by D. D. Miers
I understood the reticence. The way the challenges worked, the challenged could be attacked in several waves, each new round featuring fresh fighters while the one shifter defending themselves gained wounds and grew more exhausted.
"You could change the way the challenges are done." He blinked again and sighed. I knew it meant I'd said something that was common sense in theory, but nearly impossible in practice. Still, he motioned for me to continue.
“I’m listening.”
"I just thought you could force the challengers to fight each other instead until only one remained to challenge for alpha. I mean, isn't that the point? To find the strongest one?" I paused and winked across the table at Pippi. "It would make for a better spectacle, too, if more people were in the audience than in the fray."
He still didn’t answer, but at the head of the table, I could see the gears turning in his head, and I wondered for a moment what trouble I’d just brought myself by sharing.
Six
I'd just undone the button on my jeans and sat on the couch to recuperate from stuffing my face with Italian dumplings and the banana cream pie Pippi had served for dessert when my phone rang. It was Niall, calling from the lobby… To let me know I had yet another unexpected guest.
He hung up without telling me who. Knowing how much Niall liked to mess with me, it could've been a pizza delivery or an emissary from Fairy with a mortal weapon sent to assassinate me. Luckily, while I couldn't ward the place against shifters, I had added some protections against other Fae and the witches, so I was almost certain that I wasn't being called down to fight for my life.
Whoever it was also didn’t know me well enough to simply buzz themselves up to my apartment, making me curious.
Gray offered to come with me, but I waved him off and did up my jeans. “If there’s any trouble, I’m sure you’ll sense it and come running, Love. Niall likes to fuck with me, but he would never put me in real danger…at least not on purpose.” I grinned as he growled something about Niall needed to grow up. “Don’t wish for that too soon, we’re both far too serious most of the time. Without him, we’d be real assholes.”
He laughed aloud and threw his feet up on my brand new, red leather ottoman, ignoring my glare. “He needs to stop stealing Littlebit. Who am I going to cuddle with while you’re gone?”
From the kitchen, Pippi let out a snort, and Gray laughed again.
“Yeah, just so long as you’re both dressed when I get back, I don’t even care if you cuddle.” But I knew Pippi wasn’t that far over her fear of men.
As much as she approved of my relationship with Gray, Niall seemed to be the only male person she didn’t cringe away from. I’d even seen her preen when she sensed him about to knock. Pushing back her mahogany hair and using glamor to smooth out the soft wrinkles in her face. She was a perfectly lovely young brownie, but she knew that these men were used to wrinkles only on their elderly and didn’t see her as that kind of company.
I’d been neglecting her too much, seeing her changes without recognizing her blossoming needs and loneliness. First thing’s first. Let me get rid of whoever is downstairs waiting for me, then I promise I’ll figure out what to do for a lonely Fae in San Francisco.
I left Gray flicking through the channels on the television he'd finally made me buy so we could watch old movies together and rode the elevator down to the lobby, where I found Niall waiting with a familiar shifter.
“Prescot, what the hell are you doing out on the West Coast? Did you use the Fae portal?” I was aghast thinking that somehow Prescot’s parents had snuck him into the naiads’ garden. If the naiads had drowned him, he would’ve died, and I hadn’t thought to make that clear to the deadly, but innocent, Fae.
He shook his head. “I just caught a Lyft from Oakland. My parents don’t; like the rumors coming out of Fairy,” he began to explain.
“They could’ve called and let me know.”
A sheepish nod from the teen. “Mom was afraid Grayson would say ‘no’ if they asked first.”
So…Gray had been complaining about all the new bodies to his fellow alphas, or at least to Prescot’s father, Carl, who ran the Montana pack nearest my father’s sithen, and the center of the Light Court in America.
Carl and his pack had been fighting by my side for a place among the lesser Fae. It bothered me that he still deferred to what he thought Gray might think or do, instead of coming to me, but the sexism in the pack was low on my list of priorities for the moment.
