The Unseelie had tolerated him as their king, but sooner or later, they would notice he had been playing both sides, and their war camp would serve rotisserie rook for dinner.
Hours after we started our mission, we rendezvoused with Cam and Zed back in the wheat field. The brothers Cahill sat with their spines pressed together, watching each other’s backs. Both were leaner than usual, their bodies burning calories with every shift. Their faces were drawn, pale, but their eyes were bright with feral expectation.
All told, we had fifty-three wolves linked by blood and vow. The intensity of the connection left me buzzed, and the high made me confident this would work. Setting eyes on my mate ratcheted up my confidence until I could have sprouted wings and flew had someone asked me to.
The aches and pains in my body dissolved in slow increments. The pack bond was healing me. That simple reaffirmation of its power, the strength of our connection as a whole, gave me dangerous hope we might actually pull this thing off. Not even the reappearance of the king, who sat next to me in thoughtful silence, soured my mood.
We ate and drank, unsure when we’d get the chance to do either again, while we waited on Thierry’s arrival. The swishing stalks and rhythmic footfalls indicated she hadn’t come back empty-handed. Sure enough, the Huntsman strolled forward and cast me a wink. Hounds rushed past him, running in circles, snapping at each other, tails wagging. Dare I say, they were frolicking. I got caught staring at the spectacle.
“They’ve eaten well.” He answered my unasked question. “This is the most fun they’ve had in centuries.”
Thierry appeared next, leading Shaw by their linked fingers. “Gramps has some good news for us.”
The ancient fae beamed down at her and hooked his arm around her shoulder. “Sweet child, I never tire of hearing you call me that.” He dropped a kiss on top of her head before seeking me out again. “This idea of yours has merit. I can’t say it will be enough. After all, it’s only been achieved once before in the history of both our worlds.”
Chewing my bottom lip, I had to admit those were long odds. “But it’s possible?”
“Aye,” he agreed with reluctance. “That it is.”
Cord gazed down at Cam, unable to tear himself away from her, but his words were meant for the Huntsman. “What else can you tell us?”
“The blood sacrifice is largely symbolic,” the Huntsman began, “but it is necessary. The threshold will be keyed to all those whose blood and power mingles. It’s a great burden, and you should choose your allies with care. One person who does not share your vision, your values, can be your undoing.” He stroked his beard. “I have long suspected that was the secondary reason why Macsen created the original threshold without asking for permission or for help. Their boundaries were his to maintain, and the responsibility is lifelong.”
We shared a moment of silence, and I imagined the others experienced the same movie in their head. Each face flashed before my mind’s eye. Trusting Cam was as easy as breathing. Isaac was the beat of my heart. Thierry had risked much to reach this point, and she was ready to gamble everything. But Theo… I wanted to trust him. I might have trusted him. Except for the niggling pressure in the back of my head that had me glancing at Isaac while he stared at his brother.
“Do you trust him?” The question had to be asked. Better it came from me than the others.
“With my life? Yours? Cams? Yes.” He rubbed his jaw. “With the fate of the world…?”
“There’s so much we don’t know about him,” I agreed. “His life, his missions, his connections.”
Theo wasn’t the issue, but the person or persons pulling his strings might one day become a problem. Any concerns we voiced would jeopardize Theo and his secrets, but we couldn’t allow Theo’s involvement to go unchallenged. Rock, meet hard place.
Isaac ruffled his hair. “Theo—”
“Lifelong sounds like a lot of work.” Theo spoke loudly over his brother. “I can’t tell you where I’ll be tomorrow, let alone in six months or a year.”
I very carefully directed the conversation. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying I’ll lend this effort my power, but not my blood.” He checked each of our faces before he continued. “I don’t want a bond to the threshold that will anchor me to Butler. I don’t want the responsibility of maintaining the magic for the rest of my life.” His lips kicked up in a grin. “However long that may be.”
There was just enough of his nature sprinkled throughout his declaration to make it ring true.
