The Worth Series: Complete Collection

by Lyra Evans

  Rory and Donna stepped forward, speaking in unison as Connor and Oliver had. They presented themselves on bended knee next to Oli and Connor, their hands wrapped in a thin iron chain adorned with moonstones. They each held one end of the chain, which connected itself by searing magic the moment they touched their hands together. The ends of the chain, one in Donna’s hand, one in Rory’s, bore open links with ember-red tips. They held these to Connor and Oliver’s waists, their cloaks slipping back to reveal their naked stomachs.

  “May the Moon speak now, shine light on these humble lovers, as a sign of the future, of the stream of numberless nights before them,” Donna and Rory said. It was customary to wait a moment, to allow the Moon a chance to respond, to send a sign. Oliver held his breath without knowing it, his eyes on Connor’s face. He focused on Connor’s lips, the quirk at the edge of them, the slight dimpling of his cheek. He held fast to the joy that billowed and flittered in his stomach, knowing that nothing could stand between them, nothing could stop them now.

  “Wait!” a voice called. Oliver faltered, blinking several times, trying not to look. He’d imagined it, hadn’t he? It was his panic flaring again, ruining his life. “Worth! You’ve got to get out of here!”

  But now Oliver heard a murmur from the gathered crowd, and even Rory and Donna turned to look. Oliver watched Connor’s face change, his expression folding up into confusion and concern. They both turned toward the voice together, hands still clasped, as though they were afraid to part.

  Captain Marks, Oliver’s Captain at the precinct in Nimueh’s Court, was running full tilt toward them from the edge of the clearing. She was wide-eyed and panting; Oliver had never seen her look anything but composed before. She stopped just feet from them, her chest heaving, and wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. Short black hair clung to places on her face where the sweat was still slick.

  “Captain Marks?” Oliver said, unable to formulate a more eloquent question. The only one that popped into his mind was what the fuck do you mean I’ve got to get out of here? And he didn’t think it was particularly appropriate to ask that of his commanding officer.

  “Sorry, Worth,” she said, still panting. She nodded at Connor. “Pierce. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t urgent. But you’ve got to get out of here. Both of you. Now.”

  “What? Why?” Connor asked. “We haven’t completed the bonding ceremony—”

  “No time,” she said, looking around the crowd at the faces of the confused and somewhat angry Wolves. She found the Birches sitting toward the front, her eyes lingering on them with their silver hair and pointed ears. “Have to postpone. They’re coming. Now. To arrest you.”

  She directed this at Connor, who looked as though he understood as much of what was going on as Oliver did. His pale brows knitted together, his bright blue eyes searching for meaning behind Marks’s words.

  “Arrest him? For what?” Oliver said, tension coiling in his shoulders. Connor was no criminal. “The NCPD has no jurisdiction in Logan’s Court.”

  Marks shook her head. “Not just NCPD. It’s Logan’s Court people too. Some of the other Alphas. I don’t know everyone, but they’re coming, Worth. They’re going to arrest him for murder.”

  As though struck by a spell direct to the chest, Oliver struggled to breathe. His mind blanked, stuttered, as though unable to process the information.

  “What? That’s ridiculous,” Connor said, half-laughing. “Who do they think I killed?”

  Marks’s face grew somber, ashen, and Oliver dropped his hands, fingers unlacing with Connor’s.

  “Logan.”

  Chapter 2

  There was a flurry of movement. The pack was standing, more Wolves than Oliver could count, all rounding on Captain Marks. Fury and indignation shone clearly from their eyes, the low rumbling sound so close to growling Oliver nearly forgot they were in their most Human form tonight. Marks didn’t flinch, didn’t shift at all in her resolve that Oliver and Connor should go. Her face was a mask of determination and impressed urgency. But Oliver was frozen.

  “Logan?” he said. “Logan is dead?”

  Connor looked as though he’d been replaced by a statue of himself. All stone-faced and brutal motionlessness, he never pulled his gaze from Marks. Logan was his cousin, his kin, and his Alpha. And they really believed Connor had murdered him?