“What rumor could possibly be that bad, Pres?” Niall sounded worried, I was already ticking off a list in my head. The Fae certainly are capable of atrocities, but typically, their xenophobia keeps non-Fae safe from real harm. With the exception of the occasional lone traveler, that is.
“The new king of the Dark Court recognizes shifters as Fae and has invited several packs back east to join the Unseelie Sidhe.”
My breath stopped in my throat, and my ribs clamped down painfully on my lungs in something that resembled a panic attack.
Shit.
Double and triple shit.
My father's hemming and hawing about accepting shifter magic into the wild hunt was about to create the very problem I'd been trying to avert. The Seelie High Fae were only growing weaker, especially now that I'd shut down the prison they used to leech power from the wee folk and High Fae who had fallen too far out of favor with the court.
We needed the shifters, the only creatures still wholly connected to raw magic, untamed even over centuries of their existence. If they were forced, or seduced, by the Dark Fae, they would join the ranks of nightmare mortals at Lothar’s disposal.
Lothar's hunt was made of monsters who defied description, bat-like beasts with reptilian faces and talons for fingers. Some had tentacles, others heads that resembled sharks gaping, toothy maws. They made my blood chill and creep in my veins, almost as much as knowing that Grayson, the most powerful alpha in the country, hadn't been visited by emissaries yet. If the others bound themselves to Lothar as his servants, they would have no choice but to fight against Gray, and we didn't have a chance against an army of shifters that size.
“Yes,” I said aloud, “I suppose I’d want to get you away from Lothar too.” I couldn’t afford to voice my thoughts about how safe Prescot really was with us if the fight was about to land on our doorstep.
A glance at Niall’s worry-creased face told me he was thinking the same things I was. He glanced at the portal at almost the same instant I slipped my athame from my wrist sheath and sliced into the thick pad of my left thumb. It stung, but it would heal quickly, and the blood magic was the fastest, most powerful that I could call without preparation.
I pressed the bloody wound to the fountain I'd stepped out of a little while earlier and used my human magic to bind the opening. I couldn't stop the Dark Fae from coming, or more shifters if a war was truly on the way. But I'd be damned if I let them appropriate the easiest doorway to my front doorstep.
“C’mon, let’s go see Gray. We’ll figure out where you’re going to stay…Spoiler alert, it’s going to be Niall.”
Niall made a half-sound of protest but stopped mid-whine. "You're right, it probably will be. All right, I'll take your backpack up to my place and meet you guys in a minute."
I took a sheepish Prescot up to my apartment and shrugged at Grayson’s look of amazement. “Wait…Sheryl let you come to California by yourself?” He didn’t even ask why, which was better for me anyway. It gave me the chance to make Prescot feel more comfortable and get him out of hearing range before I started sharing the scary stuff. Poor kid hadn’t ever been away from home before, and instead of a party, he was probably fighting more trouble than he’d left.
Niall was right behind us, carrying Akane in the crook of his arm as he pushed the door open with his toe. “Is it safe in here?”
“Yeah, Niall, the party hasn’t even started yet. How about you take Prescot to your place to get settled in, and I'll let Penelope know
she's got an apprentice coming into the shop."
Gray waited until after they’d left, Akane still in Niall’s arms, Prescot gushing over her with just the right amount of baby talk to endear her to him. “Okay…what’s up? Why did he come looking for you?”
“Sheryl was afraid you’d say no if they asked.”
“Because I would have. We don’t need more people here, Morgan.”
I counted to ten before answering. “He’s a shifter, Gray. He belongs to you, not me. Besides, he brings some pretty serious news about Lothar and the shifters.”
"Oh, God. Did Lothar attack the Montana pack?" He jumped to his feet, upending the glass of water that had been sitting at his side. Water splashed over the floor, and for a moment, all I could do was stare at it, as though something was calling to me through it.
“No. They were invited to join the Dark Court…along with every pack east of them, from what Prescot said." I shook myself and moved out of sight of the water, a chill creeping up my spine that it had captured my attention. "I shut the portal to Fairy, so it can't be used, but…"
“But they’re probably on their way.”