“Works for me.” Thierry was the first to absolve him, and with good reason. She recognized the danger of inviting his handlers to have a stake in this threshold through him. “We can make do without your blood.”
Shaw nodded his support, and Isaac and I did the same.
“All right.” Cam agreed into the silence that followed. “If that’s what you want.”
Theo’s relief was obvious when he breathed out, “It is.”
Cord frowned but let the motion pass uncontested.
“You’re all in agreement then?” the Huntsman gave us one last out before plowing forward. “Macsen set the boundary while in Faerie. The suction from the vacuum as the worlds were torn asunder ripped him into this world and sealed him here.”
“That’s why we had tethers,” Thierry mused. “The big, bad Black Dog miscalculated. He was stuck here, and he had to find a means of getting home.”
“Your father never said as much to me—” the Huntsman grinned, “—but I’ll admit I had the same thought.”
“Somewhere along the way,” she continued, “he decided on keeping communications open between realms to monitor the fae who remained here. He went on to anchor several other tethers in Faerie, some on Seelie lands and some on Unseelie lands, to avoid the appearance of favoritism.”
“What happens if our attempt sucks us through to the opposite side?” Theo questioned her. “Do we get the same get-out-of-jail-free card?”
“I have severed many tethers. That’s the easy part.” She nibbled on her bottom lip. “I’ve only anchored the one.”
“And we have no idea where your dad is?” I couldn’t let it go. Part of me kept insisting that while the Black Dog might let us all burn, he wouldn’t do the same to his daughter. “Will he have left Faerie?”
“There’s no way to know, pup.” The Huntsman scratched the tangled knot of his beard. “He and his woman have been missing for some time now.”
Thierry flinched at the reminder, and I cursed my ham-handedness. “I didn’t realize.”
“They were honeymooning.” Thierry leaned against Shaw. “He’ll keep Mom safe. That’s about the only thing I know for sure.”
A honeymoon implied the marriage or mating was recent, but their child was in her early twenties. Considering I still had the taste of foot in my mouth, I wasn’t going to ask her another personal question that would swing her attention back to their absence.
“What about Tiberius?” Theo asked, saving me from myself. “He’s not back yet.”
“He might have returned to Leandra,” Isaac pointed out. “We haven’t exactly made ourselves easy to find.”
“We should check the cave before we get started.” I scuffed my foot. “This might be our last chance to maneuver him into place.” I studied the king, who had gone quiet with his own thoughts. “What about your mother?”
“She gets sealed back in Faerie where she belongs,” he answered without hesitation. “She is a nightmare this world is not yet ready to dream again.”
A shushing sound drew our focus to the darkening edge of the woods. Fabric made that sound when it rubbed together. So did wings.
Every muscle tensed in anticipation of what fresh horror approached.
Insects larger than my head flooded the camp. Giant freaking mosquitos with proboscis longer than my forearm. Their beady eyes matched the night, and their spindly legs dangled from their bulbous bodies. A rainbow sheen glistened over their
thoraxes, almost like oil hitting water, but the sound.
Rook exploded in a whirl of black feathers and fled without a backward glance.
With any luck, he was zipping off to secure his mother and not abandoning us to spare his own hide.
“I’ll hold them off.” The Huntsman issued an order to his hounds in a language I’d never heard, and they attacked with vicious glee. “Find the prince or don’t, but make your move quick.”
The chaos stirred by Rilla and Tiberius clashing over the crown wouldn’t last forever.
“Meet us at the lake,” Shaw barked. “Come prepared to bleed.”
Thierry and Shaw bolted in one direction while Cam and Cord dashed in another. Isaac and I split the difference, cutting a beeline straight for my cave. Theo shifted to a smaller crow and followed in the air. His inky feathers camouflaged him. Isaac could have joined him or chosen another form better suited to blending, but he kept a step behind me. He was smart to conserve his energy for what was to come. Theo should have done the same, but he was playing scout, and I was too grateful to fuss at him over the expenditure.
