by WB McKay
"This will be necessary for the wolves to act as spokespeople for their kind," she said.
The crowd broke out in conversation. Lana took her seat and watched them. It was hard to tell where the group consensus was going at first; there was too much talking to follow it all. As it eventually died down, it was easy to hear things like, "They brought us here for this?" and "What's the big deal?" and most common of all, "They're just wolves."
I don't know why I cared so much. I wasn't a wolf. I didn't have friends who were wolves. But when I looked at the room full of fae who didn't care, I could just as easily imagine them saying, "They're just banshees." No one had much love for my sisters but me.
No one asked how the exposure happened. Why was the video out there in the first place? How did all of this come to pass? No one cared.
But I cared, and for the first time since I'd been sent home and told the case was over, I had a break from feeling sad and regretful. I was pissed. The worst of the thieves, the ultimate baddie--the supervillain--was going to get away with it. I had a hunch the entire situation had been designed. What if this was the outcome they'd wanted all along? I'd always written off the idea of exposure--like so many in the crowd had said, it was a myth--but many believed in it. This was the beginning. The wolves were out, and if anyone thought it would end there, they were kidding themselves. The supervillain had orchestrated the whole damn thing. They put the idea in the witches' heads to hire the elves to steal the scepter. They'd offered money to help pay the elves off, and offered up a charm to make sure the job got done right. The supervillain had insulated themselves with two layers of criminals to keep from getting caught. They had chased down the elves and accidentally terrified them into trying to give the thing back--a move I doubt even the cleverest supervillain could have seen coming--and once the whole thing was falling out of their hands and into mine, they'd stepped in.
They had done all that, and they were getting away with it. The fae council wasn't just letting it happen, they were helping. Of course a powerful dragon like Lana Kinney had nothing to fear from exposure. The other nine members of the council were equally safe. The lot of them took for granted that they were the most powerful people around. They never paused to consider a human could be a threat. I wondered when the last time any of them had ventured out into Earth was.
I turned to Hammond to rant about what was happening, but he'd turned his back to me so he could mingle with people as they exited the hall. It was time to leave. I didn't know where to go.
My phone rang. I might not have answered it if it was anyone else.
"Ava!" Relief flooded through me. We hadn't spoken since she'd yelled at me for treating her like a victim. "Hey."
"Are you okay?" she asked.
I looked around the room and then ducked my head. "I am so not okay."
"Me either."
It wasn't a happy statement, but it got a little smile out of me. It was the first time she'd admitted she wasn't doing well since she'd been locked away in a pixie pocket.
"I missed you," I said.
"You should come for a visit," she said.
"Tomorrow?" I asked.
"I will see you then," she said.
"See you then." We were going to be okay. We were still friends.
I jerked my head up so quickly my neck popped. In the sea of magical perfume, I'd still recognized it. I'd only smelled it for a moment before my senses had cut off, but it was too odd to forget. The crowd was large and moving and I couldn't follow the scent, but I didn't have to. When I found him, he was looking right at me.
The man with the golden crown. His eyes were gray. He nodded when he caught me looking, and then moved right on his way, like he hadn't just acknowledged he was the one. Like he didn't think I could do a damned thing about it.
I thought it was past time someone taught him a thing or two about what exposure meant for a person. I promised myself he'd soon find out.
EPILOGUE
A few weeks later…
The elevator doors opened, leaving me face to face with my perfect elf neighbors. They smiled at me in that infuriatingly genuine way they had, but then it dropped off their faces. "Hello, Sophie," said the woman.
I remembered all I'd learned about elves on the scepter case and resisted my usual impulse to be rude. Elves weren't perfect; they had insecurities and flaws just like the rest of us, they were just excellent at hiding them. I gave them my best smile and said, "Hello…" I completely blanked on their names. I was sure they'd introduced themselves when I moved in, but that was seven years ago.
