Over the Moon (Gemini Book 6)

by Hailey Edwards

  “Ready to go?” He waited for my nod. “Hang on, and I’ll strap you in.”

  While he stood, I collected my pack and dragged it over to him. He strapped me in gently, and it only hurt a little as the weight settled down my spine. I gave a yip and padded into the hall where Theo waited for us. Isaac trailed behind me a minute later, already shifted, his pack clamped between his teeth. Once Theo strapped him in, muttering about how much junk did one nerd need, he led us outside and dissolved into a black hound with a slight glow identical to the ones we’d had underfoot for the past few days.

  Not everything translated in this form, but I managed to roll my eyes where Isaac could see, and he huffed out a wolfy chuckle at his brother’s expense. It figured Theo would try to one-up his brother, but he didn’t get it. Isaac going wolf was about kinship, not flash.

  Sometime during his watch, Theo had repaired the door enough it latched shut. I heard the tumblers catch. I was willing to bet, considering he didn’t have more than the spare set of Isaac’s clothes to his name, that he had borrowed some of that nerdy junk he was fussing about in order to manage the repairs in the first place.

  As the night darkened around us, our trio set off at a lope toward our next stop on the long way home. We might have made it too, had a giant crow not landed in the road before us. A swirl of black magic swept over my senses, and a teenage girl wearing a cloak of feathers around her narrow shoulders stepped forward to greet us.

  “Ah,” the Morrigan announced with a chilly smile. “There you are. I’ve been looking for you.”

  Chapter 11

  In a move so smooth we might have practiced it, the guys eased in to flank me on either side.

  “Closing ranks.” Her vicious chuckle raised the hairs down my spine. “How precious. As if that could save you.”

  A warning poured from my throat, all snarl and hot saliva, as my mouth watered for a taste of crow.

  “Now, now.” She lowered her cloak, exposing her bare breasts and a pendant hung around her neck. “As you can see, my dear son has collared me.” Her gaze landed on my throat. “It seems we have that much in common.”

  The Morrigan’s pause made me nervous, so I bumped Isaac with my shoulder, and he took the hint. I couldn’t risk being vulnerable long enough to shift, but he knew as much, if not more, about her and our situation than I did. He would have to be our spokesman.

  His effortless shift left him standing before her, and this time it was Theo and me who guarded him.

  “What do you want?” he demanded. “Who sent you?”

  “Smart boy.” Ice encrusted each syllable as she curled the chain around her finger. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten I have you to thank for this.”

  A chill swept down my spine at the way she measured Isaac like he was a corpse and she couldn’t decide where to peck first. True, his anti-magic cuff had restrained her until Rook could bind her himself, but neither of us had believed for a minute the king would pull it off. Honestly, I still wasn’t convinced he had. How easy would it be to fake obedience long enough to claim her revenge? When you’re old as dirt and a goddess, the answer is super easy.

  Theo snarled at the obvious threat, and I barked once to get her back on track.

  “My son has sent me to escort you.” Her eyes glinted under the moonlight. “Won’t you come with me?”

  “Why would Rook send us help?” Isaac reached down to smooth my ear between his fingers. “You’re the bad guys, remember?”

  “Rilla seems to have misplaced something of great value.” The feathers on her cloak rustled as though it were a living thing. “My son was hoping you might consider recovering it for him instead.”

  Considering all bets were off, that any future Faerie king might soon wield the influence to rule both realms, handing over our best chance for survival wasn’t going to happen. No matter what Rilla had promised Tibs, she would place her nephew on the throne. And that meant Rook wouldn’t survive the coming war. His only hope at clinging to power was to eliminate the competition, starting with Tiberius.

  Isaac shared a lingering glance with me and read me with ease. “No.”

  “I could force you.” She drew a heart in the sand with her toe. “You might even like it.”

  The urge to rush her, tear out her throat, led me a step closer. I reined in the impulse, but it was too late to stop Theo from taking cues from me. The sleek hound raced forward, his paws hitting her square in the chest and knocking her to the ground. I rocked toward them, ready to haul him out of there by his ruff, but he spun and retreated before she sank her talons in him.

