Wolf at the Door (Lorimar Pack) (Gemini Book 5)

by Hailey Edwards

  God save me from teenage romance.

  “I won’t let go,” he promised her, all sincerity and puppy-eyed adoration. “You’re safe with me. You’re always safe with me.”

  “No one is ever safe.” Her voice gentled, the softening of a blow. “You do try, though. That’s more than most. I don’t forget that. I never will.”

  A dull thud to our left drew my attention before a self-inflated voice squeaked, “Gods the foot odor was killing me. And those claws! My lovely complexion is ruined. Do you know how many years of current it will require to smooth these furrows?”

  “You have got to be kidding me.” I strolled over to the source of the ruckus, and a pair of googly eyes peered up at me, recognition in their depths. “How did you get here?”

  The last time I’d seen one of these rocks had been when the púca dropped its proof in the cell with me in Faerie. I’d blacked out soon after and hadn’t given it another thought. Was this the same one? Had to be.

  “I was minding my own business, having a chat with friends as one does, and it started raining—” it began.

  “I don’t have time for your life story. Give me the short version.” I shook it, and its eyes rolled. “How did you get here? Who dropped you?”

  “How rude.” Its water-smoothed forehead pulled low. “After you lot left me buried in that grimy prison, a rather nasty bird-thing uncovered me. It’s been carrying me around in its claws for weeks. The smell! It was nigh unbearable.”

  Bird-thing? Alkonost? Siren? Lots of mythological wiggle room there, but none of it good.

  “Wait.” The bizarreness of its previous statements sucked me into its babbling. “You have a nose?”

  “Well, no, but if I did, it would be quite offended by the stench.”

  That’s what I got for talking to a rock.

  “We’ve got company,” I called to Isaac while shoving the stone in my pocket. “I think Rilla—”

  Thick forks of lightning zinged across the sky, and a masculine squawk erupted at a point past my shoulder. Color me surprised. Bea was actually being useful for once. I didn’t know she had it in her to attack someone who wasn’t me. Maybe I owed her an apology.

  A bullet-shaped feather torpedo clipped my shoulder, and I windmilled before hitting the dirt.

  Or maybe not.

  Her throttled cry drew my attention skyward, where four winged women hovered, naked but for the feathers dusting their unmentionables and the curved swords they each held. The nudity didn’t bother me. But the swords? Where had they been carrying those? I didn’t see any sheaths for the weapons. Then again, this might be one of those things I’d sleep better at night for not knowing.

  Warning given, Bea rocketed back into the sky and provided cover fire, zapping the warrior women I suspected must be harpies, giving us a chance to escape.

  “We’ve got to move,” I panted. “Arno?”

  “Ready.” He pressed a palm against the nearest tree, a scraggly pine, and it slid right in without extending through the other side. “Waiting on you.”

  Isaac, who had started running toward me when I took the hit, reached for my hand. A tickling sensation caused me to glance down, and I almost yelped. He had taken the boy’s blood, sap, whatever, and used it to create an intricate tangle of roots that bound our linked fingers together in a wooden cage as delicate as filigree.

  “You can’t help yourself, can you?” I twisted our hands, admiring his work as he yanked me to my feet.

  “I let you get away once.” Another tickle wrapped a vine around our wrists. “It won’t happen twice.”

  Ridiculous man.

  Though Bea couldn’t hold off the harpies forever, I hesitated a heartbeat. “Will the package be safe until we return?”

  “The package looks to be well in hand.” He spared the thunderbird an admiring glance. “We’ll draw them away. It’s the only choice. Returning for the package now would only compromise its location.”

  Flower ran for us, fierce determination in her expression, and clamped her hand over my wrist. “Come on.” She hauled Isaac and me into the softwood portal after Arno. The scrape of bark, the punch of otherness across my senses, had me reeling long before the way sealed behind us.

  Chapter 20

  “Daughter of the forest, we welcome you.” The solemn voice tolled in my head, battering its way through in a mockery of the fluid ease of the pack bond. “It has been so long since your kind ran here. We welcome a wolf in our midst.”

