Frost & Bothered (Discord Jones Book 4)

by Gayla Drummond

  “All right. Wait here until the way is clear,” Thorandryll said.

  “Twenty-four hours and no word, come find us,” I whispered to Kate. She patted my arm.

  “I’ll be on the lion.”

  “No, it’ll be my turn,” Damien said before hugging me. “Be safe.”

  “That’s the plan.” I left them arguing in murmurs over Connor, to give him and Dane hugs. “We’ll see you guys.”

  “Better. I don’t want to have to tell the boss I misplaced you.” Dane made a face. “Or tell Terra that I lost both Logan and you.”

  “Yeah, wouldn’t want that.” I laughed and walked over to Leglin. “Keep an eye on them for me.”

  “I will,” the hound promised. “You will call if you need me?”

  “Yes.” I hugged him too. Illy, I skipped, because the husky was watching me from the cover of the pavilion’s entrance. Percy was in the pavilion, perched by the fire. They were kind of hurting my feelings, avoiding me the way they had. Maybe I smelled funny, or perhaps it was the frequency thing.

  “We’re ready, Miss Jones.”

  “So am I.” I joined him and Logan, and we walked down the incline that led to the maze’s entrance.

  The elf didn’t hesitate, striding right into the passage, which was wide enough for us to walk side by side.

  Walls of seamless ice, too thick to see through, created the passageway It didn’t take long to reach the first turn, and not a few minutes later, we had a choice to go left, right, or straight.

  “Okay, thoughts?”

  “Right would put us heading toward the castle again,” Logan said.

  “The most direct route isn’t always the correct one.”

  “Guys, stop. I’m not going to listen to the two of you argue all the way through.”

  Thorandryll sniffed. “Which passageway do you suggest?”

  “Straight first. If we hit a dead end, we’ll back track and go left next.” I walked ahead, and pulled out the dagger Kethyrdryll had given me to scratch a one on the wall of my chosen passageway. “Come on, speed’s a priority.”

  We went straight at every opportunity. I scratched a one on a wall at each juncture, until we hit a dead end. “Crap. Okay, let’s go back.”

  Ten feet back, we turned, and Logan said, “Um, Cordi?”

  “What?”

  “Your mark’s gone.”

  I closed my eyes. “Of course it is. Why did I think that would work?”

  “We can retrace our route, Miss Jones. By memory and,” Thorandryll gave Logan the slightest nod. “By scent.”

  “Great. Lead on, fellas.” I followed them until they stopped short several minutes later. “I don’t want to know why we’ve stopped, do I?”

  “Scent trail’s gone.”

  “We did not pass through here.”

  “Grr.” Pushing between them, I looked left then right. My sense of direction had given up trying to keep track some time before. Not that it mattered if the maze was changing. “Let’s go left.”

  Hours later, I regarded the smooth wall of ice ahead of us. “Well, isn’t this just perfect? Another friggin’ dead end.”

  “We have two choices,” Thorandryll said. “Attempt to retrace our steps again to take a different route, or go through.”

  “By ‘go through’, I’m guessing you mean I melt a hole in it.” When the elf nodded, I scowled. “Isn’t that against the rules?”

  “Possibly, yet as you’ve continually reminded us, we are under a time constraint.”

  “A maze this size, we could wander for days,” Logan added. “Unless you have any psychic leads that help us through faster.”

  “Nothing yet.” I’d been hoping for my tracking ability to kick in. It would make things so much easier. “But I don’t want to try melting a hole and have the whole damn thing decide to bury us.”

  “Retracing our steps it is,” Thorandryll muttered, turning around. I traded an exasperated look with Logan. The elf was getting on my nerves. He’d suggested I use my telekinesis to lift him, so he could see where we were. I’d tried that, and the walls had grown taller.

  We’d taken a break for some rest and food after that, and had to listen to him bitch under his breath until I was ready to try catapulting him with my TK. Imagining him smacking face first into a wall had nearly given me a case of the giggles.

  The fact that I knew we were running out of time kept me from giving in to them.

