A Trinket for the Taking

by Victoria Laurie

Genres: Amateur Sleuth; Ghost; Mystery

Synopsis

This mesmerizing mystery series debut from New York Times bestselling author Victoria Laurie introduces the captivating Dovey Van Dalen, once the belle of 1840s Copenhagen, now charged with recovering magic property from mortals—whatever it takes.

Dovey Van Dalen has a gorgeous day planned for her 200th birthday: driving her new Porsche, admiring the cherry blossoms abloom in her adopted city of Washington DC, and a little pampering. But her boss has other ideas. A powerful artifact has been stolen, and he fears it’s causing chaos in the unmagical world . . .

The rich and connected Ariti family has suffered a string of suspicious deaths, with no signs of foul play. Yet each member has died in the way they feared most. As the enchanting agent most skilled at blending in with mere mortals, Dovey must find answers and retrieve the dangerous trinket.

There’s just one unexpected wrinkle: by the time Dovey arrives at the art gallery where the Ariti patriarch died, FBI agent Grant “Gibs” Bartholomew has taken control of the scene. Dovey needs his cooperation to investigate—but she’ll have to hide her abilities, and her true objective, from a man who uncovers deceptions every day. And as they inch nearer a deadly truth, both will face danger even the spellbound would be lucky to survive . . .

Release date: November 26, 2024

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 288

Sample

Stepping out into the sunshine of a beautiful early spring afternoon, I sighed contentedly. I’d always wanted to make it to the bicentennial mark, so today’s birthday was a little extra special. And it didn’t even bother me that I’d have to meet the boss before I could clear my calendar for the rest of the day of self-care. I badly needed pampering.

Walking down the three brick steps from the back door of my three-level home off Thirty-Third Street in the heart of Georgetown, I headed along the paved pathway to my detached garage, opening the door and flicking on the lights. In the center of the garage was my brand-new Porsche 718 Cayman in arctic gray. She’d been the perfect birthday present to celebrate my two hundredth year.

“Hello, Luna,” I whispered, caressing her roof. I name all my cars, just like I’d once named all my horses.

Luna had arrived in my driveway on the night of a full moon, so her name was rather obvious. Her beautiful arctic-gray color also helped to inspire the moniker.

With another contented sigh I opened the door and hopped in, then started her up, hearing the thrum of the engine like a million bees under the hood being awakened from their slumber.

Backing out of the tiny driveway to the street, I spun the wheel and punched the gas, thrilling at the sudden burst of speed.

My grin was wide when I took the tight corner, then slowed down just enough not to attract too much attention. Still, I couldn’t help humming a happy tune while I thought about the meeting I was headed to. I had just closed a very difficult caper involving an unbound with a case of sticky fingers, and a talent for disguise. It’d taken me over a week to finally track him down, and he didn’t give up his trinket easily. No, I’d had to persuade him.

Such an unpleasant experience . . . for him.

Right now, the trinket was safely tucked away in my purse, and it was about to be reunited with its owner.

Weaving in and out of the midafternoon traffic, I was able to gain some speed, once I hit the Washington Memorial Highway. One glance at the clock on the dash told me I wasn’t in danger of being late for my meeting, something I have never been in the 180 years I’d been working for my employer, Elric Ostergaard.

Elric doesn’t tolerate tardiness. He views it as an insult, and I’ve had the misfortune of seeing what happens to a few of my peers when Elric feels insulted....

Let’s just say that it’s generally unpleasant and likely to involve a dragon.

Not kidding.

I headed south at a good clip before taking the exit for Alexandria, which is simply the quaintest little town. If I hadn’t owned my home since the late 1880s, I might’ve settled in Alexandria.

Still, it’s likely a good thing that I’m not closer to work. There are far too many sniveling, simpering mystics in that town, all vying for Elric’s good graces.

They should know better—Elric has no good graces.

Well, except perhaps where I’m concerned.

Avoiding the underground garage, I opted for the sizable parking lot of his headquarters and parked at the back, away from the crowded spaces closer to the building. I wanted Luna to enjoy the sunshine without fear of being scratched.

