by Michele Hauf
Jacques began to shift, and that rallied half a dozen pack members, who shifted to answer the call to protect and secure one of their own. Kir raged at them, slashing his arm and catching a shoulder or thigh with his deadly claws. Someone jumped on his back and pulled him down.
He heard the principal shout in his were voice. The tones were to stop it, to settle, but he ignored them. He wanted blood. He would not stop until he held his wife in his arms again.
* * *
Kir’s mouth was dry. His muscles ached. He was no longer in werewolf shape. He wore jeans and no shirt. Blood scent alerted him, but then he unclenched his muscles. It was his blood. He’d taken a beating. And he’d delivered a beating.
He didn’t regret his actions. If he had harmed one of the pack, it was because he had been hurt. Betrayed by the very wolves he called family.
Betrayed for so long.
“Had to do it,” his principal said.
Looking up, Kir noticed Etienne stood in the corner of the dark cell. He’d not scented him. The fight had decimated his strength and his remaining strength felt inaccessible, out of reach. Now he realized the pull in his shoulder muscles was because his arms had been yanked back and up. His wrists were manacled with silver lined with leather. It wouldn’t burn, but the silver so close to his skin would subdue him. Bastards.
This was the very cell in which they had held Sophie.
“You did not have to do it,” he muttered.
“Give it a few days and your anger will lessen. It’s tough. I understand that.”
“I love her!”
“Yes.” Etienne kicked his heel against the wall behind him. “Love sometimes hurts.”
“No. That’s what people say when they want to cover up their mistakes.”
“Your father left you for love.”
“No, he didn’t! He left because his heart was cold from living with my mother. Because you took her away from him. My father escaped the pack and then found love.”
Etienne shrugged. “Colin has always been weak. Madeline fell out of love with him long before I stepped in to soothe her aching, empty heart.”
Kir winced. He didn’t want to know. It was too late for truths.
“So many lies. And now you take away the one thing that meant everything to me. You betrayed me!”
“Betrayal is a strong accusation, Kir.”
“It stands. Pack Valoir means nothing to me now. I won’t apologize for loving my wife. Bring her back to me. Or I will leave the pack.”
“Think those words through carefully, Kir. Leaving the pack is a serious deal.”
He knew that. He’d be banished, forever branded an omega wolf. No pack would ever take him in. He would no longer have family.
The door closed, leaving him alone. Family? Had he ever had family? Or had it merely been a twisted fantasy?
Kir strained against the chains, pressing his body forward, knowing he could not escape the silver manacles. He howled for hours, endlessly, until his throat was so raw he could only whimper.
He’d promised Bea they would never be separated. He’d not kept his word.
Chapter 22
Bea woke sprawled on a cold stone floor. Shadows fell upon moss-covered rocks scattered haphazardly around a murky, moss-frosted pool of stagnant water. Weremice scampered nearby, their spiked tails scratching through the dust. Insects that could get caught in a faery’s hair and steal away strands for their nests skittered along the stones. A blue-winged crow sat in the high cross-barred oriel that was open to the violet midnight sky.
She recognized this place. And such recognition curled dread about her spine. When younger, she and her cousins had snuck in here through an underground tunnel and played spook. It was the place her father sent those awaiting trial or punishment. The tower. Which wasn’t much more than a tall column of fieldstone mortared together with silted clay from the bog witch’s pond. It was the spell upon the stones that kept inside whatever needed to be restrained.
She smelled the stench now; it never lessened. Rotting flora and dead things. The only way in was through an underground chamber, which must be close to the mossy grating.
Bea clasped her knees to her chest and shivered.
She was back in Faery.
Kir had not returned home to protect her.
* * *
Kir moaned in his sleep. “Bea.”
Or was he caught in a waking reverie? Surely he’d sat in this cold, dark basement for days. And when not sitting he paced in an attempt to keep his muscles limber. Push-ups focused his thoughts. His mind was growing dark with worry over things he could not control. And revenge.
