by Lucy Lyons
“We need to get going, Nick. I know you don’t like to rush in, but what if it were Caroline and Ro we were going after?” I demanded. “Would we be sitting around talking about the enemies we already know when we should be more concerned with what lies ahead?”
“We’re only waiting for information, Clay. I sent some scouts ahead, not to engage but to look for traffic in the deep tunnels. It will help us move on the correct location without wasting time once we’re down there.”
I thought of the couple of hours we’d wasted rushing into the tunnels below the dojo with the enemy right in our midst. The power the Pooka had given us when it chose to fade away surged through my veins, and the beast inside me demanded justice for the fallen Fae.
“We can’t just save Rae and Ash, Nick. These people,” I spat the word out, “murdered an ancient and peaceful creature. The Pooka haven’t lured travelers to their deaths in a millennium. There was no cause for its death.”
Portia agreed. “Cailleach was peaceful, even when she didn’t have to be. More importantly, the Pooka, the wisp, and the little people are the ones who create wild magic. Murdering them makes every other magic-using creature on the planet weaker.” She threaded her fingers together in front of her on the table. “I don’t believe the halfling exists who can stay alive in the kid of cutthroat society of the High Fae.”
“Right. There’s the Portia I love to hate,” I scoffed. She turned to face me before she continued.
“I may not think the halflings should be playing against the High Fae, but I know how important the wild magic is to all of us. I don’t want to watch any more of our people fade if they don’t have to.”
I bit off my retort and glanced at Dirk again. “How long until you have the information you need, Nick? If we can’t go into the tunnels yet, I want to talk to Haley. She was so sweet, and I didn’t taste deceit when she talked about being excited for the baby . . .” I glanced at Dirk, who nodded.
“Whatever they have planned, Haley figured she got to keep the baby,” Dirk growled. “Which means for the moment, only Ashlynn is in danger.” He placed his palms on the table and stood, leaning over the table so his face was closer to Nick’s. “If she dies because you stalled, you will have eliminated a minor thorn in your side and earned yourself the enmity of our pack for the rest of your life, however short that may be.” Nick pushed back from the table and hissed at the wolf, baring his fangs, and Dirk’s fingers began to lengthen and thin into claws.
“Well, that escalated quickly,” Portia quipped as she stepped away from the table and backed toward the door.
“Dirk.”
He didn’t respond, but as soon as I said his name, it was enough. Maria controlled the Fae because she had all the political power and backed it up with magical power. Nick didn’t control the vampires. They followed him because he increased their power base and if he stopped giving them what they needed, they could simply leave.
I was the alpha of what was becoming the most powerful wolf pack in the country. I didn’t have to control my wolves. Their blood oaths were made in loyalty to me, to our bond, to the magical and physical power I’d proven in battle. But when I said his name, Dirk felt the pull of my power as much as he felt the bond we’d made when each of the wolves had exchanged blood with me. If I had been unworthy, any of them could control me, force me to my knees or kill me without touching me. But I was the rightful alpha, and when I focused on him, he was no longer in control of his body. I forced him to stay still as I felt this mind racing, and I let him into the calm of my thoughts until his rage subsided and his muscles relaxed.
“Dirk, I think we need to go back to the dojo before the sun sets. All magic seems to feed off either night or day. I’m not taking any chances that these assholes will get weaker after nightfall, and we’re almost there already.”
Nick raised his chin and breathed deeply before agreeing. “Sunset is close. I think you wolves feel the night every bit as strong as we feel an imminent sunrise.”
“Dirk wasn’t wrong, Nick. Ash can be a pain in the ass, and no one knows that better than I do. But if we find out this stalling is just a convenient way to rid yourself of the woman I . . .” I took a breath and continued, “my mate, I will burn your world down around you.”
“I am not . . . stalling, my friend, or at least I am not delaying the search. I was merely trying to keep you and your soldier out of it until you had a path of success to follow. Though, there were some who did suggest that the former alpha was a thorn in your side more than any other.”
