“You won’t be allowed to return to Earth,” Rook decreed. “Thierry must not know what’s happening here. Not yet.”
“What is happening here?” I mumbled, lips numb with shock.
“We’re going to war,” he told me, not unkindly. “It’s the only way. I thought with the tethers cut, I might reign in peace, but the appearance of the rift has changed things. I can’t control the fae of my own house, let alone all of Faerie. Not when such a temptation is there for the indulging. The only way to hold any semblance of control is to lead the charge instead of being trampled by it.”
“Is the prince collateral?” Isaac demanded.
“Of a kind,” Rook allowed. “I’ve agreed to offer what assistance I can in placing Prince Tiberius on the throne after my century ends in exchange for Seelie cooperation.”
Shaking off the sense of dread pooling in my gut, I forced my mind to the task at hand. “I saw Galina and Paavo not too long ago.” They had been calling for my head as punishment for misplacing their son. “Trust me, cooperation is the last thing on their mind.”
“Sadly, I have reason to believe my poor sister and her devoted husband won’t return from their trip. Their deaths will be blamed on the humans, of course.” A smile played on Rilla’s lips. “That’s when I’ll step forward and present a grieving Tiberius to our house as the sole survivor of the massacre. He will rally the troops, and Galina and Paavo’s names will be our battle cries.”
That explained why she had kept him hidden in Autumn, close enough for the precipice to cover his stormy disposition. She wasn’t at the Halls of Summer, the Seelie seat, because she didn’t want them to know he was back yet. She wanted to push her coup through first and then present the heartbroken prince to the masses so that he could unite them all in his grief.
Neither had clarified why we had been led to Macsen Sullivan’s house. “Why trick us into freeing the Morrigan?”
“She’s a goddess of war.” Lines bracketed Rook’s mouth, and smudges darkened the skin under his eyes. Right now, he didn’t look all-powerful or kingly. Mostly he looked old and tired. “In order for us to win, I need her by my side.”
Rilla lengthened one of her fingernails into a sickle-shaped claw and sliced through Morgana’s—the Morrigan’s—twine bonds. The girl rubbed her wrists then cleared her throat. “Come, child. I grow weary. This body is not yet what it must be.”
Rook nodded and turned away from us. For one shining moment, I thought he might have changed his mind. That he would let us go. But Rilla used her wings to leap over the monarch and his mother. Her nail gleamed under the sunlight, and she rested it against Isaac’s throat.
“I would hate to kill him.” She sounded earnest. “He’s such a rarity, and I would love to experiment with him further. It’s been so long since a new species was introduced to Faerie. Or would it be reintroduced? Either way, we could pass many informative years in pursuit of his limitations.”
A vicious growl pumped through my chest at the covetous hand she splayed over his abdomen.
“Understand me, I might not want to kill him, but I will if you won’t cooperate.” The pressure of her nail increased until the bright-sharp tang of his blood hit my nose. “I’m not sure why Rook wishes to keep you alive, except perhaps as a bribe for the Huntsman. He might enjoy running a different kind of hound for a change, and it is his Wild Hunt that determines the winner of the Coronation Hunt after all.”
The Huntsman, I knew from Isaac’s earlier story, was considered the Black Dog’s father, which meant he was Thierry’s grandfather. Being gifted to him wasn’t the worst outcome. He must be on their side, which meant he would be on our side too.
The plan formulating in my head had more holes than a hunk of Swiss, but it was the only one I could see getting us out of this mess alive. If that meant I had to shift for the Huntsman and endure a few belly rubs, well, I’d done worse. I had survived that, and I would survive this. We would survive this.
Under Rilla’s watchful eye, I followed the king and the girl to a crimson fortress capped with burnt-umber roof tiles. We walked for miles, and the hours dragged. The wolf gnawed at my control every step of the way. She was not thrilled with me turning my back on a threat. Frustrated, I let her glimpse the collateral ensuring our cooperation, and she froze in her pacing. The wolf would do anything to protect Isaac, even expose her vulnerabilities to an enemy.
