Rune was softening toward the fae, and that spelled trouble. Unfortunately, I was unable to hop off the porch swing and push myself between them. Instead, I tried to clench my fist around my closest dagger...and instead found my fingers reaching out to stroke that cat.
“Did you hear how my sister left?” Lenny’s wife asked, her voice smooth as whipped frosting.
This time, Rune shook his head. “Not much. I only knew your sister was the Queen’s favorite one day. The next, she was gone.”
At that, the fae’s face twisted. And for the first time, I thought I might be catching a glimpse of the real being beneath the glamour.
“All of that happened later,” she said, eyes distant. “At first, after we moved to Court, I thought we’d grown closer. My sister came to me in tears one night. Told me she needed just a little of my magic. At home, she was the most beautiful girl in our village. At Court, she was a hag.”
“She wasn’t a hag,” Rune countered. “I saw the portraits. The Queen has an entire room full of them. They’re draped with curtains. Like a mausoleum. Or a shrine.”
There was pain his voice, memories of a past I barely knew about. No wonder Rune was being dragged into this story. It was the story of his own life...only turned on its head.
Once again, I tried to reach for a weapon. Once again, I found soft cat fur underneath my hand.
“No, she wasn’t a hag,” Lenny’s wife agreed. “But my sister was used to being the prettiest girl in any room and she finally needed something I could give her. So I filled a thimble with my blood and she drank it down.”
The memory of the blood I’d spilled for the Guardian made me shiver. For a split second I wondered.... Then I shook my head. No, I wasn’t going to let myself doubt the bedrock of my own existence.
This time, when I grabbed for a knife, my hand came down on the blade. The pain made me flinch, which scared the cat. The feline leapt onto Natalie’s knees, claws extended, before skittering away.
And those claws did the same thing the dagger had done to me. My friend gasped, eyes still cloudy but clearing. Meanwhile, my tongue, I found, was finally able to move.
“What does this have to do with Natalie’s children?” I interrupted. Rune might have fond memories of Lenny’s wife, but I didn’t. My fingers shifted until I was grasping my dagger’s hilt...and then I was clutching a cookie instead.
“Have a bite, dear,” Lenny’s wife tempted. I raised the treat...and a flash of silver swept it out of my hand.
Rune’s sword hovered where the cookie had a moment earlier. “Forget ancient history.” Rune’s persimmon scent exploded around me, so strong it overpowered the lemon. His voice was harsh now. “Get to the point.”
With her audience turned against her, the fae wilted. Her mouth opened then closed, the effort to cut through the faery tale and provide unadorned information apparently beyond her.
To my surprise, Natalie was the one who helped our enemy out. “These stories always go the same way.” My friend’s eyes were as clear as mine now; her mind was considerably sharper. “Your sister needed a little more and a little more and a little more. Then she took too much and...?”
Lenny’s wife’s nodded gratitude before falling back into tale-telling patter. “I gave her my true name and she used it to suck everything I had out of me. She used that power, not to make herself beautiful, but to slip into the Between nearly a century ago. Apparently, the Queen thought she was a daughter but my sister considered Court a mere stepping stone in her path.”
“And you?” Natalie asked, her scientist’s mind for the moment requiring answers beyond the safety of her children. “Did you slip into the Between after her?”
“No.” Lenny’s wife shook her head. “I crossed all the way over this past Samhain. But it’s taken me this long to gain enough energy to consider stopping my sister. I...didn’t want to take much from Lenny.”
She cleared her throat before continuing. “His son’s girlfriend worked in your glitter factory, and it was a simple matter to ask her to deposit a charm. It pulled tiny snippets from so many, no one was unduly affected. Once I had enough, I intended to stop my sister before she could turn anyone else into a stepping stone.”
The fae peered at us, eyes as violet as the flowers in her lawn. She seemed so defenseless...and she was using innocent children to do her bidding.
“What,” I demanded, “have you done with Kale and Hazel?”
The fae’s head bowed. “You’re right. I’ve been as bad as my sister, using them. But surely you must understand that the ends justify the means.”