His words seared guilty pain into my chest, and I reeled toward the door, silently calling for Ashlynn as I leaned against the wall outside. Ash. God, Ash, please answer. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t listen. I’m sorry I didn’t act sooner, more decisively. Like you said, being the alpha isn’t all first kill and first beer. Please just answer so I know you’re alive . . .
“Clay, you OK? Did you feel something happen to Ash or Rae?” Caroline was at my side the moment I felt like the world was caving in. Because she was family. I would never have hurt Nick because it would’ve killed her, and it was dangerous and stupid for me to threaten him.
“Ash is in the most danger, Caroline. People can’t be treating her like she’s collateral damage in this.”
“Of course not, Clay. Nick told me to come get you and take you to the dojo if you weren’t well. He’s worried about you. It pleases him that you’re so sick about your woman, but he hates that you’re in the position to be.”
“This is my fault, Caroline. I’ve let her behavior dictate my loyalty to her, and the pack, the vampires—they all followed my lead. How sick is that?”
Caroline paused, a thoughtful look on her face, and I knew she was choosing her words carefully. “Ashlynn can come across as self-absorbed, brash, even confrontational. I don’t think you are responsible for the impressions she makes in her interactions with others.”
“Do you remember her from her fighting days?” Dirk interjected, and Caroline nodded.
“A little. Hunters don’t have much use for people who play fight for entertainment,” she admitted.
“I do. She was almost impossibly beautiful, which set her apart from other fighters. She was tough, and yeah, she was brash. But what only the pack knows is that behind the scenes she’s always been a victim, of agents, of male fighters, of coaches, then of Gregor and his psycho wife . . .” I sighed. “Since when do we stop being loyal to someone because they’re a pain in the ass?” The air shifted, and Caroline laughed aloud before calling out to the person who had heard us speaking.
“Not talking about you this time, Dominique. But we could use some magic to search underground, and you’ve been mastering that lately.” I felt her words as well as heard them, and I knew Caroline only spoke aloud for Dirk’s sake. Dominique was thousands of miles away with her mistress, the healing queen of the vampires.
Why not your zombies, necromancer? Came the soft, distant reply, and I chuckled again at the fact that Dom hadn’t even tried to deny she’d been spying on us.
“Not with the baby so young. No magic until we know how it changes my body, what might affect her,” Caroline projected and spoke again, and I shook my head to clear the echo it created, like hearing yourself on a telephone and the radio at the same time. “Also, not sure how we’d handle it if she started raising zombies because she felt me do it and worked it out in her brilliant baby mind,” she muttered. Dirk’s eyes went wide, and he pressed a hand to his stomach.
“I didn’t need that thought in my head right now,” he gasped. “Could the baby be changed by magic while she’s inside Rae?” he asked. He and his wife had been fiercely secretive of the baby’s sex, and I felt his pain even more, knowing that the creature he was worried about was his daughter. To us, the baby had been somewhat hypothetical, but knowing that three of our most valuable females were held captive made the need to protect that much stronger.
CHAPTER NINE
&n
bsp; Dirk and I slipped out, avoiding the crush at the armory where the wolves who weren’t strong enough to shapeshift as easily or retain a mostly human form were given guns and silver blades to augment their natural defenses. Caroline promised to keep contact with Dominique and continue trying to finagle help from her without owing her anything in return.
“Keep her curious, and make sure she knows that humans who wield powerful magic you’ve never seen are involved, and she’ll be scouring the city with those mirrors of her before you know it,” Dirk drawled. We still weren’t sure she hadn’t set one of the dangerous vampires free from his prison cell, allowing him to attack Caroline while she was still pregnant.
Knowing Dom meant accepting that her loyalty was to herself and her intrigues. It was possible there was a time, centuries before we met her, that Dominique di Borgia was loyal, honest, and trustworthy. If she ever had been, those days were dead and buried with hundreds of her family’s political enemies and anyone else who had stood in her way.
