9. Chapter Nine

Chapter Nine

Seb

A ilin was still in my arms when I woke up, and I couldn’t help but tighten my hold on him and nuzzle into the back of his neck even though he was still asleep. I placed a kiss on his skin and breathed him in, content to lie here like this and let him get some much-needed rest.

The man did not get enough sleep. He was always rushing off to help someone, whether it was taking care of bad guys or simply helping one of the kids with something around the house or even babysitting.

I mean, I was right by his side every step of the way. But he tended to take everything on and carry it like he was solely responsible for saving everyone and keeping every person in our family safe and happy—hell, most of the time, he felt responsible for every single person in Brinnswick, period.

He wanted to help people. All. The. Time.

Simply put, he was a good guy. A fantastic guy.

And I was certainly lucky to have him.

But he was prone to worrying, despite the attitude he sometimes put off to other people.

I felt the moment Ailin woke up, and he let out a soft hum, kissed my palm, and settled into me, so I kissed his neck again.

“Can we just stay here all day?” he mumbled.

“I wish.” I glanced at the clock on the nightstand and made a face. “We should probably get up… but I want to hold you for a while longer.”

“I like that plan.” He gave my arm a squeeze, and I could tell he was happy to doze for a bit.

It was unusual for him to want to lie in bed when there was an open case going on, so I was all for taking advantage of this while I could. I didn’t know why he wanted the extra cuddle time, but I’d take it.

I kissed his neck and shoulder every now and then and buried my nose in his hair.

“I probably stink,” he muttered a while later, more awake now.

“Only a little bit.”

He laughed and tried to pull away, but I didn’t let him. “If I stink, let me go.”

“Nope.” I kissed his neck. “I’m just as bad as you are, so it really doesn’t matter.” I gave him another kiss. “Also, I was kidding.” Another kiss.

He sighed and started to twist to face me, then aborted the movement and pushed back into me again. “I was going to kiss you, but I know how you are with morning breath.”

“As much as I want to kiss you too, I’d rather wait till we brush our teeth.”

He waved me away. “Yeah, yeah.”

We stayed there for another few minutes before I whispered, “Ailin?”

“Yeah, baby?”

“You feeling okay?”

He exhaled loudly. “Yeah, I just…don’t want to face the day.”

I took a moment to rifle through his emotions to figure out why he didn’t want to face the day. When I finally figured it out, I wanted to shake the man. “Ailin, for fuck’s sake.” I sounded exasperated because I was. “It’s not your fault we can’t find the perp.”

“I should be able to figure out what kind of magic’s on those toys. I should be able to follow the life essence to the perp. I should be able to—”

“No.” I said it loudly and sternly, cutting him off. “You are not some all-knowing entity. You’re not infallible, as much as that fucking sucks. You’re still just a person like everyone else. No one else has been able to figure those things out either. If I can’t figure it out, and all our kids—who’re all powerful in their own right—can’t figure it out, why do you think you should? I’m sorry, sweetheart, but sometimes you’re just as human as the rest of us.”

“I’m not human.”

I sighed. “You know exactly what I mean by that, and I’m so glad that is all you took away from what I said. Thanks.”

He tapped my hand. “It’s not all I took away. I… I understand what you’re saying—hell, I even agree with you. But that doesn’t really make my… emotions about the situation any better.”

I gave him a squeeze. “I get it, but you need to give yourself some grace.”

“I know I do. I’m trying.”

“That’s all I ask.” I kissed his shoulder again.

“Thanks, Seb.”

I kissed his neck. “Anytime. Are you ready to get up now?”

“I guess. But you have to promise me one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“After we finish this case, we’re doing a naked weekend.”

I snorted. “What the hell’s a naked weekend?”

“I mean, it’s kinda obvious, right? We’ll be naked… for a whole fucking weekend.”

I couldn’t help but chuckle at that. “Honey, that’s never going to work. Our kids are in and out of the house too much.”

He pushed his ass against my groin. “But I like this.”

“Of course you do. Tell you what, after the case is done, we can do a naked picnic in bed as a date and stay naked all night… in our room.”

