“Saving your dumb ass,” Avery replied. Orin snickered in agreement.
Drake gave a pained laugh. “Glad to see you, too.”
“We have to get you home,” Orin said, leaning in. “Your daddy dearest is in a tizzy and Kellan’s making a move for your court.”
Not for the first time, I wondered what kind of shit Aelfdane was trying to pull in the fairy realms.
Drake blinked. “What happened while I was out?”
“Too much.” I swept a lock of hair from his eyes. “Orin and Avery will take care of you in the fairy realm, and then we’ll get you healed up. Nice long baths back home.”
Drake would totally eat up me babying him for a few days, and I wouldn’t mind it in the least. Usually, giving one of my mates that much attention would cause trouble with the other two, but I’m sure that Orin and Avery wouldn’t mind, either.
We’re a family after all.
“Can you stand?” Avery asked. He hooked an arm underneath Drake’s as Orin followed suit with the other side. They hoisted the Autumn Prince to his feet and he cried out in pain. His feet dragged on the ground, and I knew that he couldn’t stand by himself.
Shit.
“Well isn’t this cute? A little reunion.”
I whirled at the voice, brandishing my katana in front of me. With Orin and Avery helping Drake, I was the only one who could defend our group.
Not that I’d be much use, and I inhaled sharply as I saw our assailant.
Kellan stood there, a vision of white among the darkness. His winter fairies flanked him from behind their leader, ready to pounce at his word. His eyes glittered as he watched me, and he looked around. “You took out most of my werewolves.”
“Took them out, but didn’t kill them,” Orin clarified. His face was fierce as he faced the Winter King. “Your fairies, however, had no such mercy.”
Kellan scowled. “I noticed. Consorting with a human has made you forget your kind.”
Avery snarled in answer.
I slashed the air in front of me. “Get out of the way, asshole.”
Kellan didn’t even flinch. “You’re such a lost soul, Cassidy. You four are all examples of what’s wrong with the fairy and human realms. Time for a change, don’t you think?”
I glared at him. “Fuck you.”
And I threw the katana like a spear, directly at his face. He easily stepped aside, but not fast enough. The blade nicked his cheek, causing the marble-white skin to separate.
It wasn’t iron, but I could hope that it would still scar.
In the same instant, Avery reached out to take my hand, and I felt the familiar nothingness as we winked out of existence, teleporting to safety. Away from Purisima Creek. Away from all this shit.
I had a split second of relief spreading throughout me, and then agony erupted throughout my entire body as something like lightning sizzled against my skin, blowing me backwards. I landed hard on my side, the wind knocked from my lungs. I struggled for air as I managed to lift myself up high enough to see what was happening. Avery, Orin, and Drake were sprawled around me, knocked back by whatever-the-fuck-it-was.
We were in the same goddamn woods. In fact, we were only about twenty feet away from where we had teleported from. I saw the crackle of some sort forcefield around us.
Kellan approached us with languid steps, kicking aside leaves and sticks as he came into view. He tut-tutted and shook his head. “Silly lovers. Do you really think I’d let you go that easily?”
“We were kinda hoping you would,” Avery answered with a self-deprecating laugh. He rolled onto his back with a pained grunt. “You’re stupid enough to.”
Kellan bared his teeth at Avery and kicked him in the ribs. My mate let out a yelp, which only spurred the Winter King to do it more. Again. And again.
“Stop,” I whispered, crawling to Avery. “Stop it.”
“Only when he’s dead,” Kellan growled down at me, and then moved to kick me.
He didn’t make it that far, because a horn sounded throughout the night, sounding like a cross between a hound of hell, the car horns I always hear outside my apartment, and almost the call of something wild. A thrill of fear ran through me as I saw the lights flashing through the woods, heard and felt the accompanying crunch of trees and plantlife.
Blaize had come to our rescue. In the nick of time, in the most obnoxious way possible.
Just like she always did.
I felt elation for a brief moment that we were saved. But then the smell and feel of iron hit me.
