“Yes.” His arm disappeared up to the elbow. “The first time is always the hardest, and it’s best to make your request clear.”
“I would like to see the viewing platform,” I told the tree, feeling ten kinds of stupid. “Can you guide me to the lakeshore?”
The firm scratch of bark under my palm cooled into silky, liquid elasticity, and my fingertips plunged inward until they disappeared up to the first knuckle.
“That’s a yes,” Arno said, in case I hadn’t figured it out yet.
“How do we get back?” I withdrew a little then pushed deeper. “Does it work the same way?”
“Yes.” He shrugged. “More or less. When they’re feeling generous.”
“Oh good.” I managed a scowl. “Glad we cleared that up.”
“You lead this dance, yeah?” He took my hand and then grasped Isaac by the wrist. “Pull us through.”
Sucking in a breath, I did just that. I walked right into the tree, holding that one arm out in front of me like a shield in case I hit solid matter on the other side.
“Daughter of the forest, we welcome you,” the somber voice whispered through my mind, stirring an ache at the absence of the pack bond. “Your mate and friend are also well-met.”
That this tree recognized Isaac as mine proved they had some type of communications network in place. Knowing that made me wish I’d kept my big mouth shut. The less any one faction knew about my mate, the better, and that included, well, trees.
“I appreciate your hospitality.” I echoed the sentiment I’d used the last time.
“We are pleased to be of service.” The glide of our passage slowed to a splintery halt. “You have agreed to our terms?”
“I will carry your seeds and plant them when conditions are favorable.”
“You have our gratitude then, and our full cooperation.” The magic constricting me eased, and we rocketed through to the other side. “Do not linger overlong. This area is no longer safe.”
“We’ll make this quick,” I promised, and then stumbled onto the sandy shore.
“Dell?” Isaac grasped my hands and searched them for damage before sweeping his gaze over every inch of me. “Are you all right?”
“The trees and I have an understanding,” I assured him, doing my best to check him top to bottom too. “I don’t think we have to worry about hiccups in transportation next time.” I paused to search out Arno. “They’re a collective consciousness, right? I didn’t get that before.”
At the time, I’d been too paralyzed with fear I might end up like one of those insects trapped in amber.
“Each tree has its own identity tied to its physical self,” Arno said, “but yes, for your purposes, they’re a singularity.”
Good deal. Much like the pack’s ability to share information across minds, this was a handy talent too. It would save me time going forward if I didn’t have to bargain for passage with each individual entity.
The earth vibrated under my feet, and I snapped my mouth shut. We stood too far for sound to carry to the dais, but that didn’t mean there weren’t eyes and ears at ground level.
Arno pointed toward the east, and I nodded. I had a good scent memory, but the rift site was polluted thanks to all the fae who had crossed over, and the surge had charred a ring where the old wards surrounding the lake had once stood. Those must have been the first to fall. Enzo would have concentrated his efforts around the camp and surrendered this to Rilla’s forces after the initial blast.
Leaning against the tree, Arno burrowed his rootlike toes into the dirt, anchoring himself in the sandy soil. Maybe he wanted a snack. There couldn’t be much in the way of nutrients, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. Arno claimed magic in the air was choking the trees, souring the roots, so it might be tampering with his digestion too.
Isaac and I left him to cut through what trees remained on the shore. We didn’t have to go far, about a half mile, before the platform Shaw had described came into view. The two of us huddled together and stared up at it, picking out familiar faces and filing them away for later contemplation.
Rook sat front and center on an ornate throne cast in gold that ought to have tipped the precarious balance. Rilla sat at his right, not even with him, and not on the same level, but close. Behind her, Alyona and Tanet, Rilla’s cousins, sat on stools. A few others filled in behind them, but the king kept only one man at his side. Bháin. I would have recognized his pallor anywhere.
Rook and Rilla painted a pretty picture of cooperation between factions, but the illusion was ruined by the even louder statement that Rilla feared him enough to enlist her entourage while he feared her so little, he sat beside her with only his manservant to see to his needs.
