by H. D. Gordon
He released the hand that was over her mouth, wrapping an arm around her throat while running the other down the curve of her waist. She hated herself for it, but a whimper escaped her.
This only seemed to further excite him.
Nahari remembered the dagger.
Jab it in him deep, that voice said. He won’t go down easy.
Of course he wouldn’t. He was an adult Dog. He’d survived wounds she couldn’t imagine.
These latter thoughts were not particularly helpful, but they flew through her mind nonetheless.
Deep. As deep as you can, the voice insisted.
Her fear boiled instantly into terror, the choice of being raped or vitally wounding someone looming before her, speeding toward her like a runaway train.
Vitally wound. Definitely vitally wound.
The male spun her around while simultaneously forcing her back against the hard wall of a building, his foul breath fanning across her face.
“So pretty,” he breathed.
Glancing at his throat, Nahari tried to prepare herself to spill his blood.
She moved just a second too slowly, the moment of hesitation more than enough for a Wolf with his reflexes.
Stars burst behind her eyes, pain exploding in her head as the back of his scarred knuckles connected with her face. Distantly, a clatter sounded, and it took her several slow seconds to realize the dagger had fallen from her hand.
The male pulled back a touch to look down at the blade that had fallen between them. His eyes lit up Wolf-gold, as if he honestly thought she was the one in the wrong.
“Trying to kill me, bitch?” he growled, tearing open her cloak and slamming her head back against the building hard enough to reverberate all the way through her jaw.
The blows to her face and head made it hard to stand, and she knew she’d crumple if not for him holding her aloft, his roaming hands entitled.
Like every other blasted male Wolf she’d ever met.
Violent beasts, they were. The whole lot of them.
The distant sounds of Bayrine faded around her as she edged toward the darkness, where at least there would be a reprieve from the ugliness of the world.
A growl, low and deep and menacing, so much so that the hair on the back of her neck rose, snapped her back toward consciousness.
“Let her go, Linus,” said a deep voice from somewhere beyond Nahari’s vision, from somewhere within the mist.
Now the hair on her arms rose, too. The voice was so firm. So Alpha.
“Mind your fucking business, Oz,” snapped the male still pinning her.
In the next heartbeat, the hot presence of his body was gone, and she was slumping to the ground, her knees giving out beneath her.
Nahari blinked into the fog, air rasping in and out of her as she clutched her cloak closed around her and fought the fuzziness in her mind. There was a scuffle, and then a mumbled curse, a warning.
“I’ll see you in The Ring,” warned the bastard who’d beaten her.
Her sensitive ears tracked his movements as he retreated down the alley, the mist swallowing him whole.
The air stirred in front of her, and she cringed, her hand searching the ground around her for the dropped dagger and coming up short.
“P-please,” she said.
The male stepped forward slowly, crouching in front of her where she still sat curled up against the wall. Pathetic. She knew this, and yet, she felt powerless against it. A life of slavery had taught her that resisting only ever led to more pain. Perhaps he had only saved her so that he could have her to himself.
A heartbeat later, he moved into the light, revealing his face through the mist. Terror was replaced by stunned wonder as Nahari took in his handsome face, his formidable build, and the various scars that marked him as another Dog.
And, yet, she sensed no malice from him. The moment only lasted a heartbeat and a half, but when she met the deep brown eyes of the stranger, she saw a sadness there that she recognized as something akin to her own.
Then, in a voice as deep and rumbling as a late summer storm, the stranger said, “You should run home now.”
Nahari blinked only once before turning and doing as she was told.
3
Ryker
Humiliated.
That’s what he was.
That was the emotion that kept rising to the top among the others.
Beyond the ache he felt at the fact that she had chosen a dirty Mixbreed over him, beyond the rage at having been hurt against his will, after abandoning his better judgment in an attempt to be with her, there was the embarrassment.
No, the humiliation.
