Morgana’s bottom lip trembled. “I don’t know.”
“There are places where lost children can go,” Leon said with a grimace.
His shuddering reaction made me think of how a human might respond to hearing the child would be left with social services. Unless he, an outcast thief, was in the market for an Unseelie ward, he couldn’t blame me, an escaped prisoner, for not indulging my maternal instincts.
Isaac proved he was on the same page with me. “Where is the nearest location?”
“She doesn’t have the look of Spring or Summer.” Leon scrunched up his face. “Winter can be bitter to those not used to her. Autumn is likely the best fit.”
As we were already in Autumn, I had no argument there. “Have you checked the weather?”
“Not since we arrived.” Isaac strode to the stairs and leveraged open the door. He returned a few minutes later. “It’s sprinkling, but the storm has passed. The skies are clearing. We should be good to strike out in the morning.”
“Why don’t you take the bedroom, Morgana?” I rose with her. “Isaac, I’ll see if there are spare blankets you can use on the couch.”
He didn’t utter a single complaint, though the sofa had lost most of its stuffing and what remained was of an undetermined origin.
“Leon?” I summoned the bunny. “Your presence has a calming effect on her. Why don’t you catch a nap too?”
His gaze darted to the girl, who offered an almost imperceptible nod. With a wriggle of his tail, he followed. I made myself busy collecting linens for Isaac while they settled. As it happened, Leon didn’t need a boost to leap onto the high bed. Morgana tucked him under her arm, climbed up using the empty chest at the foot of the bed, and curled on the blanket with him cozied against her chest.
“We’ll be out here if you need us.” Neither spoke or moved, except for Leon’s twitching nose, so I shut the door and pulled the knob until it clicked, before returning to Isaac. I draped a sheet over the couch then fluffed the spare pillow and dropped it at one end. He flopped down, and I tucked him in with a quilt. “What do you think?”
“Other than you sequestered the two unknowns in our party in a room they can’t sneak out of without getting past the wolf at the door?”
“Yes.” I permitted myself a smile at how well he knew me. “Other than that.”
“Leon has misled us once. It’s in our best interest to cut him loose as soon as possible.”
“I was thinking the same thing.” Our single mission objective had not been accomplished, and yet we had managed to create more work for ourselves. “We can drop Morgana off, scout the area for signs of our missing package—” I kept it vague in case púcas possessed super hearing, “—then escort Leon to his den before heading to the Halls of Summer.”
“Good plan. Simple. I like it.” His jaw lowered on a yawn, and he nestled into his makeshift bed. “Keep me company?”
“You’re about to nap,” I pointed out in case he had any ideas.
“Maybe I just want to sleep with you, and I’m not picky how it happens.”
I snorted so hard I stirred dust off a nearby shelf that made me launch into a sneezing fit. By the time I had wiped my nose and caught my breath, Isaac had a soft, sleepy look in his eyes that threatened to squeeze the air right back out of my lungs.
“Come here.” He held out his hand for me. “Promise I won’t bite. I prefer leaving that up to you.”
A hard tug low in my gut set my heart galloping. “Isaac.”
“Make you a deal.” He kept his arm extended. “Sit with me, and I’ll let you off the hook for that talk. For now.”
“Fine.” Relieved he would soon be unconscious and therefore unable to force me to reveal any awkward feelings I might have, I sat at the end of the sofa where his long legs folded and pulled them onto my lap. “Happy now?”
“Not yet.” He tossed the quilt across my lap and shut his eyes with a grin. “But I’m getting there.”
At least one of us was.
Chapter 7
Morning came in the form of Morgana scurrying out of the bedroom in search of the chamber pot. Until I had stumbled across that relic last night, I had never envied a man his equipment. After squatting over the heavy black bucket, I had to admit that Mother Nature had shafted us girls. Or, more to the point, she hadn’t.
Leon bounded out a few strides behind and joined me in the kitchen. “Could you see your way into letting me out?”