Grabbing my purse, phone, and key fob, I hurried out of the lot, around the building, and over to the front entrance.

Pushing my way through the revolving door, I came into the lobby and scanned the area to see if there were any familiar faces. There weren’t, which was probably a good thing if I’m being honest. Mystics overall are very manipulative creatures, always looking for an angle to work, an advantage to gain, or someone to manipulate. It’s wearisome.

Bypassing the information desk, I headed to the elevator where only one other person was standing. He turned when I stepped up next to him and I could feel his gaze traveling up and down my body in a crude, lecherous way.

“You must be new here,” I said softly.

“Why do you say that?” he asked, just as softly.

“Because men who stare at me, the way you are right now, don’t tend to leave the building in one piece.”

He barked out a laugh, and I turned to look him in the eye so that he could see I wasn’t making light.

The elevator binged and the doors opened. He waved me forward and I walked into the boxcar, pressing the button for the eighteenth floor, then moved all the way to the rear of the elevator with my back pressed against it in a subtly defensive position.

The lech followed me in and when he turned to the panel and saw what number floor I’d pressed, he immediately headed back out. “It’s okay,” he muttered. “I’ll catch the next one.”

I offered him a winning smile as the doors closed.

The ride up was slow as there were lots of people in the building moving from one floor to another. Everyone who entered, however, took one look at the panel of lit buttons and quickly exited the first chance they had.

I couldn’t blame them. No one wanted to be responsible for the elevator’s slow ascent to the top floor.

At last, the light above the door binged at the arrival of the eighteenth floor, and after the doors parted, I stepped out into the lobby, which was as elegantly decorated as any king’s court.

It fit Elric to a T.

Making my way down the corridor, I came to another lobby area, with elegant, high-backed armchairs set in a half circle. Two of the chairs were occupied; one by a woman with short, spiky, blond hair and the muscled physique of an elite athlete, well, except for the section of her upper arm that was missing along with three of her right fingers and much of her left foot. She was barely conscious.

In another chair sat a second woman with long black hair, pale skin, light green eyes, and a beautiful face. She was sporting a sizable bruise to her left eye, a split lip, swollen right wrist, and a long, deep, talon-like cut that traveled across her collarbone over her left shoulder and down the length of her arm. She was also holding herself in a way that suggested she might have a few cracked or broken ribs.

The women had obviously gone a few rounds with one of our in-house dragons.

I would’ve stopped to offer them each some encouragement, but both seemed to be fighting to stay conscious, so I moved on.

Arriving at the floor’s reception area, I smiled pleasantly at Elric’s assistant, sitting behind a large, ornately carved white desk. “Hello, Sequoia.”

The tall, leggy woman with ebony skin and long silver-white hair regarded me with a forced smile that was more reptilian than welcoming. In a distinctly British accent she greeted me with, “Dovey Van Dalen,” while her gaze flickered to the computer screen in front of her. “You’re ten minutes early, but Elric is running on time today, so I expect him to be with you shortly.”

“Perfect, thank you.” Making a motion over my shoulder to the seating area with the two brutalized women, I added, “Is Elric interviewing again?”

Sequoia nodded. “He’s looking for a new thief.”

I glanced over my shoulder at the pair. “How many did he start out with?”

“For the interviews?”

I nodded.

“Seven.”

“How many rounds to go?”

“Two,” Sequoia said, and then her smile did appear to be genuine—if you could call “sinister” genuine. “Odds are fifty to one that those two won’t last another round.”

I looked again at the brunette. There was something resilient about her. Reaching into my handbag, I pulled out a one-hundred-dollar bill, wiggling it playfully. “I’ll take a hundred on the brunette to go the distance.”

Sequoia’s brow arched. “No one is taking the brunette, Dovey.”

Laying the hundred on the counter I reached into my bag again and pulled out four more hundred-dollar bills. “Make it an even five, then.”

Sequoia chuckled and picked up my money, curling it into a roll, then tucking it into the bosom of her blouse. “Results will be in at five. On the dot.”

I nodded and was about to ask Sequoia if I should sit to wait for Elric in his office when behind me, I heard, “Tortelduif.”

