by Leigh Evans
Lexi said something too low to catch, under his breath.
“What did you say?” I asked, watching the bird.
“My daughter will never have to drink sun potion.”
Satisfaction in his voice.
Will I ever really understand him?
“No,” I swore. “She’ll never have to do that.”
“You’ll raise her as pack?”
“Yes.” The bird was but a distant speck in the sky.
“School’s going to be hard. Keep an eye out, okay?”
My throat tightened. “I promise.”
“I love you, Hell.”
Dark brown eyelashes, thick and stubby, fluttered closed.
“I love you, too, Lexi,” I whispered, stroking his jaw.
He murmured, “I’m really sleepy now, Hell.”
“You rest.” I combed his tangled skein of hair flat. “I’ll stay with you until you fall asleep.”
Chapter Thirty
Things followed after that.
Simple things, if you examined each action separately. I waited until I could count to twenty between each breath and then I pressed a final kiss on Lexi’s brow. After that, it took no effort of will at all to detach from my brother’s dream—the connection between us had dimmed as his world had darkened.
All I had to do was open my eyes and there was Creemore.
My brother lay in my arms. His hair was spiked and sour smelling. Something glittered, caught between two strands of wheat. I teased the thing free.
A Fae tear.
“Now?” Trowbridge asked softly.
I slid the tear into my brother’s palm then gave him a nod. Cordelia and Biggs helped us stand.
Then, I called to my magic. My Fae’s essence flowed upward, but this time—for the first time—it followed the pathway of my arteries and veins with a solemnity that bordered on respectful. Once at the ends of my fingertips, my magic waited patiently, and when I gave it leave, it streamed to the portal and found an anchor hidden in the depths of that fog-wreathed floor.
I felt the tug of those floating gates all the way up to my shoulder.
Just like Lexi had done the night before, I wrapped my cable of magic around my fist, over and over again. Slowly, bit by bit, the stately castle of dreams and myst rose to the edge of the crumbling cliff. One last twist of my bandaged wrist. There. Now it was just one easy step from one world’s soil to another world’s gates.
Trowbridge went down on one knee to pick up my brother, and with a gentleness that made the knot in my throat swell, lifted my twin in his arms.
Please, Mad-one. Do it now.
Cordelia gestured to Lexi’s bag, and asked, “Should this go, too?”
I spared the black satchel a quick glance. Leather bulged and flexed. “Yes, but take out the ferret.”
“Dibs,” said Biggs in a low voice.
“Hurry,” I told them as Lexi’s squirming pet was extricated.
“Shit!” cursed Biggs as the ferret turned unexpectedly feral. “I’m trying to help you, little—”
An ache gnawed at my shoulders. “The portal’s heavier than I expected, you really, really need to hurry.” Lexi had made reeling in the portal look easy. That, plus my own arrogance, had made me believe that the Gates of Merenwyn were as light as the vapor they resembled.
But in truth, the portal was a lead weight.
Trowbridge turned to me, a question in his eyes.
“I will hold,” I said. “That’s what we do.”
A muscle tightened in Trowbridge’s jaw. He turned toward the portal and stared at the columns of myst, the round hobbit window with its view of Merenwyn. Then he drew in his breath and stepped onto the floor.
Tyrean, if you can hear my thoughts … Here is my vow: whatever it takes, I’ll show you the way home.
Do it now.
No answer in my head. Trowbridge laid Lexi on the myst-covered floor.
Cordelia stepped across the gap, her chin lifted in its most obstinate tilt. She sank to her haunches, reaching with her big-knuckled hand to pick up Lexi’s fisted one. Then she lowered her voice to a whisper that perhaps she thought I couldn’t hear. “The Fae will lose the bag and the Fae tear the moment the wind catches him.”
“He’ll revive in there,” said Trowbridge grimly. “Just slip the strap through his arm.”
Once she had done so, my mate turned to me, waiting for me to give him leave.
