"How do we find him?"
Gabe came toward me, his arms outstretched. "Sadie, you have to be reasonable about this."
"How do we find him?" I repeated, moving away from Gabe. My focus was entirely on Leo, somehow feeling as though I could count on him to know this dark, confusing secret's answer.
I was down two mates. Half of my pack of men was gone and Gabe wanted me to be reasonable? Had he lost his ever-loving mind? Reasonable was tearing apart the world to find Xavion and getting Hudson home, right now, before the dragons realized that he was in a hospital bed and still recovering.
Leo rubbed his chin. "I think it's a safe bet that Alashia's taking him somewhere unpleasant. I can't guarantee it'd be the fairies, but I imagine it would."
"How do we get into the fairyland?" I snapped.
"Mommy?"
Tommy stared up at me, tears in his eyes. And the world melted for one terrible moment. I knelt, pulling him into my arms, and tucked his head beneath my chin. I couldn't save Xavion from being stolen, but I could comfort Tommy in such a scary moment. He didn't cry so much as he squirmed uncomfortably for a moment, then sniffled into my shoulder. No explanation would be good enough. His uncle had been stolen by a monster in the night, and when that happens to a kid, you can't help them understand it without years of work.
Again, I began to crumble. Nothing I could do. The children needed me. We were dropping like flies and we werewolves were nothing compared to the power and might of a dragon. That rankled my inner predator something fierce, but it was smart enough to know that we weren't the apex predators everywhere we went. Even Darien's big cat pride was enough to take us down if we really got into it.
Werewolves were tough cookies, but we weren't the be-all end-all of anybody's field trip.
"Can I talk to you for a minute?" Lillian asked.
I looked up at her, then down at Tommy. The quads were tuckered out and fussy, but Gabe had turned his attention to them and was getting them ready for bed already. We couldn't stop life just because Xavion had found wings. "Yeah. Gabe?"
He looked back at me, then down at the pup clutching my hand. He smiled and hugged Tommy away from me. I watched him go, my stomach a mess of knots, and followed Lillian into the kitchen.
"You need to listen to me, everything I say, as fast as you can," Lillian said, pulling a notepad out of a drawer. She snatched up a pen as well and began to write.
I leaned over and frowned as she worked some sort of letter I didn't recognize across the page. "What are you doin'?"
"You're going to go to a crossroads not far from here. It's about ten minutes if you're in wolf form. There's a temple there."
"A temple?"
"It's small," she said, clarifying with a nod of her head. "About the size of a can opener. It's not just a temple for the crossroads gods and goddess. It's there as a gate into the world of the fae. You'll need the spell to get it open, but that's just the start of it. Sadie, I know that look in your eye. I've seen it in you before, and I've seen it in me. The fae don't play nice like we shifters do. They'll tear your guts out as soon as look at you."
What are you supposed to say to that? "Since when do you know anything about the fae?"
"My whole pack is with Queen Socorro for safe keeping," Lillian said, her voice lowering to a whisper. "It's not something I talk about often. And you need to keep it a fucking secret if you want your head to stay attached to your neck, do you understand me?"
I flinched at her tone and fought off the cowered omega bit. "You don't have to get so vicious about it. You think you can get me to Xav before shit really hits the fan?"
"I know I can. Hudson will never forgive me. Neither will Gabe. I don't care," Lillian said, ripping the paper off and offering it to me. "When you get through the portal, hand this off to the guy standing there. He might be a tree, a wolf, a dog; you never know. He's guarding it. I'm in deep with Socorro, but she'll help you when she sees my handwriting. She'll get Xavion back."
My jaw worked for a moment as I took the paper. The shapes made me dizzy, though they repeated in such a way that I was absolutely certain it was some form of alphabet. It just wasn't one that I could make any sense of. "You think he's with-"
"A trade for a prisoner of a prisoner. Queen Nerida loves werewolves and collects them at every turn. She'll gladly trade Eskal for Xavion and keep the latter as a pet. We can't let her do that."
"No," I said quietly. "We can't. And I'm not going to let her." I reached across the distance between us and gently gripped her shoulder. "You'll stay here, right? You'll stay safe?"
She shook her head. "If you aren't back within a day, we're coming looking for you. It's possible that the guys hear you've left and run off to try to save Xav and they decide to follow you regardless of my feelings on it. I may not matter. I'm calling Timothy the second you go, getting him over here to watch the kids."
"What, you don't trust Jeremiah?"
Lillian gave me a gentle shove. "I trust him just fine but we've been relying on him more than we should be. Get out. Run. Don't tell anyone goodbye. It'll just make them try to stop you. Be safe, little sister."
If not for the night I'd been having, that comment alone would have sent me into her arms. As it was, I pulled her into a hug and breathed her aloe and sand scent one last time. There was nothing romantic between us and I didn't think there ever would be. Hell, she'd mentioned a pack. That explained why she wasn't interested in making another one, didn't it? But I still cared about her, still cared if she was happy or not and if she was going to be okay.
