But it was safer for Evie if the ice fae didn’t know she existed.
Besides, time passed differently in the fae world. A month could go by and he’d return to the States to find Evie another year older. And frankly, he wasn’t good at the commitment thing, even when it was his own daughter.
He inhaled Marjani’s fresh, wild scent. “Your dream. Was it about the cages?”
“No. Just something bad that happened to me once.”
He squeezed her shoulders. “I’m sorry.”
She shrugged and turned the subject. “I’ll tell you one thing—I’d pay good money to know who sent that message to my brother. It was in my cousin’s handwriting.”
“I told you, he’s in no condition to send a message. Someone here helped him.”
“That’s what I figured. So that fae lady you told me about must’ve been trying to lure Adric to Iceland. Or maybe it was the king?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“No,” she agreed, “you didn’t. I’m just glad I came, not Ric.”
“Because you can win against a fae where he can’t?”
She shook her head. “He’s stronger than me. He wouldn’t be alpha if he wasn’t.”
“Then why?”
“I’m expendable,” she said in a flat voice. “He’s not. You don’t know what it was like before he took over as alpha. We can’t lose him.”
That’s when he realized that Marjani had known what she was getting into. This was a suicide mission.
Bloody hell. He tightened his grip on her. “I’ll help any way I can.” It was a fucking evasive promise, but it was the best he could do.
She should’ve called him on it. Instead she murmured a thank you.
“You should never have come here.” He sounded like a broken record, but he had the bad feeling it was already too late to sneak her back out of the castle—and the thought of this proud, beautiful woman at the mercy of Lady Blaer made him a little sick.
“I had to.”
He mentally shook his head. But he supposed to Marjani, there’d been no other choice. That was the kind of woman she was.
She patted his chest. “Don’t worry. I’ll be okay.”
His mouth twisted. Because all of a sudden, he wasn’t sure who was comforting whom.
10
Adric Savonett pinged Marjani’s smartphone for what had to be the hundredth time.
No answer. Still.
She’d been gone for over a week now. Radio silence on her end, but he’d tracked her through her quartz. From this distance he couldn’t pinpoint her exact location, but she was somewhere to the north and east, and Luc had confirmed she was in Iceland.
Safe enough, since her quartz was still alive and humming—until twelve hours ago, when it had gone completely silent.
She’s okay. There’s more than one reason for her quartz to go silent.
It didn’t mean she was dead. The quartz could’ve been depleted. But most likely she’d reached her goal and passed through a fae portal into the ice fae court.
Then Luc’s quartz went silent, too.
Adric’s worry ratcheted up. But he was stuck in goddamn Baltimore, holding things together.
He paced barefoot across the living room’s stone floor, threading his way through the secondhand couch and battered coffee table that he and Marjani had rescued from a dumpster when they were dirt-poor and never gotten around to replacing. The plush orange shag rug was his only luxury. His cougar liked to stretch out on it and stare into the fireplace.
He stalked down the hall to her room to stare at the neatly made bed. The bedspread, a colorful geometric print, was a painful reminder of the sister he used to have. The one who’d loved bright tunics and leggings.
Until those feral river fada had gotten a hold of her, thanks to Corban and his little band of followers. Now she shaved her head and dressed like a soldier in camo.
He muttered a curse and strode back to the living room where he stared into the glowing amber quartz in his fireplace. Outside, it was a humid night in early August, but his den was carved out of the bedrock two stories below the surface, so he kept the quartz-powered fire burning all year round.
Marjani had loved to sit by the fire.
She’s in danger.
All evening, he’d been agitated. At midnight, he’d fallen asleep for a few hours and then got up to pace, his cat clawing at his insides, itching to go to her.
Growing up, he and Marjani had always had each other’s backs. Otherwise they’d never have survived the clan war known as the Darktime. But Marjani had been scarred by those terrible years.