Why was this harder than sending Trowbridge? Was it because I’d seen the gray that swallowed white hope? The dark that waited to pounce on those with too bright dreams?
I nodded to Trowbridge.
Be strong, Lexi. Get well.
“Now,” I said.
My mate slid my brother through the mouth of the gates. A wind tugged my twin upward and teasingly held him for my inspection, his head slumped, his body upright, caught in the embrace of her cold and cruel current of air.
I’ve made a mistake. I’ve put my faith in—
Suddenly, my brother gasped. His back arched. His eyes shot open.
Honeysuckle sweet, she whisked him away.
I listened hard—was there a scream? An echo of a cry?
But all I heard was the distant chime of bells.
I’ll see you soon, my twin.
* * *
My wrist throbbed.
Breath held, I watched for the surface of the gates’ window to Merenwyn to ripple like water does when a pebble is tossed into it, but it remained flat. Placid. The pastoral scene beyond the gates unmoved and unchanged by the events from this world. The same grasses sighing. The same patch of yellow flowers gently bobbing to Merenwyn’s fragrant breeze.
So. I’d done my job. I’d fed my brother to the beast.
It had swallowed him, and for the moment, my part was done.
Face set in her trademark scowl, Cordelia walked away from the portal as if it were her stage. Back straight, hips swaying, head lifted.
Trowbridge turned to the pack. The columns of pink fairy myst were an unlikely background for a man who’d seen hell and come back from it.
“It’s done,” he told them. “We have sent a message back to the Fae. Do not come here, hoping to take that which is ours.”
“Oh yeah!” shouted someone from the back.
Rachel Scawens pivoted and said, “Shut your mouth.”
And he did. They all did.
“It comes down to this,” said Trowbridge. “We stand united or we don’t stand at all.”
An Alpha’s light sparked in his eyes.
“We are the Werewolves of Creemore. This is our land. Our lives. We will stand for what we have. We will protect what we own. We will handle each threat delivered to us with the same speed and ruthlessness—be it from the Fae or some asshole from the Council who wants to squeeze us for some more tithes.”
His flare carried across the field and painted each one of their faces with his own tint of Trowbridge blue.
A girl moaned.
Then he said simply, “Now go home to your families.”
With that, they left the field. Quietly. Hats were pulled from back pockets and replaced on bowed heads. Arms were crossed against the fall chill. They left, not really looking like a feral pack of wolves, but more like a group of everyday people who’d suddenly seen their world picked up, shaken, and put back down again—the townsfolk streaming out of the high school following the big vote; the church group heading to their cars after a service that had shaken them to their core.
Harry touched Cordelia’s arm, and she smacked Biggs’s shoulder.
They left, too.
And still I held the damn gates.
“Tink, let it go,” Trowbridge said softly.
“I will in a second.”
“He’s not coming through,” he said. “You need to close the gates.”
“You took a long time to come through the other side. I watched and I watched and then just when I thought you hadn’t made it, Cordelia said that
I had to wait a little longer—”
“I’m sorry I took so long, sweetheart.” His scent touched me, tentatively.
“What if Mad-one didn’t place the Old Mage’s soul in our tree and Lexi’s lost in a hook-back?”
“There’s no way of knowing that until I bring you to Daniel’s Rock.”
“What if the Black Mage gets him when he crosses into Merenwyn?”
“Then we’ll rescue him.”
I tore my gaze from the hobbit window to look at my mate. “How can you have so much faith? I went to Threall thinking that I could solve things, and I only made it worse.”
“You didn’t make it worse. You just made it different.”
“Why would you rescue the man who ordered your back flayed?”
“Because he’s part of you.” His gaze locked on mine. There was no shield, no mask. “And you are part of me. I’m not letting anything come between us again.”
“How can you promise that?”
