by Bonnie Vanak
Katy bristled. She hated seeing anything abused, though this creature looked as if it could defend itself. Laughing, the men jumped back as the creature tried to rush at them, pulled short by the chain.
Pity faded as the creature turned to her. It had two beady yellow eyes and a red slit of a mouth. Then it opened the mouth, showing rows of triangular teeth.
Jaws snapped and whirred. The creature drooled as it strained toward her.
Horror immobilized her. She could not think nor breathe.
The men nodded at Charles, the first one keeping his stick in front as if to jab at the creature again if it rushed toward the door.
Charles held up a blue sack, bulging at the sides. He opened it to show her gold coins within. “I sold you to the Dark Wing Gentleman’s Club. You’re not in Kansas anymore, bitch. You’re in the Dark Kingdom.”
Katy kept her eyes on the creature, which had retreated to its box. She hoped the iron chains would hold. “You’re insane, Charles. There is no such place, except in fairy stories.”
“Oh, it exists. I found the portal when I went to Las Vegas for the weekend to ease my pain after you rejected me. Only a few Others can enter without losing their sanity.”
But he’d surely lost his. Charles was quite mad.
“You brought me to the Dark Kingdom and sold me? Aiden and the pack will never stop looking for me. And you’re dead, Charles. Soon as they find you, they’ll tear you to pieces.”
“I’ll be long gone, to where they can never find me. And they will never find you, Katy. You’re in the place where normal Others fear to tread.”
Fear curdled in her stomach. “What do they want with me?”
“I don’t know.” His smile turned evil. “But whatever it is, I’m sure it will be painful.”
Fear will get you nowhere. But the terror bubbled up inside her like a witch’s cauldron. It was useless arguing with him to free her. Charles’ hatred ran too deep.
She kept staring at the black furred ball now emerging from the crate. It opened its mouth and snarled at her.
“Meet the Thannach. It loves to feast on fresh flesh. If you even try getting near the door, it will devour you. The Dark Fae keep it here for prisoners. A few have tried to escape, and I’ve been told it’s not a pleasant way to die.” His nasty smile faded. “I hope you try to escape, bitch, and you die badly.”
Charles and the Fae left, slammed the door shut behind them. His maniacal laugh floated through the thick oak. Katy started for the door, but the Thannach waddled toward her. She backed away.
I am going to die. Some day. Not today and not here, where my family will never know where I am.
Or Grayson.
No one would rescue her. It was up to her to save herself. Katy backed away from the snarling ball of fangs and fur. At least the lights were on…
She slid farther along the wall and felt something at her back.
The lights winked out, leaving them alone in the dark.
Chapter 5
Seated at his massive desk, Aiden propped one dusty boot upon the desktop as his mate sat in a chair next to him. Darius perched a hip on the desk while Dave and his sons took up the conference table. Katy’s white Stetson sat in the table’s middle, like an awkward centerpiece.
Katy’s father and brothers kept glaring at Grayson. Probably blaming him for this incident, too.
“Katy is in the Dark Kingdom. I don’t care what you think of me, but I need information. Anything you can tell me about who she’s been keeping company with lately. Especially men,” Grayson said.
Nia and Aiden exchanged troubled glances. The Mitchell alpha frowned, as if he had trouble believing Grayson’s words. “We don’t know for certain that she is in the Dark Kingdom.”
Grayson held up his hand, still dusted with Fae glitter. “I sure as hell do. This didn’t come from anywhere else. Charles left a trail of it, which means he’s found a way in, or he has a Dark Fae working with him. Since Dark Fae prefer their own world, I’d bet my ranch that bastard found a portal. And he took her there. Now, are you going to sit around and jaw or do something, Mitchell?”
Darius bristled and snarled at the insult to his alpha, and Katy’s family sprang to their feet. But Aiden only flashed a tired smile. “If you’re trying to insult me, Moore, you need to do a hell of a lot better. I believe you.” The alpha took his boots off the desk. “She hasn’t been keeping company with any men, far as I know. Dave?”
Katy’s father shook his head.
