Motor City Fae Read online

  Detroit artist Meagan Kelly has had a strong sixth sense all her life, but that doesn’t mean the gorgeous stranger’s crazy story—that she’s a half-elf, half human heiress—is true. But Meagan can’t deny the evidence of her own eyes—he’s Fae. A tall, blond, handsome, pointy-eared elf—and a man she just can’t get enough of.

  Ric Thornhill’s assignment just got a lot more complicated. The more time he spends with Meagan, the harder it is to see her as a political tool to prevent an all-out war between humans and Fae.

  Now Meagan’s in a race to master her newly released powers in time to prevent the conflict, convince a jealous Queen not to strip Ric of his powers, and find out if she can build a life that straddles two worlds.

  Book I of Urban Arcana

  Dear Reader,

  Thank you for purchasing this Carina Press launch title. During our journey these past months to acquire manuscripts, develop relationships with authors and build the Carina Press catalog, we’ve been working to fulfill the mission “Where no great story goes untold.”

  If you’d asked me what I’d be doing a year ago, I never would have conceived I’d be working with the brilliant team behind Harlequin’s digital program to bring you a new and exciting digital-first imprint. I have long been a fan of Harlequin books, authors and staff and that’s why I’m so pleased to be sharing these first Carina Press launch titles with you.

  At Carina Press, we’re committed to bringing readers great voices and great stories, and we hope you’ll find these books as compelling as we do. In this first month, you’ll find a broad range of genres that showcase our promise to Carina Press fans to publish a diversity of content. In the coming months, we’ll add additional genres and continue to bring you a wide range of stories we believe will keep you coming back for more.

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  Motor City Fae

  Cindy Spencer Pape

  Dedication

  For my husband Glenn, for his unwavering support, his continual offers to help with “research” and never worrying when I ask questions like, “What is the sound of a baseball bat smacking a human body?” or “Did Jake or Elwood say, ‘Hit it’?”

  Prologue

  The dream began as it always did. Meagan Kelly found herself sitting on a carved stone bench in the most beautiful rose garden her imagination could conjure. A fountain tinkled nearby and blooms of every size and color filled the air with a rich perfume. She sighed, relishing the peace of this place, her secret haven, even if it only existed in her dreams.

  Now the vision would change. Meagan knew she was dreaming—she always did. This was the point where things would shift, warning her of what was coming. If the sky grew dark, if thunder boomed and lightning flashed, she’d know something awful would happen tomorrow. Twice she’d sat here through storms…the nights before each of her parents had died. Gray drizzle meant a less traumatic but still unpleasant event—a broken relationship or getting fired from a job. If birds sang and a euphoric sensation filled the air, she’d know something wonderful was headed her way…a new friend, an important sale, or maybe even a really hot date. She hadn’t had one of those in forever. Meagan sat on the bench and waited, praying the sky overhead would remain bright and blue.

  It did, causing her to breathe a sigh of relief as she waited for the birds.

  Instead, she heard the jingle of tiny silver bells, followed by raucous laughter.

  Looking over, she saw someone sitting on the stone edge of the fountain. A thin man, with elongated features and pointed ears, wore a jester’s motley, complete with belled hat and pointed shoes. As he stared at her and laughed, he juggled, almost too quickly for her to see that the objects in his hand were a tiny guitar, a bottle of diet cola and a flashing silver sword.

  Weird. She’d been having these dreams since she was a kid, but she could never remember one quite like this.

  The jester laughed again, a coarse, unsettling sound.

  He sent her a wicked grin and winked, before he vanished.

  Meagan awoke, muzzy-headed and confused. What the hell had that been all about?

  She’d had dreams foreshadowing good and bad. This one was neither. This one had been just plain weird.

  Chapter One

  Suburban Detroit was a truly odd place.

  Ric Thornhill’s vintage Jaguar convertible roared down Woodward Avenue, a wide car-clogged boulevard lined with all manner of businesses from elegant boutiques to seedy liquor stores. To his right loomed an enormous stone church that could have been in medieval Europe. On the left was a strip mall with a Chinese restaurant, a nail salon and a paycheck advance center.

  Find Emery of Rose’s long-lost daughter before the next Seelie Council meeting, or live out a miserable human lifespan as a powerless mortal. That was the geas that his boss, the elven queen, had cast on Ric. In other words, find the girl or die. His death sentence would simply take forty or fifty years to be carried out. The geas was a result of telling Her Majesty off the last time she’d sent him on a fool’s errand. One would think he’d have learned by now to keep his mouth shut. The sad part was that on this job, he’d have done his best anyway. The fate of both realms could hang in the balance if he didn’t.

  In over eight centuries of existence, he’d been in plenty of sticky situations, but none as bad as this. He’d started the search in New York, where Emery had died.

  No luck there. He’d also tried Windsor, Ontario, the hometown of Emery’s human wife. Nothing. Two other agents of the queen had mysteriously disappeared or been killed and now Ric was the only one left. And he was here in Detroit on nothing more than a hunch held by one of Emery’s cousins. Aidan Greene believed his missing relative was somewhere nearby. Now Ric only had five days remaining and he’d gotten nowhere but here, which wasn’t good.