"Idris," said the man, not allowing the pause between me and his wife to draw out awkwardly. "And this is my wife, Alma."
"You should come over some time," I said, moving around them and catching a glimpse of the trees that supported my apartment. "What the hell?" All of the trees were covered in long streamers of toilet paper.
"We'd love to come over some time," said Alma. "I'm sorry about your house. I think I saw a couple of ogres dashing off, but they were too far away for me to do anything. I'm surprised Phoebe let it happen."
"She's out of town. She should be coming back any time now though. Some sort of dryad meeting." I was already turning over her possible reactions in my head. "Don't worry about it. It was a harmless prank." I turned my attention back to the elves. "How about you come over this weekend. I'll get Phoebe to make some of her famous brownies and we can watch a movie, maybe play some games."
Idris and Alma turned to each other, blinked once, some unspoken couple communication passed between them, and then they turned back and said in unison, "We'd love to."
"Great, see you Saturday at around seven?"
They nodded and smiled, somehow making it look even more genuine than usual. "See you then," said Alma.
I turned away and admired the ogres' handiwork. There had to be a couple dozen rolls of toilet paper adorning the three trees that held up my home. I wasn't about to clean that up myself, and I had the perfect idea to turn it to my advantage.
A few hours later, I was tucking into a bowl of ice cream on the couch when I heard an enraged shriek from outside the apartment. Between one heartbeat and the next, a furious dryad appeared in front of me. "You're blocking the TV," I said calmly.
"What happened to the trees?" said Phoebe, her voice deadly calm. From the corner of my eye I could see vines writhing, waiting to strike.
"A prank," I said simply.
"How could you do something like this to my tree? She's a part of my soul." The vines lashed, displaying the anger that Phoebe worked to keep from showing on her face.
"You started the war," I replied, a smug grin tugging at my lips. It was fun playing fae word games sometimes. I hadn't pulled the prank, and she had started a prank war. It was just entirely one-sided. I might have to change that going forward. As long as she didn't crush the life out of me with her vines.
There was a long pause and Phoebe's breathing slowed. Her eyes turned pensive and her lips stuck out in an annoyed pout. The vines disappeared without me ever seeing them go. Phoebe heaved a sigh and flopped down on the couch next to me. She took my bowl of ice cream and ate a big bite. "Fine. Fair play," she said and let out a gusty sigh.
"Get your own, or I'm going to watch the new episode of Medical Heroes without you," I said.
She handed me back my bowl and dashed into the kitchen, calling over her shoulder, "Don't you dare."
Huh, I thought. That worked out pretty well. If the ogres stopped their retaliation there, I could call the whole situation a win.
While Phoebe rummaged through the freezer, my phone buzzed. I unlocked it and found a spam text message. Right below that was my last conversation with Owen. My finger hovered over the phone icon. I could just call him, I thought. I'll call him. My thumb drew closer to the call button. I sighed and locked the screen, shoving the phone in my pocket. Soon.
A Note From the Author
Thank you for reading Hidden by Faeri
e. We hope you enjoyed Sophie's latest adventure. If you want to start an all new adventure, and learn more about the werewolves in this world, check out Wolf Magic (Wolves of Faerie, #1), now available on Amazon. You can also read the first chapter starting on the next page of this book.
Also, watch out for Immersed in Faerie (Stolen Magic, # 4) coming soon!
- Faith and Robert (WB McKay)
[email protected]
WOLF MAGIC
(Wolves of Faerie, #1)
WB McKay
CHAPTER ONE
I'd been standing still at the front of my property too long. I knew it had been too long because the Colton boy was squinting at me like he expected something awful was gonna happen. Of course, I shouldn't call him a boy. Fifty years is plenty old enough to be called a man. That was something I never got used to: human aging. When I sold off this land, parcel by parcel, selling the biggest chunk of it to the Colton boy's grandfather when he was right about twenty-five years old, I don't expect either of us thought I'd be back there getting the evil eye from his grandson. Of course, he had less of a reason to imagine that than I did.