That slight would cost him, one way or another. She was too smart not to read into his defiance what I had, and she would make him pay.
“Rilla will want the Stoners brought up to her. Otherwise, she would be too exposed,” I whispered as we examined the dais. Whatever suspended the platform, it was magical in nature. No cords or chains to cut. No obvious means of supporting them. “Plus, that way, everyone can watch the show.”
“She’s got the manpower to get them up there,” he said thoughtfully. “We just need to figure out how we’re going to get them back down.”
In one piece was what he meant.
“Let’s head back.” Standing here made my skin itch. “We need to regroup.”
We bled into the forest and rejoined Arno. The way back was easier, the fastest trip yet, and it booted us out into bedlam.
Chapter 16
Wolves darted past, teeth bared and snarling, launching themselves at trolls who swung wide clubs spiked with metal. Trees splintered and trunks snapped under the impact, and another layer of my vow snicked into place in my head. This had also been an eventuality the trees had foreseen, the senseless destruction of the forests where battles would rage.
Unfamiliar fae skittered, ran and leapt past us, rushing the enemy, forcing them back.
“Careful of the friendlies,” Arno warned as he stepped into a different tree and out of sight.
Isaac watched my back while we oriented ourselves to the fighting.
“We need Stoners,” I said, thinking out loud. “Two at least. More would be better.”
“What about Killer Smile?” Isaac shook his head in understanding. “No time.”
“Time isn’t the issue.” I trailed my fingers down his forearm. “You’re my mate. I want wargs I trust at your back.” I grimaced. “Better than anyone, I understand the dangers of cowboying. Sending you out there will be hard enough. Letting you go without solid backup isn’t happening.”
A glimmer in his eyes told me he found my vehemence amusing. Apparently we both needed to cut the other slack in the overprotective-mate department.
“Do you have a bodyguard in mind?” he teased.
“As a matter of fact, I do.” I braced against the tree we had exited, its magic a frantic hum, and rested my palm on the bark. Leaning in so the tree could hear, not that trees had ears, I asked, “Can you get us to a specific person?” Suction increased on my palm, and I glanced back at Isaac. “I’m guessing that’s a yes.”
We clasped palms, and I fixed a clear picture of the man I wanted to find in my head. The tree plucked out the image, and we stepped through the portal onto a blackened field sizzling with magic-crisped grass and weeds burned to ash. Warg corpses smoked, and the picked-clean bones of fae littered trenches dug by frantic claws in a desperate bid to scratch out an inch of protection against whatever had scorched the earth for miles ahead of us.
The smell brought stinging tears to my eyes. At least, that’s what I told myself as I beheld the cost of holding the line. A sob I blamed on a sooty cough lodged in my throat, but I choked it down before I strangled on my grief. There would be time for mourning later. Right now I needed dry eyes and a clear head.
We made it one step forward when strong hands gripped our shirts and yanked us back in
to a copse of trees that once comprised the forest where the stone house stood. I slammed into a broad chest as Isaac exploded into his wolf form and lunged for the body caging me. A masculine cry rose behind me, and I hit the baked earth hard, my breath exploding from my lungs.
“Peace, man.” The person behind me all but tossed me into Isaac’s open jaws. “It’s me. Grub.”
Grub. One of the Stoners I’d recruited to my construction crew, and just the man I’d come to see. Safe. We were safe. And there were more Stoners gathered behind him, some I had never met, most of them gaping at our sudden appearance.
The rough handling agitated the pain in my body, reminding me it hadn’t been whole all that long ago, and I hissed out a sharp breath. The charred dirt smudged around me started looking comfy, so I collapsed there, content to let Isaac’s wolf stand guard over me.
“You can’t go out there,” Grub pleaded. “It’s not safe. There are creatures burrowed underground. The little bastards spit fire.”
