by A and E Kirk
“You’re alive. Yay,” Kiara said with zero enthusiasm.
With a weary sigh, Bane rested an elbow on the coffin’s edge. “So it seems. At least for now.”
Jaeger shot Frankie an accusing look. “You said he was dead!”
“Did not. I said the coffin was for him. It helps with the healing, you big dolt.” Frankie hustled out of the room. “Picklesn— Mabel! You’re quite safe dear!”
Bane snickered as Jaeger tried to recover from his scare. “I’m crushed that a runt like you won’t be crying at my funeral.” He cleared his throat, but his voice still came out raspy and weak. “The fairies have Giselle. She couldn’t be in worse hands.”
Jaeger gripped the back of his neck. “This is a nightmare.”
“I think Nicolette was working for them,” Bane said. “Double-crossing the witches.”
“Why would you say that?” Leontes asked.
“That lady friend of mine, the model-turned-actress who Kiara said is part fey, I met her though Nicolette. We went to some seriously wild parties at her house.”
“They were working together?” Kiara said.
“I doubt it. They never seemed chummy. But there were fairies at the parties. I didn’t think anything of it because I always see them at these shindigs. I ignore them. I mean, who wants to deal with the fucking fey?” Bane grimaced. “I hate those bastards. Especially that piece of shit blond freak with the earring. God, he’s a dick.”
Leontes gave him a sharp look. “Callahan was there?”
“That’s him. Tall, arrogant prick with the accent. He danced with Nicolette a few times. Now they seemed chummy. I put a stop to that real quick. Fucking fairies.”
Leontes hunched over as a bolt of pain shot through his skull.
“Fairies!” Rusila spat with venom. She leaned toward Alpha and Mai, both sitting across from her in the limousine. “How dare you threaten me with those vile monstrosities.”
Mai smirked. “Perhaps you are worried because they would not be so easy for you to kill.”
Rusila narrowed her eyes, and then relaxed back into the plush leather seat. “Do not be a fool. I am worried because if they ever get their hooks into Kiara, they will use her against us all.” The queen smoothed the red silk of her gown and forced a smile. “But there will be no disturbances to the goodwill between us. Now I must take my leave.”
After Alpha and Mai left, the dome light went on in the limousine and the partition to the front seat rolled down. Something glinted, flashing across Rusila’s vision as the driver asked, “Shall I take you to the gala now, my queen?”
“No, Elliot.” She blinked at the sudden light and turned away, looking out the rain-spattered window. “There is somewhere else I need to be.”
CHAPTER 89
“Dammit!” Leontes slammed his fist on a table, knocking down Mabel’s carefully placed arrangement. “That bastard Callahan was there!”
Bane frowned. “I just told you that.”
Leontes began pacing. “No. Callahan was her limo driver that evening. It was his damn earring that flashed in the light.”
“So Rusila is working with the fairies?” Jaeger said, clearly confused.
“No. She believed it to be Elliott. Mab must have put one hell of a strong glamour on him.” Leontes rubbed his eyes. “Why did it have to be fairies? They are the most nasty, spiteful, vindictive, underhanded, murderous creatures who will smile in your face—”
“While they stab you in the back,” Jaeger finished with contempt. “That’s exactly why they were excluded from the Kiara Coalition.”
Frankie came back into the room. “They’re scared of Kiara, too. Probably only second to their fear of iron. Mab certainly doesn’t want Alpha and Mai to have the true Oleander at their beck and call and used to keep them in line.”
“Or used to kill them,” Leontes added.
Kiara said, “So they use Nicolette to hire Fauxleander to start assassinating in my name, trying to implicate Rusila, Mai, or Alpha so they’d turn on each other. When that doesn’t work, they have Fauxleander kidnap Giselle to kill the deal.”
“Which still hasn’t happened,” Bane said, coughing up phlegm. “Today Alpha sent Rusila word that as long as Giselle is returned unharmed, he promised to abide by the accord. I’d thought they were talking about not going to war.”
“But it’s about using me,” Kiara said.