So many had stood witness to the debacle of a Mating Ceremony. So many had watched as those winged bastards and supernatural abominations had swooped in and attacked. The whole of his Pack had seen her place her hand in the Mixbreed’s, had observed as she made the choice to flee with the rebels.
With him.
Now, he sat in his chambers, where decades of Pack Masters had dwelled before him, feeling less like an Alpha and more like a fool.
A sea breeze carried in through the arched windows, rustling the curtains, and beyond, the stars hung over the dark and churning Western Sea, gulls crying out in greeting.
Ryker barely heard them, barely noticed the light of morning peeking in through the window, or the fact that he had not slept in Gods knew how long.
What he could hear was the whispers, not just of the Hounds, but of the others in the Pack as well. Talking about what had happened. Talking about him.
None had spoken a word to his face, of course, but he knew they were whispering. How could they not be? How could he blame them?
She had humiliated him.
A knock on his chamber doors pulled him from his thoughts. He barked for the caller to enter. The door opened and Derik, his second in command and one of his oldest friends, entered the room.
Ryker’s first order of business after being accepted as Pack Master was to nominate Derik to the open position of Head Hound, and of all the decisions he’d made of late, that was one he did not regret.
“The other Alphas have sent word,” Derik told him. “They want to speak with you.”
When Ryker only blinked at the Hound, Derik added, “They’re on the air right now, actually.”
Ryker stood, his jaw clenching. “Why wasn’t I told?”
Derik’s face remained impassive, but Ryker knew him well enough to pick up the wariness in his body language. “The bottle arrived only moments ago. It was already live. I came straight here.”
With a nod, Ryker pushed passed Derik and into the hallway, where torches affixed to the wall cast flickering blue light over the gray stonework. The passageways of the Cliffside Castle were always drafty and wreathed in shadows, even when the daylight peeked in through the arched windows, casting prisms of colors through the seaglass.
Ryker went to the receiving room, where magical transactions were made. It was little more than a stone chamber near the Pack Master’s private quarters, where magical wards allowed for the use of only sanctioned magic, a protection put in place hundreds of years ago after the first Great War between the races.
The room was guarded at all times, two Hounds standing at either side of the entrance. They snapped to attention at the sight of their Alpha, and Ryker strolled by them and into the magical chamber, trying to ignore the quickening of his pulse.
He did not appreciate being summoned by his comrades. Not at all.
But just as Derik had said, the bottle was live when Ryker walked into the room. It sat on the floor, the glass a sea green that glowed with the waiting magic inside. Ryker stepped up to it, and the bottle shot up straight of its own accord, going from lying on its side to standing on its flat bottom. The cork in the top popped free, shooting into the air and striking the ceiling before falling and rolling across the floor.
The furled piece of parchment inside the bottle glowed brighter, yellow-orang
e surrounding it like the glare of a tiny sun. The paper freed itself from the bottle and rose into the air to hang before the West Coast Pack Master.
Ryker’s fists were clenched at his sides, eye-level with the parchment as it spread itself out before him. On the blank page, four familiar faces appeared.
They did not look pleased, but then again, Pack Masters were not known for their cheery natures.
Silence held for a tick, and Ryker had to remind himself to remain calm while he waited.
Balker Grigg, Pack Master of the North, and easily the most amiable of the bunch, said, “Bo Benedict is dead. He was found in his chambers by his house slave, a dagger in his neck.”
Ryker’s spies had brought this news to him two nights ago.
“And I hear his Head Hound, Lazar, has stepped into the role of Alpha,” Grigg added. “That’s two Alphas dead in two moon cycles. We all need to be watching our backs. And we must squash any signs of rebellion without mercy.”
No one disagreed. In Ryker’s mind, he heard the sound of those thousand Dogs he’d burned alive at the demands of the other Pack Masters, who’d wanted him to set an example of what happened to dissenters.
The screams of those burning Wolves had been coming to him in the evenings like late night lovers.
