Entirely.
Leaving us in an empty room with him.
I whirled, stunned. “What the hell?” I saw that the only remaining goblin was the bigger, white-spotted one with the blue furred armor. His attendant? His General? I pointed a shaking finger, furious. “Fuck you, in particular,” I snarled, preparing to blast the white and green shithead into the throne.
“I would rather you not decimate my people, Master Temple…” Oberon said. “Kaba, here, is my voice. My… right hand, you could say. Since you don’t speak goblin, I’ll leave his full name out of the conversation. It’s over…” he furrowed a brow, as if pulling up a statistic from the very edges of his mind. Or, like asking his counterpart, Pan, to tell him something. Oberon’s eyes finally cleared, and he nodded. “Over seventy syllables long.”
I grunted in disbelief. “Kablooie, it is. Today’s your lucky day. I won’t kill you. Yet.”
The goblin’s lips thinned, and I got the feeling he didn’t like me changing his name. Good.
Oberon spoke. “That is most kind of you, Wylde— I mean, Master Temple.” He let out an amused laugh. “Let’s go get settled, refreshed, and then we shall talk. Then you shall receive the details of your Invitation. And in successful conclusion of that, hopefully learn your reward.”
I frowned at that. “Earn, you mean… Not learn.”
Oberon just fucking grinned. Kablooie also looked satisfied.
“I like Pan a whole helluva lot better,” I muttered. He laughed out loud at that, and then snapped his fingers. A pair of goblins appeared, palms to chests, not meeting our eyes.
I shivered, remembering how I had communicated like that only minutes ago. A feral, primal sort of communication. Then the details of our fight, our battle, our journey, and the world we had traveled came back to me in bits and pieces. I was momentarily overwhelmed as I remembered seeing a stone ocean, having memories as a child, hearing stories about a white island.
The Hatter… He was here. In the Land of the Fae. Well, kind of. It seemed he was a myth to them. A… Manling Tale instead of a Fairy Tale. The Fae apparently viewed us much as we viewed them. A frightening enemy. A menace. A disease. A danger.
So, why in the living fuck had Mallory brought us here and then abandoned us? What was this Invitation? I shook my head and looked back up. The two goblins had politely handed folded piles of clothes to Tory and Ashley. They looked like canvas togas of sorts, with belts to cinch around the waist, earning a zero on the sexy factor of the two usually-stunning women.
They didn’t look happy about this fact, and I very wisely didn’t speak my thoughts.
Because I was too busy remembering how they had looked only a short time ago. I hadn’t even called them by their names. Tory had been Beast Master, a wild tribeswoman with glowing veins. Ashley had been Wulfra, which meant Wolf Queen. And she had been a Shaman-looking bipedal werewolf.
I glanced down at myself, remembering that I hadn’t changed like them. Well… My hand reached up to brush a thick beard. Other than that, I was the same. But it had only been hours since we first arrived, since that first battle. Not long enough to grow a beard.
And who had that man been. The red-haired human waving his fingers at us? Something about him seemed familiar, but I hadn’t gotten a close look. Just a twenty-something ginger.
I turned back to Oberon, considering. Oberon was the name of the Fae King.
But there were still a few Fae Queens I was suddenly nervous about.
Because they didn’t really like me, or Tory, and we were deep in their world, now. With no idea why we were here in the first place… Except we had an Invitation, whatever that meant.
I found Oberon suddenly sitting in a large wooden chair at the head of a table with enough chairs for my crew.
Exactly enough chairs for my crew. Not one more seat available. I shivered. Had he just imagined it here? I was beginning to realize I knew very little about the Fae and their abilities. But I did remember using the strange power against his front door.
“What’s going on, Oberon? Why did you summon me? What is this Invitation?”
He thumbed his lip as I sat down. My friends joined me, eyes furtively checking the room for threats. “Doesn’t feel very nice, does it?” he asked.
I frowned. “What?”
“Being summoned somewhere without knowing why. Grates on you, doesn’t it?” I nodded. “Yet you humans have done this to creatures for centuries. Since you figured out how.”
I leaned back in my chair, and finally nodded. “True,” I said. “So, am I being punished for all the humans? Is that why I’ve been dumped here with my friends?”