Bane nodded. “Got to be. Which means the fairies’ best bet is to kill the kid and send her back in pieces to prove it. Hey, runt.” Bane coughed again then smiled at Jaeger. “Looks like you’ll be closer to taking over the pack after all.”
“That’s enough,” Frankie ordered. “Time for you to go back to bed.”
“Son of a bitch!” Jaeger looked around for something to throw, but everything was broken. Frankie handed him one of her stepping stools as she walked by. He tossed it against a wall, where it splintered into pieces. “How the hell are we supposed to steal Giselle back? Fairies specialize in child abduction!”
“Got that right,” Bane said over his shoulder. “They’ve got centuries of practice.”
“I said that’s enough.” Frankie slammed the lid shut on Bane and rolled him out of the lab.
“Rest assured, we will find her,” Leontes told Jaeger.
“How?” he snapped.
“We go into the fairy realm and get her,” Kiara said, matter-of-factly.
“Kiara,” Leontes warned.
“Oh, sure. No problem!” Jaeger stalked back and forth, tossing his hands through the air, knocking aside anything within reach. “We’ll just head into a realm full of underhanded, manipulative, homicidal monsters and pull off a rescue. Oh, and, uh, no hurry, because the death curse on Giselle doesn’t wear off for another…how long is it now?”
Kiara glanced at her empty wrist. “Less than two hours. But I can—”
“Great!” Jaeger laughed bitterly. “Almost two whole hours! Piece of cake. And even if we did attempt it, we’d need a fairy door or a fairy’s name to force them to come open a door or whatever the hell else those maniacal freaks do, and I don’t know about you two but my address book isn’t exactly full of friendly fey ready to help me go in to bring down an assault on Mab! We are so screwed!”
Jaeger stopped ranting and pacing. His jaw dropped.
“Let’s go,” Kiara said.
In the middle of the room stood a keyhole-shaped door rimmed with a gleaming halo of gold. Champagne swirls of magic laced around a massive emerald hovering in the center. It radiated honeydew green sparks. Amber, topaz, and garnet added bling to the doorframe trim.
Leontes choked at the sight of it. “Kiara, no.”
“W-what’s that?” Jaeger pointed.
Kiara shook her head as if he was mentally challenged. “A door to the fairy realm.”
Leontes swore under his breath.
“I know what it is!” Jaeger said. “I meant, where the hell did it come from?”
“That’s not what you asked,” Kiara said.
Jaeger glanced unbelievingly from the door to Kiara. “Did you create a door to the fairy realm?”
Leontes shot Kiara an ominous look.
“No,” Kiara backpedaled. “Because only fairies can do that. And I’m so not a fairy.”
“Son of a bitch!” Jaeger’s voice rose to a shrill whisper. “You’re part fairy, too!”
Leontes wiped a hand over his face and groaned. “Kiara, this was not the time.”
She raised her hands and flopped them to her sides, foot tapping a frantic rhythm. “I disagree. Giselle’s curse is almost up, so it’s the perfect time. Besides, if she’s in the realm, I’ll be able to sense it. The way I see it, we don’t have any choice.”
Jaeger turned wide eyes on Leontes. “Do the vampires know? Does Rusila?” When Leontes avoided his gaze, Jaeger barked a manic laugh. “You haven’t told them? No way! Do the witches—”
“No one knows!” Leontes frenzied a glance around the lab unti
l his eyes skidded to a halt on Jaeger. His voice was calm. “Cast a forgetting spell upon him.”
Jaeger stepped back, palms raised. “What?”
Kiara flinched and shifted her weight from foot to foot. “I don’t know.”
Leontes stood in front of her and shook her shoulders. “This is dangerous! If word gets out, most of the leaders will want you dead, just to be safe. They will think you have too much power. And even if they do not, the fey will have the right to stake a claim on you, too.”
Kiara lifted her gaze to Leontes. Her green eyes blazed. “I don’t care. It’s not about me. Or you. If Jaeger squeals…well, by that time we’ll have rescued Giselle and I’ll deal with whatever happens.”
Leontes stared at her for a long moment, then angrily shook his head and let her go. “All right,” he said, trying to sound in control. “Okay. But before we go in, let us organize, acquire some backup, come up with a game plan. This is Mab. We must play it smart.”