  Figuring it couldn’t hurt, I attempted communication the same way. “I appreciate your hospitality.”

  Thanking a talking tree seemed like a bad idea.

  “Isaac?” I reached for him, curious if this mode of travel had linked us all.

  “Who is Isaac?” demanded the tree. “Why would you speak to him and not to me? Do you know how long it’s been since a warg traveled these paths? Do you not value the shade we trees provide? The sustenance? The protection?”

  “Of course I do,” I soothed. “I was only worried for my mate and sought to reassure myself of his presence.”

  “I do see the others. One is ours, one is his, and then one is yours.” The tree paused. “They rush so, always flitting about. Why not let them go ahead? You can stay awhile with me. We can talk of the rains and the seeds, the growing things and cool, dark places.”

  “I can’t.” I suppressed a flicker of panic when earthy magic flowed over my wrists. “I have to—”

  “You will stay with me,” he decided. “I like your hair. It’s as red as leaves in autumn.”

  The magic solidified into tiny pinpricks of hurt similar to when Arno had first attacked me, and then again when Isaac joined our hands to prevent us from separation. Except this was so much worse, the wooden spears piercing my skin in an attempt to hold on to me. Thick roots the width of my thumb skewered my palms, and blood ran down my fingers.

  Behind me, Isaac struggled, his nails biting into my flesh. Ahead of me, Flower cried out in alarm. In front of me, around me, the tree pressed down on my body, which was somehow here and yet not. I screamed when sharpened stakes stabbed through the toes of my shoes in an attempt to pin my feet.

  I was pulled apart, my muscles protesting and joints popping under the strain.

  Panicked, the wolf rose to the forefront of my brain and seized control of my mouth. “We are cousins, tree, but we are not the same. Would you trap me here as man has confined your seeking roots with his buildings and roads? Would you let me wither as you would without sunlight or rain? Or would you honor our kinship and allow me trespass this one time in exchange for the blood you have spilled?”

  “Apologies, cousin.” The tree sounded contrite. “Your skin is so human at times I forget your heart is as wild as ours.”

  “Release me and mine, and I will grant you a boon. I will return with a till to churn the earth and aerate your soil so that your roots might seek new depths. I will bring fresh manure to enrich your grounds and rainwater to wet your parched throat.”

  “The deal is struck,” the tree intoned. “Your passage is paid by blood and vow.”

  The world stretched into a long tunnel, and I emerged from it dripping blood and sweat from my ordeal. Isaac jostled me as he exited, withdrawing his vinelike cage and grimacing at what he saw.

  “What the hell happened in there?” He traced the holes left in my palms as the skin mended. “It tried to snatch you out of my hands.”

  “It wanted to keep her,” Arno marveled. “It liked the wildness in her, and now that it’s tasted her blood, they will forever be linked.”

  “That sounds bad.” I wriggled my toes to check the damage. Still functional but sore. “What does that mean?”

  “I can’t say.” He gave a loose roll of his shoulders. “I’ll have to find one of the local dryads, the earthborns, to ask. The meaning may differ here than home.”

  Great. I might be blood sisters with a tree. Call me crazy, but I doubted that was a good thing.

&
nbsp; “Can they track us?” I put the question to our guide.

  “I don’t see how.” Leaves rustled as he scratched his ear. “Trees have no names for their locations or kin as most understand them. Their directions are impossible to decipher unless you speak their language.”

  That was a comfort at least. Maybe if we scattered the harpies long enough, over a wide area, we could sneak back into the RV without incident once we finished our recruitment pitch to Branwen. Patting the rock, safe in my pocket, I exchanged a glance with Isaac. As eager as I was to quiz the stone on its ordeal in greater detail, we had to reach safety first.

  “Whatcha got down there?” a cheery voice called from across the way. The outline of a young girl, the sun warming her back, bounced on the roof of a blue-and-pink house on stilts, her energy manic. “Food?”

  “Margay, what did Branwen say about eating the locals?” Arno sucked in a tired breath, as though this were a conversation they’d had before, one he was tired of repeating.