“No,” I ground out. “They don’t. Your sister is irrelevant to me. I want my pack safe, and that includes Natalie’s children.”
Her brow furrowed. “I thought I’d made it clear who my sister is, dear. But I haven’t, have I?”
I shook my head, but my friend’s chin was bobbing in the opposite direction. “The Guardian.” Natalie rose off the porch swing and straightened to her full height, all five feet three inches of it. “You’re sending my children like a spear into the Guardian’s heart.”
“I DIDN’T SEND THEM,” Lenny’s wife countered. “Kale wanted a quest to prove himself and I gave him one. I charmed a dagger to guide him—Lenny brought it over with the scones this morning—but the child went of his own volition.”
None of this made sense. The Guardian was, well, she was our Guardian. She wasn’t an evil supervillain.
The only obvious villain here stood in front of me. “Nice hair-splitting,” I told the fae. “But it changes nothing. We run you through, you return to Faery, and Natalie’s children...”
“...Wander alone in the Between until they starve?” The fae’s eyebrows—or the penciled-on replacements for them—rose. “As I said, the children will be fine as long as I’m here to guide them. Right now, they’re walking between your earth and Faery. Time is different there. They won’t grow hungry or tired. I wouldn’t have sent them if I’d thought they’d be hurt.”
I didn’t even notice Natalie’s hand moving until she’d slid one of my backup knives out of its sheath. Brushing past Rune, she menaced the fae. “You’re telling me my children aren’t terrified?”
“They might be a little frightened,” Lenny’s wife acknowledged, eyes trained on the weapon. “But if you help me, this will all be over quicker. And it’s for your own good, dears. My sister isn’t a guardian, no matter what she calls herself. How many more decades do you intend to let her pull the wool over your eyes?”
The fae’s words made grammatical sense, but the Guardian had kept our pack safe for generations. My father had raised me to serve her. She was the bedrock of our family traditions. Cognitive dissonance made my head ache.
So I sidestepped the issue. Drawing my own knife, I came up beside Natalie. “What do you want from us?”
“Nothing you’ll miss.” The scent of lemon expanded, pressing back Rune’s persimmon and making my eyelids saggy. “My sister is deep in your pack bonds—it’s how she’s grown so powerful since crossing over. Your friend’s boy is attached to you and he can use that connection to track my sister down.”
“Kale?” I blinked, trying to focus. Natalie’s son wasn’t pack, wasn’t a werewolf. His attachment was mere human emotion.
And yet, when I dug through the tangle of bonds that flew out of my person, I did find one that smelled like twelve-year-old human. I tugged it and....
“Eh, eh, eh, dear.” The fae reached out and plucked the strand as if it was a guitar string. “Don’t frighten the child further. Leave him alone and he’ll complete his task.”
“And Hazel?” Natalie demanded, posture full-on mother bear. I’d sheathed my weapon while messing with pack bonds, but she hadn’t. Her knife stayed pointed forward, her hand as steady as it had been in the lab.
She didn’t attack, though. Like me, she clearly believed what this fae was selling. If we sent Lenny’s wife back to Faery, Natalie’s children would be stuck Between.
If we didn’t....
“My sister,” the fae soothed, “likes babies. Hazel is insurance that if she notices the children approaching, she won’t simply crush them in a landslide.”
The idea of her children being squashed by rock did what nothing else had. Natalie’s knife fell back to her side...and Rune’s sword was right there to take its place.
“You dropped the Whelan mansion into the earth,” Rune observed, “to open up a route to your sister. But you already had Ash. Why did you need Kale as well?”
“Ash?” The painted skin where eyebrows should have been crinkled. “I’m afraid I don’t know who you’re talking about, dear. And, no, I didn’t collapse your mansion. My sister did that.”
As she spoke, puzzle pieces fit together in a blinding flash of unwelcome revelation. What did I have other than my father’s word that the Guardian bore our pack good will? Nothing. In fact, I had copious evidence to the contrary.
The Guardian’s refusal to help until I finished binding myself in hereditary strictures. Her requirement of blood in exchange for minor assistance.