Turning, I found myself looking up into the gorgeous hazel eyes of the most powerful man in the world and offered him a heartfelt smile. “Good morning, Elric.”

He stepped close, kissing my cheek. “Happy birthday.”

I blushed because he’d remembered. There was no doubt in my mind that the only other birthday Elric had committed to memory was his own.

“Thank you,” I told him.

The air around Elric’s face sparkled ever so slightly, and as I looked at his warm and affectionate expression, I realized he was masking it with a spell that would keep his ruthless, terrifying reputation intact.

To all the other eyes and ears in the lobby, Elric would appear to have a cool and detached demeanor, but with me, he’d always allowed himself to soften.

He’s never been anything but affectionate, generous, and often even gentle toward me, but with everyone else—including, and perhaps especially, his wife—he can be merciless, vengeful, and brutal. And when he wants, he can also be quite deadly.

Elric and I have known each other for nearly two hundred years, and for the first hundred and thirty, I’d been his constant companion, his concubine, his trusted advisor, his spy, and his loyal and faithful servant. My allegiance to him has never wavered, nor has my adoration.

Along with being my frequent lover, employer, and guardian, Elric is also my binder. On this very day 182 years earlier, Elric Ostergaard had won me in a game of cards, and my father had readily given me to the man in exchange for wiping away his gambling debts.

Truth be told, I hadn’t really minded. One look at the magnificently beautiful man and I’d fallen head over heels for him.

Perhaps it’d been the same for Elric. Perhaps less so. Still, we’d forged a bonded relationship over the years that felt unbreakable.

In fact, I wasn’t even jealous of his wife, Petra, or any of his other women anymore.

Well, not as much, at least.

As a reward for my allegiance, Elric had loosened the bond of his control over me—something that all binders have over their protégés—and he now granted me a fair degree of agency, for which I was very grateful.

Our current agreement is that I’m allowed to live on my own, keep my own hours, be free of the court politics that plague the territory, and most importantly, I can get paid for the work I do for SPL Inc. As the pay is good, and I have a one-hundred-percent closure rate, it’s a neat, comfortable life.

If only a little lonely.

“Do you have it?” he asked, eyeing my handbag.

“Of course I have it.”

“Good. Come, we’ll talk in my office.”

I followed behind him and couldn’t help but be flooded with the memories of the first time we’d met—which, coincidentally, had been on my eighteenth birthday.

Nearly two centuries ago, I’d been living a coddled and pampered life in Copenhagen with my wealthy merchant father, his third wife, and my two half brothers.

On the morning of my eighteenth birthday, Father, who’d always called me his little tortelduif, had announced that he’d found a suitable match for my hand in marriage in the form of Shem de Groot, the son of an exceptionally wealthy merchant.

I knew Shem, and the thought of becoming his wife made me think wistfully of hurling myself into the Christianshavns Kanal.

The young man was perpetually sickly, five years my junior, painfully thin and with a countenance marred by an unusually prominent nose, hollow cheeks, and buckteeth.

On top of all that, he had the manner and simpering disposition of a boy who, even at thirteen, still cried for his wet nurse.

It was a dreadful pairing, and back then I remember wishing that his sickly disposition would soon be more than his frail, bony body could bear.

Adding to the horror, my father also confessed that he’d invited the boy and his family to my party and that we would wed the next morning.

When the guests began arriving, I was in a state of near panic, and my mood reflected it. After being admonished by my stepmother for being rude to one of her cousins, I headed to a corner to sulk. And I wasn’t there but a moment when my future father-in-law arrived with his entourage. I wanted to bolt upstairs when I saw his son, peeking out from behind his mother’s skirts, sniffling through a red, runny nose.

But then into the hall sauntered a tall, exquisitely handsome man with light brown hair that fell to his shoulders, and a neatly trimmed goatee. He was dressed in formal attire that must have cost him a small fortune. He wore rings on every finger, including his thumbs, and there was an air about him that was mesmerizing.

We’d locked eyes almost immediately and I’d felt both thrilled and terrified to be wholly taken in by such a man.