“I can’t but I can promise that I’ll die trying to keep us together. And that I will protect and love you for as long as we have left.” Trowbridge’s scent licked my trembling arm. “Come on, sweetheart, say the word to close the gates.”
I looked through the Gates of Merenwyn. Saw the grass swaying in its wind. The wedge of blue in the valley. A bird circled the trees, looking for its nest.
Karma—this is it. No more lessons from you.
The next person through that round window will be me.
Did she hear me? I don’t know. Truth be told, I no longer cared.
We were done.
I’d never be her bitch to torture again.
“Sy’ehella.”
Epilogue
The kitchen smelled of soap and candles. To Cordelia’s baleful dismay, the power had inexplicably gone off just after we straggled back to the house. “I’ll get the utility company out here first thing in the morning,” Harry had said grimly, just before he’d gone to pick up the barbecued chicken order from the Swiss Chalet in Collingwood. In the interim, the pack had brought every type of candle and votive you could imagine, until Cordelia taped a note to the door advising them that our needs had been met. She and Biggs had chosen the best from the collection set on the front porch and placed them here and there. Candlelight flickered and scents mingled—cinnamon, pumpkin, and vanilla. Not a floral tone among them. But then again, they’d been brought by Weres.
With wolves it’s all about the things that speak to the stomach.
And perhaps, for some, the heart.
I studied Trowbridge. Dark hair, less than a quarter inch long. Blue eyes the color of the Mediterranean, now downcast, fixed on his task. A streak of dirt highlighting sharp cheekbones. Shoulders wide with a hollow right there, below his collarbone—warm and ready for my head. Muscles strong enough to carry a whole pack’s burdens.
Wearing Ralph and the T-shirt I’d worn last night to bed.
Faded jeans tight, top button undone.
Bare feet.
Nice feet.
Mine.
My Trowbridge wrung out the tea cloth, and resumed his ministrations. Dab. Press. Dab. The bite wound on my forearm was worrying him. He hadn’t said anything, but the deep furrow of his brow was telegraphing his uneasiness.
If I thought he’d believe me, I’d have told him that the sweet Fae blood that kept oozing from one of the deeper tooth marks wasn’t a big deal. Merry had done her best. Sooner or later, I’d heal; I always did, one way or the other. Besides, we’d dodged a bullet. We weren’t dead yet. While my twin was in—
No. Stop it.
Yet, it was impossible not to think of him. Someone had recovered Lexi’s hat from the floor and placed it on top of the refrigerator. Probably Biggs. He would have seen it, and thought “hat” instead of what it was; my twin’s bowler, with a single strand of long blond hair curled on its brim. I drew in a ragged breath and Trowbridge’s head sharply lifted. “You didn’t hurt me,” I said softly. “I was just thinking about our assault on Merenwyn.”
“You think too much,” he murmured.
“Ditto.” With a sigh, I tugged his makeshift compress free from his hand. “That dirt on your face is driving me crazy. Let me get it.”
And … I felt it. The instant I placed the cloth tenderly to his cheek, a faint tremor went straight through his body. I glanced up. His jaw was hard, his gaze hooded. Someone less observant than me might not have noticed he’d just vibrated like a tuning fork. Though they might have cued into the fact that the air between us was becoming decidedly musk-toned.
“I feel it, too,” I told him with my eyes. “And I’m no longer frightened by the strength of my desire for you.”
Whether he got that, I don’t know. But one of us had to change the subject before my knees started knocking, so I asked, “What are you going to tell the pack when we come back from our secret mission?”
He gave me a real, true-life Trowbridge grin—devil winking from glimmering blue eyes, teeth flashing. “I’ll cross that bridge when I have to.”
Despite myself, I smiled back. “You really shouldn’t use that phrase, Trowbridge.”
Gravel crunched as Harry’s truck pulled up at the back.
“Dinner!” called Cordelia. She placed a glass by Trowbridge’s seat—the tall Windsor chair with the armrests had to be his. The others didn’t have a nice strip of wood to balance your elbows on. Or, for that matter, come with a relatively new seat cushion. I still don’t know where Cordelia found that ruffled gem.