She appeared tough, assertive. Only he knew that she still had nightmares about losing their parents and the years they’d spent on the run, hiding from their uncle. She might be a pit bull, but it was protective coating for her soft heart. She wanted to believe that the clan would never again turn on one another like cold-eyed, vicious reptiles.
And because Adric loved her, he did his best not to dispel that belief. His sister might be his most trusted advisor, but she didn’t know everything.
Did she really think he’d kill her? No fucking way. He’d lie, cheat and even murder if it meant hiding his sister was a feral.
He squeezed his quartz, willing her to contact him. Damn it, Luc was supposed to have found her by now.
But he’d missed her in Reykjavik—and since then Adric had received only two short communications. In the first, Luc had explained he was heading to the ice fae court’s location in northern Iceland. In the second, he’d said he’d found her and was temporarily cutting off communication for safety.
And for the past two days, nothing from either of them.
That made two of his lieutenants lost somewhere in Iceland. The place was a freaking Venus flytrap.
He rubbed his nape and told himself not to worry. Luc and Jani were both strong, capable soldiers.
But she’s not herself…
On the surface two stories above, a motorcycle rumbled up to the rowhouse he rented out to a couple of teenage drug dealers as camouflage. Very few people suspected the Baltimore Earth Fada alpha himself lived in the neighborhood.
A minute later, booted footsteps clattered down Adric’s stairs.
He stilled.
No one but his lieutenants and a few trusted clanspeople had permission to pass through the ward guarding his den. And they wouldn’t come in the middle of the night if it wasn’t important.
“It’s me,” called Jace at the same instant that Adric sensed his quartz on the other side of the door.
Adric ushered him inside and closed the door. “What’s up?”
Jace shook his head. Like Adric, his cat genes were evident in his lean, powerful build. He had close-cropped black hair, warm brown skin and his Native American dad’s broad face and long cheekbones. He’d dressed in a hurry—his T-shirt was shoved haphazardly into the waistband of his jeans, and he hadn’t buckled his short black moto boots.
“Bad news,” he said, his mouth a hard line.
Adric’s heart sank. He really didn’t need any more bad news right now. He gestured for the jaguar shifter to go into the living room. Neither of them sat down.
Jace got right to the point. “Langdon wants to meet with you.”
Adric stiffened. Jace had said the night fae prince’s name. Clearly, they’d draw his attention.
Hell. This had to be about Tyrus.
“The prince contacted you himself?”
Jace’s face sharpened, his cat’s fury simmering green in his eyes. “He sent a fucking night fae envoy to our house in Grace Harbor.” Jace’s mate Evie had kept her house in Grace Harbor, a small city on the Chesapeake Bay, even though she and her teenage brother Kyler lived in Jace’s Baltimore den much of the time.
“They're all right?”
Evie was a pretty blond human with a touch of fae, and her brother Kyler, although full human, was smart, scrappy, and—although he’d hate to hear it—loveable.
Even though Evie wasn’t an earth fada, Adric would've tolerated her for Jace’s sake, but the two siblings had earned a special place in his heart when they’d saved Jace from Tyrus’s assassins.
“Yeah.” His friend growled. “But it scared the shit out of her. The prick wants me to know I’m vulnerable, that he knows where my mate and her brother live.”
A cold anger rolled through Adric. “The hell he does.” Evie was innocent in all this, and Kyler was a cub—not even out of high school yet.
“His envoy knocked on our front door—at midnight. I scented that he was a night fae, of course, so I told Evie not to open the door. Meanwhile, I changed to my jag and slipped around the house for a better look. Thank the gods her dad gave her that protection charm. At least the bastard didn’t pick up that she’s a mixed-blood.”
Adric nodded.
“But he upset everyone. Even Mrs. Linney. You know how she has her nose in everyone’s business.” Jace paced across the living room, agitated.
“Hell. I’m sorry.” Mrs. Linney was Evie’s elderly, chain-smoking, neon-clothes-wearing neighbor. The woman never seemed to sleep—she was better than a watchdog.