He shook his head, grinning with amusement. “No, I just like pointing out Manling faults. Makes me happy.” He leaned forward suddenly. “The Queens don’t like you very much, I’m afraid.” Then he chuckled. “But that’s okay. I’m your friend. And I don’t like them very much.”
I ground my teeth, wanting him to get on with it, but he seemed content to poke and prod me. “Can we skip the cryptic stuff? I get it. You’re different from humans. Now—”
“Yes, you had a taste of that not too long ago, didn’t you? We are very different from humans. From Manlings, as we call them.” He turned to the girls. “Even the women are referred to in such a way. Like you call us the Fae, we call you the Manlings. Was it fun to taste our way of life?”
Tory and Ashley shivered, but Carl spoke up. “Oh, yes. Delightful!” Talon looked bored.
“Not really my cup of tea,” I said, scowling at Carl. That fucking guy…
“Well, you might need to acquire the taste if you want to survive, Master Temple.”
I frowned at him. “And why would I do that?”
“It’s the only way to kill a god.”
The room grew as still as a winter night during a snowstorm. “Becoming Fae will let me kill a god?” I finally asked in confusion.
He waggled his fingers dismissively, as if I had missed the entire point. “We’ll get to that later. I have a request of you.”
“That’s funny. I have a request of you, too. Send us home, Bonehead.”
His smile disappeared, and Kablooie hissed, hand darting to the hilt of a dagger on his belt. Oberon punched him in the jaw with absolutely no effort. Kablooie went flying to strike the wall with a grunt, and then collapsed bonelessly to the floor.
No one moved. For about thirty seconds.
Kablooie finally climbed to his feet with a few groans, dusted off his hands, checked his head for wounds, and then respectfully walked back up to Oberon, head bowed. “Sorry, Master.”
Oberon nodded absently, and then turned back to me. I closed my mouth. Wow, with servants like that… “I have more lenience than most of my kind,” he said, leaning forward, “but it is not infinite. Not even close, Manling… I’m. Not. Pan.” I could feel a cyclone of magic whirling around him. But it wasn’t like any magic I had ever sensed before. It was like… trying to grab the ocean with your hands, throwing starlight, licking fire with a tongue, drinking stone. I shivered. His magic stick was bigger than my magic stick. “Best you remember it,” he growled.
I held up a hand, a peaceful gesture, because he was obviously certifiable if he would strike his own right-hand-goblin for defending him too well. “Please explain it. To my tiny, Manling brain,” I added, self-deprecating. “Why did you ask Pan to extend an Invitation to me. To us.”
“I have a test for you. Someone has been taken. One of yours. To get them back, I require a favor.”
“You took one of my friends?” I snarled, the wood crackling underneath my fingertips. I squeezed and the wood disintegrated to ash, but I wasn’t really sure how. It wasn’t fire. It was… something else. Something just at the edge of my knowledge. Something… just like I had felt when my mind had been overridden by the Fae allure. When I had obliterated his door.
Oberon studied me. “Actually, I did not take your friend. A friend of yours took another friend of yours. To
encourage your… motivation. They have a vested interest, it seems. I would have Invited you to the game anyway, but they doubted your resolve. Well, not resolve. Let’s say they placed high value on your disdain for authority, for anyone trying to manipulate you without leverage.”
A friend had betrayed me? Again? I needed to incorporate a test or something before I gave anyone a friend card in the future. Unless… Oberon was lying. Or bending his words. My friends felt tense, ready to throw down, but they didn’t look too hopeful about it. Except Talon. He looked bored, watching us with his silver eyes.
“Speak. Plainly. Or we all die here. Or at least we die trying,” I whispered in a very low tone, feeling the alien tendrils of power calling out to me from the land beneath my feet. I wasn’t exactly sure what to do with them, or even if I could do anything with them, but I could sense them, which was startling.
And I saw it in Oberon’s eyes. Fear, but also… anticipation. As if he was anxious at the fact that I was at least partly succeeding in… something. Whatever that something was.
“The Queens hate you. Succeed in my request, and I will grant you safe passage home. And in this request, perhaps you will learn something useful for back home.”