“I’m starved.” Biggs walked into the kitchen with the ferret draped over his arm—evidently a truce had been called. The animal’s small head tilted toward me, its expressive face so human, I couldn’t shake the feeling that Lexi’s pet had something to say but not the language skills to say it.
Ferret, I’m going to bring him back, even if I have to club a few mages to do it.
Cold fall air chilled the room as Harry shouldered through the door, his arms burdened. A second later Anu ghosted into the room. She stood near the doorway, her posture set on preflight, her eyes fixed hungrily on the food that Cordelia was pulling out of the sacks. Trowbridge pulled out a chair at the other end of the table and said something to her in Merenwynian. With a coy sideways glance toward me, she dropped into the chair.
Forget about it, niece. He’s mine.
Cordelia fussed, taking time to discard the containers and rearrange the food on serving platters. Meanwhile, Harry tore open a white plastic bag, pulled out a bottle of Grade A maple syrup, and set it in front of me with a “There you go, Little Miss. Your main course.”
Then he winked and pulled out a medium paper bag from the recesses of his coat jacket—the type you got from Deidre’s Bakery on Wellington Street. “She saw me passing and sent these to you. Compliments of the shop.”
I inhaled. “White chocolate chip with macadamia nuts.”
“Your favorite,” Cordelia said. “Try not to eat more than four at one sitting.”
The rest of the family’s meal was set on the table.
I would say that they fell on it like wolves, but they didn’t. Everybody politely (and somewhat impatiently) waited for Trowbridge to choose the first piece. He requisitioned a whole chicken, then they fell on the platter like the wild creatures they truly were.
Hiding my smile, I twisted the cap off the bottle of syrup and poured a good measure into the bottom of a bowl. Then—I promised, okay?—I slid the happy meal to my niece. For a moment Anu’s gaze stared at it. Then, she half stood, leaned over, and filched a piece of chicken off Biggs’s plate.
“She just…” Biggs’s head swung back and forth. “She just…”
Trowbridge grinned—which made him look about ten years younger and three times handsomer. Then he picked up his fork with his left hand, and searched for my hand with his right. He rested our entwined hands on his strong thigh.
I stroked his thumb with mine.
We could grow together, if time and f
ate let us.
Get stronger over time.
Suddenly, that desperate race I’d envisioned in my future—me plodding heavily around the track, sides burning, feet whimpering, all in grim hope of catching up to Trowbridge—seemed enormously stupid. He was here with me, right now. Not ahead of me.
Beside me. Holding my hand.
How simple was that?
Tonight, no one at this table expected me to be anything other than what I was.
I picked up my spoon.
I am Hedi Peacock-Stronghold.
And I am loved.
Don’t miss the next thrilling installment of the Mystwalker series by Leigh Evans
The Deal with Promises
Coming in 2014 from St. Martin’s Paperbacks
ALSO BY LEIGH EVANS
The Trouble with Fate
Praise for Leigh Evans and THE TROUBLE WITH FATE
“[A] brilliant debut … has a likeable, light-fingered heroine with smarts, a tough sexy hero with troubles, and a glimpse into a fascinating Fae world that will have you howling for the next book. I loved it!”
—Suzanne McLeod, author of The Shifting Price of Prey
“What a delicious read! Chock-full of fun twists and sexy diversions, one of them named Robson. Leigh Evans is definitely one to watch. Get this book! You will not be disappointed!”
—Darynda Jones, New York Times bestselling author of the Charley Davidson series
“It’s rare to find a debut novel with a well-crafted world, a great story, and dynamic characters, but this book has them all. I was grabbed early and hooked to the very end. I eagerly await the sequel!”
—Karen Chance, New York Times bestselling author of the Cassandra Palmer and Dorina Basarab series