by Tess Oliver
I skipped the shirt, deciding it would just rub against the cut, and pulled on a hooded sweatshirt, which I left unzipped. The salty beach air would probably sting, but my wound needed to heel and fresh air was the best thing for it.
I headed down the hallway. I was moving slower than usual, but I knew the lack of energy was more in my head than in my body. My mind was still on Willow, and I was sure it would take more than an eternity to clear her from my thoughts. Rogue had taken me down past the timberline before morphing back to motorcycle form. I was sure I'd hear about my lack of caution and disregard for rules from Feenix, but I really didn't give a fuck.
I leaned into the refrigerator and pulled out the carton of orange juice. I guzzled it down as I headed out the screen door to the beach. The fog was nearly opaque but that hadn't stopped Flint and Wilder from paddling their boards out for the early morning surf. When you spent half your life in Wynter, even a cold, dreary day on the beach, away from the oily, rank atmosphere of the underworld, felt like a damn day in the park. Anytime we were out in the mortal world was fucking awesome, and we rarely wasted one minute of our time off.
I finished the juice and crushed the carton in my fist as I sat down on the chair I had jammed in the sand outside my back door. The town of Cliffmoor was a few miles inland, but for us, Whitecrest Beach was our real home. Once we'd saved up enough money, each of us bought a cottage on the beach. Whitecrest was surrounded by craggy cliffs from which gnarled trees grew with spindly branches that looked like skeleton arms. Most of the year the beach was socked in by a clammy mist, making the water look inky black. Silhouettes of the massive rock formations out in the water looked like large sea monsters rising up from the waves with rounded backs. The rather sinister looking landscape kept tourists away. The only other signs of life were the usual flock of screeching seagulls and the elephant seals that waddled up onto the sand to soak up the rarely seen sun. It was fucking perfect.
Flint took off on a wave and his feet shifted back and forth on the board. It seemed his broken leg had healed. I was sure he'd had to join Wilder and Maximus for yesterday's shift. It was hard enough working the border and interior of Wynter with just three guards. But two was downright dangerous. We spent plenty of time watching each other's backs when we were on the hunt. Having a reliable partner was important. I'd learned that the hard way in the past few days.
I leaned back, stretched my legs out in front of me and pushed ditches in the sand with my heels. I'd never been so close to death before and while we'd been trained to easily accept death, I was glad my time had not been cut short yet. I owed Willow my life.
It was our day off and I planned to rest enough to be back on the hunt by midnight. For some damn reason, I had an overwhelming urge to kill some wraiths.
A screen door opened on the next cottage over. I twisted back thinking I'd see Maximus standing in the open doorway, but Mirra, one of the many Wynter Fare who had a special affinity for Maximus, stepped out in her fitted business suit and bright blue high heels. She tiptoed carefully across the yard as if walking lightly was going to help her traverse deep sand in sharp heels. She was concentrating on her path and hadn't noticed me sitting in my chair.
"You probably should have walked out barefoot," I suggested.
She peered out from under auburn bangs and zeroed in on where the voice had come from. Her white smile flashed. "Stryker, you're back! Thank goodness. I heard you were in a terrible knife fight. The big guy"—she tilted her head back toward the screen door—"was worried about you. Everyone was. I'm glad you're safe. Now I've got to hightail it back to town for a shareholder's meeting. I hate shareholder's meetings." She waved as she half-hopped out of the sand and along the path leading to the road.
Flint caught sight of me on the shore. His shrill whistle shot across the choppy surface of the water to catch Wilder's attention. Wilder looked toward shore and waved. Then he dropped down over his board and took off on a swell.
"You made it," Maximus's deep voice thundered from behind.
I turned back. Maximus was standing in the open doorway with Dancy, a petite red head who looked like a sugary confection but who spent her days leaning under the hood of Formula race cars. She was one hell of a mechanic and about as wild as she was small. Next to Maximus, she looked like a tiny forest fairy. She hopped up and gave Maximus a kiss and then waved my direction.
"Good to see you back, Stryker. Max was really worried." She walked over and leaned down to kiss my cheek before heading in the same direction as Mirra.
Maximus stepped out of the house wearing only his boxer briefs and a hell of a lot of hickies. His body blocked the view into the house so I hadn't noticed the third woman until she stepped around him. Unlike Mirra, she had kept her impractical shoes in her hand. She was new to the Wynter Fare.
"Oh hey, Stryker, this is Kay. She's studying to be a lawyer. Very smart." He winked at her. "And talented. Kay, this is Stryker."
Kay, obviously had no issues with shyness. She looked me up and down. "Wow, you are something." Her smooth brows pinched together as her survey of me caught up with the row of stitches. "That looks as if it hurt."
"Not the worst pain but I could have done without it."
Her laugh was a little too sharp for me, and, apparently, for the two seagulls that had been sitting on the roof. They took off with a flutter of long wings. Something told me that after spending several days with Willow, I was going to find fault with every other woman I met.
"Well, thanks for a lovely evening, Max honey." She waved to the guys in the water and walked with enthusiastic steps toward the path.
I pushed to my feet, gritting my teeth as the stitches pulled at my skin. Maximus joined me as we walked toward the water.
