Iron Master

by Jennifer Ashley

  Kurt opened the door. He had to wrench it—the hinges were stiff.

  Beyond was a room with a brick wall in the middle of it. Except the wall sported a gaping hole, like the entrance to a cave. Bricks were scattered across the floor of the small room and lay inside the hole.

  “What the hell?” Kurt took a hasty step back, snarls in his throat. “We sealed this up.”

  Graham likewise growled, and Peigi’s fight-or-flight instinct rose high.

  “Well, someone tore it down.” Graham stated the obvious. “Maybe your cubs?”

  “No way in hell. They know it’s off limits. They don’t even like to come this far down the hall.”

  Kurt was sweating, his face gray. Peigi kept silent, but she didn’t blame him for his reaction. She wanted to run, run. The vibe she got from the opening was unnerving—fear and the smell of something rotten, combined with a push of magic she really didn’t want to understand.

  But if Stuart was in there …

  “We should check it out,” she heard herself say.

  Kurt looked ill. Graham glowered at Peigi, but he squared his shoulders. “Kurt, stand guard. Run for Eric and Diego if anything goes wrong.”

  Kurt stepped back, both relieved and chagrined. He was terrified but ashamed Peigi volunteered to go when he couldn’t. But Kurt didn’t have a lot of dominance, and Graham, a good leader, wouldn’t force him into a situation he couldn’t handle.

  Peigi started forward. Graham rumbled in irritation and got ahead of her. He was leader, so damn it, he’d lead.

  As worried as she was about Stuart, Peigi did not want to go inside that hole. Since her captivity in a cellar of an abandoned warehouse, dank basements didn’t thrill her. She’d been fine in Kurt’s well-lit, dry, tiled and painted hallway, which could have been in any part of the house, but this tunnel was different. It meant confinement, no air, nowhere to run.

  “I hope Stuart appreciates this,” she muttered as she ducked inside after Graham.

  Graham’s laugh came back to her. “I’ll make sure he does.”

  The tingle of magic grew stronger, raising the hairs on the back of Peigi’s neck. Her bear snarled and cursed. Bears were supposed to like caves, and Peigi used to. Another thing Miguel had taken from her.

  White mist began to swirl around them, clinging and damp. The overall scent was of acrid smoke with a touch of mint.

  “I hate the Fae,” Graham muttered. “Hate, hate, hate.”

  Peigi was right there with him.

  They took another two steps, three, and the mists engulfed them.

  “We need to get the hell out of here,” Graham said, but at that moment, Peigi saw a dark shape in all the white.

  “Stuart!”

  She darted toward him. Graham grabbed at her to pull her back, but Peigi jerked from him and dashed to the tall, motionless man.

  Stuart gazed into the mist, staring at nothing, arms at his sides, his body still. He didn’t turn when Peigi ran to him, didn’t acknowledge her.

  “Stuart!”

  “What’s wrong with him?” Graham manifested from the mists. “Wake him up. Let’s go.”

  Peigi put her hand on his strong shoulder, finding him cold beneath his shirt. “It’s me. You okay?”

  Stuart didn’t move. His dark eyes were wide, fixed, as though he saw something she couldn’t. He was breathing, alive, but eerily motionless. Fear wound through Peigi’s heart. She couldn’t lose him. Couldn’t.

  “Screw this,” Graham said. “I’m carrying him out.”

  “No, let me.” Peigi started pulling off her shirt, kicking out of her shoes, ready to shift.

  She folded her clothes out of habit—she’d taught the cubs that they shouldn’t simply scatter their things but gather them neatly, so they could redress when they were done playing in their animal form.

  Peigi handed the folded pile to a nonplussed Graham.

  “Anyone ever tell you you’re a neat-nik?” he demanded as he took it.

  “Yep.” Peigi turned from him, and became bear.

  It felt good to be in her bear form, something she’d wanted to do all morning. She stretched her strong limbs, shaking out her fur, a full growl issuing from her throat.

  Peigi could scent so much better in this form. Graham smelled wolf-y and nervous—he didn’t like this any more than she did. But he’d never let on. Not Graham the ferocious alpha wolf.

