “The first of many murders on my hands.” She took another savage bite of bagel. “But that’s life. Good ol’ dad didn’t worry about Cassie Timms. And because of his oversight, Cassie died well before her natural time, I was deprived the love of a mother, and then the bastard had the nerve to kill himself instead of transitioning or making another sibling so I wouldn’t be saddled with this crap.”

“I just love it when you get all nostalgic.”

“Forgive me. I forget what kind of coddled, precious darling you are. Pride of your parents. Loving, respected members of Clan Fee. Please, if my disillusionment is so off-putting, I’m sure there’s actual work for the personal assistant to be doing, right?”

“I missed you too, bitch.” Silas hopped up and grinned at her. “I’ll see you tonight.”

“Yeah, I’ll be the one up front. You know, the one who pays the price of our freedom with her body and liberty. Yeah, that one.” She waved a hand at him dismissively.

Once Silas was safely away, Bailey moved her plate back to the bedside table. There would be no more time for food. In close to an hour she would need to start the ritual preparation. She stood and wiped her sweaty palms on her pants legs. Nothing quite like the thought of getting ravaged by wild fae Magick to put a damper on even the most potent appetite.

The transition was not something Bailey had asked for. Or ever wanted. She would become a vessel for the Magick that powered the portals between realms. She would house the entirety of the wild Magick of Faerie that leaked through the portals. Direct descendants were the only ones who could, though the Fee clan hosted some of the largest numbers of Inherents. Ancient human ancestors decided to warm the bed of some blasted Fae, and the resultant children could access some remote DNA encoded recessive gene that tapped into the Earth Magick.

Every member of the Fee clan could wield Earth Magick. Inherents were special because of the ability to mix that magick with wild Fae Magick. The perfect born protectors of the portals. Keeping tabs on crossings, making sure no Seelie or Unseelie were wreaking havoc on the human world. There were four known portals. One for each realm of Faerie. Each with their own clans to guard these portals on the Earth side. Why the Fae ever wanted to visit this dusty rock had never made sense to Bailey, but that wasn’t for her to question. Her duty was simple. Make sure no creature brought undesired attention to the Fae, using whatever force necessary.

She’d lost count of the sheer amount of goblin deaths on her hands, and that’s from the tender age of six, when she first came to the Clan house. Jonas had taught her several ways to murder the Fae without so much as batting an eye. But only the bad ones. The ones that hurt humans. That used them for pleasure or food. Or both.

Both was the worst. She had memories of scores of women, dead, half-dead, and the ones that were just…vacant. No soul left. Every bit of the very essence of them, gone, sucked dry. Incubi were nasty assholes like that. Leaving behind husks of humans, breathing vegetables. Those were the killings Bailey maybe enjoyed. She used to think herself an angel of vengeance. A defender of the human race, a freaking super hero.

Then she grew up. She began to understand that she was no different than those she executed. She just had legal reprieve to do so. Possible government grants, if the accounts were notated correctly. Whoever wrote that damn grant proposal probably deserved a medal.

Bailey heaved another sigh and flopped on her bed again, feeling the drama of the moment, and a hysterical giggle escaped her before she could stop it. The only silver lining in this entire doomsday was the fact that she would get to see Gemma again. Not that she particularly wanted the Sidhe royals in attendance.

She had no knowledge of the other three. But Gemma had been part of a very short lived, for Fae, foreign exchange program. Each clan had hosted an heir to each Fae throne. It was sold as a way to foster understanding and perhaps lead to a furthering of alliances. Not that the Fae were easy allies to have. And what exactly everyone was allied against always seemed to escape Bailey. It didn’t seem as if there was anything to ally against unless it was those Fae that liked to wreak havoc on earth.

Bailey felt her eyes flutter as her thoughts fuzzed. The jet lag had finally caught up to her. She allowed sleep to claim her. There was no better way to pass time, especially since she had no desire to give a deathbed pardon to her grandfather. He should go to the grave knowing the child who used to worship the ground he walked on now hated his guts. Maybe it would make his afterlife suck. That thought sent Bailey into the most restful sleep she’d had in four long years.