Fairies in My Fireplace Read online

  Fairies in My Fireplace

  By R.L. Naquin

  A Monster Haven Story, book three

  A migration of mythical creatures has begun, and more and more of them are landing on Zoey Donovan’s doorstep. As the only Aegis left in the country, it falls to her to protect the Hidden and keep them safe—and her house has become a sanctuary for water sprites, goblins, harpies, djinn and more.

  Keeping track of her boarders is a full-time job, and Zoey’s already got her hands full trying to run her wedding planning business. Good thing she has a resident closet monster to keep her organized, and a hot Reaper boyfriend to help her relax every once in a while.

  But she can’t keep up monster-triage indefinitely, and as more Hidden arrive, it becomes clear that someone—or something—is hunting them. In the midst of planning an event for a notoriously difficult client, Zoey’s got to figure out who’s behind the hunt...and she’s got to stop them before there are no Hidden left.

  86,000 words

  Dear Reader,

  Usually I begin these letters with some chatty information, but I’m departing from my norm this time to give you the opportunity to talk to me. At Carina, we’re always discussing our books and making sure we’re meeting your needs—not just with story and content, but also in the way they’re put together. This month, I’d like to reach out to you and ask your opinion on how the Carina Press books utilize the front and back matter. Do you like having the dear reader letter in the front? Would you prefer if it were in the back? Is there something more—excerpts, book lists or other information—we could be providing after the books? We welcome your comments and hope you will reach out to us with your thoughts at [email protected].

  In the meantime, it’s business as usual here at Carina Press headquarters, and that means a lineup of excellent books (no bias here!) for the month of September. We welcome author Jael Wye to Carina Press with her science-fiction fairy-tale retelling, Ice Red, in which the tale of Snow White plays out on the deadly and beautiful planet Mars 300 years in the future. Joining her in launching a new series is return author Nico Rosso, who grabbed my attention the first time he pitched this series to me as “demon rock stars.” Misty is thrown into rock star and immortal demon Trevor Sand’s supernatural world of music, monsters and passion in Heavy Metal Heart.

  More unique voices this month include urban fantasy author R.L. Naquin’s newest Monster Haven novel, Fairies in My Fireplace, as well as Agamemnon Frost and the Hollow Ships, book two of Kim Knox’s male/male science-fiction trilogy.

  Sandy James wraps up her Alliance of the Amazons series with The Volatile Amazon. The Water Amazon leads the Alliance as they face their archenemy in their last and greatest fight. Veronica Scott joins Sandy in the paranormal category with Egypt-set Warrior of the Nile.

  We have multiple releases in the erotic romance genre this month, including Love Letters Volume 5: Exposed, in which the Love Letters ladies strip away everything but the hot truth, and four couples see each other in a tantalizingly revealing new light. Forbidden Obsessions by Jodie Griffin features Bondage & Breakfast owner Gabe McConnell, who finally gets his chance at love when he meets a novice submissive who touches a part of his dominant heart no one else ever has. In Lynda Aicher’s Bonds of Hope, former America’s sweetheart Quinn Andrews has an opportunity to revive her career by playing a sexual submissive in a highly anticipated new TV series. Quinn is ready to throw herself into the role, and sex club The Den is the ideal place for a crash course.

  Also in the erotic romance genre, we’re pleased to welcome author Lise Horton to Carina Press with Words of Lust. A career spent teaching erotic literature does not prepare brainy Professor Serafina Luca for NYC construction foreman Nick Stellato, but his lessons in lust promise to fulfill her wickedest desires, and his promise of love, her wildest dreams.

  For historical romance fans, Alyssa Everett offers up A Tryst with Trouble. The arrogant heir to a dukedom and a blunt-spoken spinster take an instant dislike to each other, but must join forces to solve a murder mystery in this clever regency romp.

  Kaylea Cross returns with another edge-of-your-seat romantic suspense novel, Lethal Pursuit. An air force pararescue jumper and a female security forces officer are locked in an intense battle of wills, but when they’re captured by an enemy warlord, it takes everything they have to survive and fight their way back to friendly lines together. Check out the other books in this series, Deadly Descent and Tactical Strike.

  We’re excited to present Corroded, the next book in Karina Cooper’s St. Croix Chronicles. Now fixated on revenge, bounty hunter Cherry St. Croix must bend all her intellect on catching a murderer—no matter whose help she must ask, and to whose demand she must submit.

  Last, I’m thrilled to announce the release of three debut authors this month. Rebecca Crowley’s contemporary sports romance, The Striker’s Chance, gives us passion on and off the pitch when ambitious PR manager Holly Taylor has to revamp the playboy image of sexy, stubborn professional soccer player Kepler de Klerk. Michelle Witvliet breaks onto the romantic suspense scene with Breaking Protocol. She can’t let go of a tragic past; he faces an uncertain future; so they live in the moment and discover all they really need is each other. And in our new adult lineup, debut author Melissa Guinn offers a new adult romance novel about first love, second chances and learning to let go in Headfirst Falling.