  “Where?” Connor asked, after a long pause. The word was pushed out his mouth like a boulder uphill. It scraped at Oliver’s ears, not pleasant or pretty.

  “Just on the other side of the border, in Nimueh’s Court,” Marks said. “But there’s no time for that now. You’ve got to go, or they’ll arrest you and you’ll never see each other again.” Marks looked over her shoulder, as though she expected the police and other Alphas to be there already.

  The Wolves of the pack moved independently from one another, growling more openly now, each sniffing at the air and quirking their heads in one direction or another. Hampered by their Human forms, their senses weren’t as keen as they usually were. But Werewolf senses were still miles ahead of Human ones, even like this.

  “I hear footsteps,” Donna said, her voice a low rasp. “They’re not far. A large group. Twenty, maybe thirty. And there are Wizards among them.”

  “We will protect our Alpha,” a Wolf named Rance said, raising his fist in a vow. “We will defend his honour against these heinous accusations!”

  “We will!” cried more Wolves, and the others seemed to be nodding along. Some were wrought with anger and confusion so great they couldn’t seem to engage with the thread of the conversation. Rory was at Oliver’s side, holding fast to his arm. He hadn’t noticed her press close to him, supporting him without asking, but he appreciated it. It was as though the ground was falling out from under him, or perhaps the sky and ground had flipped, swapping places and purposes. Oliver seemed to be falling endlessly upward into nothing.

  “They can’t honestly think…” Oliver began, looking wide-eyed at Connor. But Connor was still stony, his eyes betraying nothing of his inner-thoughts. Oliver thought he’d learned to read Connor well by now, but looking at his lover—his mate-to-be—now felt like trying to discover a specific snowflake in a storm.

  “Why should you help us?” Connor asked, his tone colder, cutting, and completely unexpected to Oliver. Marks didn’t seem surprised, though, and Oliver tried to reorient himself in this new reality. “If they think I’m the murderer, why don’t you?”

  Marks stared him down fiercely. “Because I know Oliver, and he would never get involved with something like this,” she said. A weight dropped in Oliver’s stomach, clenching awkwardly. He felt ill but held it back. The reality was he had been involved in something like this. He’d been on the verge of bonding with Sky before having his heart broken. And Sky turned out to be a psychotic serial killer. But explaining that to Captain Marks at that moment didn’t seem prudent. And Connor wasn’t like Sky. He couldn’t be. Oliver couldn’t have fallen for that kind of monster a second time. Could he?

  I might challenge Logan. Or, if he chooses to step down, or falls, Moon forbid, I would step up and take on any challengers.

  Connor’s words echoed in Oliver’s head. But this wasn’t like that. A challenge to Logan would have been laid down in front of the entire pack of Logan’s Court, and the battle would have taken place the same way. Not quietly, shockingly, and on the lands of another Court. Connor would never murder—

  “We don’t have time for you not to trust her,” Rory said quickly. “You need to get out of here now.”

  “But where can we go?” Oliver asked.

  “I won’t run from these accusations. I won’t abandon my pack in its time of loss and n—” Connor began, but Donna cut him off.

  “They’ll find him,” she said shortly. “They’ll find him anywhere in Logan’s Court. They’ll hunt him down in every corner, every cave and wood, even to the peak of Mount Razortooth if they have to.”

  Rory ignored Connor and
considered Donna, thinking fast. Her parents appeared beside her, looking anxious. “We’ll take them into Maeve’s Court.” She glanced at her parents, who nodded after a moment’s shared look.

  Oliver swallowed hard, his bare feet growing cold in the rapidly darkening night. The forest smelled of green wood and moss, of peat and pine and maple. It was a calming place, a sanctuary. But now it was frenzied and full of doubt and danger.

  “How are we supposed to get into Maeve’s Court?” he asked, his gaze falling back to Connor. He searched his lover’s face for an answer, for some kind of explanation for why this was happening. And today of all days. But Connor only looked back inscrutably. So Oliver looked away, to Rory, shrugging in his dulled state. “We can’t really cross over into Nimueh’s Court if they’re hunting for Connor, can we?”