I turned my gaze to Mount Lassen, standing tall and proud in front of me. Nothing between me and it but Tilly, a field of tall, green grass and blue and purple wildflowers, the occasional poppy, and past that, a whole lot of pine trees standing sentinel for the mountain. She was a little smaller than she was when I was human, but as pretty as ever. There was something comforting about her patches of snow even now, in early June. Sunny skies? Volcanic insides? None of that was going to stop her from sporting a bit of snow; she did what she wanted.
I had an odd, kindred spirit thing going on with that mountain, I knew that.
Tilly brushed her nose against my fence. I didn't know if that was her name, but damned if I was going to ask the Colton boy what he called the animal. Every time he let her roam in the fields she came right up to my fence and watched me. I couldn't decide if she was too smart to be afraid of a soft touch like me, or if she was too dumb to know to be afraid of a werewolf.
Some pixies flew up behind me, swarming Tilly's head. I didn't expect they knew I could feel them coming; they acted like they were trying to spook me. That was my interpretation, anyway. I didn't know them well; they hadn't spoken to me yet. I was waiting them out.
Tilly shook her head and backed up a step or two.
"Yeah, you hear it, too, girl?" There was a truck rumblin' up the road, and it wasn't one of the usuals. Even in Julia's body, I heard better than most people. It took Tilly longer than I'd expected to pick up on the unfamiliar grinding of gears.
The truck slowed to cross the creek, and now it held my attention. To go to the Coltons', or pretty much any of the other places back there, you had to turn before the bridge. Crossing that bridge meant a plan to drive right into the Colton's field. Or up to my gate.
Nobody drove up to my gate.
I ran up to my porch, faster that I ought to if Colton was still looking—I really needed to plant up some trees or something to block their view—and was about to reach inside the door for my rifle when the truck drove up the side of my property, well past the main gate. Were they really going out into the Coltons' field? What were the Coltons going to think of that?
I started to relax, expecting to watch some asshole drive donuts in their field and either get stuck in the mud out in the wetter parts, or get shot by the Colton boy, when the truck came into view. There were three bodies crammed together behind the glass, and seven or eight hanging off the sides of the truck bed like a bunch of idiots getting ready to die. If they got stuck in that mud, they were going to be hootin' and hollerin' out there the rest of the day; I just knew it.
And then Nathaniel Thatcher jumped off the back of the moving truck, and with wolfish grace, planted his dirty boot on my front cattle gate.
I went for my rifle.
By the time he looked up at me, I'd already taken aim. It took him a couple more seconds to recognize me, and I knew when he'd done it because the expression fell off his face. You see the gun pointed at you, you son of a bitch? I was about to say it, I was about to give him fair warning because I'm a lady like that, but then the bastard grinned.
I pulled the trigger.
THE TRUCK FULL OF wolves jerked to a stop I expected I was about to have a pack of angry bastards come runnin' at me, but they must have known Nathaniel Thatcher as well as I did, because it wasn't two seconds later the air filled with raucous laughter.
"You know when it's not funny?" Nathaniel asked them. "When you're the one who's being shot! Now, shit, Julia. It's not like I knew you were here. What's it been, a century?"
"You're the reason my fences look like this, aren't you?" I shouted at him. He could hear me from that distance if I whispered; I was just pissed. He'd fallen back to the other side of the fence where he belonged. Damned good, too, or I'd have kept shooting limbs until he backed off.
"That's just wear and tear," he muttered, like a child, with his lip sticking out and everything.
"Bullshit. I was here and fixed these fences not ten years ago," I told him. "And you can see as well as I can that there have been break-ins."
"Not as many as woulda if I hadn't chased 'em off every chance I got!" He looked genuinely offended, which would have almost had me feeling sorry for him, but I didn't do that. "Thanks for sayin' hi, by the way," he grumbled.