We had weathered worse storms during our life, and we had learned early that sometimes you had to let things happen. Even if that meant letting them happen to you. That lesson I had learned at my mother’s knee. She took and took and took until she only had one thing left to take—her own life.
That wasn’t going to be me. I wasn’t going to follow in her footsteps. I wasn’t.
She had taught me the art of submission with tooth and claw, and I had been a star pupil. No matter how demeaning the lesson, I learned it in order to spare myself undo attention. From her and her suitors. Dominant females garnered too much interest. They were novelties who presented too much of a challenge in a hierarchy that rewarded strength. Submissive females, though, glided below the radar, and right now I wanted to be the faintest blip on the screen.
Sinking into the submissive mindset required me to act against my nature on a base level. I had sworn that once I made beta, I would never again hunch my shoulders or mumble at the feet of those who addressed me. Lucky for me, I had a lifetime’s worth of experience in breaking promises to myself. The wolf made herself small, tucking her tail and whining. Keeping my gaze locked on Isaac soothed her. Normally, this was the part where I comforted her with white lies.
This is the last time. We’ll never have to do this again. Everything will be okay. You’ll see. We’ll make it.
This time I didn’t bother. Neither of us believed me anymore.
Chapter 8
The fortress boasted scorch marks on the floors and a few walls. Its burnt-orange interior did it no favors either. It was as if Autumn had vomited its brightest colors and someone had smeared them on the walls in an attempt to pay homage to their splendor. The king and his mother strolled past us, taking a wide corridor while Rilla guided us to a bulky archway set down a hall with no other windows or doors. A tall man with her coloring, a matched set of tawny wings and an equally bilious robe greeted her with an inclination of his golden head. Tanet. One of Rilla’s cousins as best as I could figure. Our gazes met before I ducked my chin, and he drew a curved blade from a sheath hung on a thick leather belt around his waist.
“Tanet, put these with the other one.” Rilla retracted her claw and eased out of reach. “Keep them separate.” She stroked Isaac’s arm one last time. “For gods’ sake, don’t let this one draw blood.”
“Can you behave, beast?” Tanet demanded, taking his cue from Rilla and restraining Isaac at the point of his scimitar. “You seem docile enough. Is he one of yours?”
“He is mine,” the wolf answered for me, her gold eyes piercing Rilla.
Isaac, despite the cutting edge held at his throat, smiled beatifically.
Oh boy.
“Good.” Tanet bowed once more to Rilla, who set off in the direction the king had gone, then jerked his chin toward the arch. “Behave, or I’ll see him gutted.”
Shoulders rolled forward, I rushed into the small chamber he indicated, giving the illusion I was prey and he the predator flushing me from my den. A heavy wooden door dominated the far wall, and he ordered it open. The three of us did a little dance as Tanet and Isaac crowded in behind me, then I was ordered to close it again. Once I had secured what appeared to be the only exit, Tanet relaxed and barked orders at me until we reached a smattering of cells forged in a variety of metals.
Isaac got shoved into one with thick bars I would have bet money on was rusted iron. The maddening itch beneath my skin told me my own cell boasted tarnished silver. All that separated us was a double line of alternating metals. I could have reached through the bars and touched him if I d
idn’t mind a few blisters. Across from us, sitting on a cot, was our missing witch. Confined behind bars of gold, Enzo watched our procession from the corner of his eyes. I squelched the urge to call out to him and left my head drooped.
“There is only one way in or out of this dungeon, and there will be a full company of guards posted on the door you entered. I would stay in your cells if I were you. I’m not tolerant of disobedience.”
With my eyes downcast, I could pretend he was any of my previous alphas. Puffed up with his own importance, so sure of his superiority, he failed to see me. Maybe I ought to loosen my grip on the past and be thankful for what surviving all those years had taught me. Some ghosts, like Momma’s, I would never fully banish. But perhaps I owed her posthumous thanks. In her own self-serving way, she had prepared me for this life as much as Meemaw and Pawpaw.
None of us spoke until the outer door clanged shut. My voice overlapped Isaac’s when we asked Enzo, “What are you doing here?”
