by Helen Scott
“Come on, time to go,” Alec said quietly as he squatted and gently shook Bran’s shoulder. The three of them looked at him with wide eyes, their expressions full of hope, but there was a mixture of fear and guilt in their eyes, like children about to get scolded by their parents. He sighed. “Ben and I are taking you back to the island I live on with my brothers. The Morrigan is waiting for you there, and you can rest there in safety until she is ready to take you back to Tír na nÓg. The whole place is magically warded and monitored. No one can get to you without us knowing about it, so you can relax. Bran, Granuaile, you’re with me. Aoife, you’re with Ben, if that works.” He hadn’t missed how quickly their eyes had snapped open, nor how alert they were now.
“What about the women?” Aoife asked as she looked into the cell.
“We’re coming back for them, don’t you worry,” Ben said. The promise in his voice was comforting even to Alec, which surprised him.
He held his hands out to his wards, and as soon as they connected, he pulled on the filaments of the universe and wrapped them around his little trio and moved them to the island, into the living room of his home. As the world cleared around them, he saw the Morrigan standing next to the couch. As he released the hands of the fae, he bowed toward their queen. He felt Ben and Aoife appear a second later.
“My lady, your missing fae, returned to you as promised.”
“Thank you, Alec,” she breathed as her hands trembled by her sides.
When he rose, the tension in the room seemed to break, and the three young fae rushed to their queen as a lost child would to its mother.
“Shh, children, you’re safe here. We will go home soon, but first I must speak with Ellie. Where is she?” The warrior goddess looked around, as though she’d been expecting someone else to show up with her descendant.
Ben cleared his throat, and Alec nodded at him. The young fury disappeared, teleporting back to the warehouse before Alec could begin to speak. “Still at the warehouse where we found your kin. She’s trying to convince a lost soul to come to safety. With your permission, I will return and bring her home.”
“Thank you. We will await your return.”
“Before I go, there is something I wish to talk to you about.”
“Oh?”
Alec quickly detailed the plan he had to the Morrigan, and before he’d finished, a wide, beatific smile spread over her face, and she promised him her assistance in any way she could.
“I can have one of the other residents on the island show you to the big house. We have guest rooms there, so you can all relax and rest as needed.”
She nodded, and he texted Robin, who he knew would be happy to respond, especially since she’d recently met the Morrigan and had mentioned wishing she’d had more time to speak with the goddess. Once that was taken care of, he bowed again and teleported back to the warehouse.
The scene was almost exactly as he’d left it, but now the mysterious woman was looking at the group of them, briefly making eye contact with him before she stared at Imogen. Her eyes were strange, similar to Aster’s in color, but it almost seemed as though a flame jumped within them, or maybe the golden color was just ringed by brown and Alec was getting tired. No matter what it was, they needed to wrap everything up and get the hell out before more guards decided to show up. They’d struck a deep blow to the Order of Talos, and he didn’t want to screw it up by getting captured.
Imogen and Ellie came forward a moment later.
“She needs to come back to Chicago with me,” the younger woman said, her tone offering no chance at argument. She lowered her voice to a whisper and added, “She’s a shifter of some kind and has been through hell here trying to hide it from them.”
“Understood.” As the words left his mouth, Ellie’s shoulders sagged slightly, as though she’d been expecting resistance from him. “Has she agreed to this?”
Imogen nodded.
“Let me take Ellie home, and then Ben and I will take you two to Chicago.”
“Thank you,” the shifter breathed.
“Ready, my love?”
“For you? Always.” The words came out of Ellie’s mouth in such a sassy and sexy tone that Alec did a double take. She blushed, and it was almost impossible for Alec not to reach out to her and pull her to him in that moment, not to press his lips to hers and satisfy the craving that he’d been drowning in ever since she’d come back to him. Instead, he simply held out his hand.
When he and Ellie arrived in their living room, it was empty. All traces of the fae had disappeared. He could see the disappointment on her face, but he didn’t want to tell her where they were just yet. Besides, he knew the Morrigan wanted to talk to her, so she’d be back soon. Before Ellie could let go of his hand, he pulled her to him and wrapped his arms around her. He’d tried to resist, but there was only so much he could take, and the memory of a gun being pointed at her head was still too fresh for him to just leave her without a word.
“I love you. You know that, right?” He whispered the words into her hair as he kissed the top of her head.
Slowly, she relaxed and wrapped her arms around him, as well. “I love you, too, and I wish we could stay like this for a while, but you need to get Ben and Imogen and the other shifter out of there. Plus, there are things we should talk about.”
Just like that, his bubble about her accepting his powers burst. She might love him, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t disgusted by him and his power, not to mention being able to seemingly kill multiple people without batting an eye. How could he explain to her that it did destroy part of his soul whenever he used it? Or that it had taken him centuries to claw back from feeling completely soulless? If it hadn’t been for Hal, then he would have accepted what he thought was his fate of just being a weapon, a killing machine, for those who wished to use him. He sighed and let her go.
“I’ll be home as soon as I can, but you should eat and rest.”
She nodded and looked up at him. “Be safe,” she said before kissing him on the cheek.