“Tell me about when you first found her,” Grayson ordered. If he was in luck, the amulet was still with her.
Darius began to pace the room. “She didn’t speak much. She knew her name, but had no memory of her folks or where she’d been living. She smelled like a Lupine, and when I took her here, she wasn’t afraid. Even when I shifted into wolf, she wasn’t afraid. She laughed and clapped her hands.”
Probably she’d never seen such a small wolf. But Grayson kept that thought quiet.
“Did she have anything on her? An amulet?” he asked.
Darius frowned. “A locket hanging on a necklace, I think.”
“It wasn’t a locket.” This was from Katy’s father. “It was a purple stone with runes on her neck. I put it away, didn’t want to upset her. Figured I would give it to her when she got older.”
Right. Dave put it away because the gemstone scared the hell out of him. “Go get it.”
Katy’s father scowled. “No.”
“Get it,” Grayson told him. “If you ever want to see her again, get the damn stone.”
Dave looked at Aiden, who nodded. “Get it. Now.”
A few minutes later, the Lupine returned with a wood box. He set it on the conference table and opened it.
Upon a bed of blue velvet, the purple gemstone pulsed with raw power. Barbed wire wrapped around it, and formed a necklace.
Aiden and the others peered at it and shuddered. “Damn,” Darius murmured. “I don’t remember barbed wire.”
Aiden hooked an arm around Nia, who looked deeply troubled. “A barbed wire necklace around the neck of a small child? Who would be so evil?”
Darius rubbed his chin. “I don’t remember her hurting. Katy just seemed…sad.”
As Darius went to pick it up, Katy’s father blocked his hand. “Don’t touch it without gloves or you’ll get burned. I did when I removed it from her neck.”
Everyone stepped back.
Entranced by the glowing purple gemstone, Grayson picked up the box with reverence and shut the lid. “The barbed wire wasn’t intended to hurt Katy, but protect her from anyone wishing to harm her. And it was a symbol of where to send her.”
“Send her?” Aiden’s grip tightened around the shoulders of his pregnant mate. “Send her where?”
“To a Lupine ranch, where she would be safely raised until she became of age.”
Grayson drew in a deep breath. Telling them anything more was risky. He’d reveal more secrets that could endanger him.
Then he looked at the faces of Katy’s adoptive father and brothers, who looked frantic with worry.
He tucked the box into his jacket pocket. “I’ll find her and bring her home safe. I promise.”
He was the only one who could, though they did not know. If they discovered what he really was, they would join together as a pack, panic, and try to tear him apart. That was what Lupine wolves did. Normal wolves.
Grayson would never be normal.
But Aiden Mitchell was not ruler for nothing. The alpha gently detached his arm from his mate and approached Grayson near the door, blocking him from leaving.
“A word, Moore.” Aiden opened the door and gestured to the hallway.
Once they were outside his office, Aiden closed the door and leaned against it, arms folded. “Level with me.”
Grayson didn’t have to tell the alpha anything. He could simply leave the ranch, do what was necessary to save Katy. But he had too much respect for the Mitchell alpha. Gra
yson had seen how Aiden worked with his people, how protective and fierce he was with the pack.
He withdrew the small wood box. “This gemstone that was hanging on her neck is a protective amulet. If you or any of your pack touched it, it would have burned you. One reason why Dave removed it from his adoptive daughter.”
Aiden blinked fast. “Son of a bitch. What do you know?”
He could give the alpha answers without revealing too much. “Reckon Charles probably is using a Dark Fae to teleport him to the closest, most stationary portal entrance into the Dark Kingdom. Those portals are mirror doorways in places that have counterparts here in this world. The closest one is the Dark Wing Gentlemen’s Club outside Las Vegas. It’s a brothel.”
“I heard of it,” Aiden said dryly. “It’s owned by Jaeden, father to Emma, the dragon princess of Clan Drakon. He’s a Dark Fae.”
Grayson tucked the box back into his jacket pocket. “If he owns the club, then he knows it’s a mirror doorway to go back and forth between worlds. There is a replica of that club in the Dark Kingdom. Only it’s…much worse.”
