Chapter 23

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

G wil wasn't someone who felt extremes of temperature, but as he woke he had a layer of warmth pressed down his back that he wasn't used to and an arm around his waist. His mind slid into the right gear to realise Hyax had curled around him in his sleep. It was nice, a bit too nice for someone meant to be just a friend, but he didn't want him to let go. They'd never shared a bed before, and he'd not taken Hyax to be the clingy type.

He should move before Hyax woke up and they had another embarrassing conversation to deal with. Last night had been bad enough and his Victorian upbringing, although tempered by experiencing the 1960s first-hand, was not cut out to have an early morning heart-to-heart.

Trying not to disturb Hyax too much, he tried to lift his arm, but instead of freedom he got held tighter and treated to a low growl. Not a noise he associated with the fae. He peered down to see that the arm was actually a large paw. Turning around, he saw it was not Hyax but some sort of shaggy hairy thing. He screamed.

He jumped out of bed. Hyax sat bolt upright, his blond hair fluffed up, a bit like a dandelion clock. "What's going on?"

"There's something in the bed!"

A large lump was underneath the bedclothes, and Hyax pulled them back to reveal a furry creature somewhere between a bear and a cat, it was the length of a man and with long fur but, as he stared, it began to shrink in size. "Bloody hell, Gwil. It's just Meddi."

Meddi was now only the size of a large cat, and it crawled into Hyax's lap. He began to stroke it.

"What the fuck is it? And why was it wrapped around me?"

Hyax scratched Meddi's ear and it wriggled so it lay on its back with four paws in the air. "He's my pet talkist, sort of like a fae cat. He must have got in during the night and come for a cuddle."

"It had me in a death clutch."

"Nonsense. Shows he likes you, he must have thought you were cold and needed warming up. Which makes sense I suppose because you don't exactly run to normal body temp."

Meddi chirruped.

"How did he get in? The door was closed."

Hyax frowned. "I don't know. He's a clever fellow but he can't open doors. Someone must've let him in. Maybe he was making a fuss and one of the maids did it."

"Your servants would do that? Sounds a bit like overstepping the mark."

"You're right. I don't think it was a maid." Hyax tutted. "I bet my mother let him in—her and her sodding tests."

"Why would she do that?" Was nothing simple with the fae? Last night Hyax was being paraded around in front of men deemed acceptable to court him, and now this.

Hyax looked sheepish. "Talkists are a bit like a witch's familiar. If he had taken against you, she would have known we weren't friends as Meddi wouldn't have tolerated you. You have Midnight, and she is friendly to me."

He suspected Hyax wasn't being entirely truthful. "Midnight tolerates you by sitting on your lap and expecting to be fed, not crawling into bed and trying to hug you to death."

"Well, Midnight is a cat, Meddi isn't. You shouldn't judge everything by your human world's standards." He shooed Meddi away. "We should get ready. We're seeing the coronet after breakfast and the security council leader, Lindle, is supposed to come along to answer our questions."

"At least we'll be able to get back to business. How do you want me to react in front of everyone? Do they expect you to have changed your mind after last night?"

"Seeing how I left things, they should not expect me to be any less devoted to my chosen partner. I'm going to treat you like my betrothed, and I expect you to do the same. But keep your hands off my wings or I might not be able to contain myself."

He stared at the shimmering wings, he itched to stroke them, to get the response he'd wanted from Hyax for years, but it wouldn't be right. Instead he pulled out a set of fresh clothes from his bag. "Message received—no touchy the flappies. I'll get dressed."

He changed in the bathroom after a quick wash and brushing his teeth. His fangs were sensitive this morning, perhaps it was the rat's blood, or general unease from being here in this ridiculous situation. When he returned he was relieved to find Hyax had also changed and after he'd applied four different face creams and spent half an hour in the bathroom they were ready to go down for breakfast.

He was surprised to find no one waiting for them. "We're on our own for breakfast?"