Father had motioned for me to come and greet the de Groots, and I’d eagerly left my corner to hurry over, if for no other reason than to get a closer look at this stranger.

Shem’s father, Andries de Groot, introduced the man as Elric Ostergaard, a longtime friend of the de Groot family and an influential member of King Willem’s counsel.

I’d waited patiently next to my stepmother for my father to make the introductions on our side of the family, and the whole time I’d stood there, Elric had stared at me with an openly smoldering expression.

This would’ve normally shocked anyone within view, but for some reason, no one appeared to notice. And as for me, I simply couldn’t keep my eyes off him, and again, this was behavior that my father would’ve quickly scolded me for, but he’d carried on as if I weren’t openly gaping at the beautiful six-foot-five-inch-tall man, whom I thought was at least fifteen years older than me.

I only discovered later that I’d been off by over a thousand years.

At dinner and by tradition, my betrothed would’ve been seated next to me; however, for some reason Father insisted that I sit next to Elric. I found the whole affair simply mystical—which is the best way to define that birthday.

After dinner, the men had started up a game of faro—a gambling card game—and, when I’d sat nearby to observe the game, no one had protested.

Long into the night I’d sat there and watched as Elric won hand, after hand, after hand. And all the men at the table had been made considerably poorer.

No one was willing to call Elric a cheat, however. Such influential friends of King Willem would never be called out for such a thing, even if they were doing it blatantly.

But under such conditions, the normal protocol would’ve been for each of them to end the game early.

And yet, no one did.

Into the wee hours of the morning the men played, and one by one they became mired in debt until there wasn’t anything else left to offer up as collateral.

Poorest among them was my father, and normally the horizon of his dire financial situation would’ve terrified me, but I’d had this strange sense of calm throughout that evening and into the morning hours. I felt no fear.

But I did feel fate.

As the glow of the rising sun began to creep in through the windows, the game was down to only Elric and my father.

Father lost.

And that’s when Elric offered him a deal he simply couldn’t pass up. Nor did I want him to.

Elric told my father that the next hand would be the last for the two of them, but my father told Elric that he was finished. He had nothing left to offer as collateral and he was ruined if Elric attempted to collect on his debts.

Elric very pointedly pivoted his gaze to me, and the smile that snuck onto the corners of his lips sent my heart racing.

He told my father that their next hand would be double or nothing, but my father again insisted that he had nothing left to offer. Elric pointed at me and said, “Then I’ll take her.”

Angered, my father jumped to his feet, ready to banish Elric from his house, but the Viking held up his hand and added, “If I win, I will cancel all your debt and the debt of your guests, taking only your daughter as my prize. If I lose, you may reclaim all that you have lost plus double from my personal coffers for you and your guests.”

The only people left at the table were all the men who’d lost sizable sums to Elric, and their attention fixed fully on my father for his decision. The tension in the air was thick, and it didn’t surprise me that my own father never even looked at me to gain my opinion.

Instead, he very quickly agreed to Elric’s terms.

And he lost.

True to his word, however, Elric released my father and all his friends from their gambling debts, then sent me upstairs to collect my things and meet him at his carriage out front.

After dashing upstairs, I was like a bird trapped inside looking for an open window, fluttering about by bedroom trying to hurry through the task. In my excitement and distraction only a few of my finest clothes made it into my traveling trunk, which two of the servants carried downstairs.

Father had by then retired, and I never forgot that his shame prevented him from seeing off his only daughter.

Elric took me that day to one of his many homes, and that night he took me to his bed, and made me his own.

In the morning, he’d presented me with a gold ring topped with a beautiful silver pearl. He placed the ring on my right ring finger, then laid a dove’s feather in my palm. When I eyed him curiously, he took my chin in his hand and whispered,

“Dove so bright,

Dove in flight,

Bird of your feather

Bring us together,

Tap the pearl and make it dance,

You’ll never again be left to chance,

The truth of your feelings,

Will be in the sealing,

Of your binding to me,

So shall it be.”