“My father,” I murmured, “died on Samhain. The same day you crossed over. Why?”
“Because three is a powerful number,” Lenny’s wife answered. “My sister sensed me coming. She needed a third Alpha bound to her willingly in order to increase her strength.”
So the Guardian had killed my father? The father I both loved and resented for raising me as Heir instead of daughter...a choice he’d made because of the Guardian’s demands.
The Guardian, the Guardian, the Guardian. It all came back to the Guardian.
I didn’t want to believe this fae’s story, but it made total sense. Especially if—
“The sinkhole was meant to break Ash free,” I realized. “Because you don’t control Ash. Your sister does.”
Chapter 35
My mind buzzed with connections, a relief from might-have-beens about my father. If Ash was a pawn of the Guardian and the Guardian depended on Whelan pack bonds for power, then Ash’s outsized aggression pointed in a grim direction. Our so-called protector wanted a backup link into our clan in case she needed to force results I wouldn’t approve of. In that case...protecting the pack from fae intrusion had to take priority even over the safety of Natalie’s kids.
Because I was Alpha. Pack came first, now and always. I was down the stairs and off the porch before Natalie’s voice called me back.
“Where are you going?”
“Home. The pack needs me.”
As I spoke, something small and sparkly drifted off the porch and caught in the air. I tried to dodge, my mouth gaping open to warn the others. But I wasn’t fast enough, and they weren’t the ones in the line of fire.
Instead, the glitter landed on me. Settled like dew on my hair, my nose...and one particle on my tongue.
I shook like a wolf spraying water out of her fur, the effort successful in removing a cloud of glitter from my person. At the same time, Rune’s blade sliced through sunlight to settle at the fae’s throat.
But both efforts came too late. I felt the glitter imbedding itself inside my cheek like a cold sore. Scraping at the intrusion with my tongue then my finger, the alien object refused to budge.
“Don’t hurt yourself, dear,” the fae chided, peering down at me over the railing. “The charm certainly won’t hurt you. It’s simply insurance that you won’t go tattling to my sister. If you try to share information that’s none of your business...well, the words simply won’t come out.”
There was no persimmon in the air now. Just the reek of damp leaves matching the taut tendons on Rune’s forearms. He seemed half inclined to sever the fae’s head now and ask questions later. But....
“Kale and the baby depend on her safety,” I reminded him. The glitter in my cheek had faded to a tiny lump now. I barely felt it. Surely I could work around Lenny’s wife’s restrictions while protecting my pack.
Rune’s mouth tightened, but he lowered his sword even as I dug in my pocket for the van keys. Meanwhile, Natalie looked back and forth between the two of us. She cleared her throat, then shook her head. “You’re going to your pack instead of looking for Kale and Hazel.”
“Natalie....” I wanted to explain. Wanted to tell her I wasn’t willingly throwing away our friendship. For a moment there, we’d been sisters in arms...then our responsibilities had drawn us in two separate directions.
But the pack called. I was Alpha first. I would always be Alpha first. Natalie, on the other hand, would always choose to be a mother.
And speaking of responsibilities.... Despite myself, my eyes flew to Rune’s.
“I’ll call Lupe,” he rumbled. “But it’s my duty to remain with this fae until someone comes to relieve me.”
His duty was with the Samhain Shifters and mine was with Clan Whelan. The same as yesterday and last week and an endless string of tomorrows. So why did a vast pit of emptiness open in my belly?
Wordless, I returned to the minivan alone.
I PULLED OVER HALFWAY back to pack central. My eyes kept leaking, a frustrating occurrence. But that wasn’t why I stopped on the shoulder and padded into the trees.
The Guardian, I knew, could see what happened for miles in every direction. She could, but she didn’t often pay attention to happenings outside her immediate vicinity. As long as I didn’t draw her attention, she might remain unaware of the danger Lenny’s wife was sending her way. I might still have time to collect allies of my own.
To that end, I left my shoes on but let my tears fall into cushions of mosses, steering clear of the one nearby patch of wildflowers. The Guardian was fond of the little blue blooms, I’d noticed, while Erskine was drawn to salt.