  Nimueh’s Court stood between the Courts of Logan and Maeve. It occupied the largest territory of their shared island, eating up the centre and leaving the North and South to the other two Courts. The divides were established centuries ago, by the first rulers of the Three Courts, and only the border between Nimueh’s Court and Logan’s Court had ever come into dispute. It was the cause of the war that wracked the lands of the Three Courts until a century prior, and it was only resolved by the Treaty to which the leaders of the Courts clung so determinately.

  “We’ll take you the secret way,” Rory said. Oliver nodded.

  “Oh, of course, right,” he said, then shaking his head, he stepped away from all of them and began to pace. He wanted so badly to return to only moments ago, when he held Connor’s hands in his own, arms pressed together as they were about to be bonded together, heart and soul. The fear of the future had suddenly morphed in his chest, turning instead to a terror that there might not be a future at all.

  “I thought the old passages were closed,” Connor said, and Oliver shot him a look. Old passages?

  “They were,” Lucia, Rory’s mother, said. She stepped forward, a woman of formidable beauty, her once-golden hair turned to silver. She wore it cropped short and tidy. “And they were not. Some were left intact, closed to Werewolves and lost Wizards, but a Fae with the right power and knowledge can still operate them.”

  “Perfect, get going,” Marks said. “I’m going to have to run too and circle back to them. They can’t know I’ve warned you.”

  “I’ll go with Connor and Oliver,” Donna said. “I can help defend against any we might pass along the way between the two Courts.”

  “No,” Connor said gruffly. “You must stay here. Stay and stand in my place, as my second. If we both leave, the other Alphas will consider my position vacated and brand you a traitor. I cannot allow that.”

  Donna held his gaze, steely eyed and frustrated. “I must help you clear your name,” she said, and he nodded.

  “You will,” he said. “By staying here. It’s where I need you.”

  “We will always stay loyal to our Alpha!” another Wolf, Isadora, cried out. There was a call of assent from the crowd, and Connor bowed his head to them, but his mouth remained a thin, pressed line.

  “You must go now,” Donna said tightly, glancing back toward the wood. “And someone must take care of your scent. Otherwise they will follow you through no matter where you go.”

  “I’ll do it,” Rory said.

  “We all will,” Elior Birch, Rory’s father contributed. His grey hair had the vaguest tinge of purple that spread into his closely cropped beard. “Come on,” he said, making for the eastern edge of the clearing.

  “How will I contact you?” Donna asked quickly, and Connor hesitated. Rory ran to her and dropped a handful of green-wrapped candies into her palms.

  “You can use these. Instructions on the inside of the wrapping,” she whispered. “Just don’t let anyone see you.” Donna slipped them into a pocket somewhere on her person. Oliver watched in an uneasy stupor.

  “Wait, so we’re all just leaving?” Oliver asked, finally, holding out his arms as though to halt them in their steps. “But isn’t that more incriminating for Connor? And shouldn’t I stay behind? I can help investigate, make sure they’re being fair. I should be on the case. I’m the best qualified—”

  “Of course you can’t stay,” Marks said. “There’s no way they’ll believe anything you say, Worth. No way they’ll believe you weren’t involved if they think Pierce is the murderer. They’ll probably just arrest you too and turn everything you say against him. The only way you can investigate this is if you’re as far away from the NCPD as possible.” The ground began to rumble beneath them, the pounding footsteps of the oncoming horde of police and Alphas growing ever closer. Heart skipping, Oliver shot a look to the forest, unable to see through the trees to the faces of those coming for them.

  Rory and her parents were already by the trees, disappearing past the line of trunks and low-hanging branches. Connor grabbed Oliver’s hand and squeezed, nodding once to him. “Oliver,” he said, urgency clear in his voice.

  And Oliver ran. Despite himself and his every misgiving, he ran. He followed Connor and Rory and the Birches through the woods and away from the clearing at the foot of Mount Razortooth. He followed them toward the secret passage to Maeve’s Court and tried his best not to think of it as running away from his bonding ceremony. He tried very hard not to think about any of it at all. Only the pounding of his heart and the air cutting through his lungs kept him focused on the path ahead.