“That makes very good sense,” Kiara said with conviction. “But you worry too much.”
“Because you worry—”
She splayed her fingers on the giant emerald. The door opened to a mass of swirling white and frigid whistling winds. A flurry of snow converged over Kiara, then it sucked her through like a vacuum.
“—not enough,” Leontes sighed.
CHAPTER 90
Leontes stared passively at the doorway. The blizzard howling on the other side. Kiara was nowhere to be seen.
He folded his arms and calmly said to Jaeger standing beside him, “I was speaking English, correct? I heard myself, and I thought I was clearly speaking English.”
Jaeger folded his arms in a mimic stance of Leontes. “Oh, yeah. You were speaking English, all right. You just weren’t speaking Kiara.”
“Ah. That is where I went wrong.”
Frankie came in, saw the two men, saw the open fairy door, and came to stand next to them, folding her arms and staring, too. “Fairy door, huh?”
Leontes said, “Mmm-hmm.”
“So Kiara just—”
“Yep,” Jaeger said.
“You tried to talk her out of it?”
“As I always do,” Leontes sighed.
“She has a plan, right?” Jaeger asked.
“Absolutely,” Leontes said. “Rescue Giselle and get her out alive.”
“Anything more detailed than that?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Good news is that she’s tough as tacks,” Frankie said. “But you’d better go help her before she gets into trouble or I’ll kick your perky, princely ass.”
“It has not even been five minutes,” Leontes said. Frankie dropped her glasses down her nose and gave him a look. He nodded. “You are correct. For Kiara and trouble, that is more than enough time.”
Leontes snatched his trench coat off a chair and grabbed Jaeger by the shirt. “Let us be off,” he said and tossed the werewolf prince through the doorway and into the raging tempest.
CHAPTER 91
Flat on his back in the deep fluffy snow, Jaeger glared up at Leontes. “You really get off on throwing me through things.”
“It is remarkably satisfying.” Leontes raked his eyes over the terrain.
The fairy realm was currently under Mab’s rule, where temperatures were five shivers below frozen in a land covered in unforgiving cold beauty, just like its queen. Fluffy iridescent flakes fell slowly onto a bright blanket of snow that shimmered like a bed of opals, the tall trees looking like frosted popsicles. The arctic wind howled through the woods around the clearing they had landed in. Frozen crystal stung their faces.
Mountains towered. Their jagged peaks rimmed the valley. Barren rock sheathed in ice and snow and shrouded in mist. Across rolling hills, Mab’s castle of ice rose from the mountainside with a harsh, sterile beauty. Turrets, towers, and glittering walls surrounded by a moat floating with serrated chunks of glaciers.
“This place sure is cozy.” Jaeger dusted off the snow, and then pointed at footprints that disappeared into the forest. “Kiara left without us? Great.”
A loud snarl slashed across the valley.
Jaeger looked around. “They have big cats here?”
Leontes kept scanning the landscape. “Why would you say that?”
“Because I’ve worked as a guide on safaris in Africa, Asia, and the Amazon. I’ve tracked a lot of animals. And that sound was from some kind of big cat. Is that what scared off the fairies before?”
“I am in awe of your keen ear and nomadic hodgepodge of professional pursuits,” Leontes said dryly. “Now if you would get off your ass, perhaps we could carry on with our rescue.”
Jaeger stood. “What about Kiara?”
“Give her but another moment to—”
Kiara raced out of the woods. She had a duffle bag slung over her shoulder and was grinning from ear to ear. She scooped up snow and threw it in the air, letting it fall like confetti as she chanted. “She’s here, she’s here, she’s here!”
When Kiara reached them, she flung the bag aside, flopped onto her back, and flapped her arms and legs to make a snow angel as she babbled with giddy excitement. “I got close to Mab’s castle, and I can so feel my death curse. Giselle is in there, all right. I’ll be able to track her once we get inside the walls.”
“Thank God for that,” Jaeger said, but his moment of relief was short lived. “Now how do we get in to rescue her?”
