Change of Heart (The Potentate of Atlanta Book 3) Read online

  Ford was an easygoing guy who didn’t let much rile him. Right after Natisha healed him, he came to me. He wanted a goodbye kiss, which I gave him on the cheek, and we parted on what I considered amicable terms.

  In the process of avoiding him at the Faraday so as not to rub Midas’s new living situation in his face, I had failed my friend. A healthy dose of ego and remorse had prevented me from seeing that until now.

  The offer turned my blood to ice in my veins, but I made it. “Do you need Natisha?”

  “I’m healed in here.” He pointed to the center of his chest. “It’s here that’s giving me fits.” He knocked on his forehead. “I have a few cousins in Buckhead. I’m going to room with them. See if a change of scenery helps.”

  “Call if you need anything.” Midas stuck out his hand and shook Ford’s. “We’re here for you.”

  “I know.” He yanked Midas into a manful hug then turned him loose. “I appreciate it.”

  Uncertain if an embrace from me would be welcome, I kept my spot on the bed. “We’ll miss you.”

  “Maybe somewhere down the line we can Skype a movie night.” He didn’t approach me, and I wasn’t certain if it was for his sake or Midas’s that he avoided me. “Just…stay safe.”

  “I’ll do my best,” I promised him. “You too.”

  Without warning, Midas slugged Ford, and Ford hit the floor on his butt.

  “What the actual hell?” I leapt to my feet. “Midas, what is wrong with you?”

  Ford waved me off, so yeah, he didn’t want to touch me. Or he wanted to avoid round two with Midas.

  Goddess, gwyllgi males made my head throb with all their posturing.

  “Good for you.” He smiled at Midas, his lip smeared with crimson. “Guess you figured out what you want after all.”

  “Yeah.” Midas locked gazes with me. “I did.”

  “I’m going to brush my teeth.” I swept into the bathroom then paused to glance over my shoulder. “When I get back, I expect you both to have finished punching each other.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Ford got to his feet. “I’ll do my best not to ruin his toothpaste-commercial smile.”

  “I would appreciate that.” I shut the door and left the men to sort themselves out, but I pulled up short at the sink when I noticed Ambrose sitting on its edge. “What do you want?”

  The shadow swung his legs and stared at me.

  “I don’t get it.” I kept my voice soft. “What is it?”

  He pointed at my chest and then at his.

  “Not helping.”

  He pointed at my chest and then his and then the door.

  “We’re leaving in five minutes.” I gave up on him. “Don’t get ants in your pants.”

  An involuntary shudder rippled through me.

  Ugh.

  Ants.

  Heaving a sigh with lungs he didn’t have, Ambrose hopped down and gave me room to brush my teeth with the individually wrapped supplies I located under the sink. The vacation from reality had been nice, but it was time to get back to the city.

  An incoming call from Bishop coaxed a sigh out of me, so I answered while I flossed. “Yesh?”

  “Where are you?”

  “Somewhere you’re not.”

  “I get the sense you’re miffed about Blithe.”

  “Miffed?” I cheesed for the mirror, checking my teeth. “Who says miffed anymore?”

  “You’re pissed I shut you out. That better?”

  Just to annoy him, I made chomping noises.

  “Kid, I would apologize, but I’m not sorry. Blithe is bad news, and her club is the epicenter of this mess.”

  “What’s your deal with her?”

  “I have no deal with her, and that’s the problem. She wants to marry me off to her son. Forge an alliance. Seize control of the city. Crush other species under her boot. That kind of thing.”

  “That sounds like something you should have told me before now.” I tossed the floss. “It’s the coven’s MO, minus the marrying-you bit.” I searched the far corners of my brain but came up empty. “I didn’t realize you had a thing for guys too.”

  More than once, he had dated women. Nothing serious. Just fun and done. Maybe guys had been in the mix too. It’s not like Bishop advertised his personal life. Goddess forbid someone else be on the receiving end of the team’s collective romantic wisdom.