  So much for the path to Destiny.

  Chapter 3

  They ran along a path only the Birches could see, turning abruptly and rounding trees and crags Oliver hardly thought made any difference to the route. As far as he could tell, they were moving northeast, skirting the base of the mountain and vaguely following the stream of a narrow river. After about fifteen minutes of running, Captain Marks slowed, barely panting at all though she was twice Oliver’s age and rarely worked in the field.

  “I should turn back here. Try to catch them around a different angle,” she said. Rory nodded and held out her hand.

  “You should take these too,” she said, handing her some more of the little green candies. “And I’ll clear your sense trail behind you, in case someone gets a bit too nosy.” She wriggled her nose, and Captain Marks took the candies and nodded.

  “I’ll keep you in the loop as much as I can,” she said. “Merlin help you both.”

  It took only a moment for her to disappear in the underbrush of the forest. This part of the wood was denser than anywhere else, the trees holding tighter together. The darkness of the night was compounded by the thick canopy of foliage above them, but Oliver’s slightly glowing cloak and the Birches’ glowing jewellery helped light the way. Oliver had never seen Fae jewellery in full darkness before. It emitted a faint, greenish light that lent the forest an ethereal feel.

  Rory stood at the point where Captain Marks’s path diverged and offered an open hand to the night. With the other hand, she plucked carefully at the air before her, drawing back a thin, nearly invisible veil of magic. As she pulled, it lifted off the ground ahead and behind, like a film off cream left out too long. Then, with a rustle of magic Oliver felt pass over him in a gentle wave, Captain Marks’s sense trail was gone. Oliver glanced at Connor, who sniffed at the air a few times.

  “I can’t find a trace of her,” he said, and they continued on their path.

  They continued to run, though not quite at the breakneck speed of before, until they reached a short, thin waterfall tumbling over a cliff near the mountain. The water curtained a darkened space behind, a small cave in the stone. They stopped at the water, standing only a few inches deep into the river. Oliver felt the water rush over his feet, cold and clear and crisp. He shivered roughly, pulling the thin cloak tightly around his bare chest. The night was cloudless and cool, even this deep in the forest, even in the beginning of summer. Rory and both her parents stopped there, holding out their hands like Rory did for Captain Marks. In unison, they drew back on the veils of sense left on the
world, removing the mark each living thing leaves behind. Oliver wasn’t sure what it was they were exchanging for this magic, but he hoped it was a debt he could repay.

  “What a face,” Rory said, trying for lightness in a gradually darkening situation. “I just traded the taste of your awful cooking. Can definitely live without tasting your death rolls again.”

  Oliver pulled a face. “They’re called spring rolls,” he said.

  “Whatever you say,” she answered, walking toward the waterfall with her parents. “But where I come from, Spring doesn’t taste like stale campfire and wet dog.”

  “I told you, that’s the smoky barbecue flavour,” Oliver muttered, trying not to think about how major the loss of any one taste actually was.

  Rory shrugged and opened her hands to the waterfall. Her parents did the same, the droplets from the stream splattering their clothing. They pressed their palms into the water, flat as though against a wall, and the water began to shimmer softly. An iridescent sheet, like a magical mirror, the water was no longer water. Oliver felt his lips part, unable to shake the awe. He’d seen a lot of impressive magic in his time, but the beauty of the portal was unique. They’d fallen out of use after the Treaty because they were viewed as deceitful. In the spirit of honesty and fairness, everyone travelling between Courts was obligated to pass over the border.

  “Take my hand,” Rory said, offering one to Oliver. Her father offered his hand to Connor, standing on the other end of the line of three. “We have to walk through at exactly the same time, or you won’t make it across. Understand?”

  Oliver nodded, taking her hand and getting into position. The water of the river soaked into his pants, but the waterfall didn’t wet him at all. Instead, a slight coolness played off the surface of it, as though he was standing in front of an open refrigerator. He licked his lips and glanced over at Connor. Face still impassive, Connor held Eriol’s hand, his head high and jaw tight.