Missing the Night (Stand Alone Tales #17) - Viola Grace Page 0,2
to go mad.”
Nessa pressed her lips together and looked at the blank expression in the two men. “Fine. I will take care of them. I will put back what I take.”
Nessa paused. “Wait, you have been taking from these two even though they are clearly marked as mine?”
The hostess’s eyes got wide. “They are old markings. Not fresh.”
“Really? Why have your females used them as accessing areas? I see their fingertips all over the markings. You have taken from me, and I demand compensation.”
The hostess frowned. “I beg to differ. We were contracted to distract these men, and they have been enjoying themselves in the process. Your jealousy isn’t my concern.”
Nessa smiled and flicked her hair out of the hood. “Oh, it isn’t jealousy. I just don’t like others contaminating my food.” She dropped all of the layers of glamour that she used to keep from being marked, hunted, and pursued as a mate. She glowed, she gleamed, she was the most beautiful thing that the hostess had ever seen, and she smiled as the woman dropped to her knees and reached out to her.
Nessa went and collected all of the men from the office, whispered to them to get dressed, she was going to take them somewhere wonderful, and then, she walked out again. The faeries were stunned and bowed and stayed that way until she was gone.
Nessa touched the hostess’s face, and she cried out, collapsing with her hand between her legs.
She took her herd of twelve humans back to the portal and ushered them through. She arranged them around the table and brushed her finger across their cheeks, whispering about the erotic dream they had just had. They would wake up in a few minutes and only have the memory of their ideal of a fae woman or man at their disposal.
When she got to Hector, his hand grabbed her wrist. He didn’t look up. “Do I know you?”
She touched his hand and smiled. “No, you never did.”
Tynan caught her fingers in his and rubbed his thumb across her fingertips, “Will you be back?”
She whispered softly with a wave of power. “No, my time here is done. This time, there will be nothing of me left behind.”
His head snapped up, and he kissed her. She shook as he whispered inside her mouth, and she felt something bright and noticeable settle into her skin. She jerked back and covered her mouth. “What did you do?”
He smiled, swayed, and his head thudded against the table.
She resumed her daily appearance and stuffed her hair back in her hoodie. She jerked her power from his skin and cleared his memory while trying to figure out what he had tied to her. Nessa yanked her nullification into position and ran out of the building via the twenty flights of stairs.
She hadn’t planned on talking to her parents that night, but when she asked, her father ordered her to come over to hide. Whatever had been done to her, it was not dissipating.
Nessa ran the two blocks and got into her car. She resumed her normal appearance when she unlocked the car and drove carefully and sedately out to the sprawling suburbs where her parents had their home.
When she parked in the carport and walked to the door, it was opened to highlight the form of the most handsome man on the planet. “Hey, Dad.”
He looked at her and laughed. “Aw, sweetie. You got tagged. Come on in, and we will see what we can do about it.”
“Sure. Laugh it up, you pointy-eared bastard.”
Her mother came out and said, “Uh-oh. You only call him that when you are really peeved. Wait. Is that a...”
Her father grinned. “Tracking charm.”
Nessa covered her eyes at the look of delighted amusement on her father’s face. It was how he had gotten caught by her mother, after all.
Chapter Two
They fed her, and then, her mom took a look at her. “Well, it is definitely a tracker, but there is an energy-drain component that I wish I had thought of.” She leaned back. “There was a lot of planning put into this.”
Cian snorted. “There always is. How long did he have to plan, Nessa?”
“Um, ten years?” She winced at his shocked expression.
“Did you leave a trace on him?”
She covered her mouth and mumbled, “Them.”
He snorted. “Them, then. You left traces?”
“It wasn’t my idea. I just started kissing one of them, and the other is his familiar, so it got a little out of control, and I thought I had