Mate Bond

by Jennifer Ashley

  “He?” Kenzie asked. “He who?”

  “Human names make no sense to me. I don’t remember. But he likes my skills. I am a—I don’t know how to translate to your language, but I breed and raise animals. Hunting dogs, hunting cats, hawks. My father does, that is. I assist him, but I am plenty good at it myself.” She ended with pride, a touch of Fae arrogance.

  “A breeder?” Kenzie asked, taking a step back. “You keep the animals in cages and take away their cubs?” So the Fae had done to Shifters in the old days, the stories went.

  Brigid shook her head. “No. Young taken from a mother too fast can decline and die.”

  “Hmm, sounds like things have changed. Or maybe that was only special treatment for Shifters.” Cubs had been ripped from mothers’ arms, never seen again, families torn apart. Humans could be cruel to Shifters, but they had a long way to go to surpass the Fae.

  Brigid’s frown deepened. “There are no Shifters in Faerie anymore. Breeding them is forbidden, and those secrets are lost. I have tried to tell him that, but he doesn’t listen.”

  Kenzie’s focus sharpened. “A human is trying to get you to breed Shifters?”

  “Not Shifters. Fae beasts, as I have said. But in the human world, they become monsters.”

  “Yeah. Seen one. Didn’t like it.”

  “But he is a fool,” Brigid said with scorn. “The animals are not viable. They might perhaps be if we were in Faerie, but the magic does not appear to hold in the human world.”

  “You made the griffin,” Kenzie said. “Or what passed for one.”

  She inclined her head. “I attempted. The beast did not last.”

  “It lasted long enough to tear into a roadhouse full of Shifters and humans and hurt a lot of people.” Kenzie glared at her. “It was on a rampage we barely contained. It almost killed my mate.”

  Her heart wrenched at the thought of Bowman lying half-crushed in Cade’s truck, his body a bleeding wreck. He’d been lucky to escape with only a broken leg.

  “Why did you do it?” Kenzie asked angrily. “How could he make you create something? I even felt sorry for it when we found it dead. It was as much a victim as we were.”

  “As am I. He had begun the experiments himself, but he needed Fae magic to make them work. And he has ways—threatening to trap me here forever, threatening my children. He has agents in Faerie, it seems, or so he says. If I do not help him, he sends word, and my daughters die.”

  Kenzie went silent. Gil was certainly magical, maybe enough to get through to Faerie, but she’d never sensed such cruelty in him. Then again, he’d been skilled enough to make her believe he was a human cop and a fairly normal human being, not a mysterious, hundred-and-fifty-year-old whatever he was.

  But then, Gil had been astonished by and interested in the griffin. That interest had not been false, she was sure.

  If not Gil, then maybe Turner? But . . .

  “If we’re talking about the same guy,” Kenzie said, “I don’t see how he can threaten your kids. He’s a university professor, not a mage or a half Fae. He’s human, and not even magical.”

  “He has found a way. Or he has minions who do his work for him. I do not know. He showed me a picture.” Brigid’s arrogance gave way to fear and sorrow. “Of my wee ones tied up and locked away, their eyes bound. I do not know how he made this picture, but it looked so real. He had it on a human device.” She shaped her hand as though holding something the approximate dimensions of a smartphone.

  “Oh,” Kenzie said. “The picture might be real. I’m sorry.”

  “He takes me out of here at times and locks me into another place, a human place, a shed he calls it. It smells terrible, and the human world has so much iron. It hurts me.”

  She shuddered. Kenzie stepped to her. “I’m sorry,” she said again. It was a strange feeling to have sympathy for a Fae, but the woman’s fears were understandable.

  Brigid lifted her shoulders in a shrug. “It is what is before me, the challenge I must meet. I will obey him and breed the beasts—I can’t risk the life of my daughters. But all the while I wait for a chance to kill him and return home.”

  “I like the way you think. We’ll gut him together.” Kenzie went so far as to lay her hand on the woman’s arm. The acrid, sulfur scent of Fae curled in her nose—but she didn’t pull away. Touch was comforting, soothing, even for non-Shifters.