We jumped the creek that cut through the sharp path rising skyward. Mud sucked at our shoes, and the road wasn’t much more forgiving. Loose pebbles rolled my ankles more than once, and I was halfway to limping when the gaping mouth of the cave zoomed into view. Isaac gripped my upper arm and hauled me up the steepest incline before gesturing his brother ahead. Minutes later, Theo returned and cawed an all clear that urged us into a final sprint.
Leandra rushed out to greet us with a smile that faded with recognition, and the hope drained from her expression. That answered our unspoken question. Tiberius hadn’t returned.
“Where is he?” she demanded.
“We don’t know,” Isaac answered. “We thought he might have circled back here.”
His answer reminded me of the warnings Cam had given me about how well fae can lie while telling the full truth. We had believed he would come here if he was able, but we’d had no idea if that was the case. Hope hadn’t goaded us here. Practicality had. Better to clear this location while we were close than to risk dispatching Rook or another aerial scout after we all met at the lakeshore.
“He fought Rilla,” I told her, because she deserved to know. “We expected him to catch up to us by now.”
The young woman hit her knees. “Why…?” Fury gave her focus, and she turned that laser of hatred toward me. “You did this. You talked him into—”
She wasn’t exactly right, but she wasn’t wrong either. “Rilla demolished the fortress.”
All the color drained from Leandra’s cheeks, and her hand covered her heart as surprise it still beat widened her eyes. “I’d heard the stories about bean-tighe bonding, but I wasn’t sure… Mother never bonded to my father. She couldn’t leave her home. It was too late for her. Even after Tiberius and I bonded, I didn’t believe…”
“His aunt won’t stop until you’re dead or you’re captured, and being taken prisoner would be worse. Trust me. The bond stipulates he lives as long as you do, right? Do you have any idea how much punishment a body can take before it breaks?” A quick shake of her head confirmed Tiberius had protected her better than I ever expected. “You don’t want to find out.” A sob shuddered through her, and I hardened my voice. “He didn’t move against her to save your life. You survived without ever knowing the danger. Don’t take that guilt onto your shoulders. He is a prince, and it’s his job to make the hard choices. This is about more than you or him, it’s about Faerie. Protecting it and giving his people a future.”
The noble core that I admired in him, which made a prince able to see and love a kitchen maid as an equal, had demanded justice. Not just for Leandra, but for his home, his parents. Rilla was a blight in their family tree, and it was time someone severed the limb. All those factors had contributed to his decision, but he had made the choice he could live with best. If Leandra remembered nothing else, I hoped she would cling to that truth.
“Can you take me to him?” The words slipped out, reed-thin and agonized. “To where you last saw him?”
“There are only three things that would have kept him from her,” Isaac told me. “Capture, death or grievous injury.”
“We can work with two out of three.” That left me with one final question. “Do you want to live here or in Faerie?”
“Tiberius can only affect change from within.” The cadence hit me as a recalled phrase instead of a sentiment that rolled off the tongue. But whose recall was the question. “He wants to keep me safe, but he was born to rule. Faerie needs his heart.” Her trembling subsided, and she set her jaw. “And he needs me.”
The wolf urged me to help the girl to her feet, but she rose all on her own. Her legs quivered, but she straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin. This girl had more spunk than I’d realized. Shallow of me to always think of her as the damsel, when she was the one who had risked everything. She had dared to love a boy who would be king, knowing one day he was destined to break her heart and wed another. She had carried her stone from the fortress and hoped like hell it was enough to anchor her in this bold, new world. She had taken in the fae orphans left to run wild, and she had abandoned the home she had made with them, with Tiberius, to seek refuge in my cave.
Leandra was a brave girl. Brave enough to be queen. Strong enough not to let power change her—or him.
“I underestimated you.” I owed her that, and the praise injected her spine with steel. “Get your shoes on. Bring anything that you’ll want to take with you. We don’t have much time.”