Evron Ellis, the Pack Master of the South, broke into his thoughts. “We heard about the Mating Ceremony.”
Of course he would bring this up. Of all the Pack Masters, Ryker had always hated Evron the most. He was a giant of a male with a pea of a brain, but what he lacked in intelligence, he made up for in sadism.
The look on Evron’s square-shaped face said the bastard was enjoying this.
“I don’t see how it’s a concern of yours,” Ryker snapped.
Ansen Ormen, the East Coast Pack Master, replied, “When rebels crash a Pack Master’s Mating Ceremony and run off with his betrothed, it is very much our business. A show of weakness from one of us is a show of weakness from us all. I should hope that your time spent at Ramsey’s side would have made telling you this unnecessary.”
A growl tried to grow in Ryker’s throat, but he swallowed it. He didn’t have anything nice to say, so he did not speak, only held the gazes of the other Alphas.
Grigg said, “There is unrest. The Dogs are circulating stories about slaves who have escaped, about rebels who come like shadows in the night, freeing pups and disappearing as if by magic.”
“We know where they’re going,” Evron snapped. “The Between Realms, with that Mixbreed bastard, Adriel.” His eyes seemed to burn into Ryker’s forehead. “The town you were supposed to have taken with your Hounds, as you assured us. Where do we stand on that?”
Now there was nothing Ryker could do to stifle the rumbling that tickled his throat. His words came out a low growl. “We can no longer locate Mina. Someone must have replenished the powerful magic over it.”
Evron snorted.
The others glanced around, their faith in their new peer clearly dimming by the moment. Something Reagan Ramsey had said to him a long time ago surfaced, and Ryker’s jaw clenched at the warning from a ghost.
A Pack Master’s real power lies in the alliance between the other Pack Masters. You can be the biggest and baddest Alpha there is, but if the other four with whom you share the throne hate you, you’re as dead as a runt in The Ring.
“No one should want to find the rebels more than you, Ryker,” Evron taunted. “The Mixbreed ran off with your Mate, no? Or at least, that’s what the rumors are saying.”
“Ev,” Grigg warned.
“I invite you to come talk this shit to my face, Evron,” Ryker said, knowing that one did not back down when dealing with Alphas. But if Evron knew all of this, it meant that he was not imagining things; his people were indeed whispering… and then leaking those whispers to the other territories.
Ryker tucked these thoughts away for later and made sure to keep his voice steady and firm. “What you’ve heard is true,” he said, the words hard to spit out. “My Mate was stolen from me, and my Hounds captured by the Mixbreed and his rebels… But it’s also true that no one wants to catch Adriel and his people more than I do. They need to suffer for what they’ve done. And they will.”
Silence fell, the glowing scroll still hanging in the air before him, the faces of the other Pack Masters staring back at him.
“Does that include Rukiya Moonborn?” Evron asked, a slow grin pulling up his lips. This was clearly the card he’d been waiting to drop.
And it worked.
The air seemed to leave the room, and it was all Ryker could do to keep the emotion from flickering across his face. In that moment, he hated her for humiliating him in this way. He didn’t want to hear her name. Not ever again.
Evron, the sick son of a bitch, knew this, the smile growing into an outright grin.
“Yes,” Ryker managed. “That includes her.”
He was done with this conversation. Any longer, and he might say something he would later regret.
But Grigg said, “What of the Dogs? There are whispers of revolution, which would be very bad for business, for obvious reasons.”
Ryker’s eyes were hard as he met the gazes of his peers. “I suggest you make examples out of those you feel are causing trouble, the same way you all demanded of me,” he replied.
Then he raised his boot and crushed the green bottle on the floor beneath the hard sole. The green glass shattered under the force, and the parchment burst into a million glittering pieces, the glow dying and the dust disappearing before it even reached the cold floor.
When Ryker turned, he had forgotten that Derik was in the room with him, had been in here with him the entire time.