“Prescot should be safe with Penelope. She’s still more attached to the human world than any of us. We leave her out of whatever happens, and Prescot just thinks he’s learning to be a hunter in a world of humans.”
Carl had suggested that his son should become a bounty hunter when we’d visited their pack, before I’d healed the boy and pulled his animal out of him, helping him become a full member of the pack. It still seemed a good idea to teach the kid a trade, if for no other reason than self-sufficiency if the packs were taken over.
Sheryl had sent us her only son, heir to the Montana throne, to keep him away from the Dark Court. It was the one task I thought we might actually manage. I texted Pen and told her to come to collect the kid, and she shot back a quick reply that she was already en route with Julian, who'd just got off the phone with his old alpha and was relating the situation to her as they ran every red light they dared.
“Pen says she’s on the way, but they’re acting like the Unseelie are already here,” I joked shakily. “I…” I heard a voice calling and caught myself wandering into the kitchen. “I mean…Gray do you hear something?” I went to the sink, where Pippi had left water sitting in a bowl she was going to use for fabric dying.
The water swirled, and I heard the voice again. "There you are, Princess. Move your stupid legs, the Unseelie are traveling in the shadows and passed over one of my pools." It was Nineve, her thin, breathy voice sharp as razor grass. "Run, stupid girl. They're right outside your door."
As if in answer to a command, the wards began to peal in my head like an alarm, and the water in the bowl splashed up in my face like it was disturbed by a diving fish. The first thought to cross my mind was that Prescot had led them to us. But that kind of betrayal seemed against everything I knew of the packs.
“Gray…” I started, when the blaring in my head became a siren to alert every shifter in the building. We were on fire, and when we ran out the front door, I didn’t dare to imagine what was waiting for us.
“Morgan. Carl didn’t…” Gray knew me better than anyone, but frankly, it didn’t matter if he had or not. I needed to get the Unseelie away from the pack, away from Prescot, and if I could, as many of them dead as possible.
I hadn’t summoned it, but Caorach appeared in my hand as though I’d already stepped into battle. I can kill these things. I remember the taste of Unseelie blood.
The demon-blade could kill most Fae under the right circumstances, but the Unseelie are much like the shifters, in that they’re mortal. Like the goblins…and like me. A hint of irritation hit me.
Why hadn’t they come to me first? I wasn't asking Caorach, really, but the blade agreed that it was very rude for them to ignore us when obviously we were the cream of the mortal magical monsters…Shut up, Blood blade. That’s not what I want. But still, it would’ve been better than waiting for the other shifters to vacate the premises so we could avoid the casualties on our side.
Aloud, I shouted for Gray to get out. “I can run better alone, and your people need you to be the alpha. We’ll meet up with the kids in the underground market. Take whoever will go with you. Tell the rest to get out of here and find high ground, as open as possible. They travel in the shadows.”
"They travel through darkness, and you're going to go underground?"
I pushed him toward the door. "They're going to find me no matter what. I'm taking the fight where there aren't humans and anyone who is there has survivability."
He hesitated, but Niall came crashing through the door with Prescot and my pet fox. “The fire alarm won’t turn off, but I can’t smell smoke.”
"That's my alarm to get y'all out, Niall. Glad it works, now do it. Meet Pen and Jules and have them drive you over the water. The naiads warned me that the Unseelie were coming, I think they'll prevent them from crossing if they can."
“They can do that?” Niall exhaled slowly. “Fancy.” He cocked his head at Prescot. “Do you think they’ll try to stop us?”
“I don’t think they’ll even notice. The shifters began evacuating immediately, and I haven’t heard a thing from them. I’m just trying to be conservative.”
Gray cleared his throat. “I’m staying with Morgan. Put out the warning to any shifters living outside the circle that they may be targeted and tell them to get over the bridge if they can, just in case.” He took my arm at the elbow before I could argue and urged the guys out the door ahead of us.