  The place was dismal and depressing—hot, gray and muggy on this August afternoon and the five-o’clock Friday traffic royally sucked. Ric had spent the last week checking out every new-age shop, so-called psychic and alternative club in the area—every place he could think of that a half-Fae would be drawn to. If his mediocre scrying skills hadn’t led him to the right place this time, he was probably toast. He was supposed to be at a certain corner in Royal Oak at a certain time. Yeah, he had lots of info to go on.

  He accelerated through a yellow light, cranked up the volume on his stereo and settled his black Ray-Ban sunglasses on his nose despite the overcast day. What the hell, might as well go down in style.

  Meagan had been walking around all day waiting for something weird to happen.

  She finished teaching her once-weekly class at the Royal Oak art co-op, washed her hands and gathered up her keys. She was one of the lucky ones. Her paintings were finally selling well enough to support her. She only kept up her weekly class at the co-op as a way of giving back to the place that had kept her from having to wait tables during her own lean years. Well, that and to make sure she actually got out of her house and spoke to another human being at least once a week.

  Normally she loved it, but today she was wiped. After last night’s dream, she’d spent the whole day waiting for the other shoe to drop—or a piano, with her luck. Having dreams that acted as early-warning signals sucked sometimes, especially when all you knew was that something was about to happen.

  Lost in her thought
s, Meagan wandered out the door of the art co-op on autopilot, barely remembering to wave to the art student at the front desk.

  Since she wasn’t watching where she was going, of course she plowed straight into someone. The chest her face smashed into was as solid as a concrete wall.

  “Ow!” Her eyes watered at the sharp pain in her nose and her feet got tangled up in her flip-flops. A pair of long, strong arms wrapped around her waist to steady her as she wobbled.

  Stinging pain and watered-up eyes fought for sensory dominance with a bizarre electrical tingle. As the swirling in her head started to clear, she felt a weird ripple of something that felt a lot like lust. The silk-covered chest might be as broad and solid as the side of a building, but it sure smelled a lot better. She let herself enjoy one moment of inhaling the warm masculine scent before she gripped lean muscled arms and found her footing.

  “Excuse me.” Damn, even the voice was sexy, a rich baritone with a slight British accent that curled her toes.

  She reluctantly pulled her face out of his chest and lifted her chin. His face was a long way up and it was every bit as compelling as the rest of him, slim and sculpted, with golden-brown eyes over high, sharp cheekbones and a pointed chin, all framed by shoulderlength dark blond hair. If the planes and angles weren’t so masculine, he’d be almost too pretty. Just her luck to make an idiot out of herself in front of the hottest guy she’d seen in years.

  “Are you all right?”

  Meagan gulped. “Uh, yeah.” Smooth. “I’m fine.

  Sorry.”

  “No problem.” The man cracked a rueful grin. His slightly tilted, oddly intense, amber eyes crinkled at the corners and Meagan felt her insides melt. “I never mind having beautiful women run into me. You’re sure your nose isn’t damaged?”

  She let go of his arm and rubbed her abused appendage. No blood, no swelling—everything seemed to be intact. “No, just my pride.” She stepped back and he instantly disengaged his hands, causing the lovely tingle to go away. “I’m really sorry. I wasn’t watching where I was going.”

  He hesitated, before giving a tiny shake of his head, his straight golden-blond hair sliding about his shoulders.

  “Good afternoon.”

  He turned back to stare at the painting in the co-op window. One of hers, Meagan noticed with pride. She almost told him, but common sense intervened and she turned away. Wishful thinking, she told herself, but she could almost swear that those intense golden eyes followed her as she walked to her car.

  “Down, boy,” Ric murmured to the part of his anatomy standing at attention as he watched the woman walk to her bright yellow Mustang convertible. With her thick tumble of curly auburn hair and a petite form that didn’t even reach his shoulders, she wasn’t his usual type, especially as she was dressed in orange leggings and a turquoise tank top, with mismatched earrings. She was cute as hell, though and the mystical zing he’d gotten when his hands contacted her skin was like nothing he’d felt in years, maybe centuries. Judging by her nervous reaction, she’d noticed it too.

  But he was on a mission, one he couldn’t afford to ignore to chase a pretty girl. His scrying had told him to be on this corner, this afternoon. He needed to find out why.

  He glanced back into the window of the art co-op. The painting in the window was a landscape, with a hazy, fantastical quality to it that reminded him of home. Could the artist be Tuatha de Dannan? Ric’s host, the guardian of the local portal-house, hadn’t mentioned any Fae artists in the Detroit area. A psychic human, perhaps? Or could it possibly be the half-elven heiress he sought?

  He searched for a signature but there were only initials. M and K, superimposed on a coral-pink flower.

  The stylized version of a half-opened rose was all too familiar.

  The emblem of the house of Rose.

  The hair on the back of his neck stood up. He pulled open the door and strode into the co-op.

  The receptionist was young, probably an artist herself from the look of her purple hair and multiple piercings.

  “I’d like some information on one of the paintings in your window.”

  The young woman looked him over appraisingly, running her eyes over his silk shirt, pleated twill trousers and Italian leather boots and smiled warmly. “Which one?”

