by Helen Scott
Chapter 16
The Morrigan looked up at Alec as he walked into the living area. He’d jumped into the kitchen to avoid startling her. Eyes as dark as coal glittered as she looked at him, and her delicate nose flared as he drew near. The grim, feared war goddess she’d once been known as was suddenly obvious to him.
“My lady,” Alec said as he dipped his head.
“News?” Her delicate black brow arched.
“We are following a significant lead. I need to ask you something that you may not be comfortable disclosing.”
“Go on,” she said as she folded her hands neatly in her lap.
“Do, uh . . .” A sudden shyness surrounded him, the question seeming overly personal even though he didn’t intend it that way. “Do fae bleed the same way humans or demigods do? Can they be injured?”
“Did you find blood?” Her eyes were wider than they had been a moment ago, but not so much that she was obviously shocked. He was willing to bet she was doing her best to control her emotions in front of him.
“We found something, but we aren’t sure what it is. The substance was found on a glove and appeared to be clear and slightly sticky.”
She sighed and seemed to fall back against the couch cushions a little more. “We can be injured, especially if the weapon contained iron. Most don’t in your modern world, which I am grateful for. As for fae blood? It is clear in the mortal realm. I am unsure about it being sticky, but probably. It really depends on what it interacts with. Do you have it with you?”
“No, I left it with Ben and our tracker, as they are following the lead.”
“You should warn them—fae blood has been known to cause aggression when spilled. When I went into battle, if I lost one drop of blood, the field would erupt into chaos.”
There was something in the way she spoke that made Alec think she didn’t always regret the chaos. Either way, it didn’t matter now. He needed to warn Ben and get back to Ellie. “Thank you, my lady. That is most helpful.”
She nodded regally at him before he jumped out.
Alec stood in the actual store part of Speak o’ the Devil while he texted Ben. He knew as soon as he entered the room with Ellie and Vivienne, he wouldn’t be able to focus on anything else. There was no immediate response, so he slid the phone back into his pocket.
Cin stood no more than five feet away, which startled him since he hadn’t heard her approach.
“Everything okay?” he asked, bracing himself for whatever problem had arisen.
“Yeah, Ellie’s fine, but I wanted to talk to you about something.”
“Oh?” He shoved his hands into his jacket pockets and waited to see what was going on that had Cin so nervous.
She pressed her fingertips against her thumbs on each hand one after the other while they hung by her sides. Alec wasn’t sure she was even aware she was doing it, but he could tell it was a nervous tick.
“It’s about Ellie.” She sighed. “I know I’m stepping into something that isn’t my business, but I can’t help myself. If I kept my mouth shut, I would feel guilty, and since she’s . . . wherever she is right now, I figure it’s a now-or-never kind of thing.”
“You’re making me nervous, Cin,” he said as his heart picked up the pace in his chest.
“You know how I said the sales woman upset Ellie in the store?”
He nodded. He’d wanted to go back and shake the woman for bringing up Ellie’s family issues like that.
“Well, I think that’s just the tip of the iceberg. She was so upset, Alec. She tried to hide it, but it was written all over her face. When I asked her what was wrong, she tried not to let it out, but she did. She hasn’t been planning the wedding because it makes her feel, and I quote, like ‘someone’s shining a spotlight on the fact that I’m alone in the world.’
“I tried to reassure her, telling her that it wasn’t true and that she had a family in everyone who lived on the island, but I think she feels like it’s not really hers since we are your family, too, if that makes any sense. She loves you completely, but an actual wedding seems like it’s not something she can handle right now. Maybe if there were people who could show up just for her, it would be different, but she doesn’t have a ton of friends and the only family she does have is on the island already. Look—” Cin paused again, wiping the palms of her hands on her jeans before shoving them into the back pockets—“she asked me not to tell you, so I’m breaking sister rule numero uno, but I thought you should know. Everyone’s noticed the change in her, in the two of you, and I thought this might help make it better.”
The words hung in the air, and Alec wasn’t sure how to make any of this better. “Do you think she’d want to marry me if she wasn’t so alone? If she had someone to walk her down the aisle and help her with everything?”
“Probably. Honestly, I don’t know. We didn’t talk about it all that much because she was so upset, but I think the will and the love are there. It’s just the grief and loneliness getting in the way.”
Something gnawed at Alec’s subconscious, but it was still just out of his grasp. “Did she at least have fun dress shopping?”
“Once the second sales woman started helping, yeah. The first one didn’t seem to understand which shapes looked best on different bodies.”
“Did she find something she liked?”
“I don’t know if I should tell you. What if you guys go ahead with the wedding when she gets back? Don’t they say separation makes the heart grow fonder?”
“I’m not asking you to describe it, just if she found something, and I hope we do go ahead with the wedding, because then maybe she’ll understand how big this family of ours really is.” He grinned as he thought about everyone he counted as family. If she could just see that they were all her family, too, then there was no way she could feel alone.
“Then, yes. I think it’s safe to say she found something.”