  Stuart’s scent melded with the mists—he was a being of Faerie, so he carried a hint of smoke as well, but nothing like the bright sharpness of the high Fae. He was more like sandalwood and darker spice, strength and silence.

  His body remained rigid, eyes empty. Stuart was trapped—how, Peigi didn’t understand and didn’t much care. She just wanted him out of there.

  Peigi circled Stuart, took a long breath, and barreled straight into him.

  Stuart was tall, and he toppled like a tree. Graham caught Stuart as he went down, suddenly loose-limbed, and draped him over Peigi’s back. Stuart didn’t wake. Graham held him steady as Peigi started back out the way they’d come.

  At least, she hoped it was the way they’d come. The mists were confusing, sounds absent. She had scent, but with the overwhelming stench of the ley line, she couldn’t be certain where Kurt’s basement lay.

  From Graham’s wolf snarls, he didn’t know where it was either. “We need Reid to wake up and magic us home. I hate when he does that.” Graham shuddered. “But damn, it’s handy.”

  Peigi growled warningly at him. Graham needed to leave Stuart alone—he could be hurt, dying, damaged by whatever spell held him, who knew?

  Graham subsided. Even he didn’t want to mess with Peigi when she became protective of Stuart.

  They walked another five or so minutes, but Peigi couldn’t spy the outline of Kurt’s basement door, only thicker mists.

  “Shit,” Graham muttered. “I don’t want to be stuck in Faerie. Been there, done that, burned the fucking T-shirt.”

  Peigi didn’t want to be stuck in Faerie either. A Shifter bear and a dominant wolf would be great prizes to a Fae warrior, who’d either try to enslave them or make them into hearth rugs. Graham was a good fighter, and Peigi as bear was strong, but the two of them and an inert dokk alfar against a multitude of Fae?

  The high Fae would tear Stuart apart. Probably torture him for a long time before he died. She refused to let that happen.

  “I think we’re screwed,” Graham said after another ten minutes. “We have to wake him up, Peigi. I bet he’s the only one who can—”

  “Uncle Graham!”

  Two small boys hurtled out of the dark mist and slammed straight into Graham’s legs. They began shifting as soon as they smacked into him, becoming wolf cubs with huge feet and long ears. High-pitched yipping pierced the air.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” Graham roared. “Why aren’t you with Misty?”

  One of the cubs, Kyle, or maybe Matt—they were twins—shifted back to his seven-year-old boy form. “We came to get you out. Follow us. Follow us. Follow us!”

  He shifted again to wolf, and the cubs started running in a sideways lope, tails going ninety miles an hour.

  Graham started after them, keeping up a diatribe about cubs who needed to learn to do what they were told. Peigi, with Stuart, quickly followed.

  As the cubs dashed through the mists, the fog began to thin. Cooler air surrounded Peigi, and in a few more minutes, she saw the artificial yellow light filling the square of Kurt’s basement door.

  The cubs charged through, Graham on their heels. Peigi increased her speed and burst through the door after them, heaving a sigh of relief as she hit the tile floor.

  Kurt, who’d been waiting, his eyes wild, quickly shut the door and padlocked it. “He all right?” he asked anxiously.

  Peigi lowered herself to her belly, and Graham and Kurt helped slide Stuart gently to the floor. Stuart didn’t wake. He lay limply, eyes closed, his black hair damp from the mists.

  P
eigi nuzzled him. Wake up. Please. I can’t do this without you.

  The cubs came tearing back to them. Graham leaned against the wall, his breath ragged. “Will you two settle down?”

  At his roar, Matt and Kyle stopped running. Instead of cowering before Graham, they trotted to Stuart and began busily licking his face.

  Peigi remained bear, not wanting to shift back in front of Kurt, with Graham holding her clothes in his balled fists. He was wrinkling the hell out of her shirt.

  The cubs continued to lick, tails waving, and under their ministrations, Stuart jerked. The cubs kept at it as Stuart blinked, eyes opening in confusion.

  Peigi saw awareness returning to his black-dark eyes, and then the realization that a pair of wolf cubs were smearing their tongues all over his face.

  “I’m awake, guys. You can stop.” Stuart pressed the wriggling little bodies away from him with gentleness, then he sat up and wiped his cheeks. “Anyone have a towel?”

