“Nope. Not a dream,” she groaned.
No longer near the woods, she was inside a one-room log cabin. A cozy wood fire blazed in the hearth opposite her. To her right, a window, and on the left, a long kitchen counter. Over it hung a collection of utensils, ceramic pots, and wooden crockery. An unusually large potted plant was in the corner, its leaves weaving up a spindly trunk to branch out like an umbrella near the roof. The foliage fanned halfway across the ceiling. She’d never seen that kind of plant before. Its leaves seemed almost blue. It gave the illusion of living under a forest canopy.
Pinned to the walls on all sides of the cabin were remnants of someone’s life. Knick-knacks, papers with sketches, and little glass jars filled with odd biological samples. Stones. Leaves. Wooden carvings of little wolves and people. Nothing looked valuable. Nothing worth selling or stealing for later use.
Shelves overflowed with old books. A chest of drawers and trunk stood at the end of the bed she lay in. An old leather battle jacket with segmented pauldrons hung limp on a hook behind the door. Faded blue and black, the jacket belonged in a medieval war zone.
A flurry of white drew Clarke’s attention to the window. Through it was a winter wonderland of towering trees around a small, semi-frozen lake. She wasn’t far from where she woke up. Nerves bundled in her stomach. She tried to sit for a better look, but bindings halted her. Her hands were tied to the wooden bed frame on either side of her body. The woolen blanket previously pulled up to her neck had fallen to her lap. Split down the middle, her shredded top showed her bra. The grazes on her hands were cleaned.
“What the hell?”
The restraints wouldn’t budge. Clarke twisted and pulled until, exhausted, her heavy head fell back on the pillow. A musky, male scent bloomed. She tensed. It smelled good. Homey. Comforting. She turned and inhaled, eyes fluttering closed. God, it was so good. She missed the smell of a man in her bed. There was nothing like two powerful arms surrounding her to chase the nightmares away. That and a good round of physical, muscle-aching love-making was the perfect recipe for a peaceful night’s sleep. But she hadn’t had a man for at least half a year, about the same time the war had started. The same time she’d realized the depth of Bishop’s insanity.
Six months.
That’s all it had taken for things to go too far, for panic to grip humanity, for the weather to change and then for the inevitable chaos and death that followed. She bit her lip and wondered what had happened to her friends. Laurel and Ada had helped Clarke leave Bishop and his manipulating ways.
Thumping on the porch warned her before the door opened. In came the tall and broad-shouldered stranger, still as imposing as the first moment she’d laid eyes on him. That restrained strength. That silver-white hair. That dangerous expression. She gulped.
This must be his home.
This must be his bed.
She had smelled him. And liked it.
Disgusted with herself, she blurted, “We had a bargain. Let me go.”
He dominated the open doorway. Fingers twitched at his side, but he didn’t falter. He just stared at her as though she were made of something foreign. Then he kicked his boots on the doorframe to shake the snow and stepped inside. He removed his cape and hung it next to the battle uniform on the hook. Try as she might, she couldn’t stop staring. The breadth of his shoulders, flat stomach, and aura of strength, completely captured her attention. He was simply magnetic.
Maybe it was just her brain trying to force this all into being a dream again. She’d been blinded by the charm of a man once, but she’d never do it again. Pity she would have to pull one over this guy and escape. Once Clarke shifted her mindset into grifter mode, she could be callous with her mark’s feelings. It was that or live on the streets. She’d chosen her own survival.
Clarke forced her feelings back to the clear and present danger—her captor who was taking a moment to trace a reverent finger down the leather jacket’s collar. He tossed a frown Clarke’s way, and then reached outside to collect a small, skinned carcass. Maybe a squirrel. He waved in a scruffy looking wolf and then kicked the door closed. It slammed shut with a finality that unnerved her more than she wanted to admit.
That was the same wolf who’d led the pack that ripped into her attackers. And now it padded to a mat before the fire to watch her with golden eyes… the same kind of eyes as her captor. Who looked similar to the man who had turned into a half-wolf. Did that mean her captor was capable of the same terror?