Leontes focused on the large duffle bag dumped in the snow then frowned. “I believe that is mine.”
“Exactly,” Kiara said, still brimming with joy. “I’ve been borrowing a few things from your secret stash in your secret room and secretly popping into Fairy Neverland every never-now and never-then to hide a few goodie bags just in case a crisis like this one ever came up. Smart, huh?”
“That is a debate for another time,” Leontes said. “No doubt you also have been visiting your special friends?”
“Of course!” Kiara stuck two fingers in her mouth and let out a shrill whistle.
Over the howling wind, a distant thundering began to build. As it grew louder, the ground shook. The powdered snow began to jump and dance from the violent vibrations.
“What’s that?” Jaeger asked, looking anxious and turning in circles to ready for the oncoming threat.
Kiara spoke in an ominous tone. “Dangerous, ferocious beasts who are the fairies most lethal threat.”
Something crashed through the forest and burst into the clearing at such high speed that they blurred. When the new arrivals finally skidded to a stop and the snow settled, Kiara, Leontes, and Jaeger stood surrounded by a herd of over one hundred unicorns.
The majestic beasts stood regal and proud, muscles rippling with grace and strength. Power trembled off of their bodies. They snorted and stomped. Several whinnied and reared up, front legs pawing at the air. Their horns and hooves glinted with swirls of bright metal. Flowing manes and tails fluttered in the wind.
Their coats shone glossy and rich in the usual equine shades of greys, browns, and black, as well as the traditional pristine fairytale white. However, many glimmered in an array of pastels—green, blue, yellow, lavender, and pink—almost glowing iridescent.
Jaeger gave Kiara a doubtful look. “Unicorns? That’s what the big, bad fairies are so scared of? We’re decorating Giselle’s new room in unicorns. They’re adorable. See?” A small delicate unicorn foal stepped up hesitantly and used his soft lips to nibble on Jaeger’s shirt. The baby nickered softly and turned its head. Jaeger reached to pet its neck. “Aren’t you a cute little— Oh, God!”
Jaeger reeled back in horror. A crossbow bolt stuck out of the baby unicorn’s shoulder. Blood trickled down from the wound, dried and caking the beautiful coat.
At Jaeger’s cry, the foal started and jerked away with a panicked squeal.
“Sorry, little guy. I didn’t mean to scare you,” Jaeger said softly. When something squishy and wet bumped his shoulder, he glanc
ed sideways.
The bloody end of a severed arm swung at his face.
CHAPTER 92
“Son of a bitch!” Jaeger ducked out of the way, but blood spattered over his shirt.
An adult female unicorn stood just behind Jaeger. Her smooth, luxurious coat shimmered a pale, iridescent lavender. The mane of deep violet fluttered in the wind like spun silk.
And a human arm dangled from her horn.
The mare had stabbed it through at the bicep and violently ripped the arm off at the shoulder. Thick blood dripped from the exposed broken bones and tendons stringing down, blood still warm enough to melt the snow as it dripped and puddled and stained the white ground. The gloved hand still had a literal death grip on a crossbow.
“What is this horror show?” Jaeger said.
“It’s the stupid fairies.” Kiara ran over to the wounded foal and moved her hands softly around the injury. In between speaking quiet words of comfort, she told Jaeger, “They send out hunting parties trying to eradicate the unicorns from existence. They cut off the horns from their kills and hang them in the woods around the castle as a warning for the unicorns to stay away. It’s barbaric.”
As the foal nuzzled Jaeger’s shirt and licked the spattered blood, he asked, “Why do they want them gone?”
“The metal in their hooves and horns, and even in their teeth, is iron.” Kiara braced her feet, whispered in the foal’s ear, then took a deep breath and yanked out the bolt.
The baby tossed its head and squealed, but did not run away. Kiara quickly ran her hands over the gaping hole. As blood poured out, she muttered words Jaeger did not understand. A green mist trailed from her fingers and over the wound. Slowly the injury knitted together until only a jagged circle of scar tissue remained.
The mare shook her head until the severed arm slid off and landed at Kiara’s feet.