“Good, at least she had that experience, then. Listen, thanks for telling me. I know that probably wasn’t an easy decision to make, but I appreciate it.”
“Anytime. Oh, and Alec—”
“Alec!” Vivienne’s voice screamed from the back room.
He jumped into the room, not willing to waste the seconds it would have taken him to move around Cin and through the store. “What’s happening?”
“I don’t know,” Vivienne said as she pulled away a cloth covered in blood from Ellie’s back. “These wounds just came out of nowhere, and the blood won’t stop flowing from them. I need you to put pressure on them if you can while I make a poultice.”
“The wounds on her back?” Alec’s stomach sank as he asked the question. “Did you take her necklace off?” He pulled at Ellie’s clothing, searching for the silver pendant that helped keep his soulmate alive.
“No,” Vivienne said, right as his hands brushed over the cool metal. “Put pressure on, or she’s going to lose too much blood.”
“Is there anything I can do?” Cin asked from her position in the open door.
“Get more towels and go here.” Vivienne pulled a card out of her doctor’s bag and began writing furiously on the back of it. “Tell them I sent you and to put it on my tab. Get everything here. The most important is the yarrow and the muslin, sterile, if they have it.” She handed the card over to Cin, who disappeared for a moment before reappearing with more towels.
Alec grabbed a couple of them and pressed them to Ellie’s back, applying as much pressure as he could, which was difficult considering she was floating in the air.
“What are these wounds from?” Vivienne asked as she began applying pressure to a different gash.
He gave her a quick summary of what had happened between Ellie and Circe, which had resulted in Ellie being captured by the ancient witch and tortured. When he and Hal had found her, the wounds Circe had inflicted had been too much and she was on death’s doorstep, until the Morrigan stepped in. Now the necklace that was supposed to prevent the injuries from reappearin
g seemed to have stopped working. The other woman listened, seeming to gain clarity as he explained.
A scream of frustration clawed its way up his throat, and he had to swallow it back down. The last thing Vivienne needed was to be distracted by his rage.
Chapter 17
The ice pack that sat over Ben’s eye was starting to make his face go numb, which, given everything that had happened, he appreciated. The man who had approached them at the bar had been unwilling to back down and leave them alone, so it had turned into a fight, which turned into an all-out brawl. At some point, he’d looked over at Imogen and realized she was kicking just as much ass as he was. When there was a break in the oncoming stream of opponents, he’d tried to drag her away from the fight, only to be stared down by her golden wolf eyes. Eventually, she’d relented and they’d edged out of the fight, but not before her hand wrapped around the collar of some random dude and dragged him along with them.
Now, they were in the same room they’d been escorted to that morning, and their new friend was sitting in the chair, facing them. He could still hear the brawl raging on downstairs.
“So, are you going to tell us how an item of yours came to have fae blood on it?” Ben asked, peeling the ice pack away from his skin, thankful that Alec had texted him during the fight with the information.
“How the hell should I know?” he sputtered as Ben felt Imogen begin to pace behind him. A low growl seemed to not only be coming from her but radiating out from her body.
The man’s eyes tracked her movements as she crossed back and forth behind him.
“Shifter tracker.” Ben hooked his thumb over his shoulder to indicate Imogen before he continued. “Fury,” he added, while pointing to himself. “Do you really want to piss us off? Think about it. She’ll run you to the ground, and I’ll drive you crazy and torment you the whole time. All we want to know is what happened to the fae you met.”
“Nothin’. They were already hurt when I saw them.”
Imogen huffed behind him.
“Did I forget to mention? We can tell when you’re lying. So let’s try this again, shall we?”
The guy was starting to get scared, and it made Ben wonder what kind of supernatural being he was. Usually they were tougher than this guy. His heel bounced up and down on the floor while he wiped his hands on his wool-clad thighs. It was his eyes that truly betrayed his nerves, though. He kept shifting between Ben, Imogen, and the door, as though he was trying to figure out how he could make a break for it. The problem was his nerves were giving away his thoughts. Every time the man twitched and looked ready to move, Ben simply moved his body to block his line of sight to the door.
“Look, man, I just bring stuff the boss is lookin’ for. I got nothin’ against no one, but I’ve gotta eat and pay my bills.”
“And your boss is looking for supernatural beings?”
He nodded.
“So why doesn’t he just take you?”
“He knows people will be more trusting with one of their own. Makes the gig a bit easier, you know?”
“No, I don’t. I would never sell out any supernatural being to be experimented on, or sold, or whatever these shit heads are doing.”
“They aren’t doing that! They just want to talk to them about their powers, catalog them or somethin’.”
Ben heard Imogen stop pacing behind him, and when she came level with him so he could finally see her, the angry snarl on her face was enough to scare even him. Her voice was low as she practically growled, “You believe that shit?”
Trying to deescalate the situation, Ben chimed in with, “So what happened with the fae?”
“I handed them over, just like I said.”
“Where would they take them?”
“I don’t know!”
Ben was starting to run out of patience. “Come on, a smart business man like you? You’d want to know what happened to your product. Maybe see if you could cut out a middle man?”