  “I had a thing for one guy,” he corrected me. “He turned out to be a raging momma’s boy, beautiful but spineless, so we broke up. End of story.”

  “A raging momma’s boy?” I squinted at the phone. “Are you telling me Blithe’s son is the guy you dated?”

  “Blithe has been meaning to get around to taking over the world for the last five centuries. All she’s done in that time is addict herself to Faerie-grade drugs and push out one very beautiful and very annoying son who sticks his nose where it doesn’t belong and always comes running when she crooks her finger. He’s her enforcer, and she trained him to be a nasty piece of work.”

  A nasty piece of work he had called beautiful twice in one conversation. “Um…”

  “You begin to see why I don’t want you anywhere near her.”

  “I understood, on some level, that Midas had fae blood.” I washed my face but couldn’t meet my eyes. “I’m still wrapping my head around the fact I had no frakking idea how much fae blood everyone else and their mommas have in this city.”

  “You’ll get there.” The jerk had the nerve to laugh. “Now where are you?”

  The last several hours spent on pack land had pulled me out of a tailspin and given me a glimpse of what life might be like if Midas and I continued down this path. I didn’t want to share it. No, that wasn’t it. I didn’t want to tarnish it.

  “I’ll be back in the city in two hours.” I winced at my rumpled dress. “I’ll change then head to HQ.”

  “I’ll put in calls to the team, see who’s available for—”

  “Lisbeth.” I thumped my forehead on the mirror. “I met her last night.”

  “That’s…interesting.”

  “It totally slipped my mind.” I bumped my head again. “What kind of person forgets something like that?”

  “You really remember her?” He sounded thoughtful. “Huh.”

  “What does that mean? Why aren’t you having a fit?”

  “There’s a geas on the team, similar to the one on me. You’ve bumped into one another any number of times, Linus did too, but you forget. All of it. It’s a precautionary measure.”

  “I assume that was another vow I took and then promptly forgot?”

  “Yup.” He didn’t sound sorry about it. “Try not to think about it. You’ll only give yourself a headache.”

  “Why do I remember her then?” I thought back on what he had said. “Why do I remember this time?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  Lisbeth recognized me enough to call for help, but that wasn’t saying much. I was out in the supernatural public. The potentate had to be, therefore his apprentice did too.

  “I passed her off to Ford.” I exhaled. “I’ll ask where he stashed her.”

  Her first order of business would have been to contact Bishop or me. That she hadn’t made me question if she was in any shape to reach out to us. It also made me wonder why Ford hadn’t mentioned her earlier. Unless…he didn’t remember her either. He wasn’t OPA, so why would the geas affect him?

  “I’ll see you soon.” I ended the call then went to find the guys. “Ford, I’ve got a question before you go.”

  The two of them had gone outside to chat, and I hated that my arrival threaded tension through them both.

  “Shoot.” He straightened from his lean against a nearby tree. “What’s up?”

  “Do you remember Lisbeth, from last night?”

  “Lisbeth.” He shook his head. “Pretty name, but no.” He sobered at my expression. “Should I?”

  “A member of my team was exposed to the drug. I found her on the street and
called you for backup.”

  “I would have taken her to Abbott, and he would have been at the Faraday. He was doing health screenings for the elders.” His frown deepened. “I don’t remember doing it, though.”

  Fingers crossed, I dialed Abbott. “Tell me you’ve got a patient.”

  “I’ve always got a patient, but I believe I know the one you’re interested in. Ms. Lisbeth No Last Name.”

  “Yes.” I sagged on my bones. “That’s her.”

  “Interesting case,” he murmured. “She’s got a geas on her.” He paused as if waiting for confirmation I might as well give him. “I remember everything I’ve said or done when I’m around her, but I forget it once I leave the room.” He sounded thoughtful. “I assume you’re immune, since you don’t appear to have the same limitations as me.”

  “We’re not sure.” I had a delayed recall of her, which might be a fluke or might herald a flaw developing in the magic. “Either way, if she’s good to go, I’ll pick her up in two hours.”