I was about to move on and yell at him some more, but like a fool, I took the bait and asked the question he was angling to get out of me: "What are you talking about?"
"When you were here fixing the fence ten years ago," he said. "Thanks for stoppin' in, saying hi. Ahh, those were some good ole times we had, right?"
"Right," I said. "Too bad we missed out on that opportunity for us to have a meetin' of minds like we are right now. How's your leg feelin'?"
His buddies back in the truck had just calmed their cacklin' when they started hissing with laughter, like a pack of hyenas instead of full grown wolves. They sprung outta there and formed a loose half circle around Nathaniel, still careful to keep their distance. I hoped my rifle had 'em spooked. While I wouldn't have necessarily shot any of the rest of 'em on sight, if that was what it took to keep 'em all away from me, well, I'd shoot anybody I had to in order to keep folks away.
"Julia." It came rough from his chest, a plea artfully thrown to skewer me right through the ribs. It hurt, but I wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of seeing it. I ran my tongue over my teeth with my lips closed shut, knowing how it intensified the glare I shot back at him. He grunted in response. "Don't be like this. The fences were aged anyway. When I got some spare time I was planning on fixing the damage. It's not like I knew you were gonna show up."
"Well I guess dancing on my cattle gate doesn't give you much time for being a decent human being, now does it?" If he thought he was going to win me over, he had another bullet coming his way. I didn't lower the gun, but I stepped up and closed the distance between us. We didn't have to shout or nothin', but to anyone who might have been watching, it'd look awfully strange. Though anyone watching was probably on the phone with the police by now.
His friends were standing around looking down at him, like they were waiting for the next act in the show.
"Hey Julia."
"Hey Benjamin." He tipped his hat, which I didn't see enough of anymore. Another few years and no one would do it. It didn't use to be something I did, even when I started wearing pants and breaking all other kinds of womanhood traditions that would have killed my mama, but then I noticed I missed it, and so I picked up the habit a few years prior. I thought I'd be part of the tradition's death rattle. So I tipped my imaginary hat to Benjamin, and he grinned, like he always did, mouth tight and lips to the side.
Benjamin was always the better of the duo. Average height, tanned and muscled like anybody who works outside, with hair tucked up under his hat so often it was easy to forget what color it was.
Brown. His hair was dark brown. I caught it when he bent over to look at Nathaniel's leg and his hat tipped forward.
"You ever heard of somebody holdin' a grudge for this long?" Nathaniel asked Benjamin, thinking he was getting in a good jab at me. He should have known better than that.
"You should know better than that," said Benjamin. "That woman doesn't forget a thing."
"That's right," I told him. As far as reputations go, it was definitely one I aimed for. "That woman," I gave Benjamin a look, "doesn't forget a thing. If you don't want to be shot, maybe you shouldn't do things worth someone shooting you for. Did you ever think of that?"
"Good to see you," Benjamin said, cracking his grin a smidge wider.
"She shot me," Nathaniel said.
"You're welcome," I told him, and rolled my eyes.
"I'm welcome? Welcome?"
"You gettin' a stutter?" I asked him. "That'll trip you up with the ladies, you know."
"Why am I supposed to thank you for shooting me, you crazy woman!"
"I think we can all agree that anybody shootin' you is probably not crazy. You've got a lot of bullets owed to you, don't you think?"
"And I'm thanking you again, why?"
"Because now you're the center of attention," I told him. "You got exactly what you always want." I shouldered my rifle and turned on my heel. I didn't have nothing else to say to him, and if I stood there long enough, I was likely to give him another bullet to match.
"What was all that about?" I heard one of the wolves I didn't know ask.
"That was Julia Grayson," Benjamin said.
"The one who...?"
"Yep."
I would have liked to finish that sentence a dozen different ways, but I knew what he wasn't saying. Damned near everybody did.
Julia Grayson, the one who hunts misbehaving werewolves because she can't find the ones who killed her family.