“Sure, I followed them a couple times, but always lost them when they got to the warehouse district.”
“Could you show us where you lost them?”
The guy nodded. “For a price.”
“The price is we don’t tear you apart,” Imogen snarled.
“Bullshit. You tear me apart and you lose my info.” The man sneered at them, his confidence making a brief return.
“What do you want?”
“You can’t seriously be considering this piece of shit’s terms?”
“Let’s just hear him out,” Ben said as he squeezed Imogen’s shoulder. He really hoped she knew he was about to leave this guy black and blue, and that he wasn’t actually interested in giving him whatever it was he wanted.
“Five grand. It’s less than what they pay me, so I figure that’s fair.”
Ben nodded and said he’d arrange it, but that it was only payable on delivery. The guy stupidly accepted the deal, and within moments, they were out of the society’s safehouse and down at the warehouse district. The tall rectangular buildings all seemed to look the same. The big bays for trucks to pull up and cargo to be loaded were gaping black holes as he realized the place was abandoned.
They wove between buildings and finally got to a large crossroads of small pathways that ran between the warehouses. “This is where I lose them. Every time. Doesn’t matter how close or far behind them I’m going.”
The area ahead of them looked even more worn and rundown than where they had come from. As soon as they had the warehouse narrowed down, he texted Alec. They were getting close. He could feel it.
Their guide sniveled behind them. “Uh, can I go now? I’ve shown you guys everything. I don’t know anything else, I swear.”
Imogen whirled around beside him before he had even processed the words. Her voice was an almost feral snarl as she said, “You tell anyone about us, and I will track you and kill you. There is nowhere you can run and nothing you can do to hide from me. I will find you. Do you understand?”
He whimpered, and the faint smell of urine colored the air, as though he was just barely refraining from wetting himself out of fear. “I won’t tell,” he whispered so quietly that Ben barely heard him, but then he wasn’t the one with his nose almost pressed against the man’s face.
She turned around with a huff, as though satisfied that she’d scared him so completely, she knew he wouldn’t rat them out. When he saw her face, he understood why the other man was so scared. Not only was the wolf in her golden eyes, but her teeth had elongated, too, the bright white points gleaming in the light. She was terrifying in all her wolfy glory, and Ben couldn’t help but wonder what her wolf actually looked like.
Shifters were so secretive from the other pantheons that he didn’t know if he’d ever seen one in animal form or not. Were their wolves bigger than regular ones? Different colors? How much of the human was left when the wolf took control? The questions whirled in his head as he stared into her glowing eyes.
“I believe him.” Her voice was low, and the growl had almost disappeared from it. He watched as she stretched her jaw ever so slightly while her teeth retracted and the gold bled from her eyes, leaving behind their naturally pale color.
Ben looked past her shoulder as she stood facing him, and made eye contact with their man. “Her threat doesn’t just go for her, but myself as well. I can torment you in ways you can’t even imagine.” He paused. “Get out of here.”
“The money?”
Ben laughed, making sure it was dark and menacing. “You really think we’re going to pay you? I’d rather tear your heart out, unless, of course, you just run away like the little coward you are.”
The man froze, staring at the two of them for a moment before turning on his heel and running as fast as he could away from them.
“You can be one scary lady when you want to be, you know that?”
She grinned, and there was something slightly malevolent about it. “I know.”
“Once we find the warehouse, I�
��ll text Alec, so no rushing ahead. Clear?”
She faked a salute. “Got it, boss.”
“Can you track them any further?”
“No. Their scent is everywhere here. I might be able to narrow it down given enough time, but it would probably be just as fast to check the buildings themselves.”
With a nod, Ben started forward, heading in the direction of the first building. They were less than ten feet away when everything changed. It took him a moment to realize what had happened, and when he looked behind him and saw everything was the same, he backed up a few steps. The warehouse he’d been heading toward came back into view.
The whole place was under a glamor spell, a huge one that not only hid what was there but projected something else as well. Whoever was behind that had some serious talent.
“Wowza,” Imogen said, whistling quietly as she figured out the same thing he did.
“Whatever this place is, whoever is behind it, they have big-time mojo, and it’s not all going to be for three fae. This is bigger than that.”
“I don’t know, most people don’t even know fae are real, let alone what kinds of powers they have. I didn’t know until Valentina told me right before you and Alec showed up.”
“Fair point, but I just can’t imagine them wasting this kind of energy on three beings. I’m starting to get a really bad feeling about this.”
“Me too,” she agreed as they both started walking forward through the glamor once more.
A large grassy area had one long white wall on the side closest to them, while the other three sides surrounded the area with spruced-up warehouses, and not just with a new paint job. They all had state-of-the-art solar panels, elevators on one corner, and one even had thick metal shutters over the windows. There were a few café-style tables that sat out in the grassy area, making it look almost like a fancy business campus, as though some scrappy start-up company had swooped in and gentrified the abandoned buildings. As long as that start-up was keeping supernatural beings prisoner, that is.