  “That they don’t taste good?” She waved a hand. “I’m a great cook. I think the flavor can be improved, myself.”

  “Humans are, well, people.” He set out toward the house, shaking his head. “We don’t eat people. It’s wrong.”

  “Wrong.” She scoffed. “When is anything fun ever right?”

  “Kill a human, and see if she doesn’t send you back.” The thread of his patience snapped. “Fill your belly once, Margay, go ahead. See what happens. You’ll be packed off to Faerie before you finish wiping the grease from your fingers.”

  With a yowling shriek that set my teeth on edge, Margay exploded in a torrent of cats that leapt nimbly from the roof onto the porch then set out to prowl at their leisure.

  “I want to ask what that was almost as much as I don’t want to know,” I admitted.

  Isaac stared after one of the cats, tracking it like he might test himself against the peculiarity of Margay’s magic, but he carried on. Once upon a time, he would have been unable to resist. That he cast off a chance to taste such rarified blood turned my heart to mush. Time and time again, he kept handing me proof he was working on himself. I won’t say he was trying to mold himself to fit me. Such perfection was false. That way led to regret and disappointment. But he had been standing at a crossroads in his life all those months ago, and he had taken the path that paralleled mine closest. It made struggling with my urges easier knowing he had his own bad habits to kick.

  As the shock wore off, I surveyed our surroundings. The house wasn’t on the beach, but the roar of waves crashed in the distance, and gulls cried out overhead. The soil was sandy and littered with seashells. A burn started in my calves after the workout I got crossing the sand to reach the first step leading up and up to the one-level house.

  Arno took the stairs at a jog. Flower, hesitant to leave us unchaperoned, lingered. I kept pace with her, and Isaac took up the rear. He kept a comforting hand on the small of my back, letting me know with a touch that he was there.

  A petite woman met us at the door. She wore a knit dress the color of sealskin that brushed the floor and complemented the faint grayness of her skin and the heather-soft color of her gaze. Her wide eyes glittered as though they held unshed tears, but her smile was warm for Arno and Flower.

  “I received your messages. Your warning about our guests and those hunting them was much appreciated. The others are preparing to fight, if we must.” She rustled his leafy hair, and her posture relaxed. “You were kind to return for Norma. It would have been a long trip for her otherwise.”

  Norma? Who named a kid her age— Oh. Yeah. A couple centuries ago, I’m sure it was all the rage.

  The boy, who only had eyes for Norma, ducked his head. “I didn’t want her getting lost.”

  “I can follow clues,” she huffed. “I’m not a child.”

  “Children,” the woman contradicted them both at the same time. “Can you go inside and wait while I talk to our guests?”

  That a girl hundreds of years old was still a child to Branwen was not lost on me, and my skin pebbled.

  Arno executed a perfect bow. “Yes, Mistress.”

  “Branwen,” she urged on a resigned breath. “Call me Branwen.”

  “Yes, Mistress,” he said, a twinkle in his eyes. Full of daring, he hooked his arm around Norma’s shoulders and hauled her over the threshold.

  “We can take the children out of Faerie,” she told us, “but we can’t take Faerie out of the children.”

  “I’m Dell Preston, beta of the Lorimar Pack out of Butler, Tennessee.” I handled introductions so there would be no confusion later. “This is Isaac Cahill, cousin of the Lorimar alpha, and my mate.”

  A frown twisted her lovely features. “What cause would you have to visit my brother?”

  My hand went to my throat on reflex. “How did you—?”

  She brought a matching pendant from her shirt and held it on her palm. The ruby-red stone pulsed with a heartbeat. So, that’s how the siblings kept tabs on one another. With two realms between them, at least they had the comfort of knowing the other was alive.

  “I can sense the pendant across any length of distance or time.” She worried her own stone with her thumb. “Rook had to have put that on you himself, which means you must have seen him. What a peculiar thing to have a warg in Faerie. Has that ever been done before, I wonder?”

  I didn’t like how easily she read me. “How do you know he wasn’t here?”

  “I know.” She cocked her head. “Do you have any siblings?”

  “No.”