"I may have been quite choice with some of my words," Hyax admitted as he bade Gwil to sit. "I hope it'll give us some space to work without being overburdened by family members who are curious about the vampire I've chosen over some of the most eligible fae in the realm."

"Are they curious about me, or why you chose me?"

"I don't think you need me to answer that."

Hyax spoke to a servant in his native tongue and Gwil found it impossibly hot. The fae language reminded him a bit of Celtic with its lilting dialect. But while he could speak and understand the Celtic language, a gift from his sire, he had no clue what Hyax had ordered. The matter was resolved moments later when a tray with a selection of food was placed in from of them. "I thought you might like to try a few things. Did you eat much last night?"

"A bit of fruit, but the rat's blood kinda did it for my appetite."

"The what?"

He hadn't mentioned it, and he probably shouldn't have said anything now. "The blood substitute that was provided was a little further down the food chain than what I'm used to."

Hyax gritted his teeth. "Another slur. I will take this up with my mother."

"I'm not sure if it was from the kitchens or placed there by my visitor."

"But she would not have done that unprompted. You're a guest, the partner of a prince. Any guest, even a vampire, should be shown respect when they have been invited."

Gwil didn't want to make a fuss over it. They'd only be here a couple of days, he had blood stocks with him, which meant he didn't need to rely on the fae's hospitality. "It's not worth bothering over if it's an isolated incident. For now, as long as no one tries to kill me in my sleep or tries to impede our investigation, we need to keep as many people on our side as possible."

"I will leave it for now, but they should be respectful." Hyax grasped his knife a little too hard for Gwil's liking. "But I meant what I said. Even if you weren't my betrothed, you are my business partner and friend, and that should have been enough for you to receive better treatment than you have."

A servant returned with a tray of interesting-looking food that turned out to be fruit in the main, apart from a selection of sweet pastries that were obscenely good. Gwil thought he was going to have to get Hyax to bring some back every time he visited home. Hyax was in a sullen mood. Gwil knew it wasn't directed at him but dealing with a pissy fairy on top of everything else was not going to help.

"Are you finished?" Hyax asked.

Gwil eyed the last pastry but thought better of it. "Yeah, I'd like to get a look at the coronet, and see if we can figure out how the stone was taken."

"I might be able to get a projection from the room, pick up an echo of what happened, although too much time might have passed."

Hyax pushed away from the table and stood. Gwil followed him out. Part of him had expected the fae not to give him access to the coronet, another way of showing he was an outsider here. "At least they're letting me near it."

"Yes, well, my mother did suggest otherwise, but if they want you to do your job then they need to make sure you have access."

"I can see their point, I'm not fae and it is one of your people's most precious artefacts."

"If they hadn't let someone walk off with part of it they wouldn't be in this mess and wouldn't need to ask a vampire for help."

The castle had a warren of little passageways that should have been a deterrent to an average thief. The twists and turns were disorientating even with his heightened senses although he could tell they were heading into the lower levels due to the slope of the floor.

"I hope you know the way back."

"Don't worry, there's the equivalent of a breadcrumb trail for those of us of royal blood." Hyax pressed his hand against a door. "In theory, only those with permission can open this door, and that includes members of the royal family and trusted officials."

"Which means, unless it was circumvented, it had to be someone on that list. Have all the security officers been interviewed?"

"Yes, nothing came up, but I think this is beyond the capability of the average guard."

Gwil wasn't ready to rule anyone out at this point. The door swung open to reveal a pedestal and a golden crown that appeared to be suspended a little above a velvet cushion. "Looks like something out of a fairy tale."

Hyax scowled. "Are you taking the piss?"

"Sorry, slip of the tongue."

"Idiot."

"That's no way to talk to your one true love, my little snookypoos." He ducked just in time to avoid the spark of magic Hyax fired at him.

Gwil spent the next few minutes walking the perimeter of the room. It appeared to be made of solid stone and, unless there was a very well-hidden door, there was only one way in and out. Hyax was examining the pedestal. "Anything interesting?"

"Not that I can see. I think I'll try to get a reading from the coronet."

