by Jory Strong
Kellen floored the pedal, weaving among cars and speeding through a yellow light. He turned a corner, then another, and another to make it more difficult for Crew—if in fact the dragon had orders to catch him and take possession of the charm.
The conversation after finding the charm beyond the astrologist’s fence played out in Kellen’s mind. He heard the strain in Analia’s voice, saw it on her face when she’d claimed she couldn’t tell him more about the charm, her desperation when he wouldn’t return it to her.
Why? What did she know that she couldn’t reveal?
Houses and shops, humans and cars passed in a blur. His urgency to find her intensified with every mile, with every minute. The astrologist better be able to provide some answers.
Kellen wrenched the steering wheel to the right to avoid a human looking down at his phone and stepping off the curb without waiting for a light.
Fucking fool! Kellen silently shouted, the hollowed-out feeling in the pit of his stomach indicating he might be the true target of the curse.
He detoured around Old Town rather than risk slamming into a tourist. Finally reached the astrologist’s yellow adobe house.
A stomp to the brake and he was parked and out of the car. A few steps and he jerked the short gate open.
At passing through whatever wards the astrologist had set in place, cold extreme enough to feel like a flash of heat accompanied the pulse of magic that emanated from the charm.
Kellen was reminded of the possibility that the charm had some awareness, that it’d dropped away from Analia’s bracelet during the mugging to prevent itself from being found, that it’d fallen from the bracelet in proximity to the astrologist’s magic.
Kellen jogged to the astrologist’s front door, waited a heartbeat before pounding on the sigil inscribed wood. A minute passed, then a second.
It was impossible to remain motionless. He paced the area in front of the door. Three steps left, turn and pound, then three steps right, turn and pound.
Two minutes became four, then six, then ten.
He fully expected Crew to show up, maybe accompanied by Taine and Gaige. It’d take all three of them to secure the charm and take him into custody, and even though they were friends, someone was likely to get hurt.
“Fuck it!” Kellen growled, leaving the porch and weaving through cactus plants to reach the part of the yard landscaped with thick manzanita and chemise.
Out of sight from anyone who might be watching, he released his human form and became fey hound. He trotted out of the protective foliage, eyed a front window, and backed up, nearly to the gate.
He’d lose some advantage going uphill, but the added traction of four paws, the added body mass and the lower center of gravity of his hound form gave him the advantage. Regardless, it was going to hurt.
He charged forward, muscles bunching with each stride, heart pounding faster, harder. Images of Analia drew upon every reserve of magic and strength, hound instinct feeding a determination to find her, fetch her, secure her as his mate.
On a savage growl he leapt, eyes slamming shut an instant before he crashed into and through the glass.
Pain slowed time and narrowed his existence to one where there was only agony. He writhed as phantom whip strikes hit him repeatedly, digging into skin and muscle and bone.
It went on forever.
And then some.
He snarled and snapped.
Growled and whined and howled, the sounds torn from him as the whip strikes continued and continued and continued.
Then as abruptly as the excruciating pain had hit, it disappeared, leaving him lying on cool ceramic floor, his chest heaving up and down and his legs running.
Kellen opened his eyes. The astrologist stood with arms crossed over a bare chest. “This had better be good.”
The scent of sex reached Kellen. He scrambled to his feet, wobbled, then shook, sending small pieces of glass to ping against the tiles. It took effort, long moments of fierce concentration but finally he was able to draw and focus his magic and shift form.
“You owe me a personal favor for the intrusion,” the astrologist said, eyes flicking upward as his thoughts went to whoever was waiting for him in bed.
“Agreed.”
The astrologist’s eyes narrowed. “You’ve got a magical artifact with you that you didn’t have before, but you’re missing your companion. Interesting. I would have sworn she was your mate.”
She is, instinct growled and the heavy beat of Kellen’s heart sent a surge of fear through his chest. It was possible she’d be killed or trapped in some other realm. “She’s been taken by whoever is after the artifact.”
“This way,” the astrologist said, leading him down the same hallway they’d traveled earlier, only this time, they entered a small windowless room.
Four wooden chairs surrounded a circular divination stone, though to humans it would look like an ancient sundial, a relic of the Mayan civilization.
Kellen pulled the charm from his pocket and surrendered it, placing it on the astrologist’s outstretched palm. It glowed in a way it hadn’t previously, the light seeming to come from within, from a core that was now darkened.
Rather than being reminiscent of an apple, the green of the charm made him think of the deep lakes of the fey realm. They were places that had helped sustain him when he’d struggled to survive, early on, in hound form. He’d hunted around those lakes, supplemented his diet of rodents, insects and berries with fish.
Kellen sat in the chair meant for supplicants. The astrologist moved around the divination stone and claimed the opposite chair.
He placed the charm in the center of the round stone, then reached beneath it, his hand emerging with what looked like a fistful of dried grass.
The astrologist piled the grass on top of the charm, reaching beneath the divination table several more times before he was satisfied by the pyramid of grass covering the crystal apple.