Leandra vanished into the cave while Isaac and I gazed out over the ruin of our once-beautiful home.
“Do you know what I see in Leandra?” Isaac stroked his hand down my spine. “A woman unafraid to love the man she wants, even when the world says it’s wrong, even when there’s no way it can end well. That takes courage.” His palm settled on my hip. “She reminds me of someone else I know.”
“Let’s hope she gets her HEA the same as me,” I teased, all the while thinking she and I had more than he’d realized in common. Both our mates had larger roles to play in this war than we did, and there was a special kind of torment in waiting on the sidelines while someone you loved got tackled. “None of us are promised tomorrow.”
Leandra reappeared wearing a different dress, this one gauzy, white and utterly impractical. It was gorgeous, though. It made a statement, even if I wasn’t sure yet what that was. Gladiator-style sandals wrapped her calves, the straps climbing up to her knees. The flyaways that had framed her face were tucked neatly behind her slightly pointed ears, and her cheeks were red, as though she’d scrubbed them with course fabric. Drying her tears was my bet.
“I’m ready.” She joined us with nothing in her hands. “Let’s find Tiberius.”
“Wait,” I called out when she started down the incline. “I know a shortcut.”
One by one, I consulted the trees until I found one willing to speak with me, and I asked it to bring us to the lake.
Chapter 20
The tree we exited was a different one than both of those I’d used up to this point. I wasn’t sure if I was being shuffled because the other trees no longer existed, or if the collective was honing its precision with each trip.
This time I didn’t have to cast around to find our comrades. Thierry and Shaw huddled together, heads bowed, shoulders brushing. Cam and Cord embraced, swaying in the sand, almost slow dancing to music no one else could hear. All four of them glanced up when we stumbled out to join them.
“Have you any news of Tiberius?” Leandra demanded.
“None,” Thierry answered. “The platform is empty. The aerial support has also left the area. We’re alone here.”
Face crumpling, Leandra drifted to stand beside a tree with her chin angled away from us. The move did nothing to stop us from scenting her tears or her misery, but it offered the illusion of privacy when she needed a moment to gather her strength, a
nd we all looked away as she rebuilt her walls.
“What about the Morrigan?” I searched for Rook but found him absent. “We can’t risk leaving her on the wrong side.”
“We don’t have a choice,” Shaw grunted. “This ritual will require time. We can’t spare worry for where the Morrigan has gone. Rook will either square her away or he won’t.” He kissed his mate’s forehead. “Thierry knows how to handle that old bat if her son can’t. Or won’t.”
“You make it sound so easy.” Thierry chuckled. “She won’t fall for that nasty little trick twice.”
No, she wouldn’t let them capture her in an aer póca a second time. That much was certain.
“We can’t wait on Tiberius either. Or Rilla.” Theo wore a more serious expression than I’d ever seen on him. “This is the calm before the storm. We can’t afford not to make use of it.”
“He’s right,” Cam agreed. “We pulled the pack in tight. Wolves are circling the area to keep us safe long enough to get this done. The longer we wait, the more lives we risk.”
“There’s a slim chance that if this works I can do what my father did,” Thierry added. “He created tethers to help balance this world, and I can do the same. Not on the same scale, or with the same rules, but there are bound to be some monsters here we want tossed back where they came from.”
A silent knowing swept around our small gathering, a ticking down of an invisible clock.
We all felt when it chimed.
Thierry climbed onto a flat rock overlooking the lake. Shaw positioned himself on the ground a yard behind her. Isaac climbed up next to her on her right, and Cam joined him. Theo stood on their right. At first I thought they were sandwiching the two weaker links in the middle to protect them, but the pack bond responded best and strongest to proximity. The closer they stood, the more they could draw from each other and from the pack. Suddenly, I got it. That was why Cam had ordered the pack to stick close while the Bloodless army was left to hold the line. The nearer the pack, the stronger the connection, the more freely the power flowed.
Over the Moon (Gemini Book 6) Page 19