  “Very well.” A whirl of black energy swept over her pale limbs, leaving a crow the size of a pony in her place. That might not have been so bad had it not also spoken in a disembodied voice. “Soon there will be nothing left of your pack, and you will look back on this moment for the rest of your lives—however long that might be—and know you could have saved them.”

  A vicious snarl that promised pain rose up my throat, and this time I did lunge for her. Isaac and Theo slammed into me, and it took every ounce of their combined strength to restrain me as she rocketed into the sky, trailing mocking laughter in her wake.

  “You can’t believe a word she says,” Isaac soothed. “She came to rile us up, to make us doubt our choices. She’ll give us time to stew so when she plays benevolent goddess and gives us a second chance, we’ll fall in line and be thankful for the opportunity.”

  “He’s right.” Theo eased his grip. “She made a mistake, though.” He licked a crimson smudge from the corner of his mouth. “She let me draw blood.”

  I went hunting-still in Isaac’s arms while my mind raced over everything I knew about the Morrigan. I had a good idea what he had in mind before he let the dark energy wash through him, and I could have sobbed with relief when the largest crow I’d ever seen in my life hopped experimentally down the road on stick legs thicker than the thighs he’d mocked earlier.

  Yeah. I wasn’t letting that go anytime soon. One of the joys of being family was mastering the art of holding grudges.

  “The file didn’t lie.” Theo’s voice poured from the beak without it actually moving. “Watch this.”

  The night contracted around him, and he grew a head taller. Two heads. Three. He kept expanding until he rivaled the size of a Cessna, and only then did he take a running start down the abandoned highway and fling himself skyward.

  “I read once that the Morrigan’s crow could expand to the size of an adult dragon,” Isaac said softly. “It didn’t mean much at the time. Dragons haven’t existed since the first fae settled this world. Humans hunted them to extinction. That meant I had no point of reference.” He shook his head. “Until now.”

  I procrastinated for as long as possible, until there was nothing to it but to do it. I had to abandon my place at Isaac’s side and start praying I could change back so soon after going wolf.

  While Theo pinwheeled overhead, learning how to maneuver his new form, I flopped on the asphalt and caved to necessity. A wolf couldn’t ride on the back of a crow. Only a woman could do that. And with Rook entering the game, bringing his mother with him, we had to move fast. We couldn’t afford to be caught out in the open again without our allies.

  The wolf raged as our skin shredded and then mended. I tasted the sharp edge of real terror when the last bone popped but I was neither two nor four legged. I was a mangled pile of fur and skin, twitching, whining, and too tired to do more than beg with my eyes for Isaac to end the agony zinging down my nerve endings.

  “You can do this.” His hand hovered over me, afraid contact would hurt me worse. “Come on, Dell.”

  A wheeze rattled through my misshapen lungs that drained the blood from his cheeks in a rush.

  “Dell.”

  A tingle started in my spine that raced up my nape into my skull where it buzzed, a live wire thrashing in my head and short-circuiting my brain with each pulse of energy.

  “Don’t leave me
again,” he fed my own words back to me, his voice ruined. “Please, Dell.”

  A glimpse of my right paw, half bald with two stubby humanoid digits next to rounded wolf toes, chased me into the dark.

  Chapter 12

  “You’re down to seven lives,” a tired voice sighed over me. “Maybe six. It’s hard to tell with you. God only knows how much trouble you’ve gotten into since the last time I saw you.” The muttering continued, sweet music to my ears. “A week. A goddamn week. Maybe less. And you could have been home in one piece, but no. You’ve got to push and push until you fucking break.”

  “Abram,” Enzo’s cool voice reprimanded. “Calm down. She’s okay. You fixed her, man.”

  Tears seeped under my lashes while I worked up the energy to crank open my lids.

  “Her breathing changed.” A broad palm cupped my bare shoulder, and an alpha’s strength poured through me, hot and wild. “Dell? Can you hear us?”

  I was still working on the eyelid thing, but I managed to get out the most important question. “Isaac?”