I pulled away from her and went out the front door while Leo and Gabe were still busy with the kids, slowly taking them upstairs. And I felt terrible for it.
The night was dark. It was full of terrors, every shadow something come to rip me apart. I hated to feel like this, to be so small and so alone. I'd spent so many years standing against every wild animal that wanted to tear up a cat or get to the chickens, but with dragons soaring overhead and everything I loved at risk, what was I supposed to feel?
Wolves are predators, but we're not the strongest thing out there. At an instinctual level, we know that. We may stand at the mouth of caves and snarl off others when there's pups, but by ourselves?
There's a reason that wolves run in a pack.
What I was doing was madness. Lillian knew that. Maybe she was still out to get me, some little part of my mind whispered. Maybe that was why she'd sent me out by myself. But no. No, I could trust her. She was pack. I had to trust her. Though she wasn't one of my alphas, she was still an alpha and would never put an omega at risk for no reason other than. ...than...
I shook my head, trying to send the thought away, but I couldn't stop it. Paranoia swamped me. I was overwhelmed, overworked, terrified for my missing mate, and worrying about the one still recovering in the hospital. I only had to make it ten minutes away, but how was I going to do that when I'd barely made it one street over and my knees were already knocking?
"Sadie," called a voice ahead.
It wasn't one I recognized. I looked around, but no one was there. Of course, most people went inside to hide after a dragon fried part of the block. A fire truck's siren whirred in the distance, but I was certain I'd heard someone, a woman, saying my name.
"Sadie."
Slowly, I sank to the ground as a wolf. I took the paper in my teeth and padded toward that voice. My ears flattened across my skull, tired and alone, so alone, but there was warmth in my name. There was familiarity, as if I'd known the person all my life and simply hadn't seen them for several years. Who would be out and calling to me in this place I'd never lived, not for any long period? We'd moved to the lodge out in the forest, not terribly far from my grandfather's old farm, almost as soon as I'd joined the pack.
"Sadie?"
It came again, a question this time. I tilted my head at is, like a dog being whistled to, and stepped up my pace.
As Lillian had promised, there was a small lantern
-shaped shrine settled at the center of a branching road. I'd never noticed it, though I'd driven that street dozens of times in the past. When it came to checking up on the house in the city, I was usually the one who did it. The road I stood on linked directly to our city office and I...
I remembered a time when my biggest complaint was going into work with a headache and nearly laughed. How could I have been so spoiled? I'd never grown up that way. Adelaines worked themselves into the ground, usually a bit earlier than their neighbors, and then the next generation did it, too.
But I wasn't an Adelaine anymore. The Fontaines had taken me in, given me their name, claimed me as their own. If I was going to wear that name so proudly, I had to do what my blood family had always done. The saying was practically our coat of arms. When the going got tough, the tough got going.
I dropped the sheet of paper on top of the shrine and sat roughly on the pavement, waiting to see what happened. Shapeshifting was one thing, sure. Magic? Well, I was starting to accept that it was real and that some people could do more than one spell. Honestly, changing my body into that of an animal was plenty of mage craft for me.
This was something else. A glow shot out of the letters on the page, startling me. I snapped at it, folding back on myself and tucking my tail close to my fluffy tummy. Lights flooded the inside of the lantern, growing and sparkling as they did so. I scampered backwards, trying to stay out of the light. I didn't know if it would burn me or what, but it wasn't the friendliest looking thing you'd ever seen. Besides, Disney movies always used that lime color to personify villains and when you've got five kids running around, you know those movies by heart.
"Sadie."
The voice was flat this time, as if I'd annoyed it. I whipped around to stare at the light. "Ruff?"
"Yes, dear. Come along now. The light is a passage way. If you desire, I send you home once we've spoken. If not, we find your mate."
It was if she'd poured me full of adrenaline. Xavion was in trouble and I was spinning around on the blacktop like an idiot, scared of a little green light. What if he was being tortured or something? I wouldn't put anything past the person who would take care of the dragons that had caused so much damage.
My paws carried me toward the shrine, practically atomic in the dark of the night. When my foot placed upon the aura of the light on the ground, something tugged at my very being. It encouraged me to walk forward, to keep going, but the shrine was much too small for an animal of my size to walk into it.
Yet as I drew ever closer, it was as if I was being shrunk down or that the lantern was growing. In the distance, I heard the caw of a raven, smelled the sweet heat of summer. Steeling myself, I ran toward the light until it blinded me and I sank into ankle-deep sand.
"Very well done," said that now-familiar voice above me.
I looked up at a creature that was all bronze and silver. Her skin was the color of a beach just after high tide, darker than amber but somehow bright. Her mane was a straight sheet of metallic grey, falling to her ankles. She wore the cloudless sky above and was mounted upon the back of a feline, the species unknown to me but its eyes filled with wisdom that I couldn't comprehend. We stood in a vast desert, dunes as far as the eye could see.
And we were alone.
The translucent outline of light green wings, like a dragonfly's, caught the sun and reflected it back into my eyes. I shook my head and pawed at my face, snorting in pain.