  “I have no weapons,” Brigid said. Her smile returned. “Though now I have you.”

  “True.” Kenzie looked around, seeing only trees, mud, and leaves, encircled by mists. “Are we really trapped in here? Why can’t we just walk back out through the mist?”

  Brigid gave her an amused look. “Of course, I would be standing here mourning my children if I could simply walk through the mists and be home. I have tried. Many times. You go through, and end up back here.”

  “Then how does Turner—or whoever it is—come and get you?”

  “That I do not know. He appears, locks me in cuffs, and leads me out. Then I am in the human world, in tall woods, and he shoves me into the small building and locks the door. When I am finished, he walks me back again. I have tried again and again to discover the gate to the human world when he is gone, but always I find myself here again. I thought that if I could get to the human world, perhaps I could find another way to Faerie, through the standing stones I have read about. Are there standing stones near where you came in?”

  “Not so you’d notice,” Kenzie said. “Other powerful places, though.” She continued her study of the area. She’d never been to Faerie and had no idea if the trees were like this. Uncle Cristian would know—he had an uncanny amount of knowledge stored in his brain.

  Brigid’s arrogance left her. Her face settled into lines of resignation, of one who knew her choices were limited.

  “Wait.” Kenzie frowned. “Bowman found a silver charm. Did that have anything to do with getting through the gate? It might have been a magic device.”

  “Silver charm?” Brigid came alert. “In the shape of a knot?”

  “Yes? You’ve seen it?”

  “It’s mine. He took it from me. It was my mother’s—has been in my family for generations.”

  “Oh.” Kenzie deflated. “Might not be the key to the gate, then.”

  “No, it is simply an ornament. He liked it, because it is heavy silver, but it is common. In my home, that is.” Brigid let out a sigh. “It is strange, is it not? We are enemies, you and I. I should feel great distaste that you stand here unclothed, so barbaric, but I do not. If I am to escape, I will need your help. But that is not all of my feeling. I am grateful for your presence. I had grown lonely.”

  She looked wistful, this lovely woman with her certainty that Fae were the greatest creatures in the universe.

  “Don’t write us off yet,” Kenzie said. “I’m getting out of here and back to my wee one. I say that when Turner comes back in for you, we jump him, take whatever magical device he’s using to get in and out, and go.”

  “It may not be so simple,” Brigid said, sounding skeptical. “He uses some kind of spell that freezes me into place, keeps me from overpowering him and fleeing. He is not a warrior, and I have trained to be, so I should be able to best him. But I cannot get near him.”

  “Great.” Of course it couldn’t be that easy, could it? “Will this spell freeze me too?”

  “I do not know. You are not Fae, and he might not know you are here.”

  Kenzie drew a breath. “Well, we’ll have to take our chances. If I can pin him fast enough and tear out his throat, that will probably cancel any spell he has on you.”

  “I am willing to try,” Brigid said, giving her a solemn nod.

  “Then we’ll get the hell out of here. Sound like a plan?”

  Brigid’s brows drew together. “Why would that not sound like a plan? It is a plan.”

  Kenzie grinned. “It’s our way of saying Is it a good plan?”

  “Better than rotting here.” Brigid wrin
kled her nose. “This world stinks.”

  “I’ll drink to that.”

  Brigid looked wistful again. “Aye, a good flagon of mead would go down well. We shall overcome this man and raise a glass.”

  “Kick his ass and go out for pizza.” Kenzie laughed at Brigid’s bewildered expression. “Means the same thing.”

  “Then that is what we shall do.” Brigid settled herself on a damp, fallen log. “Now we wait.”

  “Yeah,” Kenzie said, letting out a breath. “We wait.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Gil led Bowman to the mountain trail where Kenzie had disappeared. “There,” he said, pointing down the hill. “But it doesn’t mean you can get to her.”

  Bowman didn’t bother arguing. He signaled to his trackers to start searching.

  A few hours later, Bowman’s hope was dying. Kenzie was nowhere, and the mists were dispersing with the coming morning.

  He’d walked into every pocket of mist he could find, until his human hair or wolf’s fur was dripping wet, and he still found himself in the familiar wilderness of western North Carolina.

