I tapped the scroll. "I want your stuff outlined more thoroughly than this. Your part is helping me get to Xavion, helping him leave this place, and getting me out of there, too. Deal?"
She only smiled as the words transformed themselves on the page to outline what I had asked for. That alone made me wary. If she could simply snap her fingers and change what they said, what made her not able to do it after I'd signed? I wished I could seek guidance from the guys, who had far more experience with this kind of stuff than I did. But I was already three days behind and Xavion was suffering, if he was even still alive. I sighed and lifted my finger to my lips, then snapped my jaw on the tip, cutting it wide open.
I pressed my fingertip to the sheet, just at the bottom where I assumed I was to sign. There were no signature lines present. Immediately, the parchment snatched away from me and rolled up, vanishing as if it'd had never existed. There was no sudden clunk or clang of music to warn me that what I'd just done was dangerous, perhaps stupid of me. No one screamed for my new deal, or against it.
The Queen simply stood there, a smile on her lips, and slowly bowed her head to me. Trying to be polite, I did the same. She only dipped lower. I dipped lower in turn. If I kept it up, we'd end up in the sand beneath us.
"Your feet shall fly. You will garner no thirst or hunger as you move. By nightfall, you will find Blackstalk Keep. Beware of the trees, for they have eyes and ears just as we do, and fists that will pummel a small animal such as yourself," Socorro said. "Queen Nerida is not as kind as I am, nor as your mates are to you. Should you strike a deal with her, it will be far worse than a visit to my realm every so often. Go."
The command, it was certainly a command, made my ears ring. I crumpled to the ground like a crushed umbrella, arriving there in my wolf form. Though sometimes shifting felt a little strange, there was nothing left of the change as there often was. I shook my fur out and stared in wonder at my paws, then back at her. She raised a hand to me and flicked the fingertips, shooing me off.
And so, I went.
My paws pounded the harsh dirt. I broke through thorny, dry riverbeds and streams, never slowing to think of what I needed or what I wanted. I had only one thing on my mind, and that was getting the Xavion. Bit by bit, the world changed around me. What was sand sprouted tired, grey grass here and there. Bits of trees littered the ground, biting into my feet but I had little care for that. Xavion was close, he was near, and I could feel him.
But I could also feel a few other people I was nearly certain did not belong in that place.
Weak tufts of grass became lush green landscape perfect for grazing. Cattle, horses, even unicorns I had never met, ran past me in galloping herds. Yet I couldn't bring myself to spin on them and take them for my own. I had other things calling me, more important things, and I had to find them before they were no more.
The grasslands became swamp, dank and dark, with tall trees covered in bark that was not chipped, rather it was peeling as I did when I sunburned. I slowed to a trot, keeping my eyes away from those trees I had been warned about. Though no fist rained down upon my lupine head, nor any gaze strip me of my flesh, I could feel them watching me as much as one could when a human did it.
It was very uncomfortable.
Instinct guided me to a stone outer wall, no windows, no doors. It was a simple circle, a million miles higher than my head. Though as a human I expected it to be only double my height, things look a great deal different when you are a smaller predator on all fours on the ground. I prowled, considering digging under. Yet when I put my paws to work, there was nothing but a thick barrier that caused my irritation. There was nothing I could see, nor that I could feel. But it still prevented me from digging under.
Overhead, a flight of dragons soared by and dropped into that circle. One of them was a red female, an alpha that I recognized on sight. Unfortunately, Alashia recognized me, too.
The dragoness shrieked at the top of her lungs, a sound that split my hearing into bells and general seething. I dropped to the ground, pawing at my ears, as she descended toward me. I caught sight of silver claws intent on my neck just before a note rang in the air, stopping the dragon dead in her tracks.
I lifted my head and stared as I saw the second fae I'd ever seen flutter over the barrier and approach me, hatred in her gaze. Her voice was made of silver and fire, all of which burned my already-hurting ears. I flinched away from her, but I heard her all the same. "Your mates lay waste inside my walls and you attempt to hurl yourself onto my territory smelling of the enemy. Why?"
Wait a minute, my mates? With an S? Oh, fuck.
"I only want to help. I just want my family back," I whispered? shouted? I didn't know how loud I was.
When you're deafened, even if it's only temporary, it makes it impossible to control the volume of your speech. Since I could barely hear her, was still getting shattered by her, I did what I could to remain polite but I have every doubt that I managed it. Especially when her face turned beet red a second later, fury snapping to life in her gaze.
Queen Nerida approached me, landing near my side. A spike the length of her body appeared in her hand. The tip was naught but a silver razor, designed for the killing of werewolves. Terror swamped me. I stopped pawing at my head to stare up at her, transfixed by Her own metal, the only thing that would take us down in one blow. My breath left my body.
She rammed it into the ground beside my head, less than an inch away from one of my paws. Everything in me rebelled, sending me hurtling away from that terrible thing.