He wanted to howl in frustration, but instead, he just teleported out of her arms and back to the warehouse, where he grunted a greeting at Ben and said to Imogen, “Let’s get you back to your pack.”
Imogen turned and held her hand out to the other shifter, who tentatively took it. The two of them walked over, and Imogen handed her over to Ben, whispering, “Everything’s going to be fine. We’ll get out of here and you’ll meet my alpha, Valentina. She’s amazing, trust me.”
Alec took her hand, and before they left, Imogen pulled out her phone and said, “We need to go here.” He wasn’t about to argue, and he assumed she’d already shown Ben the location, so he jumped them out without a glance back.
They arrived behind a cement block wall, and the sounds of barking filled the air. They weren’t warning barks, though, more happy and playful kind of barks, yips even. Alec was thrown off guard by the number of noises for a moment before he acclimatized and took in his surroundings. The area they were standing in was more of a courtyard than anything else. Something smacked into his legs, and he spun, on guard for an attack, but all he found was a ball of black and white fur.
“Knuckles!” a woman called out as she came trotting after him with a tan and white dog still on its leash. While Knuckles probably weighed close to forty pounds, both dogs were smaller than he was expecting, especially given the force with which Knuckles hit him, but they were nonetheless adorable. “Sorry, I didn’t realize anyone was out here.”
Imogen spun around with a big smile on her face. “Sorry, just giving my friends a tour.”
“Oh, Imogen! I didn’t know you were in today.” The other woman smiled as she hooked the black and white dog back up to its leash.
“I’m not, so you didn’t really see me. I’m just passing through.”
Alec and Ben angled themselves to obscure the other woman from the view of the dog walker, but when Knuckles pulled out of his collar and launched himself at Alec,
he couldn’t help but smile and bend down to pet the ambitious pup.
“Who’s Knuckles’ friend?”
“This is Porkchop. They’re best friends. The only reason I can get Porkchop to do anything is because Knuckles does it first.” She laughed as she scooped the smaller dog up into her arms.
“Well, we should move on and leave you and your buddies to some outside time.”
“It can only be for a moment. Otherwise, little Chop here gets too cold. Damn Chicago winters.”
“Catch you later, Marnie.” Imogen waved at the woman and hustled off through the doors, with Ben and the other shifter woman following closely behind and Alec bringing up the rear.
The building inside was all warm-toned walls and creamy tiled floors, and while the hallways were narrow, he more than understood the cause. On each side of them as they walked were glass doors and windows, and within each room were one or two dogs, some clearly older with salt-and-pepper colorings, while some were just puppies. Imogen greeted the dogs, who were all standing on their hind legs, desperate for attention from her, as they passed by. She spoke to them softly in soothing tones, and soon, there were just happy, wiggling dog butts and floppy pink tongues hanging out.
When they turned the corner, there was another hallway of rooms, but this time, it was all cats and kittens. The idea of all these animals suffering was abhorrent to him, and it didn’t help that even though their cages were nice, they reminded him too much of the ones he’d just rescued supernatural beings from.
He shook it off. This was just part of the modern world. He knew and understood that but had never really spent much time thinking about what that meant. He didn’t have time then, either. Imogen had gone into an employee’s-only area where there was a big office and snack vending machine, along with a coffee maker that was perched atop a row of cabinets next to a phone. On the opposite wall was a row of lockers for the employees. The wolf shifter reached into a locker and pulled out some pale blue scrubs, handing them to the other woman as she turned back around.
“Help yourselves to coffee and snacks,” she said before picking up the phone and punching in a few numbers.
Alec heard Valentina’s voice on the other end of the phone, and when both women hung up a moment later, he assumed that the alpha was on her way.
“Gentlemen, why don’t you step outside a moment to give the ladies some privacy?” Imogen’s voice was assertive, and although she phrased it like a question, he knew that what she was really doing was giving them an order. As they moved to wait in the hall, he heard the door behind them latch and could hear Imogen directly on the other side as she advised the woman she would keep her back turned until she was ready.
The wolf might be shy and a little timid, but she could be aggressive and commanding when she needed to be. The guitar he’d first seen her with wasn’t her only shield, so was the shelter. It made sense. This was her home turf where she felt most at ease, and from what he’d seen on the walk through the building, the animals felt more at ease here too. It was the opposite of what he would have expected. He’d thought that being around predatory animals, which he had no doubt that Valentina and most of her pack were, would have made the other animals scared, or act more irrationally, but it seemed to calm them, instead. It was almost as if they knew that because the bigger animals weren’t freaking out, then they didn’t have to, either.
“Excuse us!” A woman in scrubs hurried by, her blonde ponytail swinging as she moved. She had a ball of fur tucked under each arm that Alec recognized. Knuckles and Porkchop.
“Everything okay?”
“Yep, just getting these boys ready to go up for adoption!” the perky blonde called over her shoulder with a smile while Knuckles began to frantically struggle in her arms. She seemed to be able to handle him, though, and began talking in that baby talk that people sometimes used with dogs, while she disappeared behind a corner.
“Alec. Ben. It’s nice to see you both,” Valentina’s voice purred from behind him before he could be any further distracted by dogs, and he turned to face the alpha.
