“You did the right thing. I’m heading your way.” I rubbed the tips of my fingers together to flake off the dried blood. “And, Moore? I’m good. Thanks for asking.”
“Good.” His voice dipped into its usual register. “That’s good.”
Shaking off his strange mood, I ended the connection and went to find Abram. “It sounds like the others have the fae locked down. I’m going to head over there and sort things out with Tiberius.” I glanced from Zed to Isaac, neither of whom was going anywhere any time soon. “Can you handle things here?”
“Can you send Moore once you relieve him?” Abram scanned the area. “The woods here don’t seem as friendly as they should.”
Considering he’d had ample time to watch the trees while we were unconscious, I trusted his judgment. “You think there are more fae out there?”
“After today’s excitement, my wolf is on edge.” His nostrils flared. “It might be paranoia, but then again…”
“It’s possible one of the kids followed us out here.” I inhaled, but blood was too thick on the ground for me to pick up any foreign scents. “Or it could be some fae living out here that we stumbled across. You haven’t seen them? They haven’t revealed themselves or been aggressive?”
“No.” He ruffled his hair. “It’s more of a feeling than anything.” He lifted his phone. “I called Enzo for a pickup. He’s bringing a truck down so we can load up Zed and Isaac.”
“Good thinking.” Maybe wargs with phones wasn’t such a bad idea after all. “Nathalie and Aisha are there. Job is too. The three of them can handle the house and the prisoners. I’ll tell Moore to head this way. He’ll beat me by a mile. It’s going to take forever to walk back.”
“At least you can walk back,” Zed called. “Some of us have crushed legs.”
“Whine, whine, whine,” I teased, waving a hand.
The walk to the stone house gave me time to think about how I wanted to handle the prince’s surrender. Panic had blinded me to the low point of the sun. We had burned a lot of daylight hunting and capturing our prey and the subsequent recovery period. Soon the Seelie would come knocking at the wards, and we would have to be prepared to answer them with force.
Ready or not, the Stoners might see action tonight. I had the lesser of two evils to choose from, and right now I was leaning toward the one that might end with Stoner fur flying but my Lorimar pack mates coming home in one piece.
A bulky wolf trotted past me, dipping his chin in greeting as he carried on his way.
Five or ten minutes later, Abram confirmed Moore’s arrival. Another fifteen or so minutes after that, the stone house came into view. Tiberius and Leandra sat in kitchen chairs in the front yard while a dozen or so kids clustered around them. Job and Nathalie each stood guard, as wolves, behind a different chair while Aisha paced, as a human, in front of the gathering with her lip curled at every baby coo and childish giggle.
“About time.” Aisha crossed her arms over her chest. “I didn’t join this pack to become a babysitter. I could have done that at home.”
“Except you’re not a member of this pack,” I replied as sweet as sugar, “and you’re exiled from ‘home’ for almost getting the alpha’s—your ex-mate’s—kid murdered by a serial killer.”
Mutiny written all over her face, Aisha marched off to begin her change in private.
“Stop poking that wolf, or one day you’ll get caught in her fangs,” Job cautioned me.
“My job is to keep poking that wolf until we see if she snaps.” While sometimes amusing, it was more often exhausting. “She doesn’t have to like me, but she has to respect me. She has to earn her place here and prove she’s not a threat to us or to the alphas. Once she does that, I’ll keep my fingers to myself.”
I claimed Aisha’s spot and examined the prince and his girlfriend. He was back in glamour and pristine. She didn’t bother covering her rumpled clothes or bloodshot eyes. The fight had seeped right out of her. I hated being the straw that broke her, but what had she expected? To live happily ever after with a fairy prince? How often did that happen? She was fae. Had her parents never read her the bedtime stories of their people? The ones that always ended in betrayal, heartbreak or the occasional beheading?
Once I held their attention, I asked the most important question left. “Where are Mr. O’Malley and Ms. Zhuang?”
“They’re inside.” Leandra rocked a toddler in her arms. “We didn’t harm them. Go see for yourself.”
