Tiberius was no innocent. Back in Butler, he had kidnapped townsfolk, stolen their goods, and he almost killed Isaac in his escape attempt. But he was a decent kid, considering his entitled upbringing. He had potential, and he deserved better than playing the role of spud in our game of Hot Potato, the political edition.
Even the pads of my paws ached by the time we trotted down the final stretch of blacktop heading toward the abandoned grocery store where we had left the RV parked. Isaac kept his head up, eyes trained on the skies. The slight breeze carried the burger-and-fries scent of nearby fast food joints, and my stomach rumbled with interest. Isaac bumped shoulders with me in commiseration.
Unable to resist the temptation, I nipped his ear. Dancing aside before his teeth closed over my ruff, I almost tripped when the pavement in front of me erupted in a stinging spray of asphalt chips that pelted my face.
Concern a whine in his throat, Isaac licked my muzzle clean and checked me for wounds. I admit it. I swooned a little. Hazards of sharing your soul with a wolf, I suppose, when a man licking your face and eyelids comes off as sexy.
The smoking char in front of me yanked my thoughts back to more pressing matters in time for Bea to hurtle herself at me, shrieking bloody murder. I rolled aside, my back protesting, and ran several yards after her, snapping my teeth and craving rotisserie. She whirled, belted out a warning, pinned her wings to her sides and dove. I flattened my belly to the ground, but she sailed over me and swooped into the trees behind the store.
Bea’s aim struck true, and an undignified squawk tore from a masculine throat several yards from our position. I stood, shaking grit out of my fur, and we zipped after her.
The parking lot, which had seen better days, smoked. Lightning strikes had pitted and cracked the pavement. Only a rectangular patch, about the length and width of an RV, remained unblemished. That was good news. It meant the prince was right where we’d left him.
Isaac brushed along my side, getting my attention, then pointed up in the trees with his nose. I chuffed and leaned against him to get a better look. Three charred birdmen sat on limbs, their legs dangling, their glamour in tatters. The least crispy appeared to be an alkonost. His plumage resembled Prince Tiberius most. The other two called to mind Tanet, so those must be sirens. All in all, the wolf decided they would make good snacks, and she salivated in anticipation. It had, after all, been a hard run from Dauphin Island.
The problem with being a warg in wolf form mated to a fae in wolf form was we had no pack bond to draw on in order to plan our attack, but as fate—and Bea—would have it, that point became moot when she knocked the fourth of Rilla’s spies spinning out of the sky to crunch on the pavement then sailed in for a landing on my hips. I flicked my tail, but the thunderbird stuck, and suddenly all eyes were on us.
The lounging guards jerked to attention, hopping off their limbs to land crouched and ready. Nothing for it. Isaac and I charged them, slamming our bodies into the two outliers. The siren beneath me shouted a musical cry, and this time the sound was a magical fist to the gut. Woozy, I wobbled sideways as the birdman kept singing, my head cracking on impact with the curb. Seconds later, the hot penny smell of blood hit my nose.
My attacker pushed upright as the middle one, the alkonost, landed a taloned kick to my side that burned. A weight landed on my shoulder, and a blast of pure energy rattled my teeth. My fur smoked, and my skin crackled when she was done, but Bea had cauterized the oozing head wound. While I coughed smoke, Isaac finished with his siren and leapt onto the alkonost. Bea, perched on my heaving side, snapped at the siren, and he lost his wingtips shoving away her beak. The magical spell of his song broke as his voice went hoarse with pain and shock.
Rolling to my paws, I launched myself at the frantic siren, savaging his throat. I hated to do it, but the wolf had made the call before my human brain got involved. We didn’t kill him, but we did make sure he couldn’t use his pipes on us again. It should take days for him to regenerate enough to be a threat.
Catching on, Isaac did the same to the alkonost while I trotted to the remaining siren, who still juddered from Bea’s last bolt striking him, and made sure he couldn’t sing us into submission either. All that remained was the siren facedown on the asphalt, and he hadn’t so much as twitched since his fall. Isaac hacked, spitting up blood and shredded skin, too fae in his mental process to enjoy the taste of raw meat.