He dumped his catch on the kitchen bench and unhooked a pot. After placing it on the counter, he pushed back the sleeves of his sweater to bare forearms covered with strange blue glowing marks. Clarke stared at his hands for way too long, trying to gauge how much strength was in that grip. How much power would she need to get out of it?
A lot.
Better to use her wit, mind and clever knack for reading people. Plus, she could always shiv him when he wasn’t looking. She just needed to find a shiv.
Knowing she stared, he turned the full force of his glower her way. She sunk a little lower on the bed and then realized she was still half naked.
“Are you going to leave me like this?” she muttered. “It’s humiliating.”
“You were covered.”
“So this predicament is my fault?” She raised a brow. “Untie me.”
“The bargain”—he planted his hands on the bench and leaned toward her—“was for you to be my voice and hands. I never agreed to anything about your predicament.”
Clarke gasped.
He continued to slice, unperturbed. The fire crackled in their silence. Vegetables tinkled as they hit the pan.
“Hey!” Clarke shouted, irritation heating her neck.
His knife paused mid-slice, but then he continued to work.
This was insane.
What happened to the cheeky, mischievous attitude she’d seen before in the woods? That wild and reckless grin he’d tossed her way before whistling for his wolves. Forget about trying to swindle him. She was getting downright pissed off.
“If you don’t untie me, give me some decent clothes and… well if you don’t, then you’re no better than the men you saved me from.”
His face darkened. He growled in warning.
At the fire, the gray wolf’s ears perked up.
“I am nothing like that bastard.”
“So prove it.”
He slammed the knife down and came over. It took all of Clarke’s resolve not to cower, but he only tugged the blanket up to her chin and then strode back.
“Oh yeah,” Clarke said. “Real mature. I’m still tied up.”
“You’re a human in fae territory. You don’t have rights,” he grumbled, and then carried on with his work.
Clarke swallowed a retort because another part of her mind was shouting at her to pay attention to his words. Fae territory.
She narrowed her eyes. Didn’t the scarred man say something about fae as well? What was his name... Thaddeus?
For the millionth time, she wondered how the hell she’d found herself in the future. Only one possibility kept circling her mind. Could she have been frozen and slept for so long that the world had changed? Evolved into something else? So why the hell wasn’t she freaking out?
It was that fluttering knowing lodged between her breasts. She explored the premonition further. It was stronger than the fancies her mother hated her having.
“Mind your fancies today, Clarke. We don’t want the congregation thinking you’re a nit-wit.”
Her mother had left because she was afraid of Clarke’s premonitions. As a child, Clarke had told her on more than one occasion that the world would end, and when some of Clarke’s smaller predictions rang true, her mother walked out. But not before calling her the devil’s spawn.
Clarke cleared her throat and sent her awareness around her body, thought about the large fae now stirring a pot at the hearth, of how he’d saved her from being attacked—at his own leisure and gain—and
of how she was tied to his bed. He was definitely linked to the fluttering in her chest.
She should be freaked out, but she wasn’t. For Christ’s sake, she swooned at his scent on the pillow.
Over by the fire, he whittled with a bone knife, turning the wood with aggravated care. Clarke thought the irritation was aimed at her, but when she saw the carving more clearly, she recognized a man with the face of a wolf, like Thaddeus. He was carving memories.
He stared long and hard at the figurehead and then ditched it into the fire. Sparks caught. Shadows moved in the flames, almost making them come alive. Tense and concentrating, he went back to the pot like it held the world’s answers. He refused to acknowledge her, but every so often when she looked his way, he must have sensed it. His wolfish ears flattened.
And then it came to her—he was the one freaking out. He’d tied her not only to stop her escaping, but because she confused him as much as he did her.
Chapter Five
Damned woman.