And take my eyes off them? No thanks. “Nathalie, scout out the building.” Aisha had already begun her shift, and after my earlier scare, I sure as heck wasn’t going to interrupt her. “Hey, kiddo. Yes. You. With the hand full of dirt and a worm in your mouth. Can you open the door for the nice wolf, please?”
The child grinned at me, exposing a mouthful of wriggling bugs stuck between his teeth, and toddled over to shove the door open. Cute. Gross, but cute.
“Why did you take them?” I shifted position to keep a line of sight on the open door. “They have families who are worried sick about them.”
The girl ducked her head. “We needed help. I’m not sorry we took them. We always meant to give them back.”
“Found them.” Relief sharpened Nathalie’s voice. “They’re staring off into space like they’re daydreaming, but they’re clean and look healthy. Smell healthy too.”
“You took them to be—what? Surrogate parents to these kids?” Which brought me to my second most pressing question. “Where did they all come from? Who are their parents?”
Tiberius barked out a hard laugh and pegged me with ice-cold eyes. “You don’t know?”
“I wouldn’t have asked if I did.” Though my stomach clenched at his maliciously gleeful expression.
“Do you think only the corrupt flee Faerie under cover of darkness?” His haughty disdain for me contrasted with the boy I had seen up to this point, making it easy to picture him as a prince. “Has it never occurred to you that good people are risking their lives—their children’s lives—to escape?” He laughed again, harder this time. “You had no idea, did you? These children are all orphans. They’re all that was left behind once you murdered their parents.”
“Hush,” Leandra hissed. “Don’t frighten them.”
The world dropped out from under me, and my knees threatened to buckle. We had done this? This was our fault? As much as I wanted to call him a liar, deep down I knew that would mean lying to myself.
People talk about the costs of war. We had often. Mostly it entailed numbers referencing the funds needed to feed and outfit an army. We tried not to think about the lives lost, but that figure factored in too. Never had we considered that the fae coming here with hostile intentions were bringing children with them. We had never found a single one. That told me the lengths those parents had gone to in order to protect their kids.
As to why we had been so shortsighted, I suspected the reason was because the job already chafed like collars around our necks. Stopping to think about consequences would yank us out of our bloodthirsty headspace. We needed that killing haze to end each night feeling justified in our slaughter. Lately even that red vision didn’t blind us to our chores.
We had made all these orphans. The conclave had helped turn us into monsters, used us as attack dogs. Native supernaturals, ones Faerie would expect to fight for their world. But we hadn’t fooled anyone. The conclave held our leashes, and my back teeth ached to gnaw through mine.
Voice hoarse, I asked, “Why did you take them in?”
“I’m a bean-tighe,” Leandra confided. “A hearth spirit. I needed a home to care for or I would have withered away. Tiberius found us this place.” She kissed the forehead of the child in her arms. “We weren’t the first to seek shelter here. Caring for the children strengthened my bond to the house, to this place. It kept me well.”
“That’s why you didn’t leave,” I realized.
Bean-tighe weren’t mobile. They lived for as long as the house th
ey bonded to stood. That she had moved at all was a testament to her strength and their resourcefulness.
“I had never cared for children until I came here. I worked in the kitchen in Faerie. I wasn’t sure what to do for the wee ones.” Two infants slept in baskets near her skirts. “I borrowed people to teach me what I didn’t know. I always meant to give them back.”
“Why use glamour to conceal Mr. O’Malley’s car?” In hindsight, it seemed like overkill. “His wife remembered seeing it in the lot between the times he was taken and when it vanished.”
“We panicked,” she admitted, head down. “We thought that perhaps by concealing his transportation, we might buy ourselves time. We had already brought him home with us, so I had to go back and cast the glamour. I must have just missed his wife.” She glanced at the bike leaned against the house. “That device was much easier for us to move, and so we did. To avoid leaving more magical remnants behind us.”
“And the notes?” I couldn’t wait to hear this. “What’s the deal with those?”