Considering the lack of coffee, I was downright chipper this morning. I’m sure it had nothing to do with the silly pleasure I derived from protecting Isaac while he slept. “Are you going to make an attempt?”
That’s what Meemaw had called trips to the bathroom when I was a pup. Ninety percent of potty training had been, for me, attempting to reach the toilet before I remembered I was wearing a diaper and gave up on that whole Big Girl thing. It had sounded like way too much work even back then.
If a black-furred rabbit can be said to blush, he did. “Nature’s call is rather insistent.”
I took the stairs and let him out, pausing a moment to study the landscape while he handled business. Fall was hands down my favorite season. Always had been. And not because football season meant tailgating. Like wargs needed an excuse to grill. Back in Georgia, the fiery reds and oranges had blazed like wildfire across the mountains as the leaves changed. Tennessee, well, she was still winning me over to her way of thinking. Autumn, however, was breathtaking with its burnt gold, vibrant crimson and apricot undertones. The bite in the air invigorated me, and the whisper of the leaves called to my wild spirit.
“Excuse me, Sharpy.” Leon clambered over the foot I had used to prop open the door. “The attempt, I’m afraid, was unsuccessful.”
“That’s too bad.” I battled against laughter when I said, “Better luck next time.”
“Quite so,” he agreed, sounding cheered at the prospect of cleansing his colon.
Shutting out the vibrancy of the outdoors, I went to wake up Isaac only to find him locked in battle with Morgana…and a gleaming butcher knife. As it turned out, the one thing that overrode my drive to protect those weaker than me was the primal imperative to protect my mate.
I lunged for the girl, knocking her to the floor, twisting the knife so it skidded into the kitchen. She was strong for such a frail child, but I wasn’t a warg for nothing. I pinned her down with a hand around her throat while craning my neck to check on Isaac. “Are you okay?”
“She caught me by surprise. Nicked my hand when I raised my arm to fend her off.” He wrapped a corner of the sheet around his palm. “It’s nothing serious.”
Dangerous as it was to turn my back on the threat beneath me, I had trouble letting Isaac out of my sight. The splash of red on his shirt and hand had a growl revving up my throat. My wolf’s fury centered me enough to focus on the girl. “What was that about?”
Her big eyes welled with fat tears.
“Sorry, kid.” The wolf entered my voice. “Isaac is mine, and you hurt him. Either you talk, or we shove you back in that bubble to ride out the trip to the children’s home.”
In a blink, the tears evaporated, and her lips flattened into a mulish line. She glanced away from me, keeping her chin tucked to avoid flashing neck, a sign of submission that would have soothed the wolf. Whatever she was, whoever she was, she recognized a predator when she saw one, and she gave no quarter.
I might have admired that in her had she not spilled Isaac’s blood. That, I was discovering, was an unforgiveable offense.
Since neither of us had command of any restraining Words, we had to truss her up the old-fashioned way. Isaac found twine in the kitchen, and we bound her hands behind her back, leaving a few yards to act as a leash. We took a dishtowel too in case we bumbled into trolls again and needed to keep her quiet. Considering the state of the house prior to our arrival, I felt nothing we could have done short of burning it down would have left it in any worse condition.
Leon, s
omber since the attack, led the way. The deeper we trekked into Autumn, the more damaged the trees. Many had been split in two by lightning strikes, and at least one copse had burned to the ground. The scents of petrichor and ozone hung in the air. We had left the pinnacle behind, so unless weather in Autumn was unseasonably hostile, we might have lucked into a lead.
Slowly, I fed Morgana more rope until she reached the end of her tether. With the kid out of earshot, I leaned in to Isaac. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“That the battery life of her bracelet will only last forty-eight more hours?” The pucker of his forehead ought to have clued me in to the fact he was crunching numbers. We all combated stress in our own ways, and he preferred to battle his in columns with tally marks.
“Look around.” I indicated several charred tree trunks. “Some of this damage is days old, but a few of these strikes are fresh. I can smell the wood burning.”
“The package we were sent to reclaim has no business in Autumn. It’s Unseelie territory.”