  Reid decided to prove to Graham he was functioning normally by teleporting Matt and Kyle home. He landed on Graham’s front porch and handed the cubs to Misty, who’d jerked open the door when he appeared.

  “You all right?” Misty asked worriedly. She was a sweet human woman who’d managed to turn Graham from belligerent asshole to a more reasonable Shifter who took care of his new cub, his nephew, and Matt and Kyle with surprising compassion.

  “I think so.” Reid wasn’t certain how he’d become stuck in the patch of mist, or how Peigi had come in to get him out, but he was alive and breathing, which for him was enough. “Thanks to your paramedics.”

  Both cubs, still wolves, hung in Misty’s arms, tails waving. Matt began licking her chin.

  “I sent them to find you,” Misty said. “I remembered they were called Guards, or at least descended from them. When Dougal came and told me he was scared Graham was stuck in Faerie, I told him to take the cubs over and see if they could sniff you out.”

  “Good thinking.” Reid scratched both cubs behind the ears, his already considerable respect for Misty rising.

  They’d been told that the two cubs had been called Guards, Shifters bred by the Fae to be larger, stronger, faster, smarter, et cetera, et cetera than other Shifters. They’d guarded the Fae generals and high leaders, until the Shifter-Fae war, when most of the Guards had died fighting for Shifter freedom. Like the white tigers, who’d been bred for the indulgence of Fae princes, the Guards had turned on the Fae and helped Shifters escape to the human world.

  Matt and Kyle, barely seven years old, were the only Guards left in existence—that any knew of.

  “Thanks for bringing them home,” Misty said.

  “Thank them for rescuing me. Give them extra ice cream tonight. I’ll buy.”

  The cubs went into paroxysms of joy. They loved ice cream, straight from the carton.

  Misty smiled. “Glad to see you’re all right.”

  Reid gave her a nod, embarrassed he’d had to be rescued at all. Also not happy he’d gotten himself stuck, unable to teleport. He only lost that ability when he was inside Faerie, and he hadn’t been there entirely, just a pocket in between. Right? Did that mean both his abilities—teleportation and mastery over iron, disappeared in the between place? Not something comfortable to think about.

  Stuart said good-bye to Misty and the wriggling cubs and walked home. He knew he could teleport there, but walking in the cold winter mid-morning felt good.

  The Shifters were dispersing, the crisis over. Brody high-fived Stuart as he and Cormac approached. “Glad to see you in one piece, Reid.”

  Stuart never had understood the high five, or the fist bumps, or the variations he’d seen over the years in the human world, but he’d learned to return the gesture. It meant friendship, acceptance—things, ironically, Stuart hadn’t found until he’d moved to Shiftertown.

  “You all right?” Cormac peered at him, concern in his tawny eyes.

  “Fine.” Reid realized he sounded abrupt and softened his voice. “Yeah. Thanks.”

  Cormac laid his giant hand on Reid’s shoulder. “You know if there’s a rescue mission, we all have to be in on it, right? Have to brag later that we were key.”

  “In other words, Shifters can’t mind their own business.” Brody chuckled, waved at Reid, and walked on.

  “You need anything, you ask.” Cormac regarded him seriously. A relative newcomer to this Shiftertown himself, Nell’s mate knew about being an outsider.

  “Thanks,” Stuart repeated. “Is Peigi all right?”

  Cormac gave him a nod of understanding. “She’ll be fine. She was worried as hell about you, but she’s a strong lady.”

  “I know she is.”

  Cormac’s expression warmed. “She is. Take care of yourself.”

  He gave Reid another pat on the shoulder and moved on, calling to Brody to wait for him.

  Other Shifters waved, wished him well, or simply walked off. Not all of them were comfortable with Stuart, though he’d lived in this Shiftertown for a couple of years. Eric sanctioned him, and Nell and Graham stood up for him, but even so. If those three ever withdrew their support, Reid had the feeling that a few of the Shifters would try to throw him out, if they didn’t attempt to kill him outright.

  For now, there was a truce. Reid had proved useful, and so the Shifters let him stay, even if most of Shiftertown watched him from the corners of their eyes.