"I apologize," she said. "Come here. Let us speak. You may transform if you desire to. If not, speak as you wish. I will understand you."
Speech is difficult as a wolf and I didn't care to mince words with a creature clearly so powerful. I didn't believe in fairies and I assumed they were only taking that aspect for our benefit. Whatever she was, I wasn't about to tell her she wasn't real. That just seemed impolite. I shifted back, shaking off the sand from my hands as I stood. It'd taken some time, but nudity no longer bothered me, even around strangers. "Are you Socorro?"
"A fae queen, yes. Sadie Faye Fontaine. The gods themselves are amused by you."
I scowled at her. "I'm not here to amuse anyone. I'm here to get my mate back. Lillian thought you might be able, or willing, to help me with that."
"And I may, if you want it badly enough."
I stared. How could she question that? I'd just gone through a shiny glow portal on Halloween night to face a fairy just to rescue my werewolf mate. Had you told me five years ago that I'd be doing that, I'd have checked myself into a safe place for the evening. But I'd still done it.
"Tell me," Socorro said, moving the cat around me. "What is Xavion Fontaine worth to you? Your life? Your children? The rescues?"
A flash of each appeared in my mind as she said them. I died horribly, ripped asunder by creatures I couldn't name. My children perished in the flames of dragons. Carrie Ann screamed, her eyes locked on me, as Eskal ate her. And I realized I'd left without say goodbye to any of them. If I never came home, they wouldn't understand that I was gone forever. I shuddered and met her gaze. "They're all part of my pack. They're all worth everything to me. I don't know how better to explain it to you."
"A good enough answer," she said. "But such things come at a cost, Sadie. One that you may not be able to afford."
Rebellion stiffened my resolve. "They're still worth it."
"Perfect," the fae said, her teeth baring in delight. "Then let us begin to negotiate."
Chapter Sixteen
Leo
I sighed as I sagged against the door to the children's bedroom. Hudson first, then Xav. What the fuck had we done to anger Her so much? We were good wolves, and I still hurt now and then from the bike wreck.
Maybe we could snuggle up and talk through a good plot to get them both back. I wandered downstairs, Gabe having ducked out on bedtime stories and quieting the kids down to head to the bathroom. Lillian sat at the kitchen table, looking through her phone. Her shoulders were stiff enough to build a building on. I frowned at her.
"What's up?" I asked, grabbing a loaf of bread from a cupboard. We asked that the cleaners kept the place stocked with food and donate what we didn't use to the local food banks before it expired. You never knew when you were going to need a place to bolt.
She looked up at me and leaned back in the chair. "You're going to get all riled up when I tell you."
"I'm going to what?"
Lillian looked back down at her phone. "Tim's on his way over here to watch the kids, because you idiots are going to get really hot about this whole thing."
"I'm going to get hot about what thing, Lil?" I smothered the bread in ham. A whole pig awaited me and I was glad of it.
She finally put the phone down and took a breath, let it out, then smoothed her hair away from her face. "I sent Sadie to deal with Queen Socorro and try to get Xavion back."
I dropped the plate, my temples banging something fierce. Then I threw myself across the table at the fucking idiot sitting there, shifting halfway, and hitting her as a wolf. My teeth snapped for her throat, tired of her bullshit, and missed as she transformed and scurried out from under me.
"Whoa, whoa, hey, what the fuck?" Gabe asked, moving in between us. "Easy. There's no reason for this shit. We're all on edge."
There was no way he hadn't heard her. I snarled at him but he caught me by the scruff, yanking me back as I tried to charge Lillian again. He gave me a light slap on the nose. "Shift back and stop being such an idiot. Ask her why she did it. Lillian, you too. Two legs, not four."
Cool as a cucumber, Gabe plopped me back on the other side of the table. Fury burning through me, I shifted back and glared at both of them. "Maybe you're all relaxed about this, but I'm not. She's still learning. Goddess above, most of the community doesn't even blink twice at new shifters doing something stupid until they've been around for a decade!"
"That's true. It's why I sent her instead of any of us. We were born werewolves. She was made. Socorro will go gently on her. She'll make a good deal. Nerid
a sure as fuck wouldn't for any of us," Lillian said, picking up her phone and checking for a cracked screen. "The rest of us will head to support her when she gets to Nerida. I already talked to Aberdeen about it."
"You're pulling strings you have no right to pull," Gabe said.
I felt the tension in his voice, a bow string set and ready to launch at Lillian. I wanted to dig in with him, but Lillian shrugged. "I did what was necessary. We may not have evidence that they're taking Xavion back to his captor, but given that's where Eskal is and that's what her goals are? I think it's safe to assume that's where she's headed. Xavion cheated to escape. It's never bitten him in the ass. I'd bet my alpha status that Alashia talked to Queen Nerida, struck a deal for Xavion in exchange for Eskal, and that's why she did what she's doing."
Puppy Problems: A Reverse Harem Werewolf Romance (Her Secret Menagerie Book 3) Page 14