And I fell into unconsciousness.
16
Blaize
“Oh, you ice-cold bastard,” I muttered as the Winter Prince drew himself up to his full height and lifted his hand as if to throw some kind of magic spell at me. “I dare you.” I glanced at the werewolf in the seat beside me, his tongue lolling as he gave a wolfy laugh. “I double wolf dare you.”
I aimed the truck directly at him, but then saw several other figures in the small clearing—Orin and Avery and another fairy, all three beginning to crumple to the ground.
And Cass, already out cold.
At least, she had better be passed out and not something worse.
I slammed on the brakes. When I glanced back at where the Winter King had been, he was gone—and some kind of weird blue-light barrier swam in and out of my vision. I stopped the truck right before it, jumping down to the ground to put my hand up against it. It was cold and slick, like solid ice.
Solid—but also magic. Fairy magic.
With an evil grin, I dragged my iron sword out of the front seat of the truck and used it to poke a hole in the force field.
Yep. Iron worked against it. I slipped through the opening I had made, Wolf following close behind me. “You guys need to wake up,” I said, shaking Avery’s shoulder. “Get up. I’m cutting a path out of here. Can you get the others and head back down toward the parking lot?”
“Yeah.” Avery’s voice was hoarse, but he pulled himself upright, and Orin followed suit.
On my way back to the truck, I cut an actual door into the magic shield, big enough to let all four of them out without any of them having to touch it.
“I’ll meet you back down there in a few minutes, okay?” I said. “I’ll bring that icy prick with me, too.”
“You should take help,” Avery rasped, one arm wrapped around Cass’s waist and the other holding her hand over his shoulder as he lifted her off the ground.
Adrenaline rushed through my body, sending the thrill of the hunt racing into my limbs. Smiling, I glanced at Wolf, who grinned back at me. “I’ve got Wolf. We’ll be fine.”
Avery nodded and began limping down the path I’d driven on—and widened—through the woods, Cassie’s feet dragging behind them. With any luck, once she got away from the iron I was carrying she’d wake up.
As I put one foot up on the running board, I glanced down and saw a pile of iron chains at my feet. I bent down to scoop them up and haul them into the truck.
“These are perfect,” I exclaimed.
Now that I knew Cass and her guys were out of the way, I didn’t have to drive carefully. I aimed the truck toward the spot I’d pinned in the map app, stepped on the gas, and drove hell-bent for leather, bumping over rocks and vegetation along the way.
When I got to the top of the rise overlooking the fairy mound that Kellen was using to move to the Winter Court, I turned the truck around. From here, it looked like Cass and her boys had taken out a lot of fairies, but a lot of the werewolves were still moving—incapacitated, not killed.
I guess it isn’t really their fault that they’ve been fighting on the fairies’ side.
Fine. I wouldn’t hurt them as long as they stayed out of my way. And if I could, I’d find a way to keep Kellan from using them again.
I might not mention that part the next time I saw my father. He’d be horrified.
With an irrepressible grin, I put the truck in reverse and began backing it down th
e hill, directly toward the fairy mound. Several of the few remaining fairies ran up behind me, waving their arms as if to tell me to stop.
Yeah, right.
I floored it.
The rear end of the truck slammed into the small cave-like opening at the front of the mound, jarring me in my seat. Still grinning maniacally, I began working the controls to tip the bed of the truck. It had been a long time since I’d driven anything like this, but I hadn’t forgotten any of it.
As the rebar began to slide out of the tilted bed with a loud scape and a whine, I laughed aloud. Then I stopped the tilt, moved forward a little, and began again. More rebar tipped out of the bed, this time slamming into the fairy mound, filling the entry.
All around the truck, fairies dropped to the ground, overcome by their proximity to iron.
Grabbing the chains I’d found in the woods, I slid out of the driver’s seat. Wolf followed me, and the two of us stalked around to the back of the truck, where several fairies had collapsed near the mound.