  “Where the hell is she?” he snarled at Gil.

  “The pockets move,” Gil said, shaking his head. He’d gone to a cabin he owned nearby to change out of his nineteenth-century clothes, and now wore jeans and a UNC sweatshirt. He’d been heading to this cabin, he said, to hide from Kenzie when she’d chased him from the hotel. “I tried to go in after her, but most of the gates are locked to me.”

  “Why are they?” Bowman demanded. “What does that mean?”

  “It means I was kicked out of Faerie a thousand years ago, and anything that smacks of Fae magic is barred to me. The Fae made gates to lots of worlds back in the day, though most of them have vanished, disused. The pockets are what’s left. I can’t traverse them.”

  “A thousand years ago?” Bowman stared at him.

  “Yeah,” Gil said. “I’m older than I look.”

  “Don’t be a smart-ass. Why the hell didn’t you tell me all this before? About the gates? About you being from Faerie? You don’t look Fae.”

  “Because I’m not. And I had no idea there were pocket gates in this part of the world, or that your professor was breeding monsters. He shouldn’t be able to.”

  “I shouldn’t be able to turn into a wolf, but I do.” Bowman slung him away, tired of arguing. “Where else can we find these gates?”

  “Everywhere. Anywhere. They come and go. A Fae talisman can make them easier to find and use, instead of hit or miss, but working talismans are few and far between. I’m sorry it’s not what you want to hear, but there it is.”

  Shit. Bowman swung from Gil and walked away, deeper into the woods, where all was silence. The trackers didn’t follow him, knowing he needed to be alone for the moment.

  Bowman stopped and let out a long, steaming breath. Kenzie, where are you?

  He wouldn’t accept that she could be gone forever. Magic happened, yes; but magic could be undone. If Kenzie had gone into a gate, she could come back out of it. Logical.

  Bowman didn’t want to admit that magic could be more complicated than that. People vanished all the time, never to be found again. Magic had created the beast that had attacked them in the roadhouse—a beast like that shouldn’t have been able to exist.

  Gil shouldn’t be alive after a thousand years, but there he stood. Kenzie shouldn’t be gone. But she was.

  No. Bowman clenched his fists and pressed them to his stomach. He wouldn’t let her be gone. He’d find her. She was his mate.

  Ryan didn’t know yet. Bowman would have to tell him—he deserved to know.

  Damn it. Bowman straightened up, his eyes burning.

  The others were waiting for him, expecting him to give them orders, expecting him to be leader, no matter that he was dying inside. Even Cristian, as impatient and volatile as he was, was taking his cues from Bowman tonight.

  Bowman should know what to do. But he didn’t.

  He strode back to the waiting group and took a deep breath, the cold mountain air washing into him.

  “Pierce,” he began. “Take Gil home with you. The two of you will find out all you can about these pockets and how to get into them. Pull in every Guardian out there to help you if you have to. Cristian, you, Cade, and Jamie keep looking for Turner. I want him alive and able to talk. I’ll join you after I contact some resources of my own.” He pointed at the other Shifters who’d come to help. “The rest of you will keep looking around here for Kenzie or any of these gates. No one go in, just call if you find anything.” He swept them in a collective glare, ending at Cristian. “And no one is to blab any of this to my cub. I’ll be telling him. Got it?”

  The Shifters didn’t stand around and argue. They dispersed to their tasks without a word.

  Except Cristian, of course. He could never let himself be seen simply obeying Bowman. Oh, no. Cristian regave orders to the Lupines in his pack to search for Kenzie, then he joined Bowman.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” Bowman asked him as he strode for his motorcycle.

  “Back home to my mother,” Cristian said. “She deserves to know what’s happened to her granddaughter. From my mouth.”

  He had a point. Bowman mounted his Harley, kick-started his engine, and took off down the rutted track, the slice of Cristian’s light close behind him.

  * * *

  It was forty or so miles back to Shiftertown, the first part of the trip slow through dirt roads that had frozen over. The highway was a little faster but full of icy patches. An hour later, Bowman rode into Shiftertown, not stopping until he reached Afina’s.