Tiberius pointed out a young girl with six multi-jointed insectoid legs who smiled at us through a mouthful of jagged fangs. “You can thank that one for the notes.” He chuckled fondly when she shuttled behind a boy that might have been a centaur. “Leandra has been teaching the older children your language so they can read the signs in town and know what to avoid.”
“Clematis has developed a taste for beef.” Leandra appeared likewise amused. “I taught her the word by showing her cattle in a neighboring field. She was confused when I promised to bring home beef, but she saw no cows in the stores. The notes were a complaint.”
That the girl had developed a taste for beef while snubbing perfectly good packs of ground round made me wonder if any of the farmers in the area were down a few head of cattle.
“You took her with you?” Apparently reading wasn’t the only life skill Leandra and Tiberius had been teaching the children. Theft for survival also appeared to be part of the curriculum.
“She saw her parents murdered.” Her tone held no recrimination. “She has panic attacks after dark, and it scares the other children. It’s easiest for all concerned to bring her along. She wanted to help, so I put her to work. The message on the paper didn’t matter. The magic was in the ink, and it told any humans or lesser fae whatever they expected to see. Only the higher fae, and apparently your kind, can read the messages for what they are.”
That brought up interesting questions about Mr. Simmons, the grocer. Perhaps he was a quarter-blood fae or a recessive warg. So long as he kept his grubby paws to himself, I didn’t much care either way.
“Kids raising kids.” I rubbed my hands over my face. “This is not what I expected.”
“What will you do with us?” Leandra only had eyes for Tiberius. “What about them?”
“You will be under house arrest until we figure out how to safely transfer you to another location. You and the kids. Until we can get them placed in foster homes with the conclave.” I studied the sullen prince. “He has to go back.”
Tiberius lost his slouch and straightened as he faced me. “You’ll let them live?” He reached for Leandra, their hands catching and holding. “You’ll let her stay?”
“Cooperate with me, and I’ll do one better.” I pushed every ounce of sincerity I possessed into my voice. “I will vouch for Leandra and protect her. The children are innocents. They won’t be punished for circumstances beyond their control. I promise you that.”
Relief bowed his shoulders, and he wiped the back of his hand under his eyes. “Thank you.”
A sting of magic pricked me as his vow sank in. A prince of Faerie was in my debt. How do you like that?
“The weather—” I began again, unwilling to get brushed off this time.
“I give you my vow,” he cut me off as a stronger thread of energy prickled my skin, sealing his promise, “that when I leave this place, the storms will bother you no more.”
Much as I hated unsolved mysteries, the talent must tie in to his heritage. I could respect him not wanting to share secrets that might harm his family with the enemies he had created for himself. As long as the skies cleared, I could leave him that much dignity.
“Give me your word you will behave honorably, and you can say your goodbyes in private.” I studied the pink-and-orange hues saturating the skies. “You have until sundown.”
“My word is given.”
He rushed to his feet, eased the sleeping child into the arms of an older kid then grabbed Leandra by the wrist and whirled her onto her feet. He scooped her up and carried her bride-style through the door, kicking it closed behind them.
“I wish my ears weren’t so sensitive,” Aisha whined.
“This is true love. It has to be. Nothing else hurts so damn much.” I rubbed the center of my chest, a kernel of fear burning there for Isaac. “If that means we have to listen to them goodbye boinking, then so be it.”
Job snickered behind me. Aisha wrinkled her muzzle. Nathalie mostly looked sad.
“His family allowed them to run away. Heck, they practically blessed his wild-oat sowing. They were fine with the kids playing house and all it entails, right up to the point where the prince lost his heart to a peasant girl.” Too bad I didn’t have a set of those wax earplugs in my pockets. But I didn’t have pockets period. “If that’s not parental consent for what’s happening in there, I don’t know what is.”
The wolves, minus Aisha, played with the kids and helped me keep them corralled so they didn’t walk in on an anatomy lesson in progress. I led a game of hide-and-seek that put me in range of Abram and touched base with that camp.
