Suzanne Johnson - Elysian Fields

Rand responded with his own crossed arms and pouty face.

Good grief. “Alex can study the garden gnomes. We’ll talk in the greenhouse. Take it or leave it.” I gave Rand my bitchy wizard face.

“Fine. Let me close up.” Rand locked the front door and dimmed the front lights. “Give us a few minutes, Alex.”

Grunting in his best monosyllable, Alex settled into a chair behind the counter and picked up a landscaping magazine. I set down my toad lilies, met his gaze over the top of the magazine, and smiled. We made a pretty good team when we worked at it.

“Come on, it’s time for me to answer some of your questions.” Rand rested a hand on my shoulder and propelled me toward the back, closing the door behind us. Alex would probably ease it back open within seconds.

The lights of the city streaked gold across the greenhouse glass, giving the whole thing a glittery feel. The air was clean and crisp, probably from the small sprayers that cut on and off to keep the plants green and healthy. I took a deep breath.

“The plants give off all that oxygen—nice, isn’t it? Come this way.” Rand walked ahead of me toward an ornate gazebo that took up an entire corner of the cavernous greenhouse. Painted white, it had Victorian-inspired wooden trim and two benches inside. He sat on one, and I took the bench facing him.

“Okay, Rand. Give it up.”

He reached up and removed the peridot studs from his ears, then tugged a gold chain from beneath his white sweater. At the end of it hung a gold-and-peridot tree. He handed them to me.

As before, the buzz of wizard’s magic made my palm tingle. “Where did you get these? And don’t tell me you bought them on eBay.”

“Black market—they’re easy enough to get. Even wizards need a supplementary source of income these days.”

“You still haven’t told me what you are. Elf? Faery?” I eyed him for any physical changes with the removal of the peridot. Apparently, his prettiness was real. If anything, his blue-green eyes were richer and brighter than before. I still didn’t read any aura from him that was identifiable, just a light, unfamiliar magical charge.

“You haven’t figured it out?” He grinned at me. Even his teeth were perfect.

“Give me your hand.” Maybe I could tell more if I touched him.

A flick of an eyebrow in an expression almost triumphant spread over his face before he settled into an easy smile. He stretched out his arm and took my hand. His fingers wrapped around mine, but still I felt only that light energy.

He grasped my hand harder, closed his eyes, and spoke softly in an odd, musical language I couldn’t understand. The room spun, and the greenhouse slipped into a soft fade. I opened my mouth to scream, but the sound came out soft and breathy as time and space squeezed my lungs.

The gazebo was a freaking transport.

Holy crap—I’d been tricked and kidnapped like I was a rookie. I’d never hear the end of it.

One second I sat in a gazebo in a Magazine Street shop, and now my boots were planted on an area rug in a large octagonal room. It had what architects called an open floor plan, with lots of blond wood to give it a modern, urban feel. Bright floodlights outside the floor-to-ceiling windows illuminated what looked like the edges of dense forest. It was already nighttime here, which probably meant I was either in Europe or Asia, or somewhere in the Beyond. My bets were on the Beyond.

A fire popped and crackled cheerfully in the middle of the room from a central fireplace surrounded by rugs and conversation areas. Deep, cushiony armchairs beckoned in greens and browns. In the back, where the windows ended, lay a short hallway and a small but functional kitchen. The place smelled of pine.

“What the hell have you done?” I jerked my hand away from Quince Randolph and glared at him. I was going to make his life a living hell when I got out of here. Making me look boneheaded was the quickest way to bring out my vengeful streak. And I had a long memory.

“Want something to drink?” He walked into the kitchen area, looking pleased with himself.

“Where are we? Why are we here?” My voice hinged on hysteria, louder and higher-pitched than normal.

“I thought it would be easier to explain things this way.”

I was going to kill him, that’s all there was to it. If I could sprout fangs and fur right now, he’d be so much dead, bloody meat on the polished hardwood floor. We’d see how pretty he was then.

I willed my voice to reflect a calm I didn’t feel. “Explain what? Didn’t it occur to you that I might listen better if you hadn’t kidnapped me?” And right under Alex Warin’s nose. He was going to be so royally pissed.

Rand cocked his head. “You wanted to know what I am.”

“What you are is a flipping sociopath.” I stomped to the only visible outside door, which had been inset in one of the huge windows that looked out on an ocean of treetops. From what the floodlights illuminated, the land looked hilly. We definitely weren’t in pancake-flat Southeast Louisiana anymore.

I turned the doorknob and pulled, but it wouldn’t budge. Frowning, I grasped the knob with my right hand and tried to send a pulse of physical energy into the lockset, willing it to turn. A feeble, tingling force of will skittered from my hand and dissipated. I don’t have a lot of physical magic, but that had been pathetic, even for me.

But wizard’s physical magic didn’t work in the Beyond. Crap.

I rounded on Rand. “Let me out of here, you lying, peridotwearing sonofa—”

He assumed a contrite expression I didn’t buy for a minute. “Don’t be mad, Dru. You’re in Elf heim. You’d already guessed I was elf. My Synod just wants to talk to you a few minutes, and then I’ll take you home. I promise.”

Freaking elves. I should have known. I tried to blast a shot of physical energy into the fireplace, just a pulse to stoke the fire, and when that didn’t work, willed every bit of magic I could muster. Nothing, damn it. Why oh why hadn’t I stuck one of those grenades in my pocket?

“Alex is going to kill you, you know. You can’t go back to New Orleans. And I have friends in the Beyond who can take you down.” I’d hire Jean Lafitte to kill him. If I could just get out of here. Jean would probably do it for free.

I studied the floor, but our transport wasn’t visible so it had to be hidden under that big area rug. I wasn’t sure exactly where we’d landed, but it was somewhere between the door and the round dining table.

I walked to the edge of the rug and threw it back to see the universal transport symbol. Rand made no move to stop me as I stepped into it. I knelt to activate it and send myself home . . . and then remembered I had no magic.

“You’ll need me to get you back anyway. It’s locked without our transport phrase.” Rand’s voice was annoyingly patient. “Just wait and talk to them. It won’t take long.”

“They can wait until the Monday after Thanksgiving, when we planned.” I picked up a heavy wooden stool from the kitchen bar and tested its weight. Turning it upside down, I grasped the legs and hefted the whole thing back to swing it like a baseball bat. If I could break the window, I’d be out.

I might be short, but I’d jogged with Alex every day until the rib injury and was highly motivated. I could outrun Quince Randolph.

“Please don’t break the window. You’ll make a mess, and there’s really nowhere for you to go.”

I whirled at the sound of a different voice and at the man it belonged to. An urbane guy in his mid-to- late forties, medium height and slender, with salt-and-pepper hair and a short, dark beard. Deep brown eyes glittered cheerfully above high cheekbones, his face lean and tanned. He looked like he’d walked out of the pages of GQ — or a past version of New Orleans.