  Bowman dismounted and strode up to the house, not worrying about territory and courtesy today. But once Afina let him into the kitchen, and Ryan ran in to meet him, Bowman halted, his feet suddenly unable to move.

  “Ryan.” Bowman’s mouth was tight, words dying in his throat.

  He heard Cristian enter the house behind him. Afina went to her son and asked him something in Romanian. Cristian shook his head, and Afina put her hand to her chest.

  Ryan was looking up at Bowman. His back was straight, his head high, the wisdom in his eyes too old for his twelve years. “Just tell me, Dad.”

  “Your mother.” Bowman swallowed, a world of pain inside him. “She’s gone.”

  “Gone where?” Ryan’s question held no panic, only need for information.

  “Don’t know.” The words rasped. “Lost her.”

  Cristian quickly filled in about the idea of the pockets Gil had told them about. “We think Kenzie stumbled into one of those. But the way was closed when we tried.”

  Afina’s face had lost color as he explained, her hands balling. “The mists?”

  Cristian nodded. “I thought they were legend. Stories to frighten children.”

  “No,” Afina said, her words hushed. “They are holes to other places, some of those places worse than Faerie.”

  “Worse than Faerie?” Ryan said, worry entering his voice. “And Mom’s in one of these?”

  “I have all my trackers looking for her,” Bowman said, “and the Guardian and Gil are working on how to get in . . .”

  His words ran out, his mouth too dry to continue. The idea that Kenzie was no longer in the world took the air out of the room.

  Ryan came to him and took Bowman’s big hands where they dangled uselessly at his sides. “You’ll find her, Dad.”

  His words rang with conviction. No doubts, no hysteria. Ryan believed.

  Bowman wished he could. “Everyone has told me that because Kenzie and I don’t share the mate bond it would be easy for me to let her go.” He shook his head. “They’re wrong. I won’t let her go. I won’t stop until I’ve found her.”

  “Screw the mate bond,” Ryan said, scowling. “You and Mom are madly in love, and everyone knows it. You’ll take the world apart looking for her. All the worlds. Doesn’t matter about the frigging mate bond.”

  “He is an intelligen
t lad,” Cristian said with warm approval. “I have raised him well.”

  Ryan rolled his eyes. “Seriously, Uncle Cris? I’ll help you find her, Dad. I love her too.”

  “And I,” Afina said. “Kenzie is as my own daughter. We will, as Ryan says, take the world apart.”

  Cristian nodded his agreement. “If she can get into these mists, she should be able to get out. Gates to worlds work both ways. We need to discover the key, as it were. And where the gate opens out. They might not have a two-way door in the same area, and some can lead to more than one place.”

  Bowman looked at Cristian, his vision fuzzy around the edges. “You’re saying she might come out in this world again, but in a different place?”

  His breathing became slightly easier as Cristian explained that was exactly what he meant, and began outlining plans to find the second gate.

  But Bowman’s heart was like a stone in his chest as Afina fetched a map of North Carolina and spread it over the dining room table. This world was vast; the one Kenzie had stumbled into might be just as vast. The odds of finding her among all those possibilities were slim.

  Bowman, however, never let odds mess with him. He’d allow his wolf to take over and solve this with a finality only a wolf could. He’d clean up the mess later—after Kenzie was back home with him, alive and well.

  * * *

  Wherever this place was, it was boring. Kenzie yawned as she sat curled around herself on the ground.

  Brigid, in an act of generosity Kenzie would never have associated with the Fae, had removed her cloak and spread it across a dry patch of earth so Kenzie could sit down. When Kenzie had thanked her, Brigid shrugged it off, saying it was too warm here for a cloak anyway.

  The mists around them thickened, but they were clammy, not chilled. Kenzie peered into them . . . and sprang up in delight.

  “Bowman!”

  She saw her mate raising a hand to her, grinning his Bowman grin. Ryan was next to him, waving as well, his smile wide.

  Kenzie darted forward. “You found me!”

  “No!” Brigid shouted at her. “Kenzie, stop!”