God, when we’d first started dating, there was no way in hell I could’ve ever imagined those words coming out of my mouth. Even now, after being with Ailin for a lifetime, I could feel my cheeks heating with embarrassment. Which was ridiculous.

He huffed. “Fine. You draw a hard bargain.”

I snorted and smacked his ass. “Come on, sweetheart. Let’s get up and get ready.” Time to face the music.

A fter we showered and got ready, we sat at the kitchen island, eating breakfast when Ailin’s phone rang. He picked it up and put it on speaker, saying to me, “It’s Bas.”

I gave a nod and looked down at the phone lying between us on the counter. When Ailin didn’t say anything, I said, “Hey, Bas. Everything okay?”

He sighed, long, drawn-out, and exhausted-sounding. “There are more attacks happening right now. Another neighborhood on the other side of town. So far, this one seems to be smaller than the last attack, but we need more people able to destroy the toys. As of right now, it’s only toys this time, but who the hell knows if that’ll change.”

“Send us the location, and we’ll head over there now.”

“Sounds good. Thank you.” Bas hung up, and a text came through a few seconds later.

I stood and stretched. “Well, looks like we’re in for another long day.”

“Looks like.”

We grabbed our phones, wallets, keys, and Bondeds and headed out.

W e arrived at the address Bas gave us, and I sighed as we got out of the car. There was another temporary base tent down the street, and as expected, there were a ton of people milling about with BCA jackets on and toys all over the ground, most of them burnt to a crisp.

Before we could make it to the tent, Basil and Hiro caught up to us, and Bas said, “We already took care of all the houses on this street, but there are a couple on the next street over with more calls coming in. Will you guys help us there?”

“Sure thing.” I nodded at him. “Lead the way.”

We followed the two of them down the road, waving at Alec along the way so he knew we were here. Bas pointed us to a house, and we headed in while he and his viramore took another one. Hiro might not have been a witch, but he was a hell of a good fighter, and the two of them worked really well together. They tended to take on the toughest cases brought to the BCA, and they always handled them well—and they knew when to bring in backup.

Which meant I wasn’t really worried about them against these damn cursed toys. I mean, Bas was our kid, Hiro was our son-in-law, they were our family, so there was always some worry, but it was way less than it’d be if some of our other kids were running headlong into danger.

This house turned out to be much of the same as the other night. There were four toys attacking with teeth and claws. When we captured the little spelled objects, cleared the house, and took them outside, Ailin said, “Let’s keep these to compare them to the other day’s. At some point, this guy has to make a mistake, right?”

I sure as shit hope so.

We kept them in shields, and I checked my phone.

Alec had sent us a list of addresses, and I sighed. How was this happening to so many people? How had someone snuck by us so easily and created an attack this widespread? Where did they come from?

We went through several more houses—I honestly lost count—and ran into some of our other kids. Thayer and Toby were taking on houses together, and Clover and Jorah were working together since their viramores didn’t like working for the BCA. And of course, we saw Basil and Hiro off and on.

We were getting to the end of our list and about to enter a new house when we heard someone yelling outside. Ailin and I didn’t hesitate to rush over, and when we saw it was Jorah who was upset, we sped up even more.

Jorah used his Three power to open up a portal—it looked like he literally ripped open the air—and he stepped through before we could reach him. Clover stepped in after him.

“Jorah!” Ailin yelled, but Jor didn’t hear him.

Luckily, Basil and Hiro came running out of one of the houses, and our kid called to us, “There’s an attack at the school! The decorations are attacking kids. Jor and Thay are already going.” Then he too used the Three magic to open a portal, only he didn’t disappear right away and waved us over. “Come on!”

Jorah, Thayer, and Basil could speak telepathically to one another because of their Three magic, so it wasn’t surprising that Bas knew what was going on.

But fuck. The school? No wonder Jorah and Thayer had left without us. Jorah had two kids still in that school—Nerissa, a sixteen-year-old mermaid shifter, and Raif, a thirteen-year-old satyr. And Thayer and Toby’s only child—Safa, a sixteen-year-old witch—also went there.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

I could feel Ailin’s panic with a large dose of anger thrown in.

No one attacked our grandchildren.

No one.