A pack female had brought him food and bottles of water. He’d eaten little—no appetite—but had consumed all the water. He needed to maintain his strength. It was difficult to force food down his gullet when worry about Bea occupied every moment, every breath.
Was she in Faery right now? Had to be. Etienne had acted swiftly. Had the principal’s act of taking Kir’s wife away from him been further retaliation against Colin, for whom he had held such hatred over the years? It was hard to fathom. Etienne had treated Kir well, as if he were his own son.
Was that it? They’d gotten rid of Colin and had acted as though he’d never existed. Kir and Blyss had grown to consider Etienne their father. He wondered how Estella felt about it all, with Madeline still in the pack. What weird sort of relationship did the threesome have?
He couldn’t think about it. Didn’t want to go there. All that mattered was his wife. Were they treating Bea kindly? Surely her father would not be pleased to see her returned.
Kir prayed Malrick allowed Bea back into his home.
What was he thinking? He didn’t want Bea to be welcomed back into the family that had treated her so poorly. He wanted her here, in the mortal realm, at his side where she belonged. Because he accepted her, no matter what. Half demon? It didn’t matter to him. He was over hating an entire race. And Sophie could no longer be blamed.
The door swung open to reveal two pack members. Kir blinked through the dullness to make out their faces. Etienne directed Jacques to unlock the chains.
“It’s been three days,” Jacques muttered as he twisted a key in the manacle lock that secured Kir’s wrist. He slapped Kir’s shoulder. “You over it yet, man?”
Kir eyed his friend and swallowed back a vicious retort. Hadn’t the man the compassion to understand how he was feeling? How would Jacques feel if the situation were reversed with his Marielle?
But he couldn’t blame Jacques for not understanding. He’d never had someone he loved literally torn away from him. Hell, the man’s wedding was in a few weeks. He’d understand soon enough.
“Three days,” Kir muttered.
He was three days separated from Bea. Three days distant, surmounted by the greater distance of a different realm. She must believe he had abandoned her. What else could she think?
“Can we trust you won’t explode again?” Etienne asked.
Kir nodded. Now was not the time for anger and fighting. Now he must think and conserve his energy. He would need it if he was going to find Bea.
“Go home and sleep it off,” Etienne said. “Return to work enforcing next week.”
“Nothing has changed,” Kir said. He dropped the manacle that had wrapped his wrist for days. The skin was abraded, but he’d heal before he stepped foot off the compound. Weakness from the silver would continue to challenge him. “By keeping me here, giving me time to think, you’ve cemented my decision, Principal Montfort.”
Etienne stepped up to him, his shoulders squared and chin lifted. The elder wolf had always held Kir’s respect. Until now. “And what decision is that?”
Jacques muttered, “Ah, hell.”
“I’m leaving the pack.”
“Don’t do it, man,” Jacques said.
“Will you bring her back?” Kir asked his principal.
“I cannot and will not undo what has been done.” Etienne d
id not back away from his stance before Kir, but his face softened, his gaze less stern. “Kir, please. You must view this from my position. Even if Malrick did offer another alliance, I wouldn’t trust him the second time to accept it. I’m sorry, but this was a spoils of war situation. We’ve already ceased guarding the portal. Faery will have to deal with their mistakes on their own.”
“You did what you had to,” Kir said, though he didn’t agree with those actions. “So now I will do what I have to.”
“What does that mean?” Jacques asked.
“I’m taking the war to Faery.” Kir straightened, looking down on his principal. “I will bring her back.”
“Are you insane?”
“Wouldn’t you do the same for your wife?”
Etienne thrust back his shoulders. “That’s different.”
“Why? Because she’s a wolf? Not a half-breed faery who the pack has sneered at since the day we took her in. The day I agreed to the marriage vows, the day the entire pack seemingly accepted Bea into our family. You made that decision when you accepted the bargain from Malrick and assigned me to marry her. Now look how you show her our respect.”