A murmured word and the grass caught fire, sending puffs of white smoke upward and filling the room with a scent Kellen had never been able to identify, despite having witnessed this divination many times. It wasn’t the smell of burning grass, nor was it the scent of magic and sorcery. If he were to guess, he’d say it was an herb found in some other realm, but the astrologist wasn’t one to reveal secrets.
The flame burned out, its fuel spent, leaving behind a white pyramid of fine ash. The astrologist placed both hands on the divination table.
The stone was like a huge roadmap marking the various realms. Kellen recognized many of the sigils carved into its surface.
Small lines formed troughs that connected the realms in a complex collection of spiderweb patterns.
The ash began slowly sliding down the right side of the pyramid and into one of the channels. As more ash followed, it pushed what had come before deeper into the channel, forming a trail.
Kellen’s gaze moved ahead of the ash, finding the sigil that marked the realm of his origin, and scanning those fey realms nearby, given what the astrologist had said during the reading with Analia.
Some of the tension in his chest eased. He could navigate those realms. He could retrieve her—if she didn’t eat or drink while among the fey.
The thought nearly had him surging out of his chair. He needed to get to her, now!
His gaze snapped to the ash, and worry mounted. Rather than continuing in the direction of the hound realm, the trail had taken a forty-five-degree turn and was heading toward clusters of unfamiliar sigils.
He rubbed his palms against his jeans, willing the ash to change direction, to hurry up. It did neither.
Minutes crawled past. His ability to remain seated was tested with each one of them. He was on the verge of losing control when the ash finally stopped moving, leaving a trail from a symbol he didn’t recognize back to the apple-shaped charm.
The astrologist, who’d been seemingly looking inward, blinked and met Kellen’s gaze. At reading dismay in the astrolog
ist’s eyes, Kellen surged upward, sending his chair tumbling over and clattering against the tile floor. “Tell me.”
“The charm originated in a realm that’s home to grigs. That’s where Analia was most likely taken.”
“I don’t recognize the name.” Perhaps he would have if not for his isolated childhood. “What type of fey are they?”
“The humans have some notion of them in their fairy tales, so at some point they came into contact.”
“What are the myths?”
“The most prominent feature them as little merry folk who wear green clothes and red stocking caps. Way back when, small apples were left hanging on the trees during harvest time for them, eventually they became known as griggling apples.”
That explained the shape of the charm, the scent near the mirror—and he remembered where else, upon entering her apartment. They’d been there searching, had probably sent the assailant after her. He fisted his hands, braced himself at seeing the astrologist’s expression, one that warned he wasn’t going to like hearing the rest of it. “Tell me.”
“They’re clannish by all accounts. Unless you’re with a grig, there is no direct portal to their world. Myth has it that when enough of them are present, they can create their own portals.”
“What about going through other realms?”
“Costly.”
Kellen was waiving the concern away before the astrologist finished.
The astrologist shook his head. “Costly not only in magic and wealth, but in time. There won’t be a direct portal anywhere close for at least a week.”
A chasm opened in Kellen’s chest. “If she eats or drinks while she’s in the grig world?”
“I don’t know.”
The astrologist brushed away the ash covering the charm and returned the green, apple-shaped crystal to Kellen. “Good luck.”
A nod and Kellen left the room, a howl welling up inside him. He stepped into sunshine, but a world that seemed dimmer thanks to Analia’s absence.
He caught himself rubbing the spot above his heart, as if he could drive back the ache. Then caught sight of Crew, leaning against the dark silver Lamborghini.
The dragon prince’s arms were crossed, as were his ankles. “Took long enough,” he said, glance flicking to the astrologist’s broken window. “And I feel compelled to add, you’re acting like a male who has lost his mate.”
“This is a job, that’s all. A job I screwed up,” Kellen snarled, unwilling to admit the true depth of his mistake but acknowledging to himself that his words didn’t explain the mounting panic, the driving urgency, the growing sense of loss expanding in his chest.
Crew shook his head and sighed. “If you say so. Maksim wants you at headquarters.”
Chapter 9
Analia jerked away from the hands that had grabbed and pulled her into a circle. It took her a heartbeat before her eyes adjusted and her mind caught up, recognizing she’d gone from daytime to deep dusk, that the three owners of those hands had propelled themselves backward, away from her, their palms facing outward. That instead of the tall figures who had burst through the mirror, quickly encircling her, the men she now looked at were short, the tops of their heads barely above her waist.
Her pulse quickened at recognizing their faces. They’d been huddled several blocks away from the Artist’s Loft when she’d seen them yesterday. They’d also been tall.
She’d thought they were a grandfather, son and grandson, trying to decide on a direction or destination. They’d worn shorts and loud-patterned shirts. But now their clothing looked as if it’d been woven from rough wool or fiber.
She looked around, finding herself in an orchard.
“Who…who are you? Where are we?”
The men exchanged glances. The young one took a hesitant step forward. “We are known as grigs. We mean you no harm.”
His earnest voice and raised hands helped ease the wild pounding of her heart. “Then why did you bring me here?”
A fevered urgency entered his expression. “We are searching for something that belongs to us, that centuries ago was stolen from us by trickery.”
They had to be after the charms.