“The snowmen got me. They carried me back into Firn Hall and locked me up until our old pal Tanet came to claim me. I’ve been here ever since.” He crossed to the front of his cell and threaded his arms through the bars, propping on the cross braces. “I can’t complain. I expended too much magic cutting down that first snow creature, and the heating spell I was using ran out of juice.” He turned his hands palms up. “There’s a good chance I wouldn’t have survived if they hadn’t located me so quickly. They tended my wounds, and the meals come like clockwork.”
Unwilling to take the easy way out, I forged my guilt into words. “You’re not trying to make us feel better about ditching you, are you?”
“Maybe a little.” He pinched his thumb and finger together. “I might have lived, but I would have lost fingers or toes. Since I enjoy each of my twenty digits, I’m oddly grateful I was snatched.”
The tension coiled in my chest unfurled the tiniest bit, and I made the decision to accept his forgiveness.
“Isaac, you doing okay over there?” Like me, he had centered himself in his cell. “Is that iron?”
“Oh, it’s iron all right.” His voice came out thin. “It’s nothing I can’t handle. How about you?”
“As long as I don’t touch anything, I’ll be fine.” I shot Enzo a look. “Gold doesn’t affect witches, huh?”
“No metal does as far as I know.” He rolled a shoulder. “I got shoved in here so they could keep their options open.”
“They were expecting us, so it makes sense.” I retreated to my cot and sat on the edge. The potency of the silver in such close proximity made me woozy. “Have you learned anything useful?”
“Other than the king has arranged for a meeting of his war council next week, no.” Enzo popped his knuckles. “Now it’s your turn. What have you two been up to?”
While I ran down a list of our misadventures, Enzo’s eyes rounded like those foil-covered pirate doubloons you get at Halloween.
“You released the Morrigan? The Morrigan? The death goddess? That Morrigan?” Enzo slapped his palms against the bars in Isaac’s direction. “Did you ever stop to think the girl could have been in the bubble for a reason?”
“She was a little girl locked in an invisible bubble in an abandoned house,” he argued.
Enzo’s eyebrows inched higher up his forehead. “Exactly my point.”
“Forgive me for still having this thing called a conscience,” Isaac snapped. “You probably lost yours while experimenting on innocent wargs for science, but mine’s still intact.”
“Guys,” I cut them off. “What’s done is done. We need to focus on getting out of here, getting back to Earth and warning Thierry.”
Enzo resumed his casual pose. “What about the prince?”
“The prince matters less at this junction than one of us surviving to get a message through to the other side. His parents are slated for happy accidents, so if we could thwart the impending martyrdom of two dignitaries that would be great too.”
“You don’t ask for much, do you?” Isaac asked.
Sipping a shallow breath tinged with silver, I rallied my focus. “Have they let you out of your cell at all?”
“No.” Enzo gusted a miserable sigh. “The longer I stay here, the weaker my magic grows. I’m bound to Earth, and Faerie doesn’t play nice with me.”
“I hear you.” I drew my legs up into lotus position on the thin mattress. “It’s playing havoc with my shifting ability. My senses are going wonky too. They’re not as clear as they ought to be thanks to the magical miasma that is Faerie’s air.”
“So what’s the plan?” Isaac sat on his cot, away from the metal that must have been causing him the same nauseous reaction, and copied me right down to the folded legs. “How do we escape?”
“The plan is…we wait.” The guys protested, and I let them before finishing the thought. “Rilla is interested in Isaac. She might want to play with her new toy sooner rather than later.”
“You’re okay with that?” Enzo asked, voice rising at the end.
A snarl vibrated my throat. “What do you think?”
“You’ll lose your wolfy mind if another woman puts her hands on your mate,” he said matter-of-factly. “Either you’ll crack your head open on the bars and bleed to death since the silver will slow your healing, or you’ll convince her you’re more trouble than you’re worth, and she’ll put you down herself. That’s what I think.”