I was even more confused when the pain in my ears began to back off, a swirling orange energy wrapping around each in turn. Caught between wolf and human forms, not sure which way to jump or what to expect, Nerida came at me glaring.
"Did you send the Fontaines to invade my home?"
Oh, no. "Never. I don't know anything about your home, miss. We just want Xavion. That's it."
"Hudson swore he'd kill me if I didn't release you as well. Do you know what the sweetest release is?"
Death? The thought came to my mind immediately but I shoved it away. If she could read minds like Socorro could, I didn't want to get mixed up in that. Or mix her up. I sure wasn't asking to die today. I assumed she could indeed read my thoughts, because a bubble of laughter burst forth from her throat.
"Come, Sadie."
I glanced back at Alashia, who still hovered frozen in the air, then at the fairy queen who beckoned me. Shifting fully back to human form, I crept toward her low to the ground. It was always better to have four limbs down if one needed to shift quickly back to their wolf body. It created less unbalance that way when you dropped to run.
The things I'd learned in the past several years, right?
Her hands took my face together, pressing my jaw closed. My lungs burned as I gasped for air, but I dealt with it. I was breathing. That was what mattered the most.
"You are a darling lover, aren't you? Devoted, sweet, much more than the pack deserves."
I hunkered back and away from her, not sure of her game. "They deserve everything I can give them. They give me just the same."
"Do they really?" she asked, tilting her head this way and that. It was as if she were a bird, trying to figure out the best way to spear me with her beak.
This was so far out of my comfort zone. I didn't know all of the ways to piss off a fae or fall into a trap. I should have asked Xavion about it ages ago. While I dithered at myself, Nerida twitched her fingers and freed the dragoness, who fell to the ground in a heap. Alashia screamed rage at me and ran toward us, but the fae was too fast for her.
"If you continue to be uncouth, I will tear the scales from your back and use them to armor my troops. Do you understand me, lizard?" Nerida snapped.
Alashia's eyes narrowed, her third eyelid creeping up to cover her pupil, though she could still see through it easily enough. "I want the wolf. She's caused me nothing but grief as I seek the justice of my people. I am owed that much for th
e Nightflight's stupidity. I only want that which is fair."
Nerida looked between us, then settled on me. "Well?"
I couldn't imagine what the fae woman would want with me. The dragon had said her piece, and I didn't disagree with a large part of it. Alashia had a right to be frustrated with the situation as a whole, but not the part that I'd played in it. For the vast majority of it, I'd done nothing but try to stem her assault and her madness on the human population. Had she wanted to track down the Nightflight and extract them from here, surely she could have done that without all the horrors she had caused otherwise. "Well what?"
"What do you have to say for yourself? Defend yourself, wolf. The dragon makes a case, you must have a claimant against hers."
Was this a trial? I frowned at Alashia, then back at the fairy queen and tried to think of something smart to say. "She attacked my place of business because I stood up to her. She's killed lots of people who didn't do anything wrong, or anything to slow down her form of justice. I know her ways are different than mine, and I guess I was invading your privacy when it comes down to it. I'm sorry about that. But I don't know what else I might do, miss. Your majesty?"
I said the last in a question, not entirely sure that human titles landed with the fae, but there was nothing wrong with being polite.
"You make a poor argument. Never become a lawyer, wolfchild. You would be a terrible one. As I am Queen Nerida, ruler of this place and these people, I make judgment," she said, then paused. Alashia held her breath as much as I held mine. I could see the hope on her face, the seething when she looked at me. Nerida frowned at me after a moment. "In most things of life, you are quite the winner. You convinced a dragon to spare you, your rescue grows incredibly, and you are more than capable of what you set out to do. You are a self-assured woman of adulthood who does not ask the questions she should. This leads you to failure, Fontaine." She pointed at me. "Run. For a dragon has won this judgment and what she wishes may come true."
My heart leapt into my throat. Alashia screamed her fury and took to the sky once more while I fled into the forest, my tail between my legs, hoping that the muddy swamplands around it would disguise my dark pelt and cursing my bright white socks for standing out against everything natural in the world.
Chapter Eighteen
Hudson
The ground beneath my face was soaking wet and incredibly uncomfortable. Yet outside the wall I heard a voice that I'd only heard in my dreams as of late.
Then a dragon screamed and I felt a disturbance in the pack, discomfort in one of my mates, and raising fear as I hoped it wasn't Sadie. The mother of my children had no business being out and about in a situation as deadly and dangerous as this one had become.
Gabe growled at me as we lay in a heap in the center of an encampment of fae. "If you'd just given the goddamned dragon the eggs, this would have never been an issue. You know that? If you'd just made our lives easy for once-"
"He was an asshole," I said, struggling against the silver-threaded ropes that kept us from shifting.
Most humans were aware of a werewolf's allergy to silver. It can be dreadful or no worse than a bee sting. The whole silver bullet thing? Ridiculous. We could be killed by any bullet if it hit the right spot. Look at what had happened to me with Eskal's stupid ass.