Briefly, I wondered how many had been trapped inside—and if the Winter Court was cut off now. “Serves them right if they can’t get back,” I said to Wolf, who yipped in agreement.
Still, I couldn’t see the one fairy I wanted to grab. I moved through the prone shapes, nudging several of them with the toe of my boot to check their faces.
And then I heard the laughter behind me, as chilly as the expression on his face when I spun, grabbing one of the shorter rebar spikes on my way around. He held a silver knife in his hand, and we squared off against each other.
“You really think iron would incapacitate a king? Especially one as strong as I am?” He spat on the ground beside him, and Wolf sniffed the air. Blood. I could smell it, too. I didn’t know what that meant, but I didn’t question it.
“I think you’re worse off than you’re admitting,” I said, trying to circle around him.
He shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. If I die here, the Winter Court will come pouring through every opening into your world and wreak havoc like nothing humankind has ever seen.”
“And if you live?” I worked to keep my tone light and even, but the image he’d invoked of fairies pouring out to kill us shook me.
His voice dropped to a low caress. “If I live, I’ll make sure you and your cousin and all your pets”—he threw a sneer at Wolf—“pay for what you’ve done here tonight.”
Part of me wanted to shiver, to let his words shake me.
But I wasn’t afraid of fairies. Iron didn’t faze me. Even the silver he held in his hand wasn’t enough to intimidate me. And I had seen much worse than this Frozen reject.
I had seen Gracie die.
As long as Cass was safe and away from here, nothing he could do worried me. “Hey Frosty,” I said, shifting my grip on the rebar. “You need to chill out.”
And then I threw the bar. It didn’t impale him, though. I hadn’t planned for it to. While he was focused on deflecting it, I moved in and dropped a loop of the chains over his head and around him. Then Wolf grabbed one side in his strong jaws and together, we wrapped up the Winter King.
He didn’t struggle long. Especially once we’d pushed and pulled him into the bed of the truck and piled rebar up over him. Several of the werewolves, now out of his magical grip, helped us. Including the one who could have been Wolf’s twin.
“You going to give me any hint about that?” I asked Wolf, tilting my chin at the other wolf. He shook his head without meeting my eye. I sighed. “Just because I’m dropping it now doesn’t mean I won’t come back to this,” I said.
Despite Wolf’s unwillingness to give me any info, I half-expected the werewolf pack’s leader to shift to human form and speak to me, but he didn’t. None of the wolves spoke—not even those in human form.
In silence, Wolf and I climbed into the cab and headed back to the parking lot to meet up with Cass and her fairy princes.
I just hoped they could stand to drive home in the van with Kellan chained up in the back.
17
Cassidy
Orin, Avery, Drake, and I stood at the far corner of the parking garage as we watched Kellan stirring beneath his chains. He was still unconscious, still out of it, but he was fighting the iron, even while he was chained up.
He was fucking powerful if he was able to do this. Even thirty feet away, the noxious fumes from the iron were giving me a headache. I felt sick to my stomach this close to it, and I didn’t know how my boyfriends could stand it.
Standing closer to the Winter King, Blaize glanced at us, apology in her expression. “Want me to try waking him up?”
Oh, how I wished that I didn’t have my iron allergy. I’d be able to get closer to Kellan and deal with him myself.
As it was, I had to be so far back, there was no way I’d be able to strike fear in him. It was infuriating.
Thank you ancestors for allowing the demon to give me such a shitty curse.
“Sure,” I said. “Give him a good slap for me.”
Blaize strode up to Kellan, who twitched in his sleep. She followed my suggestion and slapped him. Punched him, more like, her hand in a fist as it connected with his cheek.
Blaize always could throw a good punch. I rubbed my jaw in memory.
Kellan coughed up a mouthful of blood and spat it onto the floor. He took in a shuddering breath before painfully turning his gaze back toward us. He sneered up at Blaize, then looked at the four of us.
“Oh,” he said, his voice hoarse. “The lovers have reunited.”