Crackling flames warmed Rush’s face as he stirred stew in the pot. Two fire sprites watched in avid fascination from a log. But Rush’s attention was elsewhere. Despite the hum of awareness down his body, he refused to look at the female in his bed, or think about the night she’d spent there. The human female, he reminded himself.
He could smell her from where he sat.
The next time he slept, her scent would be in his sheets, invading his space with her sweet musk, reminding him of what a selfish asshole he was because he’d put her there for that very reason. A part of him wanted that smell. He’d come home with her unconscious in his arms. Her soft, fragile body curled into his… and he’d felt so big. He’d felt needed. She’d just been attacked, and all he could think was that he didn’t want that feeling to go.
Lock her up and never let her leave.
The wolf inside him agreed. It was tired of being caged. It wanted out, and it wanted to be useful again. The rescue had sparked something deep within Rush, and for a moment, he’d forgotten his place.
He shut his eyes, inhaled, held his breath and let it out slowly.
Decades.
It had been decades since he’d touched... anyone without suffering. Usually, upon a touch, his curse made them disoriented and forgetful while he became violently ill. It prevented him from communicating by clamping down on his intentions. Small animals had a lesser effect, and like Gray, he got away with the occasional pat of affection before feeling sick.
But with her, no sickness had come. At all.
It would do Rush well to remember that she was the enemy. It was against the law for his kind to mix with hers. They had zero affinity with magic of the Well—mana—and held zero capacity for storing mana within. Their love affair with metals and plastics had taken care of that. Mana refused to exist where those resources were present.
He’d taken both plastic items and metal from her body when he’d found her. The wrist item had proved most curious, and he would be sure to ask her about it later. It was like nothing he’d seen in the human city. Their craftsmanship was not so advanced. Not anymore.
None of that mattered anyway. Regaining control of the pack used up much of his mana reserves. One more burst of power, or one shift to wolf, and there would be nothing left to hold the curse at bay. Soon he would look and feel the one hundred and seventy-eight years he’d lived. He would die within minutes.
Unless he found a Well-blessed mate.
May as well get Starcleaver and hunt down the mythical dual tusk el’fant. He scoffed. A mate was hard enough to find in this violent and cruel world, but a Well-blessed mate, someone with whom the cosmic divine spirit of the planet deemed worthy enough to share his power. Someone whose magic called to his own. What a fucking joke. There hadn’t been a Well-blessed union in centuries. No one expected Rush to break his curse. They never had. And a union between a human and a fae? Impossible. She had no magic.
When the Prime from The Order of the Well had cursed him, she expected him to die a long, lonely death, suffering for the recklessness of unsanctioned breeding in a finite world like theirs.
Shifting awkwardly, Rush tried to ignore the sense that she watched him. She had more demands than a princess. But that wasn’t the only thing odd about the woman. He’d not seen a human this far east on their own, let alone a female in tattered clothes. Everyone knew the dangers of being in the Elphyne wilderness without protection. The humans knew. Thaddeus’s hunting party was tame compared to the creatures and monsters further inland. Even fae rarely dared leave the safety of numbers for what lived in the wild.
A tingle in Rush’s palm reminded him of the cost of the bond he’d made with the woman. A blue glowing glyph had appeared right there, a symbol that his time was ending. Soon all his skin would be covered, and all his mana would be gone. The amount he’d spent today to control the pack had been borderline brainless.
It will be worth it.
He’d failed to help his sister Kyra in Crescent Hollow. He’d failed to protect the female who’d borne his child, and he’d failed to protect that child. But with this human to help him, he wouldn’t go to his deathbed without speaking to his son Thorne for the very first time.
Afterwards, he’d have to kill the human.
To protect the Well, our eternal souls, and the future of our planet.
He shut his eyes at The Order’s mantra and reminded himself what they taught the young Guardians during training. At the first sign of rot, a plant must be pruned swiftly and without mercy to stop the infection from spreading. One human this far into Elphyne signified more would come, perhaps try to reclaim the land they destroyed. The woman in his bed might be the harbinger of war, and Rush owed it to the Order to let them know.