  “He’s sedated in the room next door,” Abram grunted. “I couldn’t work with him sobbing all over the damn place.”

  “I think that was you.” Enzo chuckled. “Your mate’s fine, Dell. His brother’s standing guard in case we come at him with the tranqs again.”

  “I wasn’t crying.” Abram sniffled. “I have allergies.”

  “Mmm-hmm,” the witch soothed. “Bastard grass pollen.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Doc’s been a touch emotional since the lights went out,” Cord whispered next to my ear. “He cried for two days straight when eBay vanished. Since then, every little thing sets him off again.”

  “She was stuck,” Abram boomed. “Do you know the odds are of getting someone unstuck?”

  His palm, I assumed, slapped the table near my head, and my eyes popped open wide. I almost wished I could retreat back to that safe darkness. Abram’s eyes were red-rimmed and puffy. He must have lost twenty pounds since the last time I saw him, and he’d been lean to start. Grief that I’d caused this welled up in me until I choked on the anguish of having hurt him.

  “Get that look out of your eyes right now. This isn’t your fault,” he snapped. “Not every damn thing that happens is your fault.”

  “Doc,” Cord murmured, and the healer stomped out of the room and slammed the door behind him.

  “He’s been working ’round the clock since the rift imploded,” Enzo explained. “Don’t tell him I said so, but unpretzeling you was a godsend. It shocked him out of manic medic mode and gave him a few hours of singular focus he needed. He’s spread too thin, too scattered. This helped.”

  I blinked the spinning room into focus. “You’re welcome.”

  “Too soon,” Cord chastised. “You shaved ten years off all our lives.”

  “Sorry, boss.” The effort required to frown up at him was laughable. “Where’s Zed?”

  “Also sedated,” Enzo answered for him. “Your bestie and your man got in a fistfight, and Cam broke out the tranq gun and shot them before they killed each other.”

  A groan rattled through my chest as my sluggish wolf rose to his defense. “This wasn’t Isaac’s fault.”

  “Zed knows that.” Cord kept his hand on me, his energy soaking into my skin. “But he took one look at you and thought he’d lost the person he loves most in the world. Isaac was all too happy to shoulder the blame, so Zed let him play punching bag.”

  The mental picture of Isaac taking everything Zed had turned my stomach. “How is everyone?”

  He didn’t answer right away, and that told me enough.

  A thundering in my ears deafened me until I could only feel my lips form the word, “Cam?”

  “She’s in a meeting with Thierry and Branwen.” He jerked his chin toward the door. “She’s right down the hall. She checked in with you about fifteen minutes ago.”

  Relief coasted through me on a relieved sigh. “Are the Bloodless playing nice?”

  “They’re the only reason we’re still here,” he said grimly. “I’m not sure what Rilla was up to when the rift gave, but I don’t think we can lay the blame for this at her feet. She’s an opportunist. She’ll make the most out of the discord, but we believe the threshold separating our realms cracked when the rift formed and that the steady flow of magic into this world eroded what remained.”

  “Tibs?”

  Cord pressed his lips together for a moment and then sighed. “He’s gone.”

  “Gone?” I would have jerked upright if I’d had any strength. “What do you mean gone?”

  “Rilla miscalculated,” he said softly. “She razed the Torquatus lands when you escaped Faerie, to punish the prince.”

  My throat clenched until breathing hurt. “The fortress?”

  “There’s nothing left.” He raked a hand through his shaggy hair. “Leandra is…”

  No bean-tighe outlived the structure she called home. Once the walls crumbled, so did they. The fortress where she and Tiberius met, where they had fallen in love, was no more. Rilla had signed her death warrant by going after that girl.

  “What about his parents?” I wet my throat. “Did they survive?”

  Galina and Paavo Torquatus had been held in protective custody by the conclave, but I had no doubt they would have demanded their freedom and returned to Faerie after the magic surge to fortify their home and rally their people.

  “Reports indicate they escaped with their lives.” Cord’s expression tightened. “This was a lesson about keeping promises. Tiberius broke his word to Rilla, and she took the remaining pieces of their vows and ground them to dust.”

