by Leia Stone
Once we reached the car, I jumped into the driver’s seat and peeled out. Having the top down made for an easy getaway. Racing through the mountains to the blue door, I kept my eyes on the rearview mirror, praying we weren’t followed.
When we finally came upon the house and I saw the blue door, I sighed in relief.
We popped out of the car, and Liam, Elle, and Cam walked to the door as I disassembled the VW. Once the car was in its pen form, I shoved it in my bag and ran for the door to the portal.
“Okay.” My hands shook from the adrenaline. “Let’s get the hell out of he—”
I yanked the door open and peered into an empty house. Not Mara’s home—some dusty old place with orange shag carpet.
Oh, fuck. Mara was gone.
I checked my watch. “I forgot, Mara had to run an errand. We have fifteen minutes left.”
Liam cursed. His wing was bleeding, but it didn’t look too bad. It wasn’t life-threatening or anything. Kira could patch it right up.
“So, how does this work?” Liam growled. “When she leaves, we’re fucked?”
I winced. Not exactly the words I would have used. “Basically. I don’t really understand it, but it will be fifteen more minutes before I open this door and we see her house.”
Cam put his head low to the ground and started to sniff. Then his hackles raised, and he growled deep in his throat.
“Get the car ready,” Liam told me, and bolted to stand at the end of the driveway.
I spun, digging through my bag and pulling out the pen. I began to summon the car while Cam trotted to the end of the driveway.
“Oh, shit,” Elle muttered under her breath, and started to pull knives from her thigh holster and behind her back.
I peered up from my task for a moment, and my stomach dropped. A row of trucks turned down the street, their beds piled with SoDs holding flaming torches, guns, and all manner of weapons.
The VW was nearly fully formed now. Liam stood at the edge of the property line, building up a sheet of ice.
Once the car was done, I leapt in, and Elle flew over to settle in the back seat.
Liam rushed over, Cam at his heels. “They’re going to burn the place!”
Fear pulsed through my veins. Burn the place down? That would mean we couldn’t get back to Faerie.
Bending, Liam grabbed Cam by the ribcage and lifted him up, chucking him into the back seat with Elle before sliding in next to me.
“Ow! You big mutt.” Elle elbowed the black wolf, but instead of growling at her, he just licked her neck like a happy dog.
I glanced at my watch.
Nine minutes.
I put the car in drive, unsure of what to do. “Can we hold them for nine minutes?”
As if answering my question, a ball of fire shot up over the ice wall, and a harpoon slammed into the front door, catching it on fire.
Fuck. We were stuck here.
“Go!” Liam shouted. The wall of ice at the end of the driveway burst into shards as one of the pickup trucks blasted through it.
I gunned the engine, heading to the back fence of the property. It was a horse ranch sort of setup, but with no horses—just a few acres and some flimsy wooden fencing.
“Hold on!”
The VW lurched into the backyard, and I plowed through the fence. Wood cracked, sending bits of two-by-fours everywhere. Meanwhile, Liam popped up onto his knees, and my eyes went to the rearview mirror. The house was aflame…
Oh, gods, what did this mean for Mara? Would she be harmed if she tried to go there? Would it catch her house on fire? These fears raced through my mind.
Liam tossed up ice walls like crazy, crashing them into the trucks that chased us as I drove through the backyard, across the rocky land.
“I feel sick!” Elle roared as the car juddered across the rocky ground.
Spotting a smoother road, I jerked the car left and pulled onto it. The instant change soothed my nerves and probably Elle’s stomach.
Pressing my foot onto the pedal, I started to clock the speedometer at eighty miles per hour. We were on a small back road, but it was paved, so I was able to haul some ass. I turned down road after road with no idea where I was going, as long as it was away from the house.
Finally, I reached a highway. Pausing quickly at a light, I pushed the button to bring the VW’s top up and headed for Spokane. The mountain and lake were growing smaller and smaller in the rearview window, and Liam finally faced forward.