“Katy, trapped in a brothel. Damn it. What can we do?” Aiden asked.
Words wouldn’t find Katy, only action. If Charles had taken Katy to a Dark Kingdom brothel, she didn’t have much time. Grayson knew those places liked fresh, young flesh.
“You can’t. All you can do is stay here, keep them…” he pointed to the doorway, “calm and stop them from asking too many questions. Let me do my job.”
“I’ll send someone with you,” Aiden decided. “She’s pack. Kyle can help you, track her down.”
“I go alone. Too dangerous to risk anyone else.”
“And it’s not for you?” the alpha asked.
“No.”
No ordinary Lupine could battle with the evil forces in the parallel universe of the Dark Kingdom. A normal Lupine without protection would be dog meat.
He aimed a level look at the alpha. Not daring to say more. Not needing to say more. If Aiden was half the wolf he suspected, the leader wouldn’t hesitate if he thought Grayson was a threat.
Suspicions were confirmed when the alpha drew himself up and bristled.
“I don’t know what you are, Grayson. I’ve called you friend for nearly a year. But if you are hiding anything that can hurt my mate, my pack, know this.” Aiden took a step forward, jabbing a finger in his direction. “I will break your damn neck to protect my own. Get it?”
The other male’s bristling testosterone triggered his defenses. If Grayson’s wolf came out now, there would be utter hell. No way could he control it, not after he hadn’t shifted in years.
With all his might, he leashed the beast that struggled to be free. Grayson fisted his hands so hard, he felt blood warm his palms.
“Understood, Mitchell. My concern is Katy.” As Aiden gave a brief nod, Grayson went for the kill. “I’m not doing this out of the goodness of my heart, Mitchell.”
The alpha frowned. “What do you want in return? Money? Cattle? Land? Name it, it’s yours. She’s one of ours.”
No, she is not.
“Name your price, damn it,” Aiden ordered.
Grayson slowly unclenched his fists and looked the alpha straight in the eye. “Katy. As my mate.”
Chapter 6
Trapped in a brothel in the Dark Kingdom, the mysterious, frightening place she’d only heard about in wolf tales as a child. And that thing…barring her escape.
Terror engulfed Katy, making her heart race like a war drum. The Thannach wanted her flesh, wanted to make her hurt and eat her alive…
You are wolf. You are Lupine. You are strong. Don’t be a ninny.
Katy closed her eyes, and then opened them.
Amazement filled her. Despite the lights being out, a glow filled the room. It came from the Thannach’s yellow eyes. She could at least see the creature, track its movements.
But you could see more and know more if you shifted.
Lupines didn’t need the moon to shift, thank the goddess. Calling upon all her strength, she stretched out her arms and summoned her magick, not knowing if it would work in such a foul place. Bones lengthened and her clothing and her Skin body vanished, replaced with wolf. The change was slower than in her world, and more painful, but her senses exploded, as if her Lupine abilities of hearing, smell, taste and sight had amplified ten times. Interesting. She didn’t need the eerie yellow glow of the furball’s eyes to see. Her night vision had sharpened to the point where she could pick out the scratches on the thick oak door, see the dust motes on the floor across the room.
The Thannach grinned, showed rows of teeth that could shred metal. Katy bristled. She snarled at the furball, “You may have teeth, but so do I.”
Stunned, she shut her mouth. Had she just talked? What the hell? Lupines couldn’t talk in wolf form. She’d never heard of such a thing, and never heard it done in her own pack.
Katy opened her mouth again, and growled, “I have big teeth.”
Yup, it was her. Hey, I can talk! A talking wolf.
Forgetting all her terror, she licked her nose. This is interesting.
“I can talk,” she said aloud. “Whoa. Wonder what other sounds I can make.”
Katy began to sing a chorus from Monty Python’s “The Lumberjack Song.”
The sensation was so overwhelming, Katy sat on her haunches and laughed. Now she was a laughing wolf. Humor was much better than fear.
The creature blinked. And then it grinned, showing those razor-sharp teeth that didn’t look quite so deadly anymore.