  I hope you enjoy this month’s releases as much as we have, and find them satisfying, remarkable and memorable!

  We love to hear from readers, and you can email us your thoughts, comments and questions to [email protected]. You can also interact with Carina Press staff and authors on our blog, Twitter stream and Facebook fan page.

  Happy reading!

  ~Angela James

  Executive Editor, Carina Press

  www.carinapress.com

  www.twitter.com/carinapress

  www.facebook.com/carinapress

  Dedication

  For Mom and Dad, who never expected me to be anyone but myself and taught me that myself was a pretty good person to be.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  As I inched across the roof of my house, the harpy nestled against my chimney regarded me with suspicion. I’d have let
her stay there, but the mailman could be coming up the street soon. With all the weird things he’d already caught glimpses of on my property, I didn’t think he’d go for some half-assed explanation that she was a Halloween decoration. Especially since it was April.

  I drew closer to her, and she pressed herself against the bricks. By human standards, she couldn’t have been more than eighteen or nineteen, though maybe harpies had a different rate of aging. She was all boobs and hair and feathers. And she stank. She also clutched my car keys in her sharp, grimy claws.

  I stretched my legs out on either side of the roof peak and sat back, straddling it. The harpy relaxed. I laid my hands on my thighs in as nonthreatening a manner as I could muster. I kept my voice low and casual—as casual as I could while squatting, two stories up, with cedar splinters poking me in the ass.

  “There’s nothing to be afraid of here,” I said. “Are you okay?”

  She frowned. I truly hoped harpies understood English, since my regular translator, an eight-month-pregnant brownie, was unavailable. The height wasn’t a problem—brownies don’t fall, they float. The climb was the issue. Molly didn’t need the strain. Her tiny body was already burdened enough with the thimble-sized life inside her.

  The harpy stretched one filthy wing and shook my car keys. Her perky breasts jiggled. I kept eye contact, afraid to get caught staring. Seriously, though, they were impressive. I never felt I lacked in boobage until that moment, but if I had what she had, I’d head straight to Mardi Gras. They’d run out of beads and beer by the time I left.

  An arm I didn’t know she possessed snaked out from under her greasy feathers and scratched a nipple before folding away.

  She shrugged. “I’ve been better.” Her voice had a husky sound to it, like she’d been gargling with a handful of sand.

  At least we could communicate. That was a good start.

  “Anything you want to talk about?” I reached out to her with my empathic gift, opening myself to whatever emotions she might be leaking. Nervous energy pattered against my skin, tinged with the dark taste of fear.

  She shook her head, and a hank of stringy blond hair dropped across her face. She peered at me, waiting.

  I thought I heard a car and glanced out across the yard. No mailman yet. The driveway was clear. “Listen, we need to get you somewhere you can’t be seen, okay? You’re welcome here. Just not, you know, right here.”

  She chewed on her bottom lip, thinking, measuring me up through her mat of hair. When she finally spoke, it was a whisper. “I don’t have anyplace else to go.”

  I let out a breath. “Oh, honey, as long as I’m here, you have a safe place to be. You just can’t camp out on the roof. We’re protected here, but we still have to stay out of sight, okay? We’ve got trees in the back, if you want to stay in the open. There’s room in the attic if you want to come inside. No one will bother you there.”

  The bird-woman shook her hair from her face and looked at me with surprise. “I can come inside?”

  “Of course you can.” I smiled to reassure her. “And when you’re ready, maybe you can tell me what’s wrong?”

  She nodded. “Maybe.”

  I stuck my hand out, palm up. “Unless you were planning on a road trip, I could really use my keys back.”

  She shifted from one foot to the other and eased toward me. A shingle knocked loose and slid down the sloping roof, crashing to the porch below.

  A voice rose up the side of the house where I’d left the ladder. “Zoey! Is everything okay up there?”

  The harpy froze, her face draining of color.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “That’s Maurice. He’s a closet monster. You’ll like him. Everybody does.”

  She looked doubtful. “You have a closet monster here?” She shuddered.

  I suppressed a giggle. Like Maurice was a threat to anybody. “We have all sorts here. Maurice helps take care of everybody. I’m Zoey. What should we call you?”

  “Viola. Vi, if you want.”

  I grinned. “It’s nice to meet you, Vi. If you’ll hand me the keys, we can get down from here and get you settled.”

  Vi scooted closer and dropped the keys in my outstretched hand. “Sorry about that,” she said. “They were so bright and shiny. Sometimes I act without thinking.”

  I managed to climb down the ladder without hurting myself, and Maurice was at the bottom waiting.

  “Why didn’t you answer me?” He frowned. “I was worried. And how much damage did you do up there? Are we going to have leaks when it rains? I’ve got a lot to do already.”