As I watched, Bea hurled one last bolt into the comatose siren I had been studying. His limbs twitched, and fresh smoke rose from his curling feathers. Good enough for me.
Panting from the workout, Isaac barked once, and I got the hint. We needed his eyes and hands to get back in the RV, so I followed him a short distance away from the writhing bodies and watched over him while he shifted from wolf to man. He used his reset in the middle, which caused him to resemble Theo for several heartbeats. Strange how the two could be physically identical, and yet their expressions, the way they carried themselves, conveyed their polar personalities.
The temptation to return to the RV in wolf form guttered when my knees buckled. I had pushed too hard, too fast, and despite Bea’s intervention, I suspected her nursing had caused more harm than good. I had to shift now, before exhaustion overrode my control, and I ended up unconscious while my body duked it out over how to put me back together again.
“Shift,” Isaac ordered, his strong hands in my fur. “I’ll protect you.”
Bea trilled, perching on a nearby power line, as if adding her weight to his promise.
My shift took far longer than it should have, and I emerged from it sweating and shaking like a newborn colt. I was too weak to walk for a while after that, so we sat huddled together. When I got my strength back, he led me to the RV and let us inside before collapsing on the floor. I dropped beside him, suddenly giddy.
We’d done it. We had found and recruited the king’s sister. We had won ourselves an army. Things were looking up. We might just survive this war after all.
A toilet flushed, and Tiberius exited the bathroom. “Oh.” He reclaimed his usual spot on the couch, his gaze fixed to his tablet, ignoring my nudity. “You’re back.”
“We missed you too, kid,” I said when he gave no further acknowledgment. Maybe he was pissed we’d left. Maybe he had been scared and didn’t want to show it. “Looks like Birdzilla had fun while we were away.”
He finished what he was doing and lowered the device enough to peer at us over the top. His eyes were red-rimmed with strain, and he looked annoyed at being interrupted.
Or maybe he just wanted to finish killing zombies.
“Bea seldom gets to hunt these days. She’s too conspicuous, her association with me too well-known.” His gaze flicked to the front windshield, and a fond smile played on his lips. “She enjoyed the opportunity to stretch her wings.”
And the chance to electrocute the crap out of her fellow avians and, of course, her favorite target, me. Though I had to give credit where it was due. She had our backs when it counted. That was progress.
Forcing my legs to support my weight, I toddled to the bedroom where I pulled on fresh clothes then padded to the front of the RV where I plopped down in the driver’s seat. Isaac joined me a moment later with drinks and snacks in hand, ripping open bags with his teeth while plugging coordinates in his phone with his thumb. I turned up the first bag he offered me and poured it down my throat. I was on the third before I registered the flavor—salt and vinegar—and blessed Zed for his superior taste in junky foodstuffs.
While I snacked, Bea circled over us, her gaze holding mine through the windshield. Her outline wavered, becoming a bolt of pure energy that zigged across the sky. The RV rocked as she zagged through a crack in the driver-side window I hadn’t noticed, and I smelled the burnt tips of my hair, singed by her passage. Behind me, Tiberius slammed a cupboard door closed, and I twisted around, squinting as pulsing light seeped through the cracks.
The prince, who then flopped back on the sofa and lifted his tablet, ra
ised his voice over the crinkle of plastic and the crunch of potato chips. “Where are we going?”
“Home.” Fingers greasy, I turned over the ignition. “We’re going home.”
Back to Butler. Back to the pack. Back to the patch of earth Isaac bought so we could build a future together. One that didn’t involve feather dusters dive-bombing us when we left the safety of the wards. Or royals backstabbing each other and anyone else who showed them spine. Or battling a world populated with twisted creatures that made wargs look like puppies.
But first we had some tail feathers to yank, some blades to sharpen and some monsters to slay.
War marched ever closer, Rilla its manic drummer girl. And Isaac and I, we would be there to greet them.