Katy held out a paw. “Look, let’s be reasonable. I’m a wolf, you’re a…whatever you call it. I’m afraid, I’ll admit it, but of this cell, not you. Those men were mean to you and I believe you won’t hurt me, so I’m going to shift back into my Skin form.”
The Thannach blinked again. It moved its red slitted mouth, as if it wished to speak.
“And I promise I won’t hurt you,” Katy added.
She shifted back to Skin and conjured back her clothing, her senses immediately dulling. After scanning the room, she saw the light switch had been turned off, probably when she hit it with her back. It was very close to the door…
She ran to the switch, flipped it on as the creature advanced. Katy remained still. She didn’t know why, but something urged her to show the creature she didn’t need her wolf defenses.
Obeying the impulse, she began talking in a low, soothing voice to the Thannach. “I just want to be friends, okay? Show you I can be wolf, but this form is nicer, because talking as a wolf is a crazy, you know? Except I can probably sing better in Skin.”
When she was within striking range, Katy stooped down, petted it on the head and then stepped back. It could snap at her, kill her if it wished. But her Lupine instinct told her it would not.
The Thannach blinked and transformed into a petite woman with a heart-shaped face, delicate porcelain skin, silver blonde hair, big green eyes. Her ears were slightly pointed. She wore a forest green gown and her feet were bare.
A Fae. Staring at her, Katy didn’t know what to think.
“Please do not sing,” the Fae said in a soft, musical voice. “I do not think my ears can stand that shrieking again.”
Katy sank down to the floor, laughing again. When she stopped, the woman blinked at her and smiled.
“Thank you for breaking the curse. I was doomed to be Thannach until someone wasn’t afraid of me in that form.”
“What are you?” she asked, deeply curious.
“My name is Ninnea. I am Thannach, a Fae shifter. My shapeshifting form is what you saw, but I was cursed to remain like that by an evil Fae when I refused to be his lover.
“I am niece to Queen Morgan, the Dark Fae ruler of the Unseelie Court. I was taken a year ago from my home and brought here, cursed by the Fae who owns this brothel when I refused to give him my maidenhood.” Ninnea snorted. “Gerner is rumored to be a terrible lover. But he has much power.”
“So this really is a brothel? Why was I brought here? To be sold into sexual slavery?”
Ninnea frowned, hooking her arms around her knees. “I think so. Many females from this world have passed through this prison. You have the scent, and the stamp, of the earthly Skin world about you. Few Lupines of the Skin world can tolerate the Dark Kingdom without going mad.”
“Charles, from my pack, sold me. How did he get here?”
“I overheard him talking with Gerner. It seems Gerner has been searching for you for a long while, and when Charles visited the Dark Wing Gentleman’s Club on your world, Gerner recognized your scent.”
Troubled, she studied her new ally. “Why would Gerner want me? I’m nobody.”
The Fae tilted her head to one side. “You do not know?”
“Know what?”
“Interesting,” Ninnea murmured. “But first we must find a way out of here, before they come for you.”
“Do you know a way out?” Katy knew her powers were too feeble to stand up against the Dark Fae, and she didn’t have the slightest interest in hanging around to see how much bidders would pay for her virginity.
The Fae looked around the room. “I have been in this room several times. And killed a few who were imprisoned here.” At Katy’s shudder, she added, “Not women. Bad men who deserved it.”
“I imagine they tasted quite awful,” Katy tried to joke.
“Not as sour as wolf meat,” Ninnea jested back. Then the Fae stood, brushing at her gown. “If you can remove the chain from my leg, I believe I can free us from this room and this brothel. The chain is iron, and it burns.”
The iron chain didn’t look complicated. It had a pin through the cuff ringing the Fae’s right ankle. She removed the pin and the chain fell off Ninnea’s leg. Katy winced at the reddened flesh on the Fae’s ankle.
“Can you walk?” Katy asked. Ninnea nodded. “What else do you know about this place? Does the hallway go to an exterior exit?”
“The brothel is a maze, and the hallway leads in many directions, but I have been through them all. If you can think of a way to get us free from this prison, I can lead us outside.”