“How to kill a god…” I breathed. After a long pause, he nodded. “What is the request?”
He leaned back in his chair, crossing his legs. “You’ve heard of Changelings?”
“Stealing a human child and taking them into the Land of the Fae. You replace the stolen child with a Fae lookalike. I presume you gain twice in this endeavor. Your Changeling can learn more about our world, and the stolen human also teaches you of our ways. But you can also brainwash the child to become a hybrid of sorts… Believing like the Fae, but possessing human blood.”
Oberon nodded in approval. “The Queens do this often. Picking up a new pet, they call it. I had chance to see an acquisition of theirs some years ago. A bright young Manling.”
I wanted to snarl, but took a deep breath. Just one more reason to hate the Queens. “And?”
“The Queens have decided to kill him as retribution for their Changeling being murdered in your world. I desire them to fail. This Manling made…” he tapped his lips thoughtfully, “an impression on me. I don’t wish him harmed for a crime he did not commit.”
I watched him for a few silent moments, and then turned to Talon. “What do you make of this?”
“Lord Oberon speaks the truth,” he said, idly sharpening a claw on a small pocket-sized sharpening stone, like a human would smooth out their nails with a file.
I turned to Ashley and Tory. “A child is in danger. What do you want to do?”
Their eyes were hard, merciless. “Have some fun,” Ashley said.
Tory nodded. “Make an example,” she added.
I didn’t smile back, but instead turned to Carl. For some reason, he still had the crest around his neck. As if noticing me looking at it, it suddenly folded flat against his neck. I blinked. Huh. He really was like that venom-spitting dinosaur in that dinosaur park movie. “And you?” I asked.
He shrugged. “I don’t really understand the first part about the child, or why we should care about him. But if you’re asking what I want to do, in general,” he said, shrugging, “murder sounds satisfying.”
“Fucking Carl,” Talon chuckled, shaking his head.
Carl turned to him, frowning, not understanding.
I sighed. Some things never changed. I turned back to Oberon. “We retrieve the boy, and you let us go back home? What am I missing? I didn’t hear anything about my so-called friend being kidnapped. And I don’t understand what you get out of this. If we save the kid—”
“You can bet your ass we’re not leaving him with you,” Tory snarled, basically reading my mind.
I nodded at her. “What she said.”
Oberon frowned. “I don’t want the boy. What would I know about raising a Manling?”
I wanted to lay my head on the table and scream. So, now I had to save him, keep him alive, and then… what, return him to parents who thought him dead?
Talon, or Sir Muffle paws, rather, sensed this. “Just tell him. We’ve been here long enough, already. Sir.”
Kablooie grimaced at the delayed title, the lack of respect, but Oberon nodded. Talon must demand some heavy respect around here to speak so openly among the Fae. And ol’ Kablooie didn’t like it. But the thing that concerned me most? Talon had shown me – or Wylde, at least – more respect than anyone today, and he was openly disrespecting Oberon.
And I remembered knowing Talon. As a young feline. What the fuck was that about?
Oberon cleared his throat. “The Queens will be most displeased with you absconding with their prize. That is my reward. Their fury is my ecstasy. But I also require you to steal their high-heeled shoes. They each have a colored pair. One blue, and one red.”
I blinked.
Ashley roared with laughter. “Shoes?” she finally hooted. “You want us to steal a woman’s heels?”
Tory was shaking her head. “We’re all going to die.”
“Okay, that’s pretty random,” I said, not liking this one bit. “But what about your leverage? My alleged kidnapped friend? Who is it? And surely you could have found someone else to do this task. Someone familiar with this world. To steal some shoes.”
Oberon was shaking his head. “We do not work that way. Open war, yes. But other than that, we keep our hands clean.”
I sighed, remembering. “Cat’s paws.”
“Easy, wizard…” Talon murmured darkly.
I wanted to scream again. “This isn’t just about what you’ve told me out loud, is it? What else is up for grabs? I doubt learning how to be a shoe thief is going to help me back home.”