  “But your mate has a twin, as did your alpha.” The font of her knowledge overflowed. “So you understand a little of the depths of those bonds.”

  Living without Lori had left Cam a hollowed-out shell, and she almost died when her twin passed. I had seen the Cahill brothers fight and almost die to save one another, so yes. I understood a tiny bit, in the way you can know a thing without having experienced it for yourself.

  “Rook is my brother. He is all the family I have.” Her gaze turned out to sea. “Our mother, the Morrigan, arranged a marriage for me. Long ago. A lifetime ago.” Her fist clenched around the pendant. “But her grand plans never came to fruition. Instead I fell in love with a selkie chieftain’s son, Dónal O’Leary, and refused the suit. She cast me out of Faerie as punishment for what she viewed as my betrayal, and then she sent one of her minions to capture me.

  “I spent centuries locked in a stone tomb as food for a monster.” She drew in a fragile breath. “Most thought I was dead. My lover did. He died mourning me, his heart broken.” She reached up and wiped away her tears. “Rook searched for me across centuries. He never forgot, and he never gave me up for dead. He would not surrender that pendant, his one immutable link to me, if he were alive, and I can feel his life in my hands. So, friends, I know that he sent you. And I know you are friends, or he wouldn’t have given you the pendant. He would have left you to find me or not, and for me to kill you or not. He gave you his protection, and it has spared your lives today.”

  The violence of her sentiments, delivered in such dulcet tones, roused the wolf to a low snarl in my mind.

  “He is a better man than any give him credit for,” she added, almost an accusation. “Few know his heart. He has hidden it so well, I’m not sure he would recognize it himself.”

  Not about to argue with a general over her brother while their army resided nearby, I held tight to my neutral expression. “We have a message to deliver.”

  “We offer you hospitality.” She opened the door and gestured us to follow. “No harm will come to you here.”

  Flower—Norma—waited inside the door. She offered me a plate stacked high with thick slabs of country-style ham. Arno appeared and offered Isaac the missing side items. Fried okra, fried green tomatoes and fried eggs. An adult with pink skin and black hair strolled out with a bottle of water for each of us, and Branwen indicated we could sit on the cushions scattered across the floor to enjoy our m
eal.

  Isaac and I held our plates on our laps like they were rattlers waiting to strike, moving things around with our forks without actually putting any food in our mouths. Branwen noticed our hesitance and ordered the food and drink removed for our comfort.

  “You mentioned a message from Rook?” She selected a bite of ham from the plate, popped it in her mouth and chewed, challenging us, proving the food hadn’t been enchanted. “What news has my dear brother sent?”

  Unmoved by her efforts to tame us to her hand, I bared my teeth a little more than necessary in a smile. “How much do you know of his current circumstances?”

  “More than he would have told you.” How she managed to sound both kind and snide was an art form.

  “Okay.” So much for breaking the news gently. “He’s backed into a corner. Either he endorses a war with the mortal realm, or he gets overthrown. He seems to believe that by agreeing to lead the charge, he can direct the worst of the damage away from civilians.”

  Branwen folded her hands in her lap. “He is an idealistic fool. His tender heart will see him dead yet.”

  The few minutes I’d spent in Rook’s company hadn’t left me with the impression he was tenderhearted or a fool. Quite the opposite in fact. He struck me as pragmatic, a man who got things done, even when those things were unsavory and not to his liking. I sensed Rook saw a bigger picture than he was sharing with the rest of us.

  For that reason, he might have made a good king. Had his subjects given him the chance.

  “He wants you to bring your army to Butler, Tennessee. It’s the closest point to where the rift opened. He’s asked that you fight alongside us when the war comes.”

  No change in her demeanor gave away her thoughts on the matter. “He will lead the charge, you said?”

  “That was my understanding.”

  “We shall see, I suppose.” She made it sound like I was missing something. No doubt I was missing lots of things.

  A dull thud shook the walls, and a few cheap art prints clattered to the tiles. “You’ve got to be kidding me.” A primal shriek followed the sound, and I leapt to my feet. “How did they locate us so quickly? We should have lost them in Arno’s tree.”