  “Where is he?” Gone, under these conditions, could mean a million different things.

  “We don’t know.” A sadness darkened his expression that pressed in on me. “He reported in after leaving you and told us where we could find him. I sent someone to carry supplies out to the stone house since Leandra couldn’t leave, and they reported both Leandra and Tiberius were missing. That’s when Thierry called in some favors and learned what Rilla had done.”

  There went our best chance at benevolent leadership should Faerie claim this world as its own.

  “I need to speak to Thierry.” The idea dripping in the back of my mind over the last few days was done percolating. “I have an idea.” Forcing down the worst of the pain, I wedged my elbows under me and let Cord help me sit up on the cot. “Isaac and Theo need to be there too.”

  “Okay.” He steadied me with an arm around my shoulders. “Want to tell me what this is all about?”

  “Not yet.” I preferred chewing over the implications first. “Soon?”

  “You’ve got yourself a deal.” Cord withdrew long enough to grab a wheelchair someone had stacked on top of a few file cabinets and shook it open. “You ready to go see your mate?”

  “That obvious, huh?” The need to see Isaac trembled in my limbs. “I can’t convince the wolf he’s okay. She wants to see him for herself.” It wasn’t all her fault, though. “I do too.”

  “I get it.” He lifted me into the chair without a hitch in his breath. “Cam is down the hall, and mine is about to claw out of my skin to get back to her side.”

  I patted his shoulder. “You don’t have to stay with me.”

  “You’re pack, and I’m alpha. My job is to be where I’m needed the most, and that’s right here.” He ruffled my hair. “My mate is safe. She’s in a room with some of the most dangerous women in both realms. I know that, the wolf knows it too. He just likes pretending otherwise. Learning a little restraint will be good for him.”

  “There’s one more thing.” I pressed my lips together when the seesawing motion of the chair turning the corner made me dizzy. “We have to find Tiberius.”

  “Why did I figure you’d say that?” He gentled the reprimand. “We don’t have a lot of resources to allocate to a manhunt. Not if we want to keep as many of our people alive as we can.”

 
“I’m not going to be much use in a fight for a few days, right? Why not let me search for him?”

  “Make you a deal.” He opened a door and backed us into a dark room. “You convince Abram to let you go, and I’ll agree.”

  “You might as well have asked me to perform open-heart surgery on myself,” I grumped. “You saw him in there. He’ll never agree.”

  Even with only the low light seeping into the hall for illumination, I had no trouble making out my alpha’s face in the darkness as he knelt in front of me and placed his hands on my knees.

  “You and I understand what it is to be called to serve in a pack. It’s the core of who we are, and that need to protect defines us. Abram isn’t dominant in that sense. He could care less where he fits in the grand scheme of hierarchy. Except when it comes to protecting those he calls his. Then he’s every bit as vicious as you or I.” He gave me a supportive squeeze. “Part of my job is seeing to the health and welfare of each member of my pack. That means protecting you from yourself. It also means respecting the fact that Abram is terrified he’ll be the one who fails you.”

  “I never asked him to take responsibility for me,” I protested weakly. “I accept the repercussions for my actions.”

  “Ask him why it matters sometime.” He stood with soft grunt, favoring his left knee, and it made me wonder if he’d been wounded. Not that I would call attention to an injury. That was the best way to have a wolf lash out at you, and I was hurting plenty as it was. “It would do you both good to get it out in the open.”

  “No hints?”

  “No hints.” He backed out the door. “I’ll be right out here if you need me.”

  Careful of all the boxes in my way, I wheeled toward one of the supine figures spread out on a folding table sometimes used for holding snacks in the conference room. Zed was leaner than I’d like, thinner than when I’d left. A recurring theme, it seemed, among my pack mates. Either he hadn’t kept up his end of the deal, or the stress of war on his body was showing all too soon. I leaned over and pressed a kiss to his forehead, tempted to pinch him until he woke with a yelp for taking his frustration out on Isaac when it had been all my fault.