Loyalty was the reason we were going back to the dojo. I wanted to look into her eyes and see for myself what kind of madness drove her to lead us on a wild goose chase under the city, knowing there was no way we wouldn’t have caught on to her eventually. Obviously, the creatures involved had control of her, but was it as unyielding as the loyalty I had from my wolves, or could we get her to see reason?
Dirk pointed at the horizon as soon as we exited the club. The peach and pale green of the clouds and gold of the sun, hanging low in the sky over the water. Without a word, we both quickened the pace, making it the couple of blocks back to the warehouse that Maria had chosen for her Fae Switzerland. To my experience, it hadn’t been very neutral up to that point, but I figured Dirk would agree that we were providing Maria the perfect opportunity to remedy the Fae’s apparent reticence to learn how to play well with others.
Dirk pushed ahead of me and threw open the double doors without breaking his step. I threw up a hand to cover my eyes as the protective runes etched into the steel flashed to life and burned then rushed through to check on him. He was crumpled on his face on the floor, his butt in the air and his arms thrown over his head in a protective gesture.
I hauled him to his feet and tried not to laugh at his shocked, wide-eyed expression. Dusting him off, I cleared my throat and asked him how he was doing.
“What the hell was that, man? They trying to kill us just for coming in?”
“The Fae aren’t as . . . welcoming as the halflings, Dirk. You’ve only seen them when they wanted you around. They don’t want us here anymore. Honestly, I’m a little surprised you’re conscious,” I admitted.
“I’m surprised he’s alive,” Maria drawled from the top of the staircase that led to her office. “You wolves are more powerful than you’ve led me to believe, Clay.”
“I think if any of our other wolves had pushed their way through those doors, they’d have been knocked out,” I assured her. “But the sun is going down, and the moon is already calling to us. We’re not so easy to kill as the Fae seem to think.”
“But Granny Cailleach,” Dirk added. “She knew what she was doing. She wanted her great-great-grandchildren to be Fae again. Not halflings but recognized as Fae.” I nodded in agreement.
“We’ll share our new magic in the wild hunt. It will be closer to the old ways than ever before, and the whole pack must be there,” I said softly. “Master Shedu, Maria, can we please speak with Haley? We just want to ask some questions—see if maybe she’ll help us instead of whomever she’s been working for.”
“We’ve had no luck making her speak at all,” Maria muttered. “We won’t let you damage her, but you can question her. She’s in the medical center.”
Damage her? Dirk mouthed. I cringed and nodded.
Frankly? It means we can hurt her, cause her pain, but not cause the kind of damage Maria already had to heal today. They can die—it’s just more difficult to kill them. Dirk didn’t react outwardly to the telepathic conversation, but I felt his anxiety ramp up as the smells of medicine and disinfectant, the calling card of all hospitals, filled our nostrils.
I motioned him through the swinging doors after he hesitated and gave me a sideways look.
“Go on, you dumbass. You did the last one to yourself, barging in on people you don’t know like a fool.” He snorted then hesitated just a moment longer before gingerly stepping into the Fae medical center at the back of warehouse.
On the other side of the swinging partition was a woman behind a desk, quietly reading a paperback novel. Her hair was silver the way that minnows are silver under the water, and with even the slightest movement of her head, her hair flashed and glimmered. She glanced up from her book, and I flinched as I gazed into her black eyes.
They weren’t dark brown that was close to black but utterly black as though her pupils had swallowed the rest of her eyes, including the whites. She blinked, and I caught myself mimicking her. I shook my head and looked away before stepping up to the desk and clearing my throat.
“I’m sorry for staring, doctor...?” I let my voice trail off and then tried again. “We’re here to question the halfling, Haley? She might be able to help us locate someone.”
“The others already took her. I’m sorry,” the little woman replied in a lilting accent. “I wasn’t expecting anyone else or I would’ve asked where they were taking her.” I felt a blast of hot, lupine rage, and I threw myself forward, bracing against the desk between Dirk and the doctor in case he attacked. When I still hadn’t felt his claws in my back after a couple of seconds, I carefully pivoted so that I was still blocking her from his view but could face him.