"Seriously, Max, three women?"
"What the hell did you want me to do? You weren't there and the ratio of women to men was high. Just doing my part to keep the Wynter Fare happy."
I reached up and patted his shoulder. "Always making the sacrifice, buddy. It's commendable."
"Damn right."
I picked up a branch of driftwood and ran my fingers along the weather worn wood as we headed toward the formation of rocks near the water's edge. Cold water raced up over our feet as we leaned against the rocks to watch Flint and Wilder catch waves.
"How come you aren't out in that water?" I asked.
"Shit, three women can really drain you of energy. I'm lucky to be standing here next to you, let alone out on the surf."
I looked pointedly over at a particularly gnarly hickie on his pec muscle. It looked as if his skull tattoo was wearing lipstick. "Looks like one of them tried to suck the blood out of you."
Maximus glanced down at the red spot and absently swiped at it as if that could erase it. "Yeah, that would be Kay. Not too sure about her yet. She might be just a little too enthusiastic for my taste." He crossed his big arms over his chest. "So what the hell happened out there? One minute you're riding after some punk assed wraith, and the next, we're hearing rumors of wraith venom and antidote."
I shook my head. "Word sure travels fast from realm to realm."
Flint reached the frothy tidewater first. He unzipped the top half of his wet suit and yanked it down, then shoved his longboard under his arm. His dark copper hair looked nearly black combed back with sea water. Nessa used to tease Flint that he looked like a color-blind artist's palette with his copper hair and gunmetal gray eyes. His unusual coloring had never hurt his chances with women. The opposite, in fact.
Flint was still walking with a noticeable limp as he headed across the wet shore. He jammed the end of his board into the sand.
"Looks like you're still favoring the good leg," I noted.
"Yeah, a night of riding Harley along the Wynter border didn't help. I needed a few more days, but I couldn't leave Bozo, here, and his pretty boy partner all alone chasing the bad guys."
"Yeah, sorry about that, Flint. Thanks for covering. I'll be on duty tonight."
Wilder walked up with his board and dropped it in the sand. "Stryker, you made it back in one piece." He looked at the wound. "Sort of. Shit. That is ugly. But then I told you not to go after the thing alone, didn't I?" Wilder's white teeth flashed, obviously feeling full of himself for being right. He had those dark haired, blue eyed boy next door good looks that didn't fit the job and that we loved to tease him about. Nothing much riled him, but if you brought up his pretty boy looks once too often you were libel to earn a fist in the teeth.
Flint reached for the edge of my sweatshirt to get a closer look, but I swatted his hand away with the piece of driftwood I was holding.
He climbed up on the rocks next to where I was leaning to take the weight off his leg. "You know we were there, right? At the cabin?"
"I heard you. I was sort of comatose at the time, so my apologies for not running out to greet you. How'd you find me?"
Wilder peeled down the top half of his wet suit and combed his hair back with his fingers. "Wasn't easy but Jemma heard it from her sister. Apparently there was quite a flurry of rumors flying about the angel's realm that a venomous wraith was on the loose somewhere in the mountains."
Jemma, the elderly owner of the Seven Sins, was a former guardian angel who had fallen out of Sabre's good graces years earlier when she began a passionate affair with the man she was sent to protect. Angels were, of course, never allowed to reveal themselves to their charge and that went for fucking them too. Jemma's angel mark was burned off, and she was saddled with mortality and banished from the angel's realm for good. She'd made the best of it by starting up a successful bar to keep the Boys of Wynter happy on their down time.
"But you got the sucker, right?" Maximus asked.
"Yep but not before he got me with a poison-tipped sickle. I thought it was just a vaporous little blip. I had no idea just how evil the thing was. I guess size doesn't matter."
Maximus laughed. "Yeah, that's not what I hear."
Wilder glanced down at Maximus's underwear. "Hey, don't be talking about your cock when you're standing out here with your balls nearly hanging free in the breeze." Wilder looked at me. "Why the hell did the thing go up the mountain? Usually they head toward populated cities."
"I've been trying to puzzle that out myself. I had a lot of thinking time when I was flat on my back. There was something off about all of it. I was on watch as we left Wynter, and I didn't see it. It's almost as if someone let it out on purpose. And I have no idea why the hell it led a chase up the mountainside. Nothing makes sense."
"Guess if Sabre hadn't sent that healer up there for the animals, you'd have been a goner," Maximus reminded me as if I needed reminding.
"You guys would be short one pack mate, that's for damn sure."
Flint nudged me with his foot. "So, are you going to talk about her?"
I squinted up at him from the side of my eye. "Who?"
"Oh, come on," Maximus turned to face me. "We were there, remember? We saw her. Jemma said she's part angel and part nymph, and while I've never been lucky enough to run into one personally, I've always imagined all kinds of fun stuff that might go along with a half nymph."
Flint nudged me with his foot again, and it was starting to irritate me. "Yeah, there must have been some pretty wild fucking going on in that cozy little cabin." His comment and a third foot nudge took my temper off the deep end. I swung the driftwood hard at his bad leg.
"Fuck!" Flint grabbed hold of his shin and rubbed it. "What the hell, Stryker? Damn you."
