Dog Eat Dog World: Limited Edition Bundle (Black Dog)

by Hailey Edwards

  Wargs who live in glass houses couldn’t throw gargoyles. Or something.

  “Sorry about that,” I apologized to Littlejohn as I got to my feet. “I got confused by Meemaw’s scent, and my wolf overreacted.” The wolf huffed at shouldering the blame, but I kept that part to myself. “Wargs get weird when we’re separated from our packs. It screws with our heads, brings us closer to our feral side. Makes us more aggressive.”

  The gargoyle rumbled at me, hustled us into the room Meemaw had exited, and then slammed the door on our heels with a gusted sigh of relief that carried through the wood.

  Alone at last, Meemaw opened her frail arms. I rushed into them, bending nearly double over her to bury my face in her neck. The herb-and-earth scent of her skin carried another fragrance reminiscent of one I ought to remember but couldn’t put my finger on. Perhaps that peculiarity was what had set the wolf on edge. Whatever had tweaked her tail, all was forgiven now as she savored the presence of family, her hackles lowering for the first time in days. Even if Meemaw was no longer pack, she was still ours.

  She had been born into the Chandler pack, and her stubborn intentions were to die a Chandler wolf. Bessemer no longer commanded her loyalty, if he ever had, but the wolves of Villanow, Georgia, were her people, and she wouldn’t abandon them. Not even for me.

  “I swanny, girl.” Meemaw chuckled at my enthusiastic greeting. “You sure know how to keep an old wolf on her toes.”

  More than once Pawpaw had called her a spitfire. Guess it ran in the family. “Sorry, Meemaw.”

  “Well, let me get a look at you.” Head tilted back, she drifted her rheumy gaze over me. “My granddaughter, a beta.”

  The wolf puffed out my chest. I was the Lorimar pack beta, second to Cord Graeson, who had been the Chandler pack beta until Bessemer took issue with Cord’s choice of mate. Wargs and fae mix about as well as oil and water, but Cord had taken one look at Camille Ellis, a Gemini who worked as a special agent for the Earthen Conclave, and lost his battered heart to her on the spot. She was slower to come around to his way of thinking. Fae tend to let their heads cloud their hearts, a fact I had learned all too well was a family trait. But the thing about wargs is, we’re patient hunters. We don’t give up, even when we ought to.

  “I’ve missed you so much.” The words tumbled free without a filter.

  “About that.” She reached over and pinched the ever-loving crap out of my upper arm. “Whose fault is that?”

  “Yowch.” I leapt out of her range and massaged the tender skin, thankful for super healing. “What’d you do that for?”

  “You think I don’t talk to your alphas? That I don’t keep tabs on my own flesh and blood granddaughter? You think I don’t know what you’ve been doing up there in Butler, Tennessee, all these months?” Her gaze narrowed. “And who you’ve been doing it with?”

  Whining low in her throat, the wolf slinked off before Meemaw could pin her down for details. The human half of me was a much better liar. “Of course you know what I’m up to. I call you every week.”

  Somehow, despite the difference in our heights, she managed to look down her nose at me. “You leave the best parts out.”

  Guilty as charged. For her peace of mind, I heavily edited my life. “Who is tattling to you?”

  “Never you mind.” She shuffled over to claim one of the seats in front of a battered desk. “Sit.” She patted the chair next to hers. “We’re about to have company.”

  Like a struck match, the skin on my nape ignited. The delicate hairs lifted in a prickling wave, and the wolf paced tense circles through my gut. Before the door opened, I knew who would walk through it.

  A tall woman with long black hair pulled into a ponytail strolled in with a folder tucked under her arm. The arm in question glowed a muted green shade from the multitude of runes stamped into her skin. It might be my imagination, but there seemed to be more of them now than there had been the last time I saw her.

  That would be the day she arrested me for kidnapping a fae prince, extradited me to Texas and tossed me in a cell.

  “Thierry.” I growled her name in acknowledgment, a concession to Meemaw’s nodded greeting.