  Another thirty minutes passed before we found ourselves at a new juncture. The maze had changed again. I wasn’t the only one growling choice words as we looked down each passageway.

  “Which way now?” Logan’s teeth were showing, and his eyes had lightened.

  “Give me a minute, and hey, calm down.”

  “I hate this. It’s a giant trap. A cage.”

  I patted his shoulder, and caught a glimpse of something from the corner of my eye. Ginger was standing in the left passage. Pre-vampire Ginger, not rotting or covered in blood. She wore jeans and her favorite lavender tee with a white kitten on the front.

  She smiled and beckoned before turning away and beginning to walk. I stared at her figure, not sure what to do. Ginger paused to look at me and make a “Come on” gesture before she turned right.

  “Cordi?”

  I looked at Logan. “Let’s go this way.”

  “Are you all right? You look like you saw a ghost.”

  If only he knew. “I’m good. This is the way we need to go.”

  “Okay.”

  I led the way, hoping it wasn’t a mistake. After all, why would Ginger, or her ghost, appear to help me? I had murdered her.

  Or had Merriven been lying? I shivered, recalling thy slimy feel of him in my mind.

  But why would he lie? He’d had me at his mercy, locked in his little pocket realm. The bastard had kept me from using some of my abilities. I had the sneaking suspicion he’d manipulated my anger and grief, and knew for certain he’d tried to lull me into accepting being turned.

  Maybe he had lied. He’d gone spelunking in my memories. I wasn’t certain which ones he’d accessed. The problem was, I’d never know if he’d lied or told the truth. Merriven was dead, beheaded by order of the council.

  We’d reached the turn, and Ginger was waiting thirty feet ahead. She tossed a smile over her shoulder and began walking again. Looking at both men’s faces as they flanked me, I could tell neither could see her. What if I were leading them straight into trouble by following my delusion?

  I chewed on my bottom lip. We were running out of time. Maybe Ginger’s image was replacing a tracking thread, because I was crazy. Or going crazy.

  A crazy psychic might see ghosts. Or think she was.

  I wished I knew what the hell was going on. Every other time I’d seen Ginger had been horrible. Why was this time different?

  Logan caught hold of my hand, slipping his fingers between mine. I wondered what he’d say if he knew what I was really following. Things had been going so well between us. I didn’t want to mess them up by sharing my fears about my mental health.

  Instead, I gave him a quick smile and kept following Ginger as she led the way deeper into the maze. We walked for a few hours, without running into any dead ends. I’d nearly reached the point of stopping when she disappeared around a corner. Turning it, we saw the opening and beyond it, the dark, smooth wall surrounding the castle.

  “Well done, Miss Jones,” Thorandryll said before taking the lead. He didn’t look at me. Probably couldn’t stand the sight of me holding hands with a shifter.

  As Logan and I cleared the maze after him, a faint grinding noise sounded. I turned around and stopped. “What is that?”

  “We solved the maze. It is no longer needed, and is beginning to descend. Once it has, the others will be free to join us.”

  “Oh.” I let Logan’s gentle tug put me in motion, and we walked across the flat, snowy area to the recessed entrance in the wall. Up close, the stone walls weren’t black, bu
t a deep, dark blue. The outer wall stretched high over our heads, and the main entrance was blocked by thick, metal bars. “How do we open it?”

  Logan peered through spaces in the barrier. “Why open them? You can teleport us inside.”

  “The castle is aware. We’ll need its permission to enter, or it will attack us,” Thorandryll said.

  I turned around to check the maze’s descent. “We’d better wait for everyone else.”

  “You did mention a lack of time. I’ll attempt to gain our entrance while we wait.” Thorandryll moved into the recessed entrance and put his hand on one of the stone blocks. He closed his eyes.

  Nothing exciting to see there. I turned around to watch the maze sinking instead, and shivered. “This is pretty damn weird, even for me.”

  “Are you cold?”

  “Little bit.”

  Logan came up behind me to share his cloak by wrapping it, and his arms, around me. “How’s this?”

  Standing cuddles. Definitely okay. “Better, thank you.”