  “The forest scene,” Ric replied with a smile that usually got him what he wanted from women, even without putting any glamour behind it. “Is it for sale?”

  “Sure.” There was cunning in the narrowed eyes and wide smile. “But it isn’t cheap.”

  “I wouldn’t expect it to be.” And he didn’t care. “I’m surprised to see something of that quality at an art school instead of a gallery. Is the artist a student here?”

  “Oh, no.” The purple hair flew as she shook her head.

  “Ms. Kelly is one of our instructors. In fact, you just missed her. Most of her stuff is at a classy Birmingham gallery, but each teacher contributes one work a year for our annual fundraiser.”

  “Ms. Kelly, you say?” Ric pulled out his wallet, his mind racing, his mouth dry. He’d missed her? Could it be the woman who’d knocked into him? Was that what the strange tingle had meant? Damn, he’d missed her because he’d assumed it was merely attraction.

  “Yep, that’s our Meagan.” After eyeballing the platinum credit card he handed her, the young woman unfolded herself from her tall metal stool and drifted over to the window where she extracted the landscape. “This sure didn’t last long. I only set up the display this afternoon.” She held the back of the painting toward him, her black-tipped finger tapping the tag with the four-digit price.

  When Ric nodded, she rang up the charge and carefully wrapped the canvas in brown paper before handing it over. “Enjoy.”

  He smiled back. “I’m sure I will. By the way, you said I could find more of her work at a gallery. Mind telling me which one?”

  “No problem.” She handed him a card from beneath the counter, with the address of a gallery in a pricier, snootier suburb.

  Ric stuck it in his pocket and held out his hand.

  “Thanks for all your help.” He shook the beringed hand she placed in his and dropped a light kiss onto the back of her left wrist.

  As he left the gallery, Ric felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up. He had the oddest sensation he was being watched. He scanned both sides of the busy street and at first, saw nothing that accounted for the impression. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a short, slight figure walking away, a bit too quickly. He dropped the painting in the back seat of the Jag and hurried after it.

  Something wasn’t right. Was it a small man or a tall child? He squinted his eyes, trying to see past any glamour. There was something—but the figure turned into an alley, disappearing from view. Seconds later Ric turned the same corner, only to find the alley empty.

  Goblin? Hell, was Owain allying himself with the Unseelie Court now? That was a development Ric needed to report. He returned to his car and got inside. It was too late now to visit the gallery—he’d have to save that for tomorrow. Right now, he had another job to do. He’d called in a bunch of favors for this mission and tonight he’d agreed to pay one of them back. He had barely enough time to drop off the painting and grab his guitars.

  At least now he had a name. Was she really the sexy redhead whose fragrance still filled his nostrils? Ric had quit believing in coincidences centuries earlier.

  How had she let Jase talk her into this?

  Meagan’s nose was rapidly clogging up from the cigarette smoke that filled the small, dark-paneled basement tavern on Detroit’s riverfront. Judging by the old photographs on the walls, The New Moon still looked much like it had as a speakeasy in the 1920s. Her stomach rumbled and she realized she’d forgotten to eat dinner—

  she’d been so caught up in thinking about the man she’d met this afternoon. Huh. Usually, that only happened when she was painting.

  “I am glad that George is playing tonight.” Her best friend slid into
the booth across from her, a pitcher of light beer in one clay-spattered hand and two glasses in the other. “Greg, too, of course and the rest of the band.”

  The silver beads braided into Jase’s long dreadlocks jingled musically. “Word up at the bar is there’s a special guest musician tonight. Some friend of Greg’s who is absolutely to die for.”

  Meagan accepted half a glass of the light beer Jase poured and smiled. “Greg is pretty hot himself, you know,” she teased. Both of the brothers who owned the club were good-looking in a dark, dangerous sort of way.

  Jase had a major crush on the younger brother and had been trying to work up the courage to ask George Novak out for weeks.

  “T’ink so?” Jase cast her a speculative gaze. “You could do worse. You haven’t had a date in months. I could try to set something up for you.” Because trying to set up Greg would be a perfect reason for Jase to approach George.

  She almost hated to tell him no. Especially since it had been closer to years than months since she’d had a real date. The last one had been scared off when he’d walked in and found her singing a Monty Python song about lumberjacks at the top of her lungs while she cleaned her paintbrushes. Meagan knew that she couldn’t sing worth beans, but still...

  “Don’t, please.” She held up a hand imploringly.

  “While I can appreciate a work of art when I see one, the dark and swarthy type never really flipped my switch. I’ll let you know if I see something that does, okay?”

  “Spoilsport.” But he said it with a grin and a reassuring squeeze of her hand. “Hey, maybe that’s why the cards told me to bring you tonight. Maybe you’re supposed to meet someone.”

  “Anything’s possible.” She didn’t have the heart to tell him how unlikely that was. After the encounter this afternoon, she doubted she’d respond to any lesser mortal than the blond god she’d slammed into nose-first. At least now she knew what the premonition of something weird had been all about. Her response to him had definitely been out of the ordinary. She swallowed an allergy tablet with a swig of beer and settled back to wait for the band.