  Thierry Thackeray acted as liaison between our pack and the Earthen Conclave. They must have figured with her being a half-blood fae, she was the perfect intermediary between the warg alphas and fae magistrates. She had a foot in both worlds and a lot to lose no matter how the pendulum swung. It made for a good incentive to keep that sucker level.

  “You won’t believe me, but it’s nice to see you, Dell.” She rounded the desk, sat behind it and dug through a drawer for a pen like she owned the place. For all I knew maybe she did. Her natural scent reminded me of fresh meat and death, and the wolf recoiled from the potent combination of foreign magic. Something about her made both my skins crawl. “I’ve been worried about you.”

  I choked out a laugh. “You’ve got a funny way of showing it.”

  Cut off from my pack, from caffeine, from nature, from new-release DVDs. The type of confinement I had endured would have broken a lesser wolf. Not mine. It just pissed her off.

  “You did maul the guard sent to escort you to the yard.” She flipped through the file, which I realized must have been mine. “Officer Fitz claims you broke his nose when he attempted to handcuff you.”

  “They were silver-lined,” I snarled. “He’s lucky I stopped there.”

  The freaky markings etched in her skin pulsed with harsh emerald light. “He failed to mention that part.”

  “I figured.” Bad seeds learn all the tricks early. That included how to keep their darker urges sated while not alerting the brass to their leanings. Fitz was fae, and he had worn gloves to handle me that day. Still his revulsion had leaked through. “I bet that happens a lot in a place like this.”

  “Less often than you want to believe. Macon specializes in fae criminals. You’re the only warg inmate on the roster.” She made a note on my folder with sharp cuts of her pen. “The staff here uses silver cuffs when a restraining Word won’t do. They’re standard issue and what most guards carry. Under normal circumstances, it’s the most humane option.”

  I cast her the flat look I reserved for dog owners upon realizing I’d stepped in a steaming pile of crap.

  A Word was just that. A single word. At least on the surface. Imbued with magical purpose, it activated once spoken. It was a humane way of restraining fae and supernaturals, considering our bevy of allergies to common and precious metals. Guess who hadn’t tried a hypoallergenic Word on me until after I had broken his face?

  “I’m not defending Fitz.” She plucked at the edge of the papers. “He knew you were a warg, and he knows wargs are allergic to silver. I’m explaining how he could pass it off as a simple mistake, and why you can’t allow his version of events to go unchallenged. The next inmate he discriminates against might not survive his prejudice.”

  “You’re taking my side?” I sat up straighter, as though her endorsement had pulled my strings. “Just like that?”

  “Seeking justice is more than my job, it’s in my DNA.”

  “Okay.” I gave her my full attention for the first time since her arrival. “I’m listening.”

  “There’s a reason I had you brought to Macon,” she began.

  “I’m all ears.” I flicked one of mine. “Enlighten me.”

  “You’re a beta now, Dell. You don’t get to make mistakes.” She tapped the file with her knuckle. “Not ones this big.”

  The urge to defend myself never materialized. She was right. The buck for my actions, and those of the pack when operating under my supervision, stopped with me.

  “Lorimar is unique,” she continued. “Few fae trust wargs, let alone mate them. The uniqueness of Cam and Cord’s union has left their pack in a bind, and you got squeezed the hardest. Observing warg traditions comes as second nature to you, you were born to it, but you must also learn and uphold fae law to protect yourself and those beneath you. Possessing
a strong beta who can navigate the social intricacies of both cultures is the only way their mating, their pack—your pack—will work.”

  “You’re right.” The righteous indignation that had puffed me up since my incarceration fizzled out of me, and I sank lower in my chair. “I can’t ruin this for them or for the pack. I’ll step down. Zed is acting gamma. He can—”

  “Whoa, girl.” Thierry mimed pulling on the reins. “No one is asking for your resignation. At least not yet. Not ever if I have anything to say about it.” She read the shock on my face and grinned while showing too many teeth. “I’m invested in you in ways you can’t begin to imagine.”

  That was slightly terrifying coming from her.