I should have never taken on a dragon. I knew better than that. But I was just so damned furious, so frustrated about the whole of everything that had happened. We should have bought the parcel ten miles away. Rather than my worrying about giving Eskal a bunch of eggs or not, had we bought that parcel instead for the factory? We would have never even known about the fucking eggs.
Where was he, anyway? Alashia had brought Xavion here immediately to trade for any individual member of the Nightflight, as we had assumed. One, again, would have assumed she would have chosen the flight's leader. Had my pack done something like this, I would have answered for it. Yes, Leo, Lillian, Gabe, and Xavion were alphas, but I was the one who was lead wolf when it came down to matters like this.
No matter how strong an individual is, there must always be a leader within a pack or a flight, or any other gathering of people. I looked over at Xavion, who remained in wolf form bound at both his muzzle and his paws. At least we were human. Xavion couldn't even get himself a drink if he wanted one.
"Lillian, did you know we'd be captured like this?"
My former sister-in-law snorted. "If I had, do you think I would have led us directly into this big fucking problem?"
Well, that answered that question. Things had changed since she'd returned from this place, though I'd never known she'd been in cahoots with the fairies in the first place. A smile tugged at the corner of my mouth. Cahoots was a Sadie word, as rough and tumble as she was.
And that brought me back to the wolf running wild outside the walls, trying to get in to us to save us while, I was nearly certain, she attempted to outwit a big ass dragon that wanted her dead.
What a woman.
"We need to get out of here before Alashia gets her claws in Sadie," I told the group tied to me. "Anyone have any ideas?"
Gabe and Lillian remained silent. The rope would bind us no matter what we did. What we needed was an assistant from the many various fae creatures sitting around watching us. Or, perhaps, from the bear listening as Leo whispered to him.
I recognized the great bear, though he was significantly more grizzled than I remembered him. Aberdeen was a good man, a kind and gentle ruler of his people, and a refugee of Nerida's. I assumed he'd had a hell of a rough time since his brother had gone rabid, shapeshifted, and murdered a ton of people in the middle of a parade ages ago. It was a lot of bad timing, poor planning, and just pure bad luck all stacked on top of each other.
Yet, Aberdeen had been kind to me. He'd been about my age when it had happened and he'd always been willing to talk about leadership with me. At that point, it hadn't been official in my pack. Gabe and I had been sort of rivals, pushing and shoving each other around playfully to see who would win out. Maybe he'd known or seen something in me that would prove out.
"Aberdeen?" I called.
The bear lifted his head and looked at me, then looked back at Leo, who shrugged at him. Over the bear came, sniffed my ropes, then sighed and sat down beside me. He shook his head and gave me such a regretful look. "Can't get you out of that, Hudson. The Lady would kill me so much as look at me if I did it."
"I know that," I told him. "But what if one of the cubs knocked something our way by accident? She wouldn't see. She wouldn't have to know. My mate is about to get killed out there."
He glanced at the trio of cubs, all of them frolicking around as if they hadn't a care in the world, then back at me. "You want me to endanger the children?"
The rumble was low, deep, a warning that I recognized in my own voice when someone pushed me too far about Tommy or Jenelle. I sighed up at him. "You're the only hope we've got. The kids need their mom. They need their dads and their aunt."
Aberdeen's muzzle flapped in a huff. He turned from me and walked away, headed back for his cubs. Then, without warning, he left the area completely through a portal that stood open in the distance. Beyond it were fields of gorgeous flowers, green meadows, beautiful trees. I didn't know if it was some kind of dreamland or what was going on with it, and I wasn't certain that I wanted to find out.
A wolf's yelp sounded outside the walls and my blood ran hot in my veins. I struggled against the ropes in vain, knowing there was nothing I could do to defeat them. Sadie let out a strangled sound between a wail and a choking noise that made the general pack sense come alive. It was an itch I couldn't possibly reach seated deep in my chest, my adrenaline pounding as I was certain hers was as well.
One of the cubs dropped a sharpened stone, almost an arrowhead, beside my arm. It rubbed against me, a female, young and an omega, then plodded off again to wrestle with her brothers. I stared at it for a brief moment, then twisted so I could snatch it up, grinding it ba
ck and forth between my hands to slice that stupid rope.
The fae on guard saw me and... I don't know if it was really an orc or just the inspiration for one of those, but something that looked a hell of a lot like one roared at me and flung itself toward our spot just as the rope snapped behind me. I shifted, as smooth as butter, and tore one of his whole legs off. I wasn't at my peak by a long shot, but my mate's suffering was more than enough to carry me through it.
Gabe must have seen what I was up to, or perhaps the little bear had brought him a stone as well. My cousin was at my back a second later and, together, we drove the orc off through the portal as well. I heard Leo and Lillian kill a second behind us and, as a group, we spun to snarl at the third.
Puppy Problems: A Reverse Harem Werewolf Romance (Her Secret Menagerie Book 3) Page 16