“Normally, I would agree. Except the package’s handler is in bed with the Unseelie. She might be seeking refuge here.” I watched our guide, who was acting squirrelly for a bunny. “Are púcas Seelie or Unseelie?”
He appeared to consider the matter for the first time. “The black fur wasn’t your first clue?”
“Unseelie,” I decided. “That means we haven’t bumped into a Seelie yet.”
Bháin and the king were as Unseelie as it got. Despite our trip through Summer, the púca and the trolls were too. So was Morgana. All in all, I was getting twitchy. I couldn’t put my finger on what bothered me about our present course, except it wasn’t the one we were meant to be on, but the wolf paced through my head, close to my skin. Her fur was ruffled, and I trusted her instincts over mine any day.
“How much farther to the orphanage?” I called to Leon.
He turned guilty eyes on me. “Not much farther now, Sharpy.”
A gentle breeze sent a cyclone of leaves whirling across our path, carrying with it the scent of lilac and feathers.
“Isaac—” I wrapped my hand around his forearm, pulling him to a stop.
“Hello, beastie.” Rilla descended in a flutter of gilded wings. Her golden hair, secured in a bun at her nape, shone under the sun. The first time I saw her, I mistook her for an angel. She had nailed the ethereal look, but her ice-cold eyes were pure infernal spite. “Rook said you would come through, but I dared not hope even you could be so ignorant as all that.”
The backhanded compliment stung for reasons I couldn’t identify, and the bottom dropped out of my stomach. What, exactly, had the king expected from us? Our escape? Our recapture? What?
Isaac stepped forward until our shoulders brushed, and we presented a united front. “Not that I don’t appreciate his vote of confidence, but Dell is a superb tracker. Of course we found you. It was only a matter of time.”
Rilla tossed back her head and laughed until she was forced to land and catch her breath. “You didn’t find me.” She kicked Leon in the side, and he went tumbling. “You were led here by the nose. It is I who have been waiting on you.”
The púca rolled to a stop and flipped onto his feet, head down and ears drooping.
Given that he had already lied to us once, this newest betrayal lacked the sting. “Leon, fair warning. You’re now a menu item. Enjoy whatever reward they promised you for betraying us while you can.”
He curled in on himself, muttering what might have been an apology.
Rilla, amused by the exchange, enlightened us. “He traded you away for a magic ring.” She picked a stick up off the ground, and it blossomed into a head of verdant green cabbage in her palm. “Not quite as fanciful as magic beans, but just as useful.”
The fact that part of his story checked out didn’t make me feel any better. The most successful liars were good at what they did for precisely that reason. They stuck close to the truth so they would remember the details. “I take it the trolls were in on it too.”
“Leon allowed you to wander too far before intercepting you.” She wrinkled her nose at the quivering bunny. “I had to turn you around somehow.”
“Why not let us wander around Faerie?” Rilla, having wings and use of glamour that could render her invisible, could have kept an eye on us undetected. Isaac would have gotten his grand tour, and she would have thwarted our rescue attempt until Faerie killed us for her. “Why bring us here?”
She gave the girl a pointed look. “They have no idea, do they?”
Morgana bestowed a beatific smile on Rilla. “No,” she said, voice as hard as Winter’s heart. “They don’t.”
Leon’s pitiful whimper drew Rilla’s attention only long enough for her to remove the promised ring from her finger and toss it at him. “That concludes our business,” she sneered. “Be gone before I feed you to the wolf.”
The púca rallied himself enough to choke down the thick gold band. He cast one last pleading glance at me then hopped away as fast as his legs would carry him.
A cawing screech had me searching the sky as a large black bird sailed overhead. It wheeled a slow circle above the trees before angling in our direction. The girl lifted her arm, and he dutifully landed on her wrist. She stroked a finger over his head. “Did you miss me?” The bird snapped at her finger and drew blood, but she only laughed. “Such a naughty child. No wonder you were always my favorite.”
Its answering call sounded doubtful as it glided from her arm to land at her bare feet.