“We lost them,” he said.
“How can you be sure?” I asked, my knuckles white on the wheel.
“Because I’m using my Seeker ability to seek them, and they’re far away.”
My mouth popped open. “That’s really smart.”
He frowned. “How long have you been training?”
That felt like a dig at my abilities. He must have known it, because he quickly backtracked. “I mean, you should have been taught to do that. I can show you.”
I nodded. “I’ve been Seeking since I was five, but always for fun. I wasn’t told of the crystals or anything until my mother’s death recently.”
“Oh.” Liam sat further back into his chair and winced. His wing. We needed to get back to Faerie, which meant we either needed another blue door or we’d have to drive all the way to Los Angeles, where the Enchanted Shell portal was. Back in Faerie, when you touched the shell, it brought you to a garden in Los Angeles. Then, when you wanted to go back to Faerie, you touched another shell in the LA garden. That was an option, but I’d rather get to Mara and make sure she was okay—only I didn’t know where I could find another blue door or if she would even be there waiting.
The map.
I’d forgotten about the map.
Pulling off my messenger bag, I dropped it in Liam’s lap. “There’s a map of all the blue doors in the U.S. Can you find us one near here?”
He nodded and dug through the bag. When he took out my mom’s journal and opened it, I sucked in a breath. “Not that.”
He frowned. “What is this?”
My heart beat loudly in my ears. “It’s…my mom’s journal, why?”
He side-glanced me. “Because it feels heavy with dark magic.”
What? My mom would never have used dark magic. “What do you mean?”
He lifted the journal to his nose and inhaled. “Blood magic. Are the pages supposed to be blank?”
Blood magic? I shook my head, but he nodded.
“The blood magic is what holds the illusion for so long. I could help you break it.”
Break the illusion? I wanted that more than anything, but my mom had said never to use blood magic. It was evil.
I looked at Elle’s reflection in the rearview mirror, and she looked slightly horrified.
“Maybe later.” I picked up the map, which had tumbled onto his lap with the rest of the bag’s contents, and handed it to him. “Here it is.”
Liam nodded, slipping my mother’s journal back into the messenger bag and opening the map. “Holy shit.” He whistled low through his teeth. “There’s hundreds.”
I trusted him fully now, and there was no going back. “Any near Spokane?” It looked like we were only about twenty minutes from there now.
He nodded. “Yep. I’ll direct you.”
Over the next little bit, he gave me directions on how to reach an outdoor shopping mall.
“Are you sure?” I asked.
He nodded. “Groovy Threads. It says the dressing room is the blue door.”
Oh, great, that wasn’t going to be awkward at all.
Cam had shifted during our drive, and I was surprised to find he wore clothing. He noticed me staring and winked. “Illusion.”
“Gross.” Elle rolled her eyes, but I could tell there was some major sexual tension between them.
The parking lot of the mall was busy, so I pulled around the back, where the deliveries came in. We got out of the VW so I could break it down without any normies seeing. Once it was back
to its pen shape, we walked around the side of the building, passing unaware crowds. Liam clutched the tip of his wing, trying to keep it from bleeding onto the concrete.
We reached the front of the Groovy Threads shop and entered. A waft of incense and reggae music assaulted my senses.
A blonde chick behind the desk looked up from her phone. “Hello, friends!”
“Hey…” My gaze went to the two dressing rooms behind her. One was a pink door, the other blue. I reached out blindly and grabbed a pair of jeans. “Can I try these on?”
She nodded. “Just pick a room, and don’t forget to hang it back up when you’re done.”
Elle grabbed two shirts. “I’ll try these on, too. Super cute.” She winked at the blonde.
We moved to the dressing room area, which was basically open to the entire store, and I stood in front of the blue door.
Yep. Right there on the handle was a crystal imbedded into the lock. This was it. It had been well over the forty-five-minute meetup time with Mara, so she would have discovered that we weren’t there by now. Hopefully, she would start checking doors in the surrounding area.