He turned and was stunned by how different she looked from the last time he’d seen her. Her gray knee-length pencil skirt was covered in an intricate white geometric pattern that was accentuated by the white blouse tucked into it. The only color on her was the navy shoes and the red lipstick. The rocker girl from before was nowhere to be seen. This was the polished and professional version of the alpha. He lowered his gaze immediately as she squared her shoulders under his gaze, taking on the regal posture he’d seen before. “Valentina, thank you for allowing Imogen to assist us. With her help, we saved many more lives than just the fae we had been seeking.”
“I can’t wait to hear all about it, but right now, I’m more interested in the other woman you returned with. If you’ll excuse me?” She gestured to the door that Alec was standing in front of.
He moved to the side, and Valentina knocked in an odd pattern, he guessed to let Imogen know it was her, and opened the door just enough to ease in. They waited in the hall for what felt like hours, but he was sure that was just because he was bored. Liana and Kinsley came walking down the hall in a hurry. Both women wore scruffy T-shirts and were covered in pet hair, while their own was pulled back into high ponytails. They greeted both Alec and Ben before sliding past them into the staff lounge.
A few moments later, he heard loud purring coming from the other side of the door. Now, wasn’t that interesting. One of the women must be a large cat of some kind, which was surprising considering Imogen was a wolf, but they had said that their pack was unique, and not just because they had a female alpha. It wasn’t long after that when Liana, Kinsley, Imogen, and the other woman emerged from the room and hustled off down the corridor. The woman had changed into scrubs and had been given a winter coat and better shoes than what she’d been wearing when they’d arrived. Imogen shot them a smile over her shoulder and mouthed the words “thank you” as they walked away.
“Gentlemen, would you follow me, please?” Valentina set a brisk pace in front of them as she led them through more narrow hallways into a sleek, modern office, which, unfortunately, put them on display like they were in a fish tank. She settled herself behind a large wooden desk that had papers strewn across the surface and a computer monitor in one corner. The name plate that sat on the front read “Valentina Cordoza, Director, Wardens of the Heart Animal Shelter” in black lettering on a frosted glass background, and the whole thing was mounted on a thick wedge of rich cherry-colored wood.
“Nice office,” Ben said as he craned his neck around.
“Thank you.” She inclined her head.
“Is the whole shelter run by shifters?” Alec couldn’t help but ask, fascinated by the dynamic of people who turned into animals working with animals to re-home them.
“Mostly. There are a few staff members who are regular humans, like our head veterinarian and some cleaning staff, but overall, it’s a shifter haven.” She smiled. The shelter was clearly a passion of hers, judging from the photos of her with various animals dotted around the office. “I wanted to hear how Imogen did while she was with you. Was she comfortable?”
“She was amazing. Seriously. We saved probably upward of two hundred people because of her,” Ben gushed.
Alec jumped in and gave a quick rundown of the events that had occurred since Imogen and Ben left the bar. By the time he was done, Valentina’s eyes were wide with shock, and a fierce pride burned in their depths.
“I knew she could do it,” she said with a slight growl of satisfaction at being right.
“She said something to me,” Ben started out, and paused. “I’m not sure if I should tell you, but I figure it’s probably better for you to know. She said she was being what the pack needed. Almost like she felt like she had to be timid and need comfort because she thought the pack needed to give that comfort to someone. If that makes any sense.”
“It does, and it’s very interesting. I appreciate
you telling me.”
An awkward silence fell between the three of them while Valentina seemed to contemplate what Ben had said.
“We should get going,” Alec said, his exhaustion starting to weigh heavily on him. He hoped he had enough energy to get home.
“Of course! Well, it was a pleasure working with you gentlemen. Allow me to escort you to the courtyard. You’ll be able to leave from there without anyone seeing.”
Alec nodded, and they followed her through the small maze of corridors to the patio they had first arrived in. Ben shook Valentina’s hand and gave Alec a nod before the young man disappeared.
“Before I go, there’s something I’d like to speak to you about,” Alec said.
Chapter 24
Ellie had felt Alec slide into bed last night, but she’d been too passed out to do anything more than grunt at him before rolling over and clutching her pillow tightly. Now she was awake and her mind was racing, her thoughts running circles around one another. She pushed her pillow into a different shape and tried to go back to sleep.
It was amazing what a few months sleeping on the ground would make a girl appreciate. Not that she was actually sleeping on the ground, just her mind’s approximation of what it thought sleeping on the ground was like. When she tried to think about her time in Purgatory and how it related to the real world, it made her head hurt. It had been real to her, way too real, and now she was struggling to reconcile the two.
In a way, she just wanted to ignore it. Sure, she’d found a deep well of power within herself, but she’d also been abandoned by everyone, including Alec, and she still wasn’t sure whether that was his choice or not. She turned her head and looked at his sleeping form. He was so breathtakingly handsome that it sometimes made her angry. How was she supposed to resist that? Long, dark lashes rested against his cheeks, hiding his ocean-blue eyes from her, while his hair, which was starting to get long, lay tousled on the pillow behind him, framing his beautiful olive skin.