The Head Hound said nothing, standing at attention like a good soldier.
“Tell Mekhi I want to see him,” Ryker said.
It was only for a second, but Derik hesitated. Mekhi was the third in command now that Ramsey was dead and Ryker was Pack Master, but neither of the two males could stand the bastard. Ever since they were pups, Mekhi had been a sadistic son of a bitch, particularly when it came to females.
The unspoken question of why Ryker would want to summon him hung in the air between them.
“I have a job for him,” Ryker said, and for a flash of a moment, wondered if he would live to regret the words.
4
Rook
“Nothing in the Fae Forest is as it seems,” Aysari warned, her slanted eyes flicking between Adriel and me. “The trees have eyes, and the leaves have ears.”
I swallowed, adjusting the small pack hanging over my shoulders. “That’s not creepy at all,” I mumbled.
Aysari’s gaze locked on me, and I snapped my mouth shut. “If the Fae Queen catches you trying to steal from her land, she won’t just kill you, she’ll torture you while calling it a game. The Forest bends to her will, and there are a thousand ways it can trap you.”
I wasn’t sure what one was supposed to say to this, so I said nothing. Adriel slipped a strong arm around my waist, as if sensing my growing apprehension, and I leaned into his powerful aura, into the safety that always hung around him.
“We’ll be careful, Ay,” he said.
After a moment, the Fae female nodded. “Gods’ speed, then.”
Aysari stepped back, and Eryx, her mate, stepped forward. The Fae couple had led us through the trees for over an hour before coming to what they referred to as a “natural portal” into Fae territory. Apparently, there were entrances to the Fae Forrest scattered across all the realms, but one needed Fae blood to be able to find them.
“All living things are connected,” Aysari had explained when I’d stared at her quizzically. “All things are one.”
I’d nodded and pretended that I understood what she meant.
Now, the four of us stood in a small clearing within the emerald sea of trees flanking Mina on three sides, with the Suna Mountains rising in the west. The Fae couple had come to a halt at the base of a giant evergreen. I
tilted my head back as I tried to make out the top of it, but the height of the canopy disappeared into the clouds.
On the forest floor, wildflowers had conquered this particular clearing, and their sweet scent made my sensitive nose twitch.
“Good luck,” Aysari said, watching her mate as Eryx stooped at the base of the old pine and ran his long fingers over the thick tangle of vines there.
My heartbeat kicked up when the vines began to move, slithering like a tangle of green serpents, peeling away to reveal an opening just big enough to slip through. The center shimmered, the air in front of it a blur.
Eryx waved a hand for us to enter.
I glanced at Adriel, and he placed the swiftest of kisses to my forehead before crouching and stepping through. My throat went dry as he disappeared into the opening, as if swallowed by the earth.
“Don’t get caught,” Aysari reminded.
With a final nod, I released a breath and followed my lover down the rabbit hole.
Passing through the natural portal was not unlike traveling by magical portal. That same feeling of weightlessness overcame me, as if time had been stripped away from my personal experience.
It lasted only seconds, but the sensation was strong enough to make me stumble. Adriel’s hand shot out to steady me, but I barely noticed. I blinked once. Then again. For a few moments, all I could do was stare around in wonder.
I had never seen any place like it.
The light was soft, the air warm and humid. Tall trees of white bark and fluffy, pastel-colored leaves dominated the area, the smell of them as sweet as gumdrops. I couldn’t see my feet, because a pale pink fog floated over the ground as though stirred by some unseen hand. A breeze cut through the trees, and a few of those pastel leaves floated down and disappeared into the fog. Even the chirps and clicks of the small animals and insects were different. The hair on my arms rose as I recalled Aysari’s words to us.
The trees have ears and the leaves have eyes, the Fae female had warned.
I bit down on the fear that tried to rise in me the same way I used to do before stepping into The Ring. We had a mission. Get the Elderflower and get out. I needed to focus if we were to be successful.