  “I can release her into your care, but she’ll need supervision for a few days.”

  “All right.” I would check with Bishop for the nurse’s information he used for Ford and see if we couldn’t hire her for Lisbeth. “I can handle that.”

  We said goodbye, and I hung up with a grateful heart that Lisbeth hadn’t been lost in the shuffle.

  “I have to go home, change, hit HQ, then meet Abbott.” I kept my distance from Midas and Ford to avoid sparking more conflict, but I was itching to go, and that meant giving Midas an out if he required one. “I can take a Swyft if you’ve got more to do here.”

  “That might be for the best.” He rocked forward onto the balls of his feet then settled back onto his heels, deciding against a more personal goodbye. “I have to meet with Krista’s parents, then I’m going with Mom to visit the teens. We’ll need to address the events of last night with their parents too.”

  “I understand.” I waved to them and headed down the path. “See you at home.”

  The pause between the words leaving my mouth and him returning them stretched throughout infinity.

  “See you at home.”

  The resulting lightness in my chest as I picked my way to the road I blamed on eagerness to return to the city. The goofy smile was harder to explain away, so I didn’t even try. I just enjoyed the feeling of belonging while it lasted.

  Eight

  A stop at home provided me with a change of clothes, a quick breakfast, and a café mocha.

  I called Gayle, but she wasn’t answering her phone, and I figured she must still be in quarantine with the rest of the pack. Worried as she was about Deric, she wouldn’t have left him to detox alone.

  The trip to HQ was, as always, convoluted, but it had decided to be at the base closest to my apartment, for which I was thankful. I wanted to brief the team on what I knew, find out what they had learned, and then get to Abbott’s and reclaim Lisbeth before she slipped our collective memories again.

  All the screens were lit, minus hers, when I entered HQ, and Bishop tossed me a chocolate donut with rainbow sprinkles from a box emblazoned with a familiar logo.

  Ambrose swooped around the hand holding the pastry until I took pity on him and dropped it into the void while no one was looking.

  Much to my amusement, my chocoholic tendencies were definitely rubbing off on him. I just hoped the reverse wasn’t true of his murderous ones.

  “I have the preliminary report on Faete,” Reece said without preamble. “We’ve got a problem.”

  “Hit me.” I stole another donut and ate it before Ambrose guilted me out of it too. “How bad is it?”

  “The cleaners’ database pinged on a match for the primary component.”

  The best thing about the cleaners had to be their expansive database. Thanks to their in with all factions, it collated historical data on every crime involving supernaturals within city limits. Bishop nicknamed her DORA, and it caught on, but I had no idea what it meant, and still no one would tell me.

  Jerks.

  “That’s good, right?” I took a delicious bite of a third donut Bishop forced on me when he noticed my hand was empty. “That means we’ve come across it before.”

  “It’s Martian Roach saliva.”

  The dough in my mouth soured, and I spat it into the trash can before treating Ambrose. Again. Much more reinforcement of his bad behavior and he might begin to think disobedience paid in sprinkles.

  “All those people were getting high off roach drool?” A full-body shudder racked me. “That is so gross.”

  Martian Roaches were a magically engineered cross between the common roach, Periplaneta americana, and the parasitic emerald wasp, Ampulex compressa.

  The natural order was the parasitic emerald wasp stung the common roach, laid an egg on its abdomen, walled it up in its lair, and the larvae fed on the roach. The first sting, they aimed at the roach’s thorax. It contained gamma-aminobutyric acid, taurine, and beta-alanine.

  Not that I knew what any of those were, but they sounded bad.

  With the roach’s front legs paralyzed, it was helpless to escape before the wasp stung it again, right in the brain. The neurotoxic cocktail blocked key receptors responsible for complex movements such as walking. During the process, the host showed no signs of pain or discomfort as it was eaten alive.

  The twist with Martian Roaches was they skipped entombment, overtook their incapacitated hosts, and wore their skins for a period of time before the corpse started decomposing. That was the main difference between them and the witchborn fae coven. The Martian Roaches had a shelf life, but a skin hung in the coven’s closet was an outfit they could wear again and again. Forever.