“Don’t forget about us, shithead,” Blaize growled and punched him again. I’d be lying if I didn’t feel satisfaction at the crunch of something breaking, like his nose. “I’ve been up for nearly forty-eight hours because of you.”
Like that was the worst crime he’s committed this whole time.
I suppressed a grin. Still the same old Blaize.
“Let me take care of this,” Avery told me as he stepped forward. I could see his Adam’s apple bob up and down in his neck as he got closer to the iron. After tonight, I would have had enough iron for a lifetime.
Not to be outdone by the Spring Prince, Orin stood right next to him, his eyes locked on Kellan. Drake stayed behind with me, his head resting on my shoulder. He kept his hand locked with mine, a vice-like grip that made my hand cramp. Testament to how awful he felt after being tied up by the iron chains.
“Do you realize what the punishment is for kidnapping a prince of a different court?” Avery asked. “For threatening two other princes? For assaulting their consort? For enslaving another supernatural species?”
“Among other things,” Orin muttered, crossing his arms.
“Not death,” Kellan said with a laugh. It was cut short by Blaize’s fist. She couldn’t seem to get enough of punching him. I didn’t mind.
His head hung for a moment, like he was collecting himself. Finally, he lifted his face up enough to glare at me. “You can’t kill me. I’m the sovereign of the Winter Court.”
“No, we can’t kill you,” Avery conceded.
A slow smile came to Kellan’s lips. “So we’re in agreement.”
To my surprise, Avery strode forward and yanked Kellan’s head back by the hair. The Winter King groaned in pained. Sweat broke out onto Avery’s brow as he stared down Kellan. “But we can take you to someone who may make it very difficult for you to do anything from here on out.”
Kellan’s eyes narrowed, and Avery’s lips pulled up into a sadistic grin, one that I hoped he would never turn on me.
“Drake?” Avery asked. I felt the Autumn Prince jump at his name. “Where’s the closest fairy mound to the Autumn Court from here?”
“Just in Dolores Park,” Drake answered softly.
Avery glanced at Orin and then Drake. “Think you two can help me teleport this motherfucker there? I think your father has some things he’d like to discuss with Kellan.” He gripped Kellan’s white hair tighter and yanked it back even farther.
; “Plus,” Orin added thoughtfully, “I’d hate for Kellan to miss out on the Winter Court’s challenge.”
I held my breath as Drake considered this. Then he nodded. “Gladly,” he answered, his voice sounding stronger.
He summoned his strength and lifted his head from my shoulder. His fingers left mine as he walked over to stand next to Orin, his skin a sickly hue as he approached the iron. He nodded to Orin first, then at Avery.
“Let’s go,” he said, through gritted teeth. “Give him what he deserves.”
Orin and Drake disappeared in the blink of an eye, leaving what I liked to called “fairy dust” in their wake. Avery blew me a kiss before grabbing Kellan’s shoulders. The Winter King had enough in him to yell out in horror just as they teleported, too.
And just like that, it was Blaize, Wolf, and me. Again. Having three boyfriends barely left me with any time by myself, so their absence left me feeling oddly alone.
“Think they’ll be all right?” Blaize asked. She grinned at me. “Without you?”
I nodded. “With the three of them together, they’ll be able to handle themselves. I think,” I added playfully.
With the iron chains gone, I sighed happily, closing my eyes. I felt like I could breathe again.
“What do you think will happen to Kellan?”
I shrugged, thinking about Aelfdane and his fiery temper. I knew he wouldn’t kill the Winter King, but beyond that? “I don’t know,” I said truthfully. “I think once the Autumn King sees what happened to Drake, he’ll flip his lid. Even more so than he will over the play against his lands.”
Blaize leaned against her van, her arms crossed. The gesture came so naturally to her, I guessed she did that often. “Don’t fairies heal quickly?”
“Not from iron.” I shook my head. “It scars pretty badly.” Drake would carry his scars for the rest of his life.
A secretive grin played about Blaize’s face as she watched me. “Have you thought about trying colloidal silver on those wounds? They may help.”
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