“She has not earned our respect!”
Kir fisted his fingers but, wisely, held back the urge to lay his principal flat. “Admit that no matter what she did she could have never done anything to earn your respect.”
Etienne noted Kir’s fist with a lift of his jaw and a snarl to show his fangs. “I don’t want to discuss this anymore. It’s been done.”
“It has. Let each man take responsibility for his own actions.” Kir looked to Jacques. “You’re my brother, but I’d never ask you to stand beside me. I have to do this alone. I hope you can forgive me.”
Jacques opened his mouth to reply but instead nodded, holding a tight jaw.
“Banish me tonight,” Kir said to Etienne. “I need to have that ritual over with so I can go after Bea.”
Kir strode out of the basement room, his intention to take a shower in the pack barracks and put on some clean clothes. He wouldn’t go home. There was only one way out of a pack. And that required a test of strength and fortitude.
Chapter 23
The summons was a surprise. Bea had wallowed in the tower for what she guessed had been three days with little more than a few wilted mushrooms she’d dug out from the moss and stale water to drink. Just when she felt sure she would be left to die, a hob popped its knobby head from below, pushing up the moss-coated grating. “He wishes to see you.”
So Bea followed the wobbling bit of gruff and smell down the dirt tunnel that was wrapped in tree roots and dripped with dank liquid. Topside opened into a small chamber off the main receiving room in Malrick’s castle. Bea recognized it by the smell of humble-bees carrying pollen from the plethora of dewblooms that spilled down the chamber walls.
After crossing the quartz-floored chamber and to the far wall, the hob pulled back the iron-banded rowan door and nodded she make haste and follow. Bea scampered after her jailor, entering the receiving room that ever dazzled. Black-and-pink quartz-fashioned floors and walls.
Her father, tall, slender and aged, stood with his back to her, his fingers rattling impatiently near the leather strap that holstered a fine crystal scythe at his thigh. On those fingers glinted the tribal markings that were also magical sigils he could control with but a touch. It would take years, perhaps even mortal centuries, for Bea to master such magic with her burgeoning sigils. His thick black hair spilled over narrow shoulders and contrasted with the royal blue tunic he wore to his thighs. A decidedly medieval look for him.
Now that Bea had been out in the mortal realm, she could compare Faery fashion to some of the older mortal centuries. The Unseelies were quite behind the humans in some things. But not weaponry. The crystal scythe was just for show; the glamour-infused tattoos were the man’s real weapon.
“I am displeased,” Malrick hissed without turning to acknowledge her.
Shivering and weak, she rubbed her palms up her arms and fought to remain strong. She would not let this man reduce her to the cowering servant she had once been. Yes, a servant in her own home.
“I have done nothing to earn your displeasure,” she said. “It is you who did not honor the bargain between pack—”
“Silence!”
Malrick swung about gracefully. Bea stepped back. While his face was beautiful, his eyes were silver. She’d never known them to be violet. Aging faeries’ eyes faded and grew silver, but when that happened they were older than some worlds. Bea thought the color ugly, always had.
“You don’t want me here,” she said carefully yet firmly. She lifted her chin, maintaining her courage. “And I don’t want to be here.”
Malrick gestured toward the door. “Then leave.”
So simple as that?
She knew that if she were to venture beyond her father’s demesne she would never find her way back to the mortal realm and would likely get lost or, worse, attacked by something she’d only imagined in her nightmares. She may have wielded bravery in the safety of her husband’s presence, but here?
“Would you direct me to a portal?” she asked with hope and a staunch determination to maintain that bravery she had tried on and found she liked. “Send a guide? Ensure my safe leave?”
Malrick scoffed and lifted his chin. “You’d never survive. You’ve been pampered all your life.”