“Your Master Shedu knew she was gone before we even came back here!” he fumed.
“That might be true. But the doctor,” I glanced down at her then held up a hand for him to hold on. “Are you the doctor who treated Haley?” The little lady laughed, and it sounded like tiny bells. Before I realized it, I was laughing along, even though I hadn’t said anything humorous. “Stop,” I demanded, and she dropped the glamour she’d built up in the room around us.
“What was she trying to do?” Dirk demanded, pacing in front of the exit like his beast was ready to explode from him in a ball of fur and murderous rage.
“She was trying to make sure we don’t kill her, Dirk,” I sighed. “I’m sorry, doctor. What’s your name?”
“You can call me Moira. Clay, we don’t really have titles back here because no one here really has a medical license, so to speak.” She smiled at me, and I was struck by the absolute alien nature of those eyes in an otherwise lovely face. “My eyes aren’t strange to everyone, you know. Just people like you,” she interrupted my thoughts, and I realized it was because I was staring again, not because she’d read my thoughts.
“Sorry. I’m still barely beginning to understand the Fae. I’m not trying to be rude,” I apologized, and she smiled and reached across the white laminate counter to pat my hand.
“Don’t you worry, big dog,” she giggled. “It’s just nice to finally have you notice us little people.” I opened my mouth to speak then thought better of it.
“Are you the first lesser Fae I’ve seen?” I asked. “I had no idea. I thought it was rude to ask.” She laughed that tinkling cascade of bells again and came around the desk to hold my hand. Once we were connected, I felt the warm bright spot of magic that the Pooka had given me recognize the magic in Moira, and the air became too thick to breathe. I was surrounded by the smell of honey, and for a moment thought I might drown in some magical form of the golden liquid until Dirk broke the connection between us with a growl.
“Master wolf, I’m trying to help you find your missing packmates,” she huffed and took my hand again. Then she held out her other hand to Dirk. “Instead of doubting first, let us help you. That’s what the little people do. We’re not like those stuffy High Fae.”
Dirk gave her his hand with a warning look, and his lip curled up to show his teeth. Moira
closed those large, alien eyes, and we watched her as she mumbled in a language I didn’t quite understand, as though it were the next-door neighbor to my native tongue but I was missing some vital rule that would make her words clear.
She dropped our hands, and Dirk staggered back like he were drunk. I hadn’t felt anything the second time she’d worked her mojo, but apparently he’d been hit hard.
“I’m sorry, Alpha. All I saw was darkness and . . . and books. The creatures that have your wolves aren’t Fae, but they’ve studied and know Fae magic. Like your people do.” She paused, and her delicate silver eyebrows scrunched together as she thought.
“You have wild magic again. I felt it in you. It’s good to feel new magic blooming in the world after so long. Protect it or the High Fae will use you up and leave you fading by the side of the road.” It was too close to what had happened to the Pooka for comfort, and I rubbed the goose bumps that rose on my arms.
Dirk had recovered, and I asked him to relay what Moira had said to the others at the club to help narrow their search. “Moira, I don’t know Fae etiquette, so I’m going to just risk offense and ask—what are you?”
She arched her eyebrows at me then giggled again as she replied, “I’m a naiad, Alpha. I’m a shapeshifter, like you,” she stammered and flushed. “Well, not like you, of course, but I can be as small as a mouse, if need be. We are the wisps of the Highland Moors . . . or at least we used to be.”
I started and glanced at Dirk, whose eyes had gone wide as she talked. “A wisp is a person?” I asked. “Portia conjured a wisp, but it . . . it sniffed out while we were underground.” Bile rose in my mouth, and I cleared my throat as her head drooped and she stared at the floor. “Did Portia enslave one of your people? Did we watch one of the little people die and do nothing?”