Page 52 of Ulune's Daughter

“He’s all done?” my treacherous mate asks. At the fiend’s nod, she picks me up and cuddles me to her bosom. “Good boy. You’ve been such a good boy. I know that was so scary, but you’re my wonderful, brave boy.”

She presses kisses between my ears and strokes down my spine. When I grudgingly twist to show her my underside, where I like her touch the best, she scratches under my arms, which don’t feel as itchy as I’m used to, and all along my belly.

My balls are still disconcertingly breezy, but I consider forgiving my mate as she adores me for long minutes while she speaks with the fiend. Instead of putting me back in the plastic box, she carries me all the way back to her house, pointing out the sights as though I’m unfamiliar with them, cuddling and praising me the whole way. She settles me with a dish of fresh tuna before she goes back for her Jeep and the hated box.

I’ll still destroy that box the next time she’s out. And piss on the pieces.

But my mate? She is worthy of forgiveness.

Chapter18

Den of Jackals

KELLAN

The Column Museum in Boston is not a warm and friendly place.

It was built by the Quincy family. The magickal branch, not the one that spawned a president. They built for the ages—the museum predates Harvard University—and they built to impress, or maybe just to intimidate.

As I stand in the museum’s lobby, looking up at the massive, domed skylight three floors above me, supported by four of the eponymous columns, I feel a little of both.

A slightly frumpy, harried-looking woman bustles toward me across the wide lobby; I shake myself. This place may be old. It may be endowed even better than the neighboring university. But it’s just a big building full of people who share my passion for history. No reason to be intimidated.

The woman reaches out her hand as she closes in on me, her sensible heels clacking across the marble floor. “Professor Wyndham? I’m Curator Lydia Long. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

I shake her hand, her fingers delicate and slightly damp in mine.

“Nice to meet you. Please call me Kellan.”

“Oh, yes, Kellan.” She smiles thinly.

The intimidation I was feeling edges into something else. Unease?

“Please, come with me, Kellan. We’re meeting in the chief curator’s office.”

I keep my face relaxed with an effort as I follow her. Something’s off. As we wind into less grandiose spaces, through corridors finished with industrial paint rather than marble, down flights of stairs that are surely taking us below ground, I let the curator pull ahead slightly so she doesn’t feel what I’m doing.

I draw on my Element, letting the power of it swirl within me: agaoithe sidhe, the cutting breath of the fae. My fingertips begin to tingle as static discharge jumps from tip to tip. I curl one hand around the strap of my backpack and sink the other into my jacket pocket so the blue glow doesn’t give me away.

The curator leads me into a comfortable office. No windows but big, framed mirrors on the wall create a sense of spaciousness. There are two men in the office already, one sitting behind an imposing teak desk, stroking his gray mustache. The other’s in a guest chair with his back to me. Thick black hair worn a little long, curling over the white collar of his shirt. A camel-colored suit jacket that defines broad shoulders.

As I walk into the office, the man rises from the guest chair and turns to me.

Jakob Maher.

I stop mid-step and backpedal so I’m not trapped in the office with him.

He holds up his hands. “Professor Wyndham, I come in peace.”

“Sure,” I snap. No wonder my fucking Spidey sense was tingling.

The mustached chief curator rises from behind his desk. “Please, Professor Wyndham, come in. I understand there’s some history between you and Mr. Maher?—”

“Yes, he kidnapped me and two of my female colleagues and held us against our will for hours while he and his gang planned to rape us. You could say there’ssomehistory.”

The chief curator swings his brown gaze to the jackalwere. “Mr. Maher?”

Maher extends a palm toward the older man. “My compatriots were misguided and overzealous. They meant no real harm to Professor Wyndham. She and her team were released unharmed?—”

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