  I had plenty of time to think about stuff while we waited. Stuff like how easily the two of us got along, how warm he was, and how much I liked him. Slightly problematic stuff, since I didn’t know if I was ready to settle into a long-term relationship, if things did work out for us.

  Logan had done a great job of making certain I knew he was seriously interested, without being super pushy. He’d become a lot of fun to daydream about as a possible future boyfriend.

  Maybe what I needed to concentrate on was what I wanted. All advice from my mom and Jo aside, I’d yet to grow super comfortable with playing the field. Plus, it was hard to find a guy who didn’t end up freaking out about my abilities.

  They hadn’t bothered Nick, but if I could be honest with myself about why we’d ended up together, I could also be honest about the two things I hadn’t liked about him: He’d been too possessive and over-protective.

  Logan didn’t think I was a helpless idiot.

  “Here they come,” he said. “Maybe another ten minutes.”

  I nodded, trusting his eyesight, and kept right on musing. He was a great guy, and keeping with the being honest thing, the surety of no babies was a huge draw. Logan was older, and self-confident. He was willing to share a lot more about himself, his family, everything, than Nick had been.

  Huh, maybe I was finally beginning to grow up. Here I was, thinking serious thoughts before things became serious, instead of rushing to the next step.

  “You’re quiet.”

  “Just thinking.”

  “Need a sounding board?”

  “Not right now, but thank you for offering.”

  “Any time.” Logan rearranged the front of his cloak, for a more secure grip on the edges.

  Maybe I was overthinking. He was a good guy, person, and friend. Hell, we might not even survive to start officially dating.

  Well, that was a dumb thought, because it triggered the urge to jump his bones so I wouldn’t miss out on that experience if we died.

  The rest of our group had come far enough that I could distinguish their figures from the shadowy landscape. I checked the sky. Yes, there were clouds, which probably meant more snow. “Hey, you having any luck over there?”

  A grating noise responded, and we turned around. The bars were rising as the elf dropped his hand from the stone block he’d been silently communing with. “We have permission to enter, but if we cause harm to any Unseelie within, the castle will respond with extreme prejudice.”

  “We’ll be really, really careful.” I wasn’t curious enough about what a building would consider “extreme prejudice” to risk finding out.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  The wall around the castle was perhaps thirty feet wide. It was hard to tell for certain because the entrance tunnel wasn’t straight, but sort of S-shaped.

  The far side opened unto a large open area that appeared to be a combination of court and stable yard. I could see a few horses in the stables to the left, their heads lowered and eyes closed.

  Selwin whickered, but none of them responded to the mare.

  I saw something else, and tugged on Logan’s sleeve. “What’s that?”

  He looked at the shape crumpled at the base of one stall door. “A body.”

  Thorandryll sent two of his men over to check things out at the stables. They returned and reported what they’d found. “The horses sleep, but all the stable hands are dead. Long dead.”

  “They were human,” Kethyrdryll murmured to me, and I nodded. Sal and Cernunnos had both said the Unseelie slept. Humans couldn’t sleep for years without medical help. Or magical, but obviously the Unseelie or the bad guys had felt the need to assure... Wait a minute: “What were humans doing here?”

  “Some swore their lives in service, and therefore stayed among us in spite of the Sundering spell,” Thorandryll answered. “There are benefits, Miss Jones.”

  “What benefits?”

  “Prolonged life for one.”

  I glanced at the shape I’d first noticed. “Uh huh, that worked out well.”

  Kate snorted. “Didn’t it just? What are we looking at here? A Sleeping Beauty or Snow White spell?”

  “I beg your pardon?” Thorandryll raised both his eye brows.

  “One’s a curse, the other is a poison,” Alleryn said. “Curse is more likely. It’d be quite difficult to administer a poison to so many at once.”

  “Not if you poisoned the well,” I shrugged. “If there is a well.”

  “Underground reservoir, which is connected to most rivers and lakes in this realm,” Kethyrdryll said. “It would take barrels and barrels of poison to ensure a proper dosage, and likely would’ve affected every creature in the realm.”