  My lips curled in a tired smile. “Just a couple of shingles. It should be fine.” A shadow flitted above us and another chunk of wood dropped to the ground. “I need to run to the attic and open a window for our latest guest.”

  Maurice sighed, his large yellow eyes weary, and his face even more gaunt and pale than usual. “I’ll take care of it. I need you to call Andrew. We’ve got a hellhound with some sort of mange or something. I put it in the garage. You’ve also got a pair of water sprites in your bathroom sink, and a family of gnomes is hiding under the back porch.”

  I ran my hand through my hair and groaned. “All that showed up while I was on the roof?”

  He nodded. “We’re running out of places to put people, Zoey. This is ridiculous.”

  For the last six months, since I’d officially been declared an Aegis—caretaker to the Hidden—there’d been a gradual increase in monsters, urban legends and mythical creatures showing up at my door looking for help. There should have been Aegises scattered across the country, but all the others had gone missing, leaving me, with almost no experience, to take care of everybody.

  It was not going well.

  I knew I looked as worn out as Maurice did. My eyes were puffy, my hair now lived in a permanent ponytail and twice in the last week I’d made it all the way to work with mismatched shoes.

  My normal dress sense is a little weird for most people’s taste, though, so I pulled it off as intentional. At least, I think I pulled it off.

  I went inside and checked on the water sprites first. Good thing I did. They had the taps running, and water gushed over the lip of the sink, across the counter and all over the rug. My hair dryer sat in a puddle, mercifully unplugged. I shook off as much water as I could and hung it over a towel rack to dry out. It was probably ruined. Maybe if I gave it a week or two it would be safe to plug in.

  Weariness sank into me. It was only a hair dryer. I didn’t have the time or energy to use the damn thing anyway.

  I dropped a few towels on the floor to soak up the mess. The water sprites floated on their backs, eyeing me. Their blue eel tails squiggled in the water in lazy patterns. Indigo hair floated around their heads, framing delicate faces with pointy features.

  “Ladies, I appreciate your need for moisture, but let’s keep it all in the sink, okay?”

  The larger of the two nodded, causing her hair to ripple around her. “We’re very sorry, Aegis. The monster didn’t fill it enough, so we turned the faucet back on.” She changed position and hovered upright, her tail under the water. “We couldn’t turn it off again. We tried.”

  “No harm done.” I nudged the towels around with the toe of my sneaker. “Now, what can I do for you? Are you hurt?”

  The smaller sprite sat up and joined the other. “We lost our sister.”

  “So you’re not hurt?”

  They shook their wet heads. “Not hurt, no. But Layla’s missing. We heard you can help with that sort of thing.”

  I closed the lid of the toilet and sat down. “Tell me.”

  Their tiny voices babbled together until they organized and settled on who would be the spokesman—I supposed she was the older sister. “We were in our pond, playing a game of squirrel and moccasin. Layla was concealer,
so Bette and I stayed on the bank and closed our eyes while we recited the moons and Layla hid the walnut.”

  Bette cut her sister off, gesturing wildly enough to splash the water with her arms and tail. “She should’ve been done and calling for us before we reached Strawberry Moon, but we called out all the way to Frosty Moon and she hadn’t finished. Celie said we should go look. Maybe Layla was playing a trick on us. We swam all around the pond looking for her, but she was nowhere.” Her tail splashed for emphasis and her eyes widened. “She was nowhere!”

  Bette burst into tears and Celie put her arms around her sister, smoothing her hair and crooning softly. When Bette settled down, Celie turned to me, holding her sister in her arms. “We found the walnut in the mud a short distance from the water. She never returned. Please help us, Aegis.”

  The two sank into the depths of my bathroom sink and settled to the bottom in a curtain of sapphire hair. I left the bathroom and closed the door to give them privacy.

  The quiet hallway gave me a minute to gather myself together. I leaned against the wall and blew out a lungful of air.

  Pull it together, Zo. You’ve got about thirty seconds and then we’ve got shit to do.

  But I didn’t have thirty seconds of peace. A group of knee-high tornadoes rolled past me and into the living room. A trail of dirt led across the carpet runner from my bedroom. I rubbed my forehead with the tips of my fingers, muttering.

  “Who the hell let the dust devils into the house?”

  No one answered. For the moment, no one stood in the hallway but me.

  Next problem on the list was the latest dilemma stashed in my garage. I sighed and dug my phone out of the pocket of my jeans. I typed a quick text to Andrew:

  Hellhound with mange or something. Got anything for that?

  Andrew’s herbalist skills and access to ingredients from his shop made him priceless. He came every other evening or so to treat my visitors. Broken wings, torn webbing between toes or fingers, common sniffles—you name it—Andrew usually had a poultice, cream or tea to treat it. Without his help, I’d be lost.