A Stone’s Throw Christmas
A Gemini Short Story
A Gemini Short Story
As I polished off my bottle of water, the tingle of awareness that was the mate bond danced over my skin, and I angled my chair toward the door. I was capping the empty and tossing it into the recycling bin when Graeson strolled into his office to find me sitting behind his desk. He spotted me, having known I was here all along, and leaned his shoulder against the frame, crossing his sleekly muscled arms over a chest that did sinful things to his plain white T-shirt. Thick black bands of ink encircled his wrists, and towering forests sprouted from them to grow up his forearms. I loved those tattoos. Almost as much as the man wearing them.
He cocked his head, no doubt sensing my turmoil. “Go for a run?”
He made it a simple request, one I could deny. Not that I ever had. Not after I understood what the red silk blindfold unfurling from his pocket meant. At least not until today.
“We need to talk.” I smoothed the wrinkled paper I’d been carrying in my pocket for a week over his desk, careful to keep it face-down. “This is important.”
“This is too.” The material made a soft sigh as he pulled the length through his fingers. “Run with me.”
All too eager for any reason to avoid this conversation for a while longer, I refolded the paper and tucked it back in my pocket for the next time I summoned enough courage to confront him. “Okay.”
A warg asking his mate to go for a run in the woods all but cues the Barry White music among wargs, and I swear the whole pack hears the tune blasting through the pack bond. Or maybe it’s the pheromones Graeson throws off when he gets in these moods messing with my head. I can get drunk on the smell of him, and I have no plans to battle that addiction.
“You haven’t moved,” he pointed out, low growl rising up the back of his throat.
That raw edge, tempered with need, raised hairs down my nape. It was the husky voice he used when I imagined him playing Big Bad to my Little Red. Why else the crimson blindfold?
I rose and circled the desk, and a crooked smile hooked up one corner of his mouth, like I had given him a gift by agreeing to play the game when I got the prize no matter who we named the winner.
He offered me the blindfold. “You know the rules.”
“I do.” An answering grin creased my cheeks. “I reach the creek first, and I win. You reach the creek first, and I also win.”
Amused by my summation, he nodded that I had the right of it.
“Can I bribe you for a five second head start?” Not that I needed one. Win or lose, this was my favorite game now too.
“Agent Ellis,” he rumbled. “You are delightfully corrupt.”
“Long term exposure to wargs.” I shrugged. “There are pamphlets on it and everything. They hand them out in meetings to protect innocent fae souls, such as myself, from falling victim to the wild lusts of wargs.”
A flicker of uncertainty tightened the skin around his eyes, and I read the worry there with the ease of someone lucky enough to know their mate from the inside out—no psychic bond required.
“Work is fine.” Oh, the pamphlets were real. Fae and wargs were not meant to mate. But my soul had never been innocent. If anything, Graeson had given me the redemption I had given up hope of earning. “I’m teasing.”
“You and I are a cautionary tale.” He straightened, uncrossing his arms and curving his hands around my hips. “I don’t want you to start believing the propaganda.”
I stiffened in his hold, my stomach tightening. “You think I’m that gullible?”
“No.” He lowered his voice. “But the job was your life for a lot of years before me, and I don’t want you to have to choose.”
Unspoken was his fear I might choose the badge, my job as a special agent with the Earthen Conclave, over the pack. Over him.
Silly wolf.
As if I would give up on the best thing in my life without a fight. As if I would give up the man who owned my soul period. Cord Graeson was mine. I was a little bit wolf too these days, thanks to my time with the pack, and there was nowhere he could run that I couldn’t find him should he ever get noble on me and push me away for my own good.
Despite his blind spot where our mating was concerned, Graeson was a smart man, and he must have read the stubborn refusal to give up either my man or my career in my expression, because he nodded once and then the sultry grin resurfaced.
“Blindfold?” I held out my hand, forcing us back on track.
He draped it over my palm, the silk cool and the color that of fresh blood. “I’ll count to one hundred.”
I snorted, well aware of how fast he counted, like the beats of my heart when it fluttered wild against my ribcage.
