“I don’t know. You said once they see my credentials, they should approve me for the funding, but in the email, it says they want me to do some kind of test?”
“What? That’s new. Show me what they sent.”
Milo turned back to the desk, shoved scattered papers aside to get to the keyboard for his desktop and clicked a few times untilthe email was on screen. He gestured to it and Quirion leaned forward to read it.
Dear Dr. Abber, we are happy to inform you that you’ve completed the next step and have been approved to undertake the test we ask our prospective funding recipients to do. It will take place in four weeks via Teams. The details and fields we will be testing are listed below.
Sincerely, Beverly Nyx
Quirion felt anger bubbling up. Thereneverhad been a test to get funding from SBW. He knew because he had researched the last fifty years of funding grants to make sure Milo was perfectly prepared for anything they might throw at him. The next step should have been a personal meeting where Milo got the chance to present his work and field questions the board might have. Then things should have been settled. He scanned down to the list of fields they were going to test and narrowly avoided skewering the table and keyboard with his claws.
“Are you kidding me?The History of Elves on the Irish Isles?Biology, seen from a Magical Perspective?Evolution and the Ambient Magic Fields?Microorganisms and Mutations during the Middle Ages? Have they gone nuts?”
“I don’t know. I thought the fields were quite specific, but then again except for the first one, it all has to do with my research, even though in a broad sense. Perhaps they just want to see if I know where I’m coming from?”
Milo sounded so lost and small, Quirion wanted to rip the entire board of the SBW to tiny little pieces. Since his father wouldn’t look favorably upon such behavior, he had to find other ways to make them suffer. But first things first. He drew a deep breath, retracted his claws, and turned to Milo with a broad smile. “Don’t you worry,min Liechtbrunn. We’ve got this.I won’t leave you hanging. You wrap up here and I’ll get you in, say, an hour? Then we go to the library to strategize and work.”
Milo nodded, a small, hopeful smile on his face. It only made Quirion’s rage burn hotter, but he kept his lethal instincts under tight wraps. No need to worry Milo any more than he already was.
“I’ll get you in an hour. How about pizza from Napoli for dinner?”
“The original?”
“What else?” Quirion arched his eyebrows. It had the desired effect. Milo chuckled softly.
“Yes. Always.” He touched the back of Quirion’s hand where it was still resting on the desk. “Thank you. I wouldn’t know what to do without you.”
“Oh, you would. But Sammy isn’t as good a help as me.” Quirion winked, reminding Milo that he had quite a few people in his corner.
“Yeah, don’t tell him I said that, but it’s true.”
“That’s my boy.” Quirion realized what he’d just said and before things could get awkward, he sliced space and time and fled the lab.
He reemerged in his brother Barion’s home in the Carpathians. Of course, the idiot wasn’t home. Quirion then traveled to Jon’s apartment under Sammy’s bookstore and there he found the two snuggling on the couch watching a biped with a bull’s head bang a human. His brother and his mate were beyond weird.
Jon made a sound like a trapped mouse and Barion jumped up to go into a defensive stance in front of his mate.
“Relax, it’s just me.”
“Have you ever heard of doorbells?” Barion’s claws were still out, though Quirion wasn’t worried. His youngest brother reliedon warning while Dre would have already taken the first swing. He’d always been the hothead.
“I have, but this is urgent.” There, that should be sufficient.
“And have you ever researched how to use them?” Barion’s claws were retracting, but slowly. Behind him, Jon had left the couch and was now looking past his mate to Quirion.
“Oh, hi, Quirion. You startled me.”
“Hi, Jon. I didn’t mean to. And as for your question, Barion, I do know how to use them, but why should I when there’s so much on the line?”
Barion opened his mouth to reply but no sound came out because there was another rip in space and time and Corrywin jumped through, claws out, ready to kill, behind him Jon’s Grann, his mate, whose aura was brimming with accumulated magic. Jon snuggled close to Barion while Corrywin looked around the room with glowing eyes.
“Bele leve, I can’t find the enemy.”
“I guess that’s because there is no enemy here,bote nob,” Grann replied. The magic around her receded while she patted her mate’s side. “Though we absolutely have to revisit this whole going into battle thing. I can see the appeal.” Her eyes sparkled. “Adrenaline all high, myye gason béljready to kill, enemies cowering before his might…”
“Oh,bwa sovaj mwen. You make me all hot and bothered.” Corrywin leaned forward to kiss Grann, which Jon thankfully interrupted before Quirion was scarred for life. He liked his uncle well enough, and he respected Grann as the most powerful voodoo queen New Orleans—and the world—had ever seen, but he liked to do it from afar, exactly for this reason. Neither his uncle nor his—aunt? Through marriage?—had any idea what the word restraint meant. Perhaps because they were both rich in years. Then again, Quirion was rich in years as well and he didn’t act like a teenager crazy with hormones.
“Grann, as nice as it is to see you, what are you doing here?”