  “No Snow White, check,” Kate crossed it off an invisible list. “Sleeping Beauty?”

  “I doubt they all pricked themselves on cursed spindles. “ Alleryn waved his hand at the stone steps leading to the castle’s heavy doors. “We need more information.”

  “Then let’s collect it,” she said. “Forward ho, and all that.”

  Forward ho we went, climbing the stone steps to a wide terrace. Crossing it, we paused at the doors. Thorandryll put his hand on one, and it opened about an inch. His brother helped him widen the gap.

  I filed in between Logan and Damian. The warlock tapped me on the shoulder. “I’ve been meaning to ask you what you think of Tabitha?”

  Nice to discover I wasn’t the only one distracted by personal stuff. “I like her. Why?”

  “Do you think she’d agree to a date?”

  “That, I don’t know.”

  “Well, of course you don’t. You’re not her. She’s the only one who knows.” Damian sighed as we stopped to check out our surroundings. “I’ll have to ask her.”

  Fighting a grin, I patted his shoulder. “Yep, sorry.”

  A long hallway led to wide stairs, but there was more hallway beyond them. Doors or archways dotted the walls beginning about forty feet past the main entrance.

  Dane and Logan exchanged a glance before Logan said, “Why don’t you three stick with us? Let the elves lead.”

  “Why?”

  “Because they’re used to the sort of magic this place is made of.”

  “Oh, right.” The elves might be able to avoid tripping any traps. “Okay.”

  Leglin pressed against my leg, and I scratched his shoulders. He managed to nearly knock Alleryn off his feet with the resultant tail wagging.

  “Really, Leglin,” the mahogany-haired elf muttered after regaining his balance. My hound responded with a doggy grin, his tail still sweeping the air.

  I stifled a laugh. Leglin’s habit of whacking people with his tail had become a source of amusement for me. Most of my friends had learned to stay out of range by now. Alleryn was officially a friend, but he hadn’t exactly hung out with us.

  “We’ll set up camp here.”

  I looked at Thorandryll. “Camp? We need to...”

  “I�
�m aware of our mission. My people and the hounds can search. They’ll inform us of their findings.” Thorandryll paused to listen to Kethyrdryll’s whisper. He nodded. “It will be safer to remain here until we know where the Unseelie are.”

  I hesitated but then nodded. Exploring unfamiliar territory really wasn’t high on my priority list after the things we’d already encountered. “All right.”

  The prince sorted his people into teams while his brother set up camp. Camp consisted of a pavilion along each wall, between the entrance and the first doors, plus a thorny barrier across the entrance and the hallway at the opposite end.

  A narrow opening was left in that barrier, so the elves and hounds could leave. One elf and hound pair were assigned to guard the opening.

  Kethyrdryll stabled his mare. The rest of us—three shifters, two witches, Thorandryll, three hounds, and me—went into Kethyrdryll’s pavilion. The table had been set for dinner.

  Looking over the beautifully glazed ham and assorted veggie side dishes, I felt sorry for the other elves having to work without a hot meal first. I loaded my plate and a goblet of chilled juice and carried it out to the guard. “I thought you might like something to eat.”

  The guard, an elf with white hair and blue-green eyes, gave me a startled look. “That’s very kind of you, milady. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.” I handed the plate, silverware, and goblet over to him. ”I put an extra slice on for your hound.”

  The hound’s ears perked, and I realized it was Enid. “Oh, hi, I haven’t forgotten about the steak. We’ll have the cook-out as soon as it warms up, okay?”

  She gave a small wag in response. I patted her broad skull and went back into the pavilion. There was a new place setting in front of my chair.

  “That wasn’t necessary, Miss Jones,” Thorandryll said as I began to serve myself.

  “Maybe not, but it was polite.”

  He stared at me. “Are you implying my treatment of my people is lacking?”

  “Nope, I just felt weird eating while they didn’t.” Though if that’s what he thought my act meant, maybe Prince Snooty Pants needed to do a little self-assessment. “That’s all.”