Sure enough, warmth whuffled on the back of my neck after only a few seconds. I spun, hoping to see a unicorn.
And I did, for a split second. He was there...then he was gone. Sidling away from me so rapidly I couldn’t grab his mane and pull myself up onto his back.
Which hadn’t been my purpose, but the evasive action certainly got his point across. Until I was ready to pay my debt, Erskine wasn’t ready to take me on another ride.
“No innuendo?” I asked, forcing my words to lighten as I attempted to tease him back into good humor. “No double entendre about riding?”
Rather than sidling closer, Erskine stamped a hoof. He was as serious as I’d ever seen him. Impatient too.
“I get it,” I answered, wincing away from the unicorn’s disapproval. “I’ll be ready to give you what you want soon. Will you stay close until then?”
Erskine shook his head, not in a rejection of my request but in a puffing up of his mane. He was pleased that I’d promised to give what he demanded. Was pleased...and was likely also enjoying the way his new-found sparkles caught the sunlight.
I, on the other hand, froze. Those sparkles had originated from Lenny’s wife and been embedded in Erskine by action of the Guardian. Was I wrong to think this unicorn wasn’t a pawn of those other fae beings? Was I wrong to think that his attachment to Rune was deep enough to overcome his inherent fickleness?
I had nothing other than my gut to go on, and my gut told me Erskine was my only potential ally at the moment. So I whispered secrets into the unicorn’s furry ears. Secrets that weren’t mine to share. Secrets that felt like a betrayal of his brother.
When I was done, Erskine no longer danced and teased. Instead, he hung his head.
So...that might have worked, or it might not have. Either way, I left the unicorn behind. Got back in my van and returned to the place where my home had recently been destroyed.
Where, right under my nose, Ash had been twisted by the Guardian. Who knew if the rest of the pack was already twisted in a similar manner?
But they were my family. I was their Alpha...at least for a few more hours. And there was no way to hurry the strike I was planning.
So I shifted to wolf and ran with my pack one last time in fur form.
&nbs
p; Hours later, we curled up together and slept amid flower-studded mosses until the moon rose above us. Then, padding back to the spot where we’d discarded our clothing, we returned to two legs.
I turned human first, sweeping the entire clan along in my undertow. My voice was Alpha hard and their bodies were still shifting when I told them: “Tonight, I will choose the best fighter among you as Beta.”
As if in response to my words, the earth growled. My pack mates murmured their fear, but I was ready.
I was ready when the ground gaped open and Ash stepped out of the dark.
HE BOASTED A SWORD and I had nothing but my daggers. All other weapons had fallen into the underground caverns along with our mansion. No matter. I drew two of my blades and lowered my stance into a crouch.
The old Ash, the Ash who made me pancakes every morning, would have dropped his sword and requested daggers to match mine. This Ash extended his three-foot-long blade in my direction point first, something dark glinting in his eyes.
“We fight for the role of Alpha,” he growled, “not Beta.”
Around me, the pack rustled their distress. I hadn’t explained about Lenny’s wife and the Guardian—couldn’t with the glitter embedded in my cheek. But the hole Ash had stepped out of spoke for itself. None of this was right.
Fighting, however, came easily. My plan was to capture Ash’s sword between my two daggers and spin it away from us. But whether I succeeded or failed, innocent pack mates shouldn’t be caught in our midst. So I lunged forward while barking, “Stand back.”
Most of the clan obeyed, but two wolves resisted. Willa and Caitlyn. They wanted to protect the pack and I was the heart of the pack so they wanted to protect me above all else. My attention split as I battled two silent rebuttals. Ash took advantage of that lapse to parry my blow.
Our blades clanged together, the grind of steel on steel quavering at the end like the call of a screech owl. This wasn’t the sword-removing blow I’d hoped for.
But Willa and Caitlyn had caved to my silent orders, better late than never. I felt them pushing the clan backwards. Now Ash was the only problem I faced.
Charmed Wolf Page 18