Taking in a deep breath, I turned the handle and yanked open the door.
Bashur shot out from the hallway and leapt onto me, standing on his hind legs and putting his paws on my shoulders so he could lick my face.
“Shhh!” I pushed him back into the hallway as the others filed in behind me. I ripped the two shirts from Elle and balled them up with the jeans I had grabbed. Spinning around, I chucked them out into the store so that we wouldn’t be stealing them.
The blonde chick was staring open mouthed at us as we stood in Mara’s hallway with a huge dog. “This is a dream,” I told her, panicked, and shut the door quickly.
“Lily!” Mara shrieked, and the sound of footsteps slammed down the hall. When she saw me, she sagged in relief against the kitchen counter. “I was so worried. I was about to jump to another location and—never mind, you’re here.”
I went to her and let her pull me in for a tight hug. “There’s a normie outside this door…she saw.”
Mara frowned. “Right. We should get back to Faerie.” Her gaze ran over Liam’s wing before stopping on Cam, and she raised an eyebrow. “Did you traipse around town naked like that?”
Cam’s face went red, and he immediately covered his junk with his hands. “I’m wearing an illusion,” he said almost to himself.
Mara nodded. “A poorly built one. I can see right through.”
He gulped while Elle and I fought to hide our laughter.
“Come on. Tell me everything.” Mara waved us in.
We followed her into her office, and I clipped into my seat. Everything spun, and I knew we were back in Faerie. Easy as that.
“Okay,” I said to Mara, “so now the normie will open that dressing room door and see the inside of a dressing room, right?”
She nodded. “Now, tell me what happened in Idaho.”
I told her about the crystal shield, the ambush, and finally, the fire.
She winced. “I could smell the smoke the second I tried to go there. It wouldn’t let me. I panicked before I knew you had the map and started to check every door within an hour’s flight or drive.”
I unclipped my belt. “Well, thank you for finding us.”
She nodded, tucking her red hair behind her pointed fae ears. “I won’t ever leave like that again. I’m so sorry.” Guilt marred her features.
I shrugged. “It’s okay. You had somewhere to be, right?”
She grinned. “I did. And I want to show you what I’ve done.” She gestured to the door that would lead into Faerie. “Go on, open it.”
I frowned. “Okay.”
Pulling the door open, I saw the inside of my living room, and I gasped. “You…created a new door? You can do that?”
She laughed, a musical sound. “Of course. That’s my job. Now you won’t need to be schlepping through town with…the boys.”
They were standing right there, of course.
“It’s brilliant!” I could sneak Liam and Cam in anytime I wanted…even his brothers. “Thank you, Mara.”
I gave her another hug and turned to leave, following the boys and Elle back into my house. When we got inside, Liam sat on the couch and put his head in his hands.
“Well, that was a shitshow,” Elle said.
Cam rolled his eyes and muttered, “Thank you, Captain Obvious.”
She snapped her head in his direction. “Why don’t you go put some clothes on before that illusion wears off and we all get traumatized?”
A slow grin tugged at his lips. “I think you’d like it.” He winked, and her cheeks burned red.
“Focus!” I yelled. “We were ambushed. They have too many people. How are we going to get the crystals now?”
Elle cracked her knuckles. “We need an army.”
“Well, we don’t have one,” I said with a sigh. Faerie was sorely lacking in warriors.
Liam stood from the couch and met my gaze. “I do.”
My breath hitched. “What are you saying?”
He looked at Cam, then back at me. “If you’re serious about letting us live here once you restore Faerie, then I’ll call in all my guys, and we will fight with you.”
My throat tightened. “You’d do that?”
He nodded, looking around my home. “It feels…healthy here, like I can finally breathe. I want that for all of us, for my brothers…every fae.”
Tears filled my eyes. “You won’t have to worry about getting your little brothers a crystal.”
He smiled. “That would be nice.”