“Mrs. Linney came out on her stoop and cussed the envoy out. Called him an ass for waking up the whole neighborhood at midnight.”
Adric couldn’t help grinning. “The woman has balls.”
Jace snorted. “I swear, she’s going to give me gray hairs. I don’t know what he’d have done to her if I hadn’t been there. But as soon as she saw my cat, she went back inside.”
“This is why you need to move Evie and Kyler to Baltimore. The three of you are too isolated up there.”
“You think I don’t know that? But I promised Kyler he could finish high school in Grace Harbor.”
Adric scowled, but gave a curt nod. A promise was a promise.
“Anyway, the night fae announced he was the prince’s envoy, tossed me the message and disappeared back into whatever slimy hole he crawled out of. Here.” Jace handed over an unsealed black envelope. “Read it for yourself.”
Adric removed a sheet of paper the same coal black as the envelope. On it was a message inscribed in silver ink.
Prince Langdon requests the pleasure of a meeting with Lord Adric at his earliest convenience. The envoy will return for your response at midnight.
He crumpled the paper and tossed it on the coffee table. “All right. I’ll meet with him.”
“No fucking way,” Jace returned. “You can’t. What if he asks you straight out who killed Tyrus?”
Adric speared his fingers through his spiked-up hair. Langdon couldn’t find who’d killed his son. The Darktime would look like a warm-up compared to what he’d bring down on the clan.
He met his friend’s eyes. “Then I’ll have to lie, won’t I?”
Jace squeezed his nape. “A lie like that would be like taking a knife to the gut.”
“I’ve survived worse.”
“As your lieutenant—and friend—I’d advise against it.”
“You got a better idea?”
His friend’s dark brows lowered. “No, damn you.”
They’d been over this already. They’d known it was only a matter of time before Langdon tracked his son to Baltimore and demanded answers.
“That’s what I thought.” Adric’s smile was thin. “Sending an envoy to your mate’s house was just the start. The prince probably knows the location of every single one of our dens. If I ignore this or go into hiding, he’ll go after the clan. I knew this was coming, Jace. Ever since Marjani stuck a knife into his fucking psycho of a son.”
11
Marjani stared into space, listening to Fane breath.
She hated Corban. She was here to kill him.
The prick deserved to be in a cage, and she knew damn well if their positions were reversed, he wouldn’t lose any sleep over it. The man should’ve been a serpent, not a wolf.
It did something to you, to know your own cousin had been behind the plot to drug and rape you. Oh, Corban had kept his hands clean so that he could swear to Adric he hadn’t touched her—but he’d masterminded her kidnapping by a small den of half-insane river fada. The den had also kidnapped Tiago do Rio, the Rock Run alpha’s youngest brother, in an attempt to set her clan against his, the local river fada. If things had gone as planned, both alphas would’ve been dead, leaving Corban as the Baltimore alpha and the Rock Run fada in disarray.
Somehow Tiago had fought back, even though he’d been drugged himself, and saved them both. But not before the men had had her…
It was her cougar who had kept her sane by stepping in and taking control.
Corban deserved to die—a slow, miserable death. So why couldn’t she stop thinking about him, locked in that iron cage and gradually going mad?
Uncle Leron had been right. She was weak.
You’re soft. His harsh voice rang in her ears. A female, and a scrawny one at that. You’ll do whatever I fucking say, understand?
Leron had been a wolf shifter, tall and powerfully built. She’d stared up at him, defiant but hollow with fear. Leron rarely beat her like he did his three sons and Adric, but the threat was always there.
She couldn’t do anything about her size—she had her mom’s slim build. But both her parents had been clan soldiers, and they’d trained her and Adric in fighting techniques from the time they were toddlers. But her parents were dead, and Leron’s mate was even more afraid of him than Marjani was.
