Standing Stones (The Wild Hunt #20)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

“What do you mean you can’t find Jex? This is a disaster!

” I wasn’t prepared for this. My heart pounded as I pushed past Evershine and raced into the triplet’s room.

Since we’d returned Earthside, the girls shared a room.

They were barely two years old, and we weren’t about to buy a new house just to give children that age their own rooms. Back at our castle in Annwn, our daughters shared a room, and here, they would too.

Goddesses or not, we weren’t about to let them grow up leading a life of privilege and entitlement.

As it was, Herne’s house bordered Careek Park, and it had plenty of room for all of us.

Herne and I had the master, the triplets had a bedroom, Danielle—Herne’s daughter from a prior relationship—slept in the sunroom when she visited, and the nanny had her own room.

Evershine had come over to Seattle with us, once Morgana and Cernunnos asked us to move back.

Yes, the house was full, but luckily, it had been large to begin with.

I entered the triplets’ room. Ionie was sitting up in her bed, screaming her head off, tears flowing. Mara and Nightshade were crying, too. All it took was one to set them all off.

“What’s wrong, lovey?” I asked, giving Ionie a kiss. But she just kept wailing.

“Jex gone! Jex gone!” she said through her tears.

“Yes, Jex is gone,” I said, grumbling. That damned stuffed rabbit.

The girls were fraternal triplets, and I was proud of all of them. I was also relieved because not only had I provided heirs for Herne, but I had gotten it all out of the way at once. Unlike a number of women, I took no enjoyment from being pregnant.

I began poking around, looking under beds and in the closet, but Jex—Ionie’s favorite stuffed rabbit—was nowhere to be seen.

“Wait!” I said, as I shook out the bedding on her bed. There, jammed between the bed and the wall, was Jex. I yanked him out and stuffed him into Ionie’s arms, and she promptly quit crying and hugged him.

“Okay, we’re good. Hey, pumpkins,” I said.

“Mama has to go to work. You be good for Evershine, hear me? You behave.” I scooped them up, one by one, and kissed them on the cheek.

Nearly two years old, the girls were used to their nanny being their primary caregiver, but we spent plenty of quality time together.

The triplets were bound together in a way that I’d never seen before.

They seemed to have built a secret world between them, one that Herne and I could watch but never fully enter.

I glanced at Evershine. “Crisis averted. I need to run into work for a while, but I’ll be home later this afternoon.

I’ll bring takeout,” I added. We had a cleaner who came in once a week, but there was no room for a live-in cook, although Evershine cooked for the girls.

She had managed to learn how to use the kitchen appliances without incident, for the most part, and the one time she added dish soap into the dishwasher by mistake had resulted in the cleanest floors we’d ever seen, thanks to the mound of foam and bubbles that frothed out of the machine.

I slid into my leather jacket, grabbed my purse, and headed out to my car.

When Morgana and Cernunnos had first ordered us back Earthside, I had been reluctant to make the move.

But a couple of months back, they had insisted that the babies and I join Herne, since they wanted him to stay over here full-time.

He had already retaken the helm of the Wild Hunt from Yutani, and now we were, once again, fully opening the agency.

Yutani was an incredible employee, but he wasn’t management material and he never would be.

He had actually begged Herne to take the reins again, and we finally decided to oblige him.

We hadn’t expected to be running a full-on agency again, but events were shifting, and Morgana foresaw the need for us to be here.

“I’m not sure what’s about to unfold,” she said. “But something’s on the move. You need to summon Raven and Kipa back as well, though they’ll be adjunct only. And Viktor, as well.”

“But we already have Wendy and Lyrical and Wager,” I said.

“Events are unfolding, the world is shifting, and with it, fate’s gearing up for something new. Trust me,” Morgana said. My mother-in-law was seldom wrong, and as she spoke, a shiver ran down my spine. That ripple told me she was right.

“All right, though I don’t look forward to bringing up my daughters over there, at least not while they’re this young,” I said.

“They need to be familiar with both of their home worlds. You can bring them back to Annwn for special occasions and vacations. And Cernunnos and I will be over there quite a bit. I’m not about to let my grandchildren grow up without knowing their Gamma,” Morgana said.

So, we had moved back Earthside, all of us, a few months ago.

And last month, we recalled Raven and Kipa to help us.