“Pampered?” Bea could only gasp and search the ground, unwilling to meet his cruel gaze. All her life she’d been treated as less than, and now to discover such treatment had been Malrick’s idea of pampering?
“At the very least,” she started cautiously, “you could have told me about my mother.”
“I told you as much as I could stomach.”
That her father held such disgust for her mother ripped at Bea’s insides. Truly, the woman must be evil incarnate. “She is demon?”
Malrick looked down his nose at her, a haughty glare that ever made her want to cringe into her skin and become small, disappear even.
But she remained strong. “I can understand why you hate me. Of all the mixed blood sidhe who roam Faery that are your progeny you surely cannot embrace one who has demon blood racing through her veins. That makes me one of The Wicked. But seriously? You’re the one who had sex with a demon in the first place.”
“I will not discuss— You try me, Beatrice!”
“As I must! For I’ve never had the fortitude to stand up to you until now.”
“And why is that? Do you see what a little time in the mortal realm has done to you? It has made you—”
“Stronger.” She stepped forward, confidence straightening her spine. “And smarter. And...kinder. And curious. Always curious.” And it was all because of Kir’s patience and loving manner. Within the safety of his love he’d allowed her to blossom. “I know you do not love the hundreds of women who stream through your life, and I can only guess a demoness was some kind of forbidden fruit to you.”
Her father gestured dismissively. “I have my fetishes.”
She didn’t want to hear about that. She’d lived it. “Will you at least tell me what my mother meant to you? Did you love her at all?”
Malrick sighed heavily and closed his eyes. The heel of his hand caught against the jet hilt of the crystal scythe. “Bea—”
“Please, father. It is the last thing I will ever ask of you.”
“I shall hold you to that.” And his eyes met hers in a discerning once-over. Bea held his gaze, defiantly. Proudly. “Her name was Sirque,” he finally said. “But I have told you that.”
“It is all you have ever told me. You left me to concoct a make-believe image of a mother from the few clues of my own nature. The fangs and the cravings for ichor? I thought I was half vampire.”
He smirked. “And you behaved as such. Abominable.”
She clasped her arms across her chest, but the hug was far from the reassurance she sought from the only man she trusted. “But t
hen to learn my mother was demon? I’ve only known to despise demons, more so than vampires.”
“Demons are not an eloquent breed. Too attached to Beneath and their Master of Darkness, who ever insists he is greater than all of Faery.”
Himself, the Master of Darkness, the Prince of Demons, did rule over Beneath. Mortals called it Hell. Himself insisted he ruled over the sidhe for they were halfway between angel and demon, and he, the devil Himself, had once been angel. Bea had been told the legends and myths of most breeds as she’d grown up. Faery tales, all of it. And those were the truest tales of all.
“Sirque...” Malrick lifted his head and offered quietly, “Pursued me. She...well, I won’t say. The less you know about your mother, the better.”
“You must tell me! I have a right to know.”
“And I have a right to protect that which I love!”
Bea dropped her fist at her side. His words did not ring true. “What? Don’t you dare use that word. You don’t know the meaning of love.”
“And you do? The Wicked cannot know love.”
Yes, she had heard that in the faery tales, as well. But she now knew that to be false. Because she did love. Fiercely.
“Love is this!” She thrust out her hand to show him the bonding mark, which did not glow now that she had been separated from her husband. “Love is the ache in my heart that will never go away because I have been separated from the only man who has ever shown me kindness.”
“I grant you a kindness by allowing you back into my home,” Malrick said in a low, measured tone.
Bea knew it was a tone she must fear, but this time—no. She thrust back her shoulders and defied the Unseelie king by meeting his cold silver gaze. “You welcomed me back and into your dungeon. Some kindness.”
“I did not order your death.”
Indeed, he would see that as a form of compassion. Repulsed that this man’s ichor ran through her veins, Bea could almost bring herself to embrace her demon mother if given a choice between the two. Any creature must possess more heart than this cruel Faery king.