“You built this house,” she declared.
He tensed. “What?”
“It feels like you’ve built it yourself. Am I right?”
His breath hitched at her white irises. The blue had washed out. He’d only ever seen that color in the eyes of a Mage of the Well—one blessed with foresight. A Seer. Then the white dissolved to color and the human scowled at him.
“Not that I should give you advice for the way you’ve treated me, but you shouldn’t stand so close to the fire,” she quipped. “It might spark and catch you in the eye.”
A rumble of dissent vibrated in his throat, and he turned back to the fire. But when he glanced at the sprites dancing, toying with a charred whittled piece of wood, unease tickled his gut. The sprite couple had moved in recently. They kept the place heated and warm while he was out, and he gave them somewhere to live on this frozen, Well-forsaken mountain. But they were irresponsible, wild, and needed to be tamed. There had been accidents on more than one occasion.
Rush rubbed his beard.
The human’s eyes had been white.
Like a Seer.
He removed the pot from the flames early. It was ready, anyhow. Time to dish up and see to feeding her. The moment he crossed to the kitchen, the fire sparked, and an ember shot out. Wide-eyed, he watched it arc high into the air, and then descend to smolder on his wooden floor.
A tittering of laughter filtered out from the fire.
He bared his teeth at the flames, and the laughter stopped. Gray joined in, his lip curling with warning.
“Get out.” Rush waved at the sprites. Enough. “Shoo.”
He strode to the door, opened it wide and stood there waiting with a crinkled forehead aimed at the hearth. Frigid air rushed in, but he wanted those little cretins to know he meant business.
A high-pitched whine shot back at him.
“I told you if you set fire to my house, you’re out,” Rush ground out.
The male squeaked a challenge, but a piece of fire in the shape of a woman broke loose, jumped to the floor and picked up the smoldering ember before returning to the flames. An almost inaudible voice piped up.
Rush put his hand to his ear. His hearing was excellent, but he wanted to prove a point.
“What was that?” he prompted.
“See? All fixed,” the female sprite squeaked.
“Don’t do it again.” He booted the door shut and then rounded on the human in his bed. “How did you know that would happen?”
“I didn’t,” she mumbled. “I mean… what the hell? Did you see those things? They were real, right?” She squeezed her eyes shut. “Honestly, if this is a dream, it’s the best one I’ve had.”
“I can assure you, it’s not a dream, and I’m very real. Now, answer my question.”
“Lucky guess, I suppose.”
He wasn’t convinced.
But how could a human use mana? Could they somehow steal it from a fae and use the power for themselves? Even though they held no capacity for holding it?
None of these questions seemed logical, but in his unseen trips into Crystal City, he’d seen things that defied logic. Giant metal machines billowing smoke and soot. Boxes that carried humans inside and moved on their own accord through the streets. But in all his trips, he’d not once seen any evidence of mana being used. He’d only seen their filthy war machines.
A coldness ran through him at the memory. One day, the humans would use them on the fae, and there would be no turning back for this planet.
He rubbed his jaw again. “But the cabin. How did you know I built it? Have you been spying on me?”
“I only just got here!” Her eyes flew wide.
He filled a bowl with stew and walked over to the bed. Sitting down next to her, he braced himself for the contact-sickness. Old habits died hard. Even though there had been no evidence of it with her, he had to be wary.
He held a spoonful near her mouth, but she clamped those plump lips shut.
“Eat,” he ordered, ears twitching.
“I’d rather you untie me so I can feed myself.”
A surge of irritation boiled under his skin. Infuriating woman. He was doing her a favor. She’d thanked him. She owed him a boon for saving her from assault, mutilation, and who-knew-what by his uncle.
Thaddeus.
The name beat against his mind with unfurling hatred. The bastard uncle. Him being so close to Rush’s home was disconcerting, and with a hunting party no less.
The Longing of Lone Wolves Page 3