  “There were extenuating circumstances,” she continued as though she hadn’t just thrown me a curveball. “You’re a new beta, and that’s a huge responsibility, but you’ve also been de facto alpha while yours have been attending the Gathering. You’re not an alpha. Forcing you to act like one stretched you too thin. It exhausted you. Not to mention the physical strain of patrolling the rift site every night. The decisions you made that led you to this point were above your paygrade. Your actions should have been overseen by your alphas.”

  A warning note spiked my voice. “They’re doing the best they can.”

  Months ago, a psychotic fae serial killer crossed realms and staged a murder spree through the South. Nicknamed Charybdis, he had fixated on Cam. The rest was complicated. She died, he died. She came back, he didn’t. And in the middle of all that chaos, a nasty spell he had concocted backfired and ripped open a rift leading from this world into Faerie. Fae had been raining into our zip code ever since. And wargs, the Lorimar pack in particular, had been left holding the umbrella.

  “Yes, they are. I don’t blame Cam or Cord for what happened either.” Thierry’s ready agreement nipped my irritation in the bud yet again. “Had the conclave taken a more proactive role in attempting to contain the situation, then your alphas wouldn’t have been required to mount their own campaign for assistance that resulted in leaving a newly formed pack with inexperienced leadership at its helm.” She grew animated. “This incident proves the need for integration. It illustrates the need for greater cooperation between our factions.”

  The incident, not to put too fine a point on it, was a massive political kerfuffle courtesy of yours truly.

  Prior to my incarceration, I had been presented with an ultimatum from a haughty fae who claimed to be in search of a missing Seelie prince, Tiberius, who was squatting on property close to ours. The young man had been stealing provisions from shops in town and kidnapping residents, and I had been glad to get rid of him. My job was, after all, dispatching fae from this realm. I had been pleased with the outcome right up to the point when I returned home to find the prince’s mother and father waiting for me. Tiberius had been a far more valuable asset than I had realized, and I’d botched his handling by returning him to a power-hungry aunt estranged from the rest of the family. Hence the charges of aiding and abetting in the kidnapping of a royal diplomat.

  Really, it sounded worse than it was when they put it that way.

  “The only way to prevent future mishaps is through cooperation between the fae and the other supernaturals native to this world. The time has come for the conclave to welcome representatives from the wargs, the witches, the vamps and all other sects large enough to volunteer a speaker.”

  A lightbulb must have flashed over my head when I got what she wasn’t saying, because Meemaw squinted in my direction. “You’re using this as a platform for reform.”

  Who knew she had political aspirations?

  “I am.” A straight shooter was Thierry. “It’s going to be a long, grueling campaign. Fae don’t like change. I’m going to need all the help I can get. And I’m going to need the goodwill of both the earthborn fae as well as those sympathetic to our cause in Faerie. I’m going to have to prove this can work, that we can all cooperate. That means we start by cleaning up this mess as an act of contrition.” Leaning forward, she braced her elbows on the desk. “But…I can’t do jack until I get Tiberius back.”

  “How are you planning on doing that?” He was a world away. “Chase him through Faerie?”

  “Not me, no.”

  “Then who?”

  Thierry just sat there and watched as the cogs in my brain churned out the answer.

  “You’re crazy,” I spluttered. “I can’t go to Faerie.”

  “You have an excellent sense of smell, you’re a natural tracker, and you have a second skin that will keep you warm if you have to cross into Unseelie territory in pursuit.” She toyed with her ink pen while steam poured out of my ears. “Wargs aren’t native to Faerie. No one will see you coming.”

  I braced my palms on the edge of her desk to steady me before I toppled out of my chair. Faerie. Another world. I had barely managed to survive this one. “Even if I agreed to this suicide mission, and I get the feeling there’s not a whole lot of choice involved, I’m in prison. The rift is all the way back in Tennessee.”

  “Yeah. About that.” A funny smile tilted her mouth. “Most wargs don’t track such things, but it’s common knowledge in the fae community that all the tethers leading into Faerie were severed.”

  Since becoming beta to a fae alpha female, I had begun studying her culture, and I did know about the tethers. From what I’d read they were like magical bridges that spanned from one set point in this world to a corresponding location in the other. Only someone had smashed them, isolating fae in whichever world they happened to be in at the time.