I gritted my teeth against the denial eager to rip from my lips. People knowing Isaac was mine wasn’t the problem. Everyone knew he was it for me. Even him. But it did stun me that Enzo kept his tone neutral. For the first time, he connected me and Isaac in a sentence that wasn’t flavored with bitterness.
Here I was thinking absence made the heart grow fonder. That had certainly been the case when I moved from Villanow to Butler. The witch had jumped at the chance for a reunion. Incarceration must have nipped that in the bud. Not that I minded. It was past time he extinguished the torch he held for me before it burned him. Or maybe it already had thanks to the forced separation and a few weeks among the pack. There was nothing quite like spending quality time among your past scientific experiments without the benefit of restraints or drugs to make you rethink your life choices.
“I can handle it,” I assured him, all the while feeling Isaac’s gaze on me. “The other option is the Huntsman. Rilla mentioned the king might want to gift me to him. From what I understand, he’s Thierry’s grandfather. He might be an ally.”
Enzo was shaking his head. “Or he might stuff you in a kennel and domesticate you.”
“What choice do we have?” I gestured around us. “I can’t shift. You can’t magic. Isaac can’t…”
The man in question had stood and was flinging out his left arm. Through the fabric of his shirt, a kaleidoscope of green runes danced over his skin.
“Isaac, no.” I leapt to my feet. “That’s the last aspect you have, right?”
“I’ve burned through the others.” The glimmering symbols cast underwater shadows on his face. “This is all I’ve got left. We ought to use it while I still can.”
“Hold out a little longer,” I pleaded. “Let’s see what happens.”
“What if they throw away the key now that they’ve got us contained?” he demanded.
“Let’s give it twenty-four hours. Can you make it?”
The magic writhing up his arm extinguished, and he gave a curt nod. “I’ll go with Rilla if that’s what you want, but you’re not going anywhere, Dell. You hear me? I’m not losing you again.”
I bit my lip to keep from blurting, You already have. We could hash out our issues later, if we got a later.
“I don’t suppose you have any more gadgets on you?” Enzo ventured into the tense silence. “Are they working, or has the magic exposure fried them?”
A strange expression spread over Isaac’s face. “The Morrigan is still wearing her bracelet.” For Enzo’s benefit, he explained, “It voids her magic. She’s powe
rless until the battery dies.”
“Why didn’t Rook force you to remove it?” I wondered. “He wants her at full power.”
“Unless she didn’t tell him,” Enzo theorized. “Maybe she doesn’t want to expose weakness even to her son.”
The blood he had drawn when given the chance made me think she was smart to keep her mouth shut.
“The Morrigan was once allowed to collect tithes from those who worshipped her on Earth,” Isaac added. “She’s spent enough time there to have a grasp on the modern world and its technology. If she overheard us, she knows all she has to do is wait out the battery.”
The exterior door clanged open, and we buttoned our lips. The man who appeared was not Tanet and was not expected.
“King Rook,” I greeted him as he came to a standstill in front of my cell. Ducking my head, I stared up at him through dark lashes. Curving my shoulders slightly, I softened my posture and then my voice. “Lovely weather we’re having, wouldn’t you agree?”
A smile flirted with his full lips as he removed a key from his pocket and fitted it to the lock. “Lovely,” he said, eyes on me, leaving no doubt we no longer discussed the weather. “Would you care to take a walk?”
From over the king’s shoulder, I watched Enzo shake his head fervently. To my right, Isaac seethed, his fury more potent than the cloying silver. I wished I could have gestured to him, indicated this was okay and that I could take care of myself, but I locked down my emotions and blocked out Isaac for his own safety.
All he had to do was ask me not to go, and the wolf would ensure I didn’t budge. Already she paced in my gut, teeth flashing, tail bristled. The idea of leaving her mate alone and unprotected, caged in iron, sent a low growl rattling up my throat I had to squelch or risk spooking our ticket out of here.
“I’d love to.” I poured on the Southern charm, ridiculous as it was considering I was a prisoner and all. “Autumn is my favorite season. I didn’t get to see much before…” I made a vague gesture with my hand, “…all this.”
Wolf at the Door (Lorimar Pack) (Gemini Book 5) Page 10