  By the time Stuart made it back to Peigi’s small house at the end of the road, the Shifters had gone back to their own lives. Even Eric and Graham had departed to take care of more Shifter business. Their jobs never ceased.

  Reid’s heart lightened as he viewed the small rectangular house where he slept most nights. The miasma of the Fae place he’d been stuck in and the uneasiness the dokk alfar’s words had caused dissolved as he approached the front door and reached for the knob.

  The door was ripped open from the other side, Peigi behind it. Before Reid could speak, she yanked him inside the house and into her arms, enclosing him in a hard embrace.

  Chapter Four

  Stuart had never understood why Shifters found touch healing until he’d met Peigi. As she snuggled into his shoulder, her arms firmly around him, Stuart surrendered to it.

  He gathered her to him, loving the cinnamon scent of her warm hair, the length of her body against his. Shifter women were tall, bears even more so, and Peigi could rest her head fully on his shoulder.

  The embrace tightened, Peigi shaking. Reid stroked her back, wanting to soothe her and absorb her strength at the same time.

  Several cannonballs bashed into his legs, more arms coming around him, the cubs joining in. Donny had shifted to bear, and he circled the hugging ball, nuzzling Reid whenever he could get his nose in.

  Peigi lifted her head, wiping her cheeks. “They were scared you weren’t coming back.”

  Stuart gazed into eyes of rich blue, framed with lashes of deepest black. He brushed back a lock of her sable hair. “You know I’ll always come back.”

  In all this time, this was the closest Stuart had come to a declaration. He and Peigi never spoke about what was between them, as though they feared its shimmering bubble would break into unresolvable shards.

  Her mouth was so close, her breath touching his lips. Stuart could easily lean to her, brush a kiss to her mouth, taste her. Her chest lifted with her breath, longing flickering in her eyes. She wanted it too, a kiss that would seal whatever it was they had and maybe lead to something more.

  Stuart had learned to embrace his exile because of this woman. Peigi had beauty like no other, and she too was exiled, alone, making a family from those no one else wanted.

  This morning he’d been called by someone beyond the divide who needed his help, who told him of peril. Stuart knew he was a selfish bastard, because at this moment, with Peigi before him, their breaths mingling, he could think of nothing but staying with her, forever.

  Two small fists smashed the back of his legs. “I’m hungry
!” Kevin, who rarely spoke, declared in a loud voice. “We had to wait so long for you and Peigi to get home. Can we have pancakes now?”

  “Are you going to tell me about it?”

  After the cubs had been fed their second breakfast—Shane had given them the eggs from the first—Peigi sat in the sunshine on the back porch on an Adirondack chair, soaking up warmth. As typical in Las Vegas, the bone-chillingly cold morning had given way to a pleasant seventy-five degrees, a nice change from the brutal heat of summer. In this climate, winter was greeted with relief.

  Stuart, in spite of his ordeal, had helped make the pancakes and supervised the cleanup afterward. The cubs had then attacked their daily chores with minimum fuss and then headed out to play, meeting cubs in the middle of backyards for whatever game they had going. Shifter adults lounged on porches, keeping an eye on the little ones.

  “I’m not sure what to tell.” Stuart reposed on the low porch’s one step, long legs in jeans stretched out to the gravel beyond. “It was a weird experience. I’m not even certain what happened.”

  “You told me you couldn’t teleport out of there,” Peigi said. He’d related at least that much. “Which was why I had to go into that terrifying hole in the ground and pull you out.”

  “Which I am truly thankful for.” Stuart sent Peigi a glance that warmed her blood. “I’ll have to give you something to show you how grateful I am. That jeweler Diego and I helped last month with his theft problem has some beautiful things in his store. Want to go pick something out?”

  “What would I do with a diamond necklace?” Peigi asked, eyes wide. “Wear it to the prom?”

  Stuart’s grin grew broader. “Wherever the hell you wanted. Doesn’t matter. I’ll get you something. Maybe new patio furniture.”

  Peigi settled more deeply into the wooden chair. “More practical, but the cubs will tear it up. Solid and old is better.”

  “You are hard to please, woman.”

  Peigi shrugged, pretending his voice, smile, and very presence didn’t make her rejoice. “I’m just glad you’re all right. The cubs are a handful.”