Wilder shot me his admonishing father look. "Not cool. What the hell was that for?"
I stepped out and held open my sweatshirt. The wet, salty air stung the edges of the cut. "Do I look like I was having a good time fucking in that cabin? And Willow—"
"Willow?" Maximus asked. "Nice name." He sent what he thought was a secret conspiratorial wink at Wilder, but a man as big as Maximus didn't ever get away with any kind of secret.
"Don't," I said. "Just don't."
Maximus held out his hands. "What? It just seems like maybe you have a little thing for the woman. Which, of course, means we're going to rib you about it until you're so pissed your spitting blood from biting your tongue so hard."
Wilder was always better at reading me than the other two. He shook his head at Maximus. "Let's leave him be. He nearly died." He turned to me. "And don't for a minute think that these two clowns weren't practically shitting themselves with worry about you. Me too. I'm just glad Willow knew what to do. Otherwise I'd be stuck with just these two idiots."
Color was just returning to Flint's face. He was still rubbing his leg.
"Sorry, I hit your bad leg."
"Yeah, well, I forgot how damn sensitive you are." His gray eyes blended with the gray sky behind him. "I'm glad you made it back."
"Me too. And I'm riding out with you guys tonight. No shifting, obviously. I'll stay on horseback. Besides, it's payday." I pointed at Wilder before he could respond. "So save your breath about it. Now I'm going in to sleep away the day. Wake me when it's time to leave."
Wilder grabbed his board and hurried to catch up to me. A determined sun was trying to break free through the heavy cloud cover, and it seemed it would be a warm day on the beach.
"So, half angel and half nymph, eh? I've heard about them but never actually met one. Was she as cool as she sounds?"
We walked a good ten yards before I worked up an answer, not because I didn't have a response but because it was hard to talk about Willow without feeling a tightness in my chest as if I'd lost something that I could never replace.
I stopped at the stone path leading up to my back door and looked at Wilder. "I'm still trying to catch my fucking breath."
Chapter Fifteen
Willow
I sat down with my book and read half a page before hopping right back up. Gunner pushed a paw over his eyes. Apparently my fox was growing weary of watching me pace the cabin floor. Just days earlier, I would have been settled in my chair with a cup of hot tea, my book and a roaring fire, pleasantly exhausted from a day of watching over the animals. It seemed those quiet days of solitude were long over, replaced now by the niggling sense that I was missing out on life and love and passion. But along with that irritating reality was the ever present fear that I could, at any time, be swept away to the underworld to spend the rest of my days as the captive wife of a being so disgusting that his presence caused plants and trees to spontaneously wilt.
I had no real feelings for the father I never knew, but after Sabre left to see him, I couldn't help wonder how much my mother knew about the original plan to hand her daughter over to Feenix. I'd made myself nearly sick thinking about how often both my parents had wronged me. I had been their mistake, the source of my mother's constant heart ache and the source of my father's constant embarrassment. But I hadn't had a hand in any of it. I was an unwitting participant in something that was out of my control. The more I thought about it, the sicker with anger I became, so I decided to push all of it out of my head for now.
In the meantime, all I could do was wait to see what Sabre planned to do with me. And while I waited, I had to find a way to stop thinking about Styrker. Thinking about him was too hard. Not thinking about him was too hard. I was a mess.
I started yet another round of pacing. I had memorized the pattern of squeaks and creaks in a sort of musical tune as my feet padded across the wooden planks. I had also memorized the shape of the black blood stains on the floor. Most of them were around the couch, and they always brought me right back to the night when Pilgrim dragged the bloodied stranger into the cabin.
I decided to move the rug away from the hearth and closer to the couch to cover the st
ains. I knew it was a pathetic attempt to help me forget Stryker, but at least the damn stains wouldn't bring me back to that night over and over again.
Gunner lifted his head with a start as I dragged the rug and him closer to the couch. "Sorry, my friend. Besides you have thick, white fur that was made for the cold. You don't need to be so close to the fire."
As I finished my impromptu redecorating moment, Gunner decided he needed to go outside. He stood at the door and barked. I opened the door and walked out onto the porch to keep an eye on him. I really had done him a disservice by making him into a domestic pet instead of thrusting him back into the wild where he belonged. But the little fox had provided me with some degree of companionship. I couldn't imagine how lonely I would have been without him.
Gunner marked his favorite tree and came hopping back, arcing through the puffs of snow, leaving a chaotic trail in his wake. The moon was half full. On a night like tonight, when there were no clouds and only a crisp blanket of stars, the white landscape was lit up as if a string of giant lights had been hung over it.
I scanned the surrounding wilderness for signs of movement or things that looked out of place. My gaze drifted past and then shot back to an opening in the trees. It took me only seconds to recognize Pilgrim's plodding gait. The bear's thick, loose skin jiggled as he lumbered quickly toward the cabin. Never a big fan of Pilgrim, Gunner quickly moved to stand next to me.
Something wasn't right. I was only wearing moccasins, but I trudged through the snow to meet the polar bear. His heavy breaths filled the air with mist as he stood in front of me, waiting for me to climb on his back.