And then, something quite strange had taken place. I’d felt a tingling sensation—like a vibrating of every cell in my body. From head to toe it was as if I’d been charged with a current that sharpened my eyesight, enhanced my sense of smell, lit up my sense of taste, and set aflame my sense of touch. From head to toe it was simply this exquisite sensation that I never wanted to end. I’d never felt so giddy. So vibrant. So alive.

Elric had taken me once again to his bed and that was a memory that will stay with me to the end of my days. I’d never experienced such pleasure, such craving, such satiated need, before or, frankly, since.

And from that moment on, I’d fallen deeply, madly, and oh, so passionately in love with Elric that I truly felt nothing, nothing could ever shake my adoration for him, or the faith in our combined love.

And nothing ever did.

Until Petra came for a visit.

Elric and Petra have been married for well over a millennium. Brought together by Petra’s father, who bound them individually into mystics, then bound them together in a matrimonial spell which could never be broken, it was difficult to say whether he gifted them with near immortality or cursed them to coexist.

It was rumored that at points in their thousand years’ pairing that they’d been passionate for each other, and it’s hard to say when that joint passion had permanently ended and their unyielding hatred for each other began, but hate each other they did with the force of two nearly immortal souls who had nothing better to do with their time than plot each other’s downfall.

And yet, their alliance against the five other most powerful mystics in the world remains unshaken to this day. Elric and Petra rule this North American territory united, and if one is called to war, they both go. Even though ruling together is the last thing either wants, they remain united both in wedlock and in commitment to each other’s respective power.

And yet, if either had the opportunity to kill their spouse and get away with it without repercussions—and a surety of success—they’d commit themselves to that task without question.

As it is, they often take a swipe at each other’s courts, letting the chips fall where they may.

Petra has had me poisoned, beaten, stabbed, stoned, hung, and shot, but each time Elric has used one of his most powerful trinkets to bring me back from the brink of death. And then he’s gone after someone in her court, many of whom haven’t had the good fortune to survive.

And if I’m one of Petra’s favorite targets, then Elric’s favorite is quite often Petra’s son, Marco Sigourney Astoré, whom she bore out of wedlock a hundred years ago, then murdered the boy’s father and bound Marco with a terrible curse, which causes a small, ticking spasm somewhere on his body that grows larger and more consuming with every hour. If activated and then left alone to ravage the poor man without the counter-spell, Marco’s curse would kill him in the span of a weekend.

It’s a personal quest of Elric’s to discover the exact wording of Marco’s cursing. But only his mother knows that, and she’s not telling.

To know the exact wording of a bound person’s spell is to have total and complete control over them, and Elric has guarded the exact wording of my binding curse with equal fortitude. And, even though I’ve only heard Elric utter the words once, they remain imprinted on my memory as strongly as my own name.

My binding is far from cruel, which I’m eternally grateful for, because most bindings are quite unpleasant and often painful. Mine is unusual in that it merely forces me to tell Elric how I honestly feel about him or anyone else in any given moment. Every once in a while, Elric will invoke the spell by asking how I’m feeling, and when I look at him, all I feel is love and devotion which, I think, pleases him.

After leading me into his office, he did that very thing. “How’re you feeling today, Dovey?”

I smiled and wrapped my arms around his neck, lifting onto my tiptoes to graze his lips with my own. “Happy, loving, and devoted.”

He cupped his hands around my face to give me a proper birthday kiss and all felt right with the world.

And because life is just full of irony, what happened in the next moment spun my whole world upside down.

Our sweet moment was interrupted by a knock at Elric’s door. He eyed it in annoyance. “Yes?”

Sequoia’s voice sounded from the other side. “Sorry to disturb you, sir, but Nicodemus Kallis is here, requesting an audience.”

At the mention of Kallis, Elric spun me away from him and focused on the door. “Come in, Sequoia.”

It hurt my feelings that he’d dispatched me from his embrace so quickly, but I couldn’t let it show, so I moved to a nearby chair and sat down, smoothing my features to hide my emotions.

Sequoia opened the door and took only one step inside.

“What does he want?” Elric asked.

“He’s demanding an audience, insisting it’s urgent.”

Elric had his arms crossed over his chest, clearly irritated. “I spent the entirety of last evening entertaini. . .