He snapped his fingers, and a strange fruit suddenly sat before each of us. It looked like an orange, but blue. “I almost forgot. You’ll be wanting to eat these before you try to rob the Queens. Disguises. Otherwise, you won’t make it past the gates.”
I studied the strange fruit as if it were a rattlesnake. But I shoved it into my pack, as did the others. “You haven’t answered my question about the friend,” I growled.
He snapped his fingers again in agreement, as if happy for the question. “This is your Invitation. Every Invitation needs a quest, and it’s been so long since we’ve extended one to a Manling. This will be fun! Like a Manling Tale. Save a child, find your friend in the wild, steal some shoes, and return home to kill a god,” he chuckled, entirely too pleased. Kablooie nodded his agreement, folding his arms.
“What do you mean, find my friend in the—”
Oberon interrupted me. “Remember what you learned here so far. Control it, but savor it. Like a fine wine… But you mustn’t let your friends get too drunk. They need to find a… driver to get home,” he said, eyelids growing heavy, as if about to doze off.
“Driver? How do we get home? Return here?” I asked urgently.
“Love is fire. For some it strengthens. For some it destroys. History, knowledge, fire…” he trailed off, yawning. “Only savage hope can quench a heartflame, but only love can conquer savagery. One coin, two sides,” he chuckled, eyes a million miles away. Talon began climbing to his feet, nodding at Oberon as if listening to something. Love? Fire? Was he hinting about this place, or back home? The war. Aphrodite was a love goddess. But fire could be attributed to a lot of people. A female version of Prometheus, maybe? But Hope… that could be Pandora. Was he saying…
“What—” I began.
But we were suddenly in a moonlit glade, and Oberon and Kablooie were gone.
And we were all back in the forms we had taken before meeting Oberon.
A tribe of maniacal beasts with their packs on their backs. They turned to face me, eyes expectant. And there was nothing human about those eyes. They were all savage, all Fae, all wild. And they stared at their leader, Wylde, awaiting orders.
I groaned inwardly, because I had somehow managed to retain my sense
of self, but I could feel that darker shadow over my shoulders, watching me, urging me, baiting me. Wylde wanted to play with his friends. And I had a feeling I needed to let him, while somehow keeping him in check. Because I needed to figure out what the hell Oberon had meant about many different things. Fucking Fae, speaking in riddles while asking for help.
This was going to be un-fun.
Chapter 20
I faced them, and tried to think and look like Wylde, hoping I could sell it. “Discuss,” I growled.
They frowned at me. “Kill?” Carl asked.
Tory – or Beast Master, as she went by – nodded slowly. “Of course.”
Ashley – Wulfra – stared back at me with eyes like diamonds. Her voice was rough, a low feminine growl. “Kill and eat. Harry our quarry.”
I nodded, feigning consideration, but only half-listening. They weren’t answering the question I had hoped, because they didn’t really remember it, I was guessing. I tried to remember some of the hand motions that had seemed so second nature to me, but couldn’t come up with one. Talon spoke up. “Perhaps Wylde needs a few moments in private to collect his thoughts after privately meeting with Oberon…” he offered.
I turned to him sharply, noticing that my tribe looked suddenly interested, as if they hadn’t known I had a private moment with Oberon, but that it could promise great things for them. They nodded enthusiastically.
“Yes,” I said, staring off in the distance, trying to gauge where we were in relation to where we had been. I didn’t recognize anything. “Talon, a word,” I said, turning away from my tribe, expecting Talon to follow. I called out over a shoulder. “Perimeter!” I snapped.
Grunts answered me.
I didn’t hear Talon creeping along behind me, but I could sense him. Once out of earshot behind a large tree a dozen yards away, I stopped, speaking out loud but not facing him.
“What the fuck is going on, cat?”
“If you want my assistance, you better start calling me Talon. Or the Devourer. Or Talon the Devourer. Not fucking cat, Nate.”
I shook my head at his arrogance, and even though a small part of me was happy to hear him address me by my Manling name – meaning he wasn’t brain-washed like the rest – I still had too much on my mind to be happy. “I remember you. From a young age. What the hell?”
Wild Side: A Nate Temple Supernatural Thriller Book 7 (The Temple Chronicles) Page 12