  “What’s the endgame here?” Bishop leaned back in his chair, and it squeaked. “Why dose them with that?”

  “Perhaps its release was more experimental,” Anca mused. “Invite a variety of species, give them carefully measured samples, ensure they’re ingested with supervision, so that everyone is dosed the same amount. Then cull the specimens. Keep a few indoors to monitor as a control group then set the rest loose to do what they will while the coven watches.”

  “I could see that.” Milo shifted in his chair. “What did we learn about how it affects different factions?”

  “I can vouch that it turns wargs, even alphas, into giggling children with short tempers.” I blocked out the traumatic memory of Mendelsohn tackling me in the buff. “There was also gratuitous nudity, but we were dealing with the Mendelsohns, so that’s probably not a symptom.”

  A grimace passed over Bishop’s face at the mention of our wet warg wrestling session.

  Talk about your tongue twisters. I wasn’t even going to try saying it out loud.

  “Ford passed on word at dusk that inhaling the drug collapsed the lungs of several teens who were lured to Greenleaf by a coven member posing as one of their friends, a teenage girl named Krista.” I kept a level tone when I gave them a friendly reminder. “That first part was meant for Midas’s ears. It’s pack intel, and we do not share it outside this room.”

  “Aww.” Milo heaped sugar into his voice. “Hear that? She’s going all momma bear on us for Midas.”

  “She’s protecting our relationship with the OPA’s single most powerful ally,” Anca chided him, but she let too much amusement flavor her words. “Do we know how any other factions are affected?”

  “There were others unconscious on the street and in various states of lucidity.” I leaned against Bishop’s chair. “We couldn’t exactly stop and check species without being trampled. Crescent was a madhouse.”

  “Vampires got secondary highs,” Bishop informed us, shocking the heck out of me. “I saw it firsthand.”

  Annoyance fizzled through me, but I let it splutter and die. He had called and texted. I was the one who ignored him. He might have told me all this sooner if I had been in any frame of mind to listen.

  “Jemima? The bartender Gayle mentioned?” Bishop raised
his brows. “I hunted her down, asked her a few questions. She clued me in then ditched the bar scene and went home early to, in her words, beat the dickheads home.”

  That was an item checked off my to-do list. I was grateful, if still annoyed with him, to write off one more thing. “Any clue why Krista smelled off to Midas?”

  Bonnie Diaz, aka Snowball, aka Iliana hadn’t raised any red flags for him, but he had known Krista. It might be as simple as that.

  “Black magic.” Bishop grimaced. “They had worked a spell, perhaps the one to take Krista’s body, within hours of you confronting her. That’s what he smelled. She was still…” he worked his jaw, “…fresh.”

  Annnd that’s what I got wishing for simple.

  “Goddess.” I rubbed my forehead, but the headache kept tap-dancing a single buffalo on my brain.

  “The folks zoned out on the street?” He sent a picture from his phone to the screen for us all. “Mostly vampires who fed on humans who took the drug. The humans themselves appeared to be unaffected.” He leaned back. “Fae appear unaffected as well.”

  “Any news on how the Mendelsohns are doing?”

  “They were sedated as of the last update,” Reece informed us. “Three females attacked the medics who separated them from their alpha.” His distaste was clear when he finished his report. “Four more turned on each other when Mendelsohn fell asleep after servicing everyone but them.”

  “I would joke about him having inhuman stamina,” Milo said, “but it’s only funny because it’s true.”

  The side quest Midas and I had volunteered for, collecting the hearts, had been withheld from the team for now, but Bishop’s sharp focus on me warned we would have a long chat once this meeting ended.

  One final item headed up my briefing to-do list, but Bishop must have read it on my face.

  “Reece,” he said, cutting me off before I got started, “keep us updated.”

  “I will,” he mumbled, already distracted. “We’ll have access to the initial test results from the first round of warg blood work within the next six to eight hours.”