So Marjani had trained even harder until her body was a finely honed machine, and she was a wizard with knives. She knew the best way to cut a man so that he’d bleed out in less than a minute, and she was never without two or three blades concealed around her body.
And none of that had helped that night in Baltimore when Shania had slipped the aphrodisiac into her drink. A woman she’d thought was a friend—a den mate.
You survived.
She had to focus on that or go insane.
But is it survival when your nightmares make you mewl like a cub?
Her hand flexed on Fane’s chest. Gods, she was pathetic, snuggled up to a man she barely knew—and a part-fae at that. But she liked that wild meadow scent of his. Her cat wanted to roll around in it, take the scent on its fur.
Even the thump of his heart beneath her hand was comforting.
You’re weak. A female, and a scrawny one at that. You should’ve been drowned at birth.
She ground her teeth.
Maybe Adric was right—she was too broken to be out in the world. But she’d spent the past year hiding in their den. Sinking deeper and deeper into her animal.
Fada healed more quickly as their animals, so no one had questioned it. In fact, Adric had encouraged her to remain as her cougar.
By the time she was stronger, it was too late. The cat often overrode the human part of her. Not even Adric knew how much. She’d let the cougar remain in control for long days as she’d healed.
Because she felt afraid as a woman. The woman was weak, vulnerable—but not the cougar. If those men had attacked her cat, it would’ve ripped out their fucking throats.
“You’re thinking too hard,” Fane murmured. “Go to sleep.”
She grimaced. “Sorry.”
He sighed. “You can’t, can you?”
Her cheeks heated. She mutely shook her head.
He set his other arm around her waist, and she stiffened, but he kept the touch nonsexual. His long fingers spread over her stomach, warm and comforting. He hummed, low and hoarse, a rough purr like something out of a ratty old tomcat.
She bit her lower lip, trying not to laugh.
He began to sing, and her jaw slackened. He was good, his rough voice perfectly on pitch, but with an edge that made it intriguing…and fucking sexy.
Deep inside, parts of her stirred to life. Parts that hadn’t shown any interest in more than a year.
The man could bottle that voice and sell it as a love potion.
She didn’t re
cognize the song, but she guessed it was an old folk song. Dark and mournful, about a woman and her dead lover.
Her breath released. Her eyelids fluttered shut.
“That’s it,” he murmured. “Sleep.” He switched to another sad song.
I can’t.
She was out before the end of the second verse.
Fane woke before her. In the night, they had turned so that his back was to her and she was curled up against his side. Marjani came awake as he slid out of bed. She turned over and watched, slit-eyed, as he moved around the room. Not embarrassed, exactly, but not wanting to talk with him either.
He disappeared into the bathroom and the shower came on.
She fingered the amethyst crystals of her quartz, a gift from Adric after her kidnapping. He’d found her a good match, and she loved how the amethyst ranged in shades from deep purple to smoky gray, but she still mourned her old quartz.
The one the river fada had smashed into pieces and tossed into the filthy waters of the Inner Harbor.
Enough. It wasn’t her nature to hide. So she’d embarrassed herself—who gave a shit?
Throwing off the comforter, she got out of bed and pulled a sweater over her T-shirt before lacing on her hiking boots. Her blades went back into their usual places—the dagger and stiletto into the leather sheaths in her boots, the switchblade in her right front pocket. The fishing knife she left in the backpack.
The little round table had an inlaid checkerboard, and she found a box of checkers on a shelf beneath the table. She set up the pieces and idly pushed them around, working on a new strategy.
She’d learned the game from her dad and then kept it up. She and Adric had often played matches on the little checkerboard she carried around with her as they shivered during a long, cold stakeout ordered by Uncle Leron.
The thought of her smart, serious dad made her squeeze her eyes shut. Will Savonett hadn’t even wanted to be a soldier. If he’d had his way, he would’ve been a crystal engineer like Jace. His death, along with her mom’s, had left a hole in her heart that nothing could fill.
No one should die so young and far from home.
Charming Marjani Page 7