"You've been home since the stone was discovered, why haven't you checked it out already?"

Hyax crouched down to get eye level with the flat of the pedestal. "Initially I was asked not to so that my magical signal could be ruled out and not contaminate the scene. Then there was the investigation team that asked for the room to be out-of-bounds, so this is my first chance to get in here."

"What about your parents or your siblings?"

"My parents have, and my eldest brother, but their gifts are different to mine. They aren't able to maintain a projection."

Gwil thought there was more to Hyax being kept away. "There's a time limit on the quality of the reading you can make, right? So surely if they wanted you to help in that way, they'd have let you in straight away?"

"I know you might think I'm a blond bimbo at times, but that hadn't escaped me," Hyax said with a smirk. "I'm positive there'll be a dampening field up as well, it's gone now, but it would have stopped someone else trying other magic to find a signal."

"How can you tell?"

"The residue is making my left nostril twitch."

"Really?"

Hyax snorted and stood straight. "You are a gullible twat. Of course not, there's a dusting of pink powder around the base of the coronet and that's usually a giveaway of a magical shield collapsing."

"Fucker!" He gave Hyax a shove, and Hyax's answering smile was almost enough to make his heart start beating again.

The sound of someone clearing their throat stopped him from doing something stupid. "Your Highness, I was told you wanted to speak to me."

He was taller and broader than the average fae, and not as attractive as the other examples of his species Gwil had encountered, but not what he'd call hard on the eye.

"Sennet? I was expecting Lindle, is she not joining us?"

The name was familiar and Gwil recalled Sennet was on the security council, and Lindle was the leader, who hadn't shown up.

"She sends her apologies, sire. But your mother has convened an emergency meeting."

"I had not been informed of that," Hyax snapped. "What is the topic?"

Sennet's gaze flicked to Gwil, he was not subtle. "I'm not at liberty to say, sire. Queen Talia gave strict orders."

Hyax's wings vibrated, Gwil hadn't seen that before and he didn't think it was a good sign. "I will deal with that later, but you can help with this."

"I have given a full report, sire."

It seemed to Gwil, that regardless of the species of security officers, they always had the capacity to be as officious and unhelpful as possible. "Let's just assume we haven't read it," Gwil said with his widest and most fake smile, fangs obvious. "How long do you think the theft went unnoticed?"

Sennet bristled. "Could have been up to four weeks, it's not clear."

"Why's it not clear ?"

"There was a dampening field placed over the coronet, it was a powerful piece of spellwork. We've untangled a lot of the background noise and it was created by two magical signatures, but we couldn't pinpoint whose."

Hyax frowned. "No idea at all? Were they masked that well?"

"Yes, sire. I know it seems unlikely, but it is the only way I could make sense of it. The jewel must have been removed by someone passing as one of the seven people who have access, and taken out through the only door."

"Are you sure it wasn't one of the seven?" asked Gwil. To him, they seemed the obvious ones to suspect first. Then he remembered that those were all members of the royal family or senior politicians.

Hyax smirked. "I think that's not a question Sennet would like to answer."

"Fair enough. Do the fae portals work in here?"

"They shouldn't," Hyax said sounding uncertain, and Gwil got the sense he might not be sure. "But then…"

Hyax rotated his right hand and a portal started to form, he expected it to collapse but instead it grew into a full-sized portal. Hyax snapped his fingers and it closed.

Sennet gasped. "The investigation team should've screened for that, it's part of the checklist."

Gwil had seen plenty of investigations where corners had been cut but he doubted this was the case. "Who checked? How powerful are they?"

"I did feel some resistance as I opened the portal, it's feasible that a certain frequency or power level might be needed."

"Would that limit the number down from the seven?"

Hyax nodded. "Probably remove a couple. But I think you've solved how it was removed, and potentially closer to who."

"I don't know about the fae but I have heard of another species being able to mimic someone else's magical signatures."

Hyax gave him a horrific look. "You can't possibly mean…"

"Fucking elves."