Exiting what once was a rental office for the Stone’s Throw RV park, property the Lorimar pack called home, I took the short hall and stepped out of the building into the darkened parking lot. A chill December wind promising snow stirred long strands of blond hair into my eyes. I hadn’t realized the hour. I had procrastinated longer than I thought. Gravel crunched underfoot as I knotted the blindfold behind my head. I drew on my wolf aspect, fae magic that gave me limited warg abilities, and set off at a trot. A few of the pack members catcalled as I passed. They recognized the game and wouldn’t interrupt us while we played.
Putting our sex life out on display had left me unable to meet the gazes of the pack members for days afterward when I first came to Stone’s Throw to be mate to the alpha, becoming alpha in turn. But I was adjusting my fae sensibilities to life among folk who spent as much of their time naked as clothed or furry.
Plus, as Graeson had explained to me, the simple fact was it kept our people happy. The pack structure gave them a sense of belonging, and our public displays of affection settled their wolves. All that stability kept them calm and made them feel safe.
Leaves crinkled under my heels as I traded the parking lot for the woods. The scents of fir and pine filled my lungs, crisp and welcome. Under that, the pungent reek of gasoline made my nose twitch. I pondered the source of that caustic stink so deep in our woods, but the pack was expanding, and generators were common out here to supply electricity to the smaller campsites.
A shiver rippled across my skin, the impression of unseen eyes—thanks to the blindfold—watching me. Not pack, those I sensed as mental shadows through the pack bond. The Stoners might be to blame. They weren’t ours, not really. Named after the RV park, the Stoners were a small army of wargs cobbled together from other packs. They had come by twos and threes to volunteer as soldiers in the war with Faerie that crept nearer with every day and every broken treaty. They were more curious about me than was wise at times. I didn’t know them all, and I knew none of them as well as I should have considering the sacrifice they were willing to make to help keep my loved ones safe.
The mate bond sizzled to life, a hot spike of intent, warning me Graeson was in close proximity.
The stinging on my nape increased, and my gut tightened until I covered my abdomen with both hands. What if…? I terminated the thought before it completed.
Charybdis was dead.
I killed him.
Not before he murdered Graeson’s little sister, but soon after. He would
claim no more victims, ruin no more lives. He was gone, but we were still here. We had survived, and I refused to let his dark shadow eclipse the rest of our lives.
Rubbing the back of my neck, I kept pushing. Less than thirty seconds later, I heard booted feet hitting the ground in an easy trot that mirrored mine. And then more footsteps. Lighter ones. And I smelled wolf. No, wolves. Familiar ones. Their presence ought to comfort and yet… Why had Graeson invited them along? And it must be his doing. Hadn’t I just been thinking how they never intruded on our private time? Suspicion bloomed in the back of my mind, the corner his presence occupied, and I wondered what my mate had gotten up to this time.
I kept up my easy lope until I reached what should have been a small clearing based on the map of the property in my head, but the low hum of a generator buzzed louder here, and the gasoline smell overpowered my senses until I sneezed. Skin pebbling, I sensed more bodies here, watching me from the trees. A slight breeze stirred, and a whiff of cinnamon and nutmeg teased my nose. What in the world…?
Giving up the game as a loss, I slowed to a walk, waiting on someone to illuminate me. I had been herded here, I realized. Wolves are sneaky that way. I reached up to tug down the blindfold and demand answers when Graeson’s strong arms encircled me from behind, hauling me back against his chest.
“Is this some new kink of yours?” I drew on the mate bond, projecting my thoughts to keep our conversation private.
He lowered one hand until his fingers fanned across my abdomen and pressed, pinning hips tight against my backside, and I forgot how to breathe for fear he had figured out my secret.
“I don’t share.” He nuzzled me, a hint of wolf in his voice. “You’re all mine, Ellis.”
Relief swept through me in swirling eddies that left me dizzy. “Why is the pack gathered here?”
“They wanted to be part of the surprise,” he explained in a reasonable tone that gave away nothing.
A trill of alarm zinged through me, and I covered his hand with mine. “And what is the surprise?”
Dog Eat Dog World: Limited Edition Bundle (Black Dog) Page 221