  Me? I suspected the conclave was thrilled with the rift for providing them contact with their homeland after such a long dry spell. Unrestricted access to their motherland would explain why they were so slow to offer help with plugging the gap.

  Thierry still expected an answer, so I gave her one. “I read a paper on the emotional toll the severance was taking on fae who were visiting Earth at the time the event occurred and have since been forced to become citizens of this realm.”

  “Here’s the thing.” She screwed up her face and lifted a finger. “There’s one left.”

  I waited for the punch line. She didn’t disappoint.

  “The tether is anchored in a cell here at Macon.” She waved a hand through the air in a vague manner. “Until the rift over Butler opened, it was the only means of traveling between realms, and it was reserved exclusively for conclave use. It’s anchored in Unseelie territory, and it was heavily taxed both ways.”

  This sounded a whole lot like Thierry was echoing my earlier thoughts. A gaping portal in the sky might not be as convenient or reliable as a tether, but it was free. That was motive for the conclave dragging its feet right there.

  Penny-pinching bastards.

  “You have access to the tether,” I surmised. “That’s how you plan to get me there.”

  I noticed she didn’t rush to fill in the minor details. Like, you know, getting me home again afterward.

  “Our worlds are poised on the verge of war,” she pressed. “If we lose Prince Tiberius, that verge goes bye-bye. The Seelie won’t let an insult like that stand. Not when they’re grooming him to rule. They’re itching for a reason, and—however well intended your actions were—you handed them one.”

  The hot gasp of my anger at Thierry puttered into a wheeze. I hated when she was right.

  “How will I know where to look?” Dazed and more than a little queasy, I accepted this rescue mission was going to happen whether I wanted it to or not. Might as well do it right. “I’ve studied fae politics, but not geography.”

  “That’s why you’re bringing a team with you.” She held up three fingers. “Three is the maximum allowance for the tether within a twenty-four-hour period, and you have no time to waste. We need you back in five days. Three would be better.”

  Zed’s name sprang to mind, but I couldn’t take him. The pack was down two alphas, and now their beta. They couldn’t lose their g
amma and still function. Nathalie was solid, but that meant picking Aisha for my second, and I didn’t trust her. Haden was good, but he was young. Impulsive. I was reckless enough without encouragement. Abram, as the pack healer, must remain at home. That left Job, who was too submissive for a covert op, and Moore. No. Just no. I was not putting my life or anything else in Moore’s hands.

  Who did that leave? Who else was crazy enough to traipse across Faerie in search of a kidnapped prince?

  A knock set Thierry’s eyes sparkling. “Yes?”

  Littlejohn, back in human form and wearing sweats, barred the open doorway with his wide shoulders. “You’ve got company, ma’am.”

  Curious, the wolf prompted me to fill my lungs. What I scented ignited warmth in my chest and unspooled the tension in my gut like I had knocked back five shots of rum. Burnt metal wafted into the room from the hallway, and my other half raked at my insides to get to the source.

  Nostrils flared, Thierry nodded then made a beckoning gesture. “Send him in.”

  I twisted in my chair as Isaac Cahill prowled into the room. Isaac Cahill, who was Cam’s favorite cousin. Isaac Cahill, who had broken my wolf’s heart, and okay, he might have dinged mine too.

  Tall and lean, dressed in jeans, a faded T-shirt and boots, his dirty-blond hair tousled and his blue eyes grim, he arrowed straight for me. He cupped my face between his palms, his thumbs stroking my cheekbones. My treacherous pulse danced the rhumba, or maybe that was the wolf in my gut bounding like a pup through a meadow at the sight of him. I’m not sure he meant to guide me to my feet or if I did that part on my own. But I was standing in front of him before I made the decision to move, and he was staring past my eyes into my soul. I hoped for my sake he didn’t see his name carved on the walls of my heart.

  Dell Cahill. Mrs. Dell Cahill. Mr. and Mrs. Isaac Cahill.

  Death by concrete box was looking better and better.

  “They refused to allow you visitors,” he growled, giving no sign of possessing x-ray vision, which, for Isaac, was an actual possibility, and I relaxed. “I’ve been here every day since you were arrested, and the guards turned me away each time until today.”