Outrage chased away some of her fear. “You could have asked me to meet with you! You didn’t need to search my apartment or hire someone to attack me!”
The grig’s eyes widened and he back-stepped. “We used no violence. I swear it.”
With a glance he handed off the task of convincing her to the grizzled, bearded elder. The old man stepped forward hands still raised, palms facing outward. Voice vibrating with tension, he said, “Please, tell us about this attack. Why do you think it is related to our search?”
Analia told him about the mugging and the interview at the police station, though she omitted mention of Kellen and made it sound as if the dog that had come to her rescue was an ordinary canine and not a fey hound.
The elder grig lowered his hands. His shoulders hunched forward. “It’s as we feared,” he whispered. “Our enemies are aware that the artifact has surfaced.”
The grig who’d be middle-aged by human standards placed a hand on the old man’s shoulder. “All is not lost.”
The young grig reached into his pocket and pulled something out. Analia gasped when he held it out to her and she saw the tree-shaped charm. He said, “The other piece of the artifact, where is it?”
“You were in my apartment!”
He nodded vigorously. “This is one half of the item. The magic fled from it when we took possession. We chased the magic and found you at the end of the trail. Please, where is the other piece of the crystal? We face enslavement and slaughter by our enemies if it falls into their hands!”
The fear and desperation in his voice, along with the old grig’s reaction to learning an enemy was after the charm, struck a chord of sympathy in Analia. She wasn’t ready to trust them, but she could give them a measure of relief and hope. “The other piece of crystal is in a safe place.”
In the distance she heard a burst of children’s laughter. The grizzled elder said, “Come, join us at the fire circle.”
The invitation sounded formal, as if it came with rights and responsibilities. Curiosity got the better of her. This was really happening to her! She was in another realm, conversing with supernatural beings that were the stuff of myths!
That is—if she hadn’t somehow been knocked out in the real world, possibly by a falling full-length mirror, and was now lying in the hospital in a coma. Or on the surgery table and having an out-of-body experience thanks to anesthesiology.
“I’ll join you,” Analia said, then followed them deeper into the orchard, walking beneath trees laden with red, green and yellow apples. The deeper they went, the older and wider the trees got.
They reached a clearing and several men jumped to their feet. Some wore scowls but others had expressions of painful hope.
The old grig who’d been leading the way to the campfire turned toward Analia, “Your name, so I can welcome you.”
Was it safe to give her name? She didn’t remember very many childhood fairy tales, but she did love to read urban fantasy and more than once, those worlds were places where giving your name meant giving others power over you. Her hesitation had additional men standing, as if by not offering her name, she was signaling she’d come to their campfire with ill intentions—even though they’d been the ones to snatch her from her world and bring her to theirs!
The elderly grig met her gaze. “I am Gellawin.” He indicated the youngest of his companions. “This is Furgil, and next to him, his father, Burloksson.”
There were no shocked exclamations from those around the campfire, or worried exchanges of glances to suggest there was danger in his having revealed their names. Analia took a deep breath. Trust had to start somewhere, though thinking it brought Kellen’s image and a sharp stab of pain.
“I’m Analia.”
Gellawin smiled. “Welcome to our fire circle.”
Space opened and Analia accompanied the three grigs to the camp fire, taking a seat between Gellawin and Burloksson.
The men who’d jumped to their feet slowly, one-by-one, sat. A few cautious smiles were offered, but mothers held infants with their faces pressed to breasts or shoulders, and the young children whose laughter had reached her through the orchard hid behind parents and much older siblings.
The pop-pop-pop of what sounded like gunfire sent Analia’s heart racing. She started to scramble to her feet, but Gellawin rested a calloused palm on her forearm. “Nuts are roasting in the fire.”
“Oh.” There was additional popping, the first few making Analia flinch. And then the popping grew louder, the time between each pop lessening and lessening until it became a barrage of sound, like popcorn just before it burns in the microwave.
Dusk gave way to starlit night, the change far more abrupt than she was used to. An elderly woman on the other side of the campfire stood. She poked a long stick into the flames as a second, younger woman scooped through fire and ash with a forked stick that had thick vine woven between branches to form a net.
Every few seconds she lifted the net, shook it to put out tiny licks of flame, then dipped it into fire and ash again. When it was heavy with nuts, she dumped the nuts into a large wooden bowl.
The bowl was stacked on two others, and given the rings, had been carved from a tree trunk. A man sitting behind the stacked bowls lifted the one containing the nuts, shook it as if to cool them, then took a nut the size of Analia’s pinky before passing the bowl to a young man on his right.
He took a nut, passed the bowl to a woman with a familial resemblance. She took a nut and passed the bowl.
Next to Analia, Gellawin said, “We gather at the fire circle each evening to share our daily accomplishments as well as to share song and stories from our past.”
When the bowl reached him, he took a golden-brown nut. “These nuts are plainly roasted. The next bowl will be spicy, and the one after, honeyed.”
Analia accepted the bowl and, following the example set by the others, took a single nut then passed the bowl to Burloksson. She bit into the nut. It tasted like a lightly salted almond.