A ripple of magic blurred the air around the bird, and its form contorted until it stood taller than Rilla. Feathers slid from its skin, exposing gray flesh. The quills on its head flowed into silky locks of inky hair. Its eyes remained the same, black and pitiless. The transformation left a tall, heartbreakingly beautiful man with a familiar silhouette standing before us wearing an ebony suit of leather armor and matching boots.
I wet my lips. “You’re the Faerie king.”
“I am Rook Morriganson.” The man executed a slight bow of recognition then bent to kiss the girl’s cheek. “Mother.”
Mother? My jaw gave serious consideration to coming unhinged. “That means she’s…”
“The Morrigan.” The girl filled in the blank for me.
The Morrigan, my brain supplied helpfully, was a death goddess. On the one hand, that explained why she had tried to kill Isaac at the earliest opportunity. His death would have soothed the hunger still burning in her eyes, a craving no plate of canned goods could sate. On the other, learning she was a centuries-old goddess erased any guilt I might have had over returning the favor.
“She’s not wearing glamour,” Isaac protested, stunned into disbelief. “She is a child.”
“I died in that bubble. Over and over.” Her pouty lips plumped. “Starvation is a miserable death. It’s one of my least favorites.”
So the lack of food and water, maybe even oxygen, had killed her. But her deathless nature kept bringing her back to life, starting the cycle all over again. What a miserable existence. Years passed in the blink of immortal eyes, but the confinement had no doubt held her attention for each excruciating minute.
“You’re like a phoenix?” Isaac, who couldn’t curb his curious nature, pressed. “You’re reborn and start life over as an infant?”
“I return near to this age.” She stuck her cute button nose in the air. “Infancy is messy, and babes are good for nothing except the tenderness of their flesh.”
Suddenly, I understood why the bird had bit her. With a mother like her, she was lucky he hadn’t pecked out her eyes.
“This is what you meant,” I addressed Rilla. “You didn’t think we could get her out of the bubble where she was trapped.”
Admittedly, you had to be pretty darn stupid to release a death goddess into the world when someone had taken such pains to confine her. Lucky for Rilla, Isaac and I were two such idiots.
“Only two people should have been able to breach the
aer póca, and you’re neither.” She swept her gaze over Isaac. “You took blood from one of them, didn’t you? It’s the only way the gambit could work.” She considered Rook. “Thierry is my guess. Her father is more careful with his blood. Macsen hasn’t lived this long by being foolish.”
Thierry? That was his last remaining aspect? No wonder he hadn’t told me. Carrying around blood that potent was tantamount to stuffing his pockets with C-4 prior to departure. I didn’t have to know what her magic did to know I never wanted to be on the receiving end of it.
“Wait.” I stepped forward to shift her gaze from Isaac. “Whose house was that?”
“Macsen Sullivan,” Rilla informed me with glee. “The Black Dog of Faerie.” She clucked her tongue. “His daughter trapped the Morrigan, and you’ve set her free. You can’t return home now. Not after you freed Thierry’s mortal—or immortal as it happens—enemy.”
A panicked sweat broke down my spine. Losing the prince had been an honest mistake. He had cooperated with Rilla when he could have ended the charade right then and there and saved all of us the hassle. But he had played along for the sake of his girlfriend’s safety, and that hiccup was still nothing compared to this.
The wolf bucked in my middle, and I almost shifted on the spot. Panic soured my mouth. Never see Cord or Cam again? Never see my pack? And Zed? Who would make sure he ate? Who would protect him from himself?
“This is all my fault.” Isaac rubbed slow circles across my back. “I never should have released her.”
Unable to speak, uncertain I could comfort him while my world was shattering, I focused on keeping my wolf confined within my skin. I couldn’t afford the precious minutes of vulnerability during the shift. Not in front of this crowd.
Isaac had done what I would have in his place, what any decent person would have done. I couldn’t hold that against him. Not when I would have made the same choice if it meant protecting a child.
“What will you do with us?” Isaac challenged our captors, sounding more annoyed than concerned.
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