“How are Zed and Isaac?” I held my breath waiting for his answer.
“Zed’s sitting up on his own. His bones are mending nicely. Isaac is around here somewhere…”
My heart stuttered. “What do you mean he’s around? Where is somewhere?”
“His physiology is different than Cam’s. I’ve seen her take Cord’s blood to heal minor injuries, but Isaac’s recovery is miraculous.” He sounded thoughtful. “I wonder if his magic is stronger because he has a living twin or if there’s something about your blood…”
“Find him,” I snapped. “He was a smear on the grass a few hours ago. You can’t just let him wander around unsupervised.”
Abram’s mental sigh accused me of overreacting. I let my silence call him all sorts of inventive names, most of which I’m sure he never would have heard of before if I spoke them out loud.
“Hey.”
I whirled around and almost swallowed my tongue when I found Isaac standing in front of me.
“Are you insane?” I stalked him. “Why are you walking around?” I jabbed him in the shoulder. “You should be lying down.” Jab, jab. “You almost died.”
“Abram kept checking his phone to stalk his eBay auctions. Asking me about prices, then arguing with me about values. The guy was basically begging me to enable him, so I sneaked off while his back was turned.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Where was Moore during all this?”
“He was investigating a noise in the woods.” Isaac toed the dirt. “That might have been a rock I threw.”
And people thought I had a death wish. “What on Earth compelled you to do that?”
He kept digging his hole. “I was worried about you.”
“You could have asked Abram for an update.” Or Zed now that I thought about it.
“I tried.” Isaac huffed. “He kept saying, ‘Five minutes. I can’t look away or those auto-bid bastards will win.’”
“What about Zed?” A frisson of panic burbled up in my gut. Abram had told me Zed was better, but had he been telling the truth or trying to get rid of me? “He’s okay, right?”
“He was too busy pretending to be asleep to cooperate. I’m pretty sure he said have fun storming the castle when I left.”
“And he didn’t think to warn me you were wandering around?” I was going to need
a new best friend. At this rate, I might smother mine in his faux sleep.
Isaac shrugged.
“I found your missing patient,” I told Abram. “Call off the search.”
“Oh good.” His presence faded before returning, as if something had distracted him. I hoped not his phone. “Enzo’s here. We’ll load up Zed and head your way.”
Thank heaven for small mercies.
“Stay put.” I spoke to Isaac slowly in a clear voice. “I’ll be right back.”
I made quick work of finding the kids thanks to my sensitive nose then herded them back toward the yard. I looped my arm through Isaac’s and guided him, letting him lean on me when the incline got steep.
“What happens next?” He asked a question I was hearing all too often these days.
“We have things settled with Tiberius and Leandra. The girl is staying, the kids are too until I get in touch with the conclave, and the boy is turning himself in to protect them.”
“Who do you trust at the conclave with a baker’s dozen deserter kids?”
“Mai Hayashi.” The name must have rung a bell, because his eyes lit with recognition. “I met her once. She’s solid. I trust her to tap dance around the paperwork and get the kids settled someplace safe.”
We reached the house and found Tiberius and Leandra embracing in the doorway, watching the sunset. Her head rested on his chest, and his chin topped her head. As the light died, so did the sparks in their eyes. They glanced up at the sound of a rumbling truck engine, and I exhaled with relief that we didn’t have to drag this out longer than necessary.
“Leandra, call the kids inside. I’ll leave two of my wolves with you tonight for protection. It’s all I can spare.” Plus, I wanted eyes on her in case she tried to leave. A startled thought hit me. Isaac had touched her. That meant he could confirm her species for me. I lowered my voice to avoid keen ears. “She claims she’s a bean-tighe. Is she?”
“She’s telling the truth,” he acknowledged.
“Tiberius, you can ride in the back with me.” As an avian shifter-type-thing, the wind in his hair shouldn’t bother him. “Nathalie and Aisha, babysitting detail continues for you guys. Job, you’re with us.”
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