Akane nipped Niall, wriggling to get free of his grasp, but I tapped her on the nose. “No, Littlebit. You go with them. Protect Prescot, okay?”
She was too little to stop any threat, but she puffed up her thick red-gold ruff and chirruped at me in the affirmative.
Pippi had disappeared either out for errands of her own, or at the first warnings of danger, I wasn’t sure which. I called out to her, but she didn’t answer. Goddess keep her safe, and far away from the hunters.
Caorach began a high-pitched keening in my head I knew meant that trouble was too close and I’d stalled too long. “They’re close, Gray. I wish you’d go.”
"And I wish you'd stop wasting time worrying about everyone else when they're either here for you or me. Who better to face them than the two of us together?"
My heart swelled a little. I’d fought so hard for him to recognize me as a real power, an asset to him not just the pack. To hear him chastise me for forgetting that we were nearly unmatchable together made me wish I had two more seconds to kiss him, touch him, ground myself in our love before heading into the fray.
“Fuck it. Come on, Grayson Xenos, West Coast Alpha, badass were-panther…Let’s go spill some blood.”
I shocked him into laughter, and he kept right on chuckling as the door splintered and in poured four of the most horrifying Unseelie hunters I’d ever seen.
“Hey-o, Chthel, you couldn’t knock?” The largest of the hunters was Lothar’s captain of the guard, a cruelly comical mixture of human, night flyer, and shark, her body parts fitted together like something out of a low-budget sci-fi movie.
She stalked toward me, her thick, bare legs bunched as though she was waiting for me to attempt to evade her. The hunters wore almost nothing, their naked bodies covered in scars from previous battles. Chthel was almost more scar than flesh, but once she had been the blue-grey of a marine animal, her rough, sandpaper skin a match for her dead black eyes and the multiple rows of teeth that glinted wetly at me from her grinning, lipless mouth.
“The king wishes an audience,” she hissed, waving her talons at me. When she raised her arms, I noticed translucent skin that stretched between her arms and her body, from armpit to wrist and waist.
Holy shit, can she fly? I shuddered at the thought and pushed away the revulsion. But the damage was done, and the other hunters advanced, trying to flank us. “I mean no disrespect, Chthel, but if he wanted to tal
k, all he had to do was call.”
“It is not a friendly conversation.” She advanced another step, the talons at the ends of her webbed feet clicking on the wood floor.
"Yeah…I got that impression." I backed away from her toward my bedroom, where my only other portal stood in a corner. The mirror was my mother's, and I'd managed to sneak it out of the sanctuary when I'd run from the coven. I used it to talk to my father, but I left it untuned, so no one could open a connection without my permission. I'd also never used the conduit as a travel portal before, for the same reason.
Gray and I had established multiple escapes in case I needed to escape the shifters or the witches, and I prayed that he'd catch on without clues, because I was all out of subtle hints, and I needed him behind Caorach and me.
Chthel’s talons were reportedly poison, and the silly green gleam on the tips of the claws had me believing that rumor. Caorach could kill her, and I could possibly survive the poison…really there wasn’t much assurance to be had. Gray being out of reach had to be enough.
He broke for the bedroom, and I slid my hand over Caorach's blade and slammed my hand against the wards on the wall, sealing us in the hallway behind a wall of raw power. Before the cut had a chance to heal, I ran ahead and wiped the remaining blood on the wooden frame of the mirror, calling for a door.
I pushed Gray through as a scream echoed through the apartment, followed by the smell of burnt hair and flesh. For a second, I exulted, but Chthel stepped over the body of her companion and filled the doorway. “My hunters die for Lothar.”
“Your hunters die because you couldn’t just send a challenge like any other goddamned Fae.”
The mirror glowed softly, and I shoved Gray into the glass before anyone else could move. Chthel took up so much room in the doorway, the rest of the hunters couldn't make it through. But she didn't approach, too wary of Caorach to move in to fight in the much smaller space.
