I snorted, barely managing to swallow the coffee I’d just sipped. “Your dads did not mention my tequila years, obviously. And I know you were going to say young. I’m not old. Neither are your dads. And you know even if we were, it would be good for us to still be having sex.” I needed to get off this subject. “How was your run last night?”
Fen relaxed as though he’d managed to avoid a terrible fate. “Good. Had some gumbo but only after I caught a couple of rabbits. Downed a squirrel. There’s some tasty snacks on the bayou.”
Evan made a gagging sound. “Poor bunnies. You know you’re the reason I can’t have a pet.”
“You totally could have had one of the dinosaurs. The little ones loved you,” Fen replied with a frowned. “We can’t have a dog because we’re always on the run and we can’t have a cat because… You get that I’m not ever going to be a cat person, right?”
“You’re not a pixie person either,” Evan countered with a frown of her own. “The only one who will get close to us is Dannan, and he’s Lee’s. I’m a literal faery princess and I should be surrounded by tiny creatures who adore me, but no, you have to eat the squirrels and pixies.”
Oh, we were not doing that. “Fenrir Owens. Did you eat a pixie?”
Fen flushed. “Uh, I was very young and I didn’t know what I was doing, and I was in wolf form at the time. And Trent made me spit the tiny dude back up.”
Trent chuckled. “I had my hand halfway down that wolf’s throat before I found the pixie. He’s fine, but he and the others won’t get close to Fen and that means they shy away from Evan, too. Also, he paid for that.”
“I can still feel the fleas.” Fen scratched behind his ear like they were there.
“They don’t like me either.” Gray hadn’t eaten much. He’d sat down and allowed the brownies to serve him an omelet and bacon, but so far he’d mostly sipped his coffee. “Or your dad. But they adored your mom. Every now and then she would go in and talk to the queen and when she would walk out there would be all these pixies clinging to her hair.”
“That’s how I remember my mom.” Evan grew obviously wistful. “When I think about her I see this beautiful woman with pixies fluttering around her. I guess it’s why it hurts that they don’t like me.”
“They’re afraid of Fen, and I will fix that,” I vowed.
“Why do they like you?” Fen asked. “They should be able to smell the wolf on you. I know I can. Even when the wolf isn’t my dad. You smell like a wolf to me, so I don’t get why the pixies don’t view you as a predator.”
“Because your mother’s prey is different from ours, son,” Trent said solemnly. “She was born to protect our world. It’s written into her DNA.”
“Because she’s a Hunter,” Fen replied.
“And the Nex Apparatus,” Evan added.
“I’m the Nex Apparatus because your dad is smart when it comes to politics.” I wasn’t about to use the words I should use. Donovan and Quinn were both ruthless bastards, and they’d made a bet on me that could have gone poorly. “Before I came around, the Nex Apparatus was always a vampire. He was an assassin. A Hunter isn’t an assassin. She’s a protector. So the king needed supernatural law enforcement and he found me. I didn’t belong to a pack. I’m not a vamp. I owe no loyalties to any species, but I was born with the power to defend myself against almost all of them.”
“Hunter is what we now call her, but once she was the Amazon’s champion,” Evan said quietly. “That’s who we were. The companions were Amazons, and Hunters like Kelsey were our ultimate warriors. I think about that a lot. I think about how we banded together because we weren’t the strongest. The very power we had attracted predators to us. We had to form our own army to protect ourselves because no one else would. The pixies love Kelsey because they understand that time and time again she’s sacrificed her own comfort to stand up for creatures others consider lesser. They love Kelsey because while other people look away from atrocities happening, she walks in and does what she can to stop them. Everyone’s happy that my parents are back and it’s great, but if you ask the prey creatures and the companions and the wee Fae who they’ve been waiting for, it’s Kelsey Owens.”
She was going to make me cry, and I didn’t like to do that. “That better not be from a song, Evan.”
She chuckled. “Nope. All me and all true. And I will take you up on helping me out with the pixies. I really do find them fascinating, and Fen hasn’t tried to eat a single one in years and years.”
“You’re settled in Frelsi now, right?” Gray asked.
“For now.” Fen straightened up. “We’ll likely move to New Zealand soon. We move between the two bases when the seasons change. We chase the winter for Sasha’s sake. Longer nights means we have our general around more. The village there is as comfy as Frelsi. Only moving twice a year is a nice change.”
“But you should be able to have a dog if you like. Dogs like you, Fen. They’re attracted to you like wolves are,” Gray pointed out. “Unlike cats. Evan could have a pet if she wanted one.”
Evan sighed. “He’s right about a dog, unfortunately. I’m afraid the Fae of the villages include trolls, and they are not great around sweet puppies. In Fae culture, dogs aren’t viewed as pets. Not domesticated human plane dogs.”
“How do you feel about a hellhound?” Gray asked and held up a hand. “Like most demonic beings, they’re not all bad. If you raise one from a puppy, they can be quite lovely pets. I mean they will kill anyone who attacks their people, but I would think that’s not a bad thing in your case. And I happen to know they won’t have a problem with werewolves, especially one as strong as Fenrir. They enjoy being part of a pack, which is why it’s sad that they’re usually kept as solitary animals, but that’s the Hell plane for you.”
Evan’s expression had gone soft. “Awww, they sound cute.”
They weren’t. They were big balls of what looked like rage and murder, but Gray was right. They could be loving pets. Hellhounds were a lot like most creatures. The more care you put into them at a young age, the more loving they tended to be.
“How do you know so much about hellhounds?” I had to ask because Gray had always actively avoided anything related to the Hell plane.
“I looked into it a couple of years back,” he replied.
“He looked into hellhounds when Evan first started talking about wanting a pet,” Trent corrected.