Elle cleared her throat. “Let’s say we can wake the queen and restore Faerie. What makes you think she will allow them to live here?”
I could hear it in her voice. Hope. She wanted them here, too. Not the bad ones who’d aligned with the Winter King, of course, but Cam, Liam, and his brothers. They were good, and I never should have thought differently.
“She will,” I promised them all.
Liam’s gaze narrowed. “And if she doesn’t? If your Elders counsel her otherwise?”
I tipped my chin high. “I’ll force her to see. Trust me.”
She was my aunt—I would make her see reason.
He nodded.
“How many men do you have?” Elle asked.
Liam seemed to count in his head. “Seventy.”
Whoa. That was great. “Hang on,” I said, “if your dad has three crystals, you have one for your brothers, and I have the rest…”
Liam’s gaze darkened. “Then how do my men survive?”
I nodded.
Cam cleared his throat. “I’m gonna take a shower and get dressed.”
He left the room, which left Elle to awkwardly say she was going to get some healing stones from Kira.
When Liam and I were alone, I murmured, “How do your men stay alive without a crystal?”
He stepped closer to me, and his eyes flashed the color of molten lava. “There are sinister ways to extract the life force from humans to keep a fae going.”
Bile rose in my throat. “Have you?”
He nodded. “Many times. I do whatever it takes to survive. Does that scare you?” He stepped closer until our bodies were flush with one another.
“No.”
It was a lie. It scared me a little. But he didn’t scare me, and I knew that was what he was really asking.
“Do you…kill humans?”
He shook his head. “No, and my men come to my house in a varying rotation to be near the crystals with my brothers. That’s why Cam and the boys were there that night. They offer security in exchange for the crystal energy.”
That was good. Then at least fewer humans were getting…whatever it was they did to them. I didn’t want to know. The word extracting sent shivers down my spine.
“Lily,” Liam whispered, leaning in, his breath against my neck.
“What?”
“I’m not like the
other fae here. I never will be.”
I looked up at him, reaching to thread my fingers through his hair. “Stop trying to push me away. It won’t work.”
Something so pure and innocent crossed his face then that I could almost imagine what he’d looked like as a young boy. “I keep waiting for you to see too much darkness in me and…leave.”
My heart broke, and I noticed he was glancing at his scarred hands. Reaching out, I entwined our fingers. “I’m not scared of your past. But if you ever dump me in front of my entire village again, we’re done for good.”
A slow grin pulled at his lips. “Deal.”
He picked me up by the butt, and I straddled him, leaning in to kiss him as his lips parted eagerly. With my body pressed so close to his, I felt the eager anticipation of being near him. We kissed feverishly as he slowly walked with me up the stairs.
His fingers gripped my hair, and he pulled my face back to look at him. “Fuck. I missed you.”
When he released me, we locked into a kiss again, like two magnets. Each touch of my skin from his fingers sent heat between my legs. I rocked on his hips as he threw my bedroom door open, and we fell onto the bed, with me laying on top of him. He winced as he landed on his wing, but it didn’t seem to bother him too much beyond that.
Reaching out, he stroked one of my wings, and my legs quivered in anticipation.
“Too…many…clothes,” I moaned as he ripped off my top and unclipped my bra. Within thirty seconds, we were completely naked before each other.
He dotted my collarbone with kisses, and when his lips dipped to my chest and lapped my nipple, I moaned and reached for his hardness.
They said that once you met your soulmate, being physically apart from each other was painful, and it made coming back together all the more special. I could tell by Liam’s frenzied movements and how we rushed to join that he’d been aching without me, just as I had him.
I moaned, curling my toes as we rocked together, and pleasure radiated throughout my body. Liam trailed his lips along my neck while I tried to remember to breathe. As I raked my fingers gently down his back, his muscles clenched, and I started to ramp up as ecstasy rolled through me.
“Don’t ever leave me again,” I huffed, gripping a handful of his hair.