Grasping for a classification was above my paygrade at the moment while my heart galloped and my pulse zinged with desperate hope, so I stuck with “creatures burrowed underground” and left it there. “I need a couple of volunteers,” I panted, rolling onto my back in time for Isaac to shift and help me sit upright. “Who can you spare?”
“Darnel and Angelique are solid.” His gaze flickered between us. “Me too if it helps, boss.”
If I had thought allowing him to volunteer rather than asking him would assuage my guilt, I had been wrong.
“Ask them.” I gripped his forearm. “Ask yourself while you’re at it. This might be it.”
“No offense, boss.” He cracked a grungy smile and threaded through the crowd to locate his candidates. “This is already it.”
Back pressed against our escape route, I scanned the other faces huddled together, all eager for news, all hoping it was good. The longing there almost ripped out my guts. They had seen us arrive and assumed we could leave the same way, and they wanted desperately to believe we were the cavalry when the only ticket I could offer them was right into the hot seat.
“Hold on a little longer.” I put my whole heart behind the words. “I know you’re tired, hungry and scared. I am too. We all are. But things are about to get interesting, and I need you to keep your heads.”
There was nothing more to say. I wasn’t about to make any promises. I doubted I could keep the ones I had already spoken. I wasn’t about to stack more on that pile. Grub’s reappearance saved me from another attempt at a grand speech, thank God. He hauled Darnel, who I recognized as the man I always thought of as Shoe Laces, and a vaguely familiar woman who must be Angelique.
Grub offered me and Isaac each a hand up before gesturing to his sides. “We’re ready to go, boss.”
No doubt, no hesitation, and suddenly my eyes were watering again. “You’re sure?”
“Yep,” Grub said. “Getting tired of waiting, truth be told.”
Shoe Laces stared at—you guessed it—his shoes and grunted a noise of affirmation.
“What he said.” Angelique bumped shoulders with Grub. “It smells like hot ass out here, and only half of that’s all the unwashed bodies. Anywhere’s got to be better than this.”
Before my resolve crumbled, I synced up with the tree, and we clasped forearms. I led them through without incident, and we emerged back on the shore, hidden from the floating dais. Isaac and I regained our bearings the fastest. The others wobbled and bumped into each other, ping-ponging between us until they got steady on their feet.
Once I was certain no one was going to lose their lunch, I huddled them together so our whispered voices wouldn’t carry. “I assume you heard about the Stoners who’ve gone MIA?” Each nodded that they had. “Do you know what they were trying to accomplish?”
“Smiley said if we captured the prince, we could barter for a ceasefire.” Grub grimaced in Isaac’s general direction. “I told him he couldn’t trust the fae. Not in this.”
“He wouldn’t listen.” Angelique picked up the narrative. “He asked us to go with him, and we both said hell no. Each of us knew this might happen when we agreed to serve. Packs across the continent have been waiting for war to erupt. That’s why we’re here. Not only to hold the line for Lorimar, but to protect our people, our homes. The fae won’t stop here. They’ll keep going until there’s no one left to stand against them.”
The girl wasn’t wrong. That was the way most fae operated, and for sure how Rilla saw the world.
“You guys just proved why you’re here.” Smart minds and stubborn loyalty. “We can’t trust Rilla, but we can let her think we do.”
The Stoners stared at me, so expectant I wished I could shift and run until my legs gave out just so I didn’t have to face the consequences of doing the one thing everyone agreed I ought to do more of—delegate. Even if entrusting this task to the best person for the job meant ripping the heart from my chest to do so.
“Isaac is going to play bait.” I hadn’t been certain until the words came out that I could speak them. As it was, they were delivered on the edge of a growl. “He’s going to use his gift to impersonate Tiberius, and you three are going to pretend you captured him.”
“Wait a minute.” Grub held up a hand like that might stop this ball from rolling when my shoulder was already lodged behind it. “The plan we all just agreed was a deathtrap? That’s the one you want to run with?”
“With one notable exception.” Isaac wrapped his arm around my shoulders. “You only have to fake being stupid.”
