Page 14 of Black Dog

“I’m going to use it to call Lally.”

Storm rolled his eyes. “Yeah. That’s exactly what we need. A fuck-up angel added into the mix.”

Litha gaped. “Kellareal is not a fuck-up angel.”

“Really?” Storm challenged. “Tell that to Rosie.”

“Most of the time,” Litha amended.

“Why in hel’s name would you want to get his attention?”

“Because I might not feel good enough to go get Song, but he could.”

Storm’s nostrils flared as he thought that over. He glanced at Elora before admitting that, “Okay. So there’s nothing wrong with your logic. If you feel like you have to have Song here, and you haven’t clued us in on that, getting that…” Litha gave Storm a warning look. “That angel to do it is a good option. Now why don’t you lie down and give Ram and Helm a chance to run down your cowbell.”

Elora pulled pillows off the sofa to make a comfortable place for Litha to lie down. While she was doing it, she said, “I don’t suppose you’d tell me, your best friend, whose dog is missing, why you’re demanding an appearance from Song?”

Litha stared up into Elora’s eyes with a depth of sincerity that couldn’t be denied before saying, “No.”

Twenty minutes later Ram and Helm emerged from the music room victorious. Seeing that Litha was sound asleep, Ram hesitated. When he looked down at the cowbell, Storm said, “If you wake her up with that thing, I will beat your ass bloody in front of your mate and offspring.”

Ram looked at the cowbell, looked at Storm, smiled his wickedest smile and began ringing the cowbell as Storm lunged and tackled Ram to the floor, knocking over a table and lamp in the process.

Litha came awake instantly. “Storm! What the…?” Seeing Ram and Storm wrestling on the floor while a very wide-eyed Helm looked on, she turned to Elora. “Do something? You’re the only one who can break this up.”

Elora glanced at Litha. “Break this up? I’ll be able to call my mate an idiot over this for years to come.”

Litha looked down. “That’s a good point. But tick tock.”

Elora separated the two knights fairly easily. “Storm, Litha is fine. Ram, we have more important things to do.”

“Give me that,” Litha said as she snatched the cowbell from Ram’s hand. She rang it three times and said, “Lally. Lally. Lally.”

Helm looked at Storm and said, “Really? That’s all there is to magic?”

Storm took his hand away from scrubbing down his face, shook his head, and said, “Sometimes, I guess.”

“Huh.” Helm seemed genuinely impressed with the simplicity of what he’d witnessed.

Kellareal appeared in the living room as an eight-foot blonde angel in tight white leather pants and wings that would have taken up the entire room if unfurled.

It was Litha’s turn to roll her eyes. “Knock it off. It’s not prank day. We have a situation.”

Kellareal immediately collapsed to his guise as the handsome Irishman Finrar, all six foot of black leather. He was still blonde. Just more masculine somehow. “What’s the problem?” He looked at Litha more closely. “You sick?”

“Yes. I’m sick.”

“Does it hurt?” The angel asked.

“No. Yes. Well, it’s uncomfortable. I hate it and want it to be over. I need you to go get Song.”

“Song?”

“Aelsong Hawking.”

“Oh. The fae princess,” Kellareal said.

Ram rose up, immediately turning red in the face. “She is no’ a fairy royal. She’s princess of Irish elves.”

---