It was almost like old times. I missed Angel—my best friend was still adjusting to her transformation into a goddess—but she and Sejun had hinted that they might join us later on.

DJ, her brother, had returned to Seattle with his foster family after it became obvious they were unhappy in Annwn, and Angel missed her little brother.

And today, Morgana and Cernunnos were coming to talk about something.

I wasn’t sure what, but they said it was important, and it had to do with the case Raven and Kipa had recently investigated.

As I stood there, purse slung over my shoulder, the world seemed to shift for a moment, and I realized we were standing at the crossroads. Once again danger was rising.

The drive down to the office went relatively smoothly.

The weather was pleasant—a cool but clear September morning—kids were in school, most people had arrived at their workplaces and so traffic was moderate rather than bumper to bumper…

all in all, one of those autumn days that I savored, where the storms hadn’t yet come in, but the heat of summer had passed.

I stopped at the nearest coffee stand and ordered an iced quad-shot caramel latte and a sausage breakfast sandwich.

No doubt Talia would have food and coffee ready, but I was hungry now.

As I pulled through the drive-through and picked up my food, I smiled.

It was good to be home, even though I didn’t think I still missed it so much.

Annwn was beautiful, but I’d been born here, and the Seattle area was in my blood.

Another five minutes and I pulled into the parking garage, grateful that we’d decided to rebuild and revamp the entire agency.

After the dragons attacked, there was nothing left of the original building in which the Wild Hunt Agency had been housed.

Herne had bought the property, bulldozed what was left, and then had the agency rebuilt.

We owned the entire building now, along with a parking garage beneath it so we could escape the rain.

I locked the door and, slinging my purse over my shoulder, carried my latte to the staircase and jogged up. The elevator was a nice touch, but since I had been through the Gadawnoin, I seldom grew tired, except for my pregnancy and the birth. Triplets were taxing.

I pushed open the front door and entered the waiting room.

Talia glanced up, waving. “Ember, I wondered when you’d be in!” She pointed to the hall. “Everyone’s in the breakroom. I’ll be in as soon as Morgana and Cernunnos arrive.”

I headed down the hall, thinking about how many times we’d gathered for the morning staff meeting. I wasn’t here most days, leaving Herne to handle the business. But Morgana insisted that we all needed to meet. As I entered the breakroom, I saw that I was the last one to arrive.

Wager and Yutani were discussing something in the corner, though Wager looked like he’d been up all night. He grimaced more than once.

“You okay?” I asked, breaking into the conversation.

“I don’t feel well at all. I would have stayed home, but since we were having an important meeting today, I came in. After we’re done, I’d like to go home, if possible.” Wager looked sweaty, and I pressed my hand to his forehead.

“You feel hot. Maybe you should go now,” I said.

“I’ll wait until we’re done, then head home,” he said. “Don’t worry about me. I just have a rough stomach today.”

“Okay, well, if you need to leave, let us know.” I turned back to the others.

Herne, Kipa, and Viktor were sitting at the massive round table where we held meetings, talking. Raven was reading the news on her tablet. And Lyrical was still on her road trip. We were transitioning her out of the business and into the temple I was founding, which felt weird as shit.

“Sorry I’m late,” I said. “Ionie lost Jex.”

“Oh, crap,” Herne said. “That’s a disaster.”

“It would be, except I managed to find him again. I swear, Jex better never wear out. At least until she’s ready to let go of him.

” Somehow, I had the feeling that when our daughter was a thousand years old, she’d still be cuddling the stuffed toy.

“So, does anybody know when Morgana and Cernunnos will be here?”

“We’ll be here when we’re here.” Behind me, Cernunnos’s voice echoed against the walls, its deep resonance ricocheting through the room.

I whirled. Talia was leading them both into the room.

The fact that the gods could appear wherever they wanted was still alien to me.

I hadn’t yet developed the ability to teleport—or whatever the hell it was they did.

Apparently, it was a skill that only came with time after a mortal had been through the Gadawnoin.

“Hey,” I moved to hug Morgana. I’d originally been pledged to her, but now she was my mentor rather than my patron. And she was my mother-in-law, which was a whole different sort of bond. “Are you stopping in to see the girls after you leave here?” I asked.

“You think we’d leave without seeing our granddaughters?” Cernunnos asked. “Think again, Missy.”