“We need a distraction,” I told them. “We have to put Rilla down so her forces will scatter long enough for us to move on to phase two. Letting her think she’s about to get exactly what she wants is the only way to accomplish that.”
And we had to trust Rook wouldn’t stab us all in the back when tempted with the prospect of a double crown. His realm and ours.
“All you have to do is get me close,” Isaac assured them. “I can handle the rest.”
I leaned into his heat. My knees buckling helped. But maybe the others hadn’t noticed how their fearless leader trembled at the prospect of her mate playing assassin.
“Yeah.” Angelique nodded. “Okay.”
“Better this than squaring off against those fire-spitting fae.” Grub clapped Shoe Laces on the back. “Plus, we’ll have all that water for cushion if things go sideways.”
I bit my lip when I should have warned them water was not their friend. Stripping away any small measure of comfort they took from their misconception was cruel at this stage. They’d already agreed, and nothing I said would change that. It would only feed into their anxiety until their resolve wavered, and any minor ripple in their confidence might end them…and Isaac.
While the others got their story straight and worked out their group dynamics, I guided Isaac a few careful feet in the opposite direction. As far as privacy went, it wasn’t much, but we made the best of our tiny bubble.
“I don’t want you to do this,” I blurted, my fists curled in his collar. “I don’t want you to go up there without me.”
“She’d recognize you.” He traced a thumb down my cheek. “You can’t shift yet, and even if you could, it would raise suspicions if you were the only one on four legs.” The pad of his finger swept over my bottom lip. “We need her to see what we want her to see, and that’s three desperate wargs with no direct ties to this pack who are willing to sacrifice a prince in order to keep the peace.”
As if peace was an option at this point.
“What do I do?” Around us, bellows rose and magic peppered the air as battles raged all around us. “I can’t sit here and watch. It would drive me crazy.”
“Find my brother.” The soft plea twisted in my chest. “I’m worried, and it will keep you busy if that’s what you need.”
Not watching smacked of cowardice. I ought to behold what my decisions had wrought. Each life involved in this mission was cupped in my hands, and
I was about to let them sift through my fingers. But Isaac and the others needed backup of a caliber I couldn’t provide as well as, say, a giant black crow able to wing four people to safety.
Small comfort, but I was clinging to it with both hands.
“What I need is for you to come back to me.” I let him tip back my head. “I can’t—” I bit off the end of the sentence. I was not my momma. I could survive without a man propping me up but… “I can do this without you,” I said, the words voiced only because he needed to hear them too, “but I don’t want to test the theory. Got me?”
“Always.” His warm lips brushed over mine in a tender caress that brought me rolling up onto my tiptoes to claim his mouth. We broke apart when a voice cleared behind us, and I might have blushed to find Isaac’s hand curving over my ribs, under my breasts, but everyone here had seen me naked plenty. “Stick to the trees.”
“I will.” They were the fastest mode of transportation, and I planned to utilize the heck out of them. “I love you,” I breathed as he crushed me against him in a goodbye hug meant to last when he should have known better. The second his arms fell to his sides, his warmth faded with them, a stark echo of the life I had ahead of me if we didn’t all play our parts to the hilt. “Come. Back. To. Me.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Magic whispered over his skin, and a near-perfect likeness of Tiberius stared back at me. There was something about the face, the expression, that might trip up someone who knew Tibs well, but at a glance, he was the embodiment of the lost Seelie prince. “Good enough?”
I had to wet my throat to get out the words. “You look just like him.”
Until that moment, I hadn’t realized how much control Isaac had exerted over his various forms, twisting the aspects to suit his preference, to maintain the lie that he was normal, average. Most Gemini could borrow one or two aspects, which made sense when I recalled all the other times I’d seen Isaac as a half-man, half-bird. Those other times, he had crafted the likeness using his own torso, his own face while utilizing the alkonost wings and lower body. But I understood now that had been by design, that his gift ran deeper than I had ever imagined.
Over the Moon (Gemini Book 6) Page 15