Ailin and I both walked through the portal without hesitation, and Hiro and Bas came in behind us.

Since the Three magic was linked to Faela—the land of the fae—in order to travel anywhere, Jorah, Thayer, and Basil had to open a portal into Faela. Once in Faela, they could open a new portal to anywhere in our realm.

We’d traveled this way many times over the years, so I wasn’t surprised when we landed in a world of pink. Like… absolutely everything was pink—the trees, the flowers, the grass, the flying bug thing that looked kinda cute but could probably eat me in one bite, the house that our kids owned here, the bunny-looking thing with six ears that could also probably eat me, absolutely everything was pink.

One thing I’d learned quickly was that no one could go around touching anything while in the land of the fae because nearly everything had secret teeth that could and would bite. Even animals that looked cute, or maybe especially animals that looked cute, had a way of luring a person in just to open their mouth wider than what looked possible—all animals were dripping with magic here—and take a bite out of them.

Unfortunately, I’d seen way too many things turn into scary creatures here, so no matter how cute something looked, I stayed far, far away.

And made sure all my grandkids stayed far away too when they visited.

It was like a blast of pink to the face, but Basil was moving quickly, so I didn’t have more than ten seconds to take it in before he opened up a new portal and waved us in.

We landed in front of our grandkids’ school. The school was open to anyone, even humans, but it had a large focus on magic and learning to use your power, so I wasn’t sure a human would even want to go there.

It was the same school our kids went to, the same school Ailin attended. I didn’t go here because I grew up thinking I was human, and back then, the supernatural community was in hiding, so I didn’t even know magic existed, let alone that I was a member of the supernatural community. I thought it was all make-believe. Like all the fairytales I’d read growing up were just someone’s imagination gone wild.

When I was a kid and young adult, I never would’ve believed magic was real without seeing it with my own eyes.

But this school had existed, even back then, and it had grown enormously over the years. It was a great school that Ailin and I both loved for all our kids and grandkids.

But right now, this place was even more chaotic than the street had been two nights ago. There were children everywhere and a ton of adults, including the police and a bunch of teachers. Everyone looked frazzled, some people were crying, and there were still kids and teachers running out of the building.

I spotted Toby, Thayer, Jorah, Clover, and Laiken—Jorah must’ve stopped at his house to pick up his viramore before coming here—heading into the school.

I pointed at them. “Over there!”

Ailin followed my gesture, then took off at a run.

A cop tried to stop him, but I yelled, “He’s Ailin Ellwood.” I hastily grabbed my BCA badge—Alec had given them to us for exactly this reason since not all officers recognized us on sight—and held it up to him. Ailin was already halfway to the door. “I’m Sebastian Ellwood. We’re here to help.”

The guy’s mouth moved up and down like he was in shock, but I didn’t have time for that, so I took off after my viramore, stuffing the badge back into my pocket as Zammerra held on to my shoulder for dear life.

When I crossed the threshold, I grimaced as I took everything in. A very long piece of garland hung from the ceiling, going nuts and trying to bite everything that passed by.

Luckily, it was already under a green shield. Not Ailin’s. I could sense magic and recognize my viramore’s and my family’s. So after feeling it, I knew it was Jorah’s magic. He had nature magic like Ailin, so it looked almost identical to the untrained eye.

Bells and bows and Christmas balls and other ornaments hung off the walls, and all of it was trying to eat kids as they ran past. There were even a few on the floor, rolling after children with teeth chomping away.

My viramore and our kids were already trapping all the decorations inside shields. But I saw a rogue bow sort of jumping along the floor, so I called on my magic and wrapped that sucker up in a shield.

Then I rushed over to catch up with Ailin and the kids.

“Where are they?” I asked, not needing to say I meant the children. Zamm growled from my shoulder, adding her own concern into the conversation.

“I don’t know,” Thayer said, burying his fingers in his hair. “I can’t find them. Where the fuck are they?”

Jorah shook his head. “I don’t know. I can’t… I… fuck, I can’t find them either. What if they—” He sucked in a breath, cutting himself off as his eyes welled with tears.

My heart sank, and my chest felt heavy as I realized what he meant.

What if our grandkids were hurt? Or… or worse?