Over the Moon (Gemini Book 6)

by Hailey Edwards

  “Sorry I beat your mate to a pulp.” His tone didn’t match his words, but at least he’d spoken them. “I saw you and…I lost it.”

  I tore off a piece of the biscuit I’d been using to sop up the sauce and hit him between the eyes. “Tell him that.”

  “I already did,” he grunted. “Do you really think I would have risked facing you if I hadn’t?”

  The man had a point. Best friends had a way of cutting through the BS like that.

  “I’m sorry I was a dumbass.” I kept eating while it was hot. “I pushed too hard when I knew better.”

  Nodding his acceptance of my apology, he leaned back in his chair and linked his hands at his navel. “Now that we’ve got the formalities out of the way, what cockamamie scheme are you hatching next?”

  The snort blasting through my nose took a little of the water I’d been sipping with it. “Who? Me?”

  “You’ve got that look in your eye. You might as well fess up.” He cocked his head when I didn’t spill my guts. “I’ve got all night.”

  “We need to get Tiberius back.”

  Tension drew him up straighter. “Okay.”

  That he didn’t fight me on my first point made me immediately suspicious. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  “A few of the Stoners are MIA. We assumed they were deserters.” His dismissive attitude made sense. There were always runners in times of conflict. “Turns out one of them chickened out and came crawling back today. Nathalie and Aisha caught him attempting to reenter the wards around the park.” He rubbed his face with his hands. “They figured out Rilla wants Tiberius, and they’re hoping to turn him over in exchange for a ceasefire between the pack and…” he waved a hand through the air in a circular motion, “…all of Faerie? Who knows?”

  “Who are we missing?”

  “Your buddy Killer Smile led the charge.” Zed rolled his eyes over that one, using the nickname I’d coined for one of our more annoying recruits. “He conned Lyssa into going with him, and she dragged two of the new guys—Smith and Jenkins—with her. Jenkins was the one who came crawling back after a troll almost took off his head.”

  “They can’t capture Tibs. He’s young, but he’s fierce, and he’s going to be pissed.” I set down my fork. “He’ll kill them before he’ll let them haul him back to Rilla after what she did to Leandra.”

  “You stopped eating.” Zed’s shrewd gaze sized me up easily. “What are you thinking?”

  I stabbed a cube of tender beef. “Rook claims to be on our side.”

  “Thierry is treating him as a friendly,” Zed confirmed.

  “That leaves Rilla as the single biggest threat to us. Take her out, and we buy ourselves time while the others fight amongst themselves.”

  “More or less.” He shrugged. “The Unseelie appear willing to follow their king—for now. Maybe they figure even he can’t botch an opportunity like this one. The Seelie are the ones giving us fits. There are too many cross-purposes there.”

  “Assuming Rook can control his people, I might have an idea.”

  “Of course you do.” He tipped back his head. “Hit me.”

  “We find Tiberius, bribe him with the promise of revenge against Rilla, and we give the missing Stoners enough rope to hang themselves.”

  “They’re pack, Dell.” A frown wrinkled his forehead. “Or near enough. They’ve bled for us.”

  “They got themselves into this mess. With any luck, we’ll get them right back out.” We could ask for volunteers, but as far as I was concerned, those four had already raised their hands. “If they play their cards right, they’ll come out of this smelling like heroes. This might tip the balance in their favor when it comes to Cord initiating new pack members.”

  Showing initiative could count for or against you. Those four were in deep trouble any way you looked at it because they had acted without their alpha’s blessing. The gray area was that Cord wasn’t technically their alpha until they became Lorimar wargs. That gave them enough wiggle room they might worm out of any serious punishment.

  Not that I was the voice of experience when it came to defying alphas or anything.

  “We’ve had people searching for the prince off and on for days.” Zed appeared to consider something before confiding in me. “The rest of Butler didn’t fare as well as we did. I saw the stone house myself. It’s rubble as of twenty-four hours ago. Where are you going to start looking? He could be anywhere.”

  “Let me handle that.” I had a couple of possible locations in mind. “The question is how to get there and back without getting dead in the process.”

  “You’re in no shape to make the trip on two legs, and four is out of the question.” The sharp edge in his voice cut at me. “We can’t spare a detail to escort you, so we’ll have to be smart about this. Can Theo help?”

  As handy as a giant crow was for air travel, the bulk of Rilla’s guards were winged fae, which meant the last place we wanted to greet them was in the air. “Is Branwen still here? Cord mentioned she was in a meeting with Cam and Thierry earlier.”

  “They’re still holed up in the conference room,” he confirmed. “Cord’s in there too, now that your mate and I are conscious.”

  “There’s a fae she had with her, a young boy.” I backtracked in the next breath. “He looks young anyway. His name is Arno, and he has an affinity for trees. Have you seen him around?”

  “Bark for skin and leaves for hair? Looks like he’s never met a toothbrush?”

  “That’s him.”

  “He scouts for us sometimes,” he said thoughtfully. “What do you know about him that I don’t?”

  “His gift is complicated. He’s like a tree whisperer, and he can use them like portals.” The next bit was the tricky part. “Isaac and I traveled with him once. He’s one of the fae who got us to Branwen in the first place.”

  “So what’s the problem?”

  That he’d picked up on my unease didn’t surprise me. “Last time, the tree wanted to keep me.”

  The urge to fling a hard hell no at my face quivered on his lips, but he sat back like he was willing to hear what I had to say. “I assume there’s a reason you’re even considering this?”

  “The tree tasted my blood,” I admitted. “Arno told me that means we’re forever linked. He was supposed to ask around for me and find out what that meant. Now’s as good a time as any to learn if he’s made progress.”

  The teensiest part of me wanted to damn this tiptoeing cautiousness and lunge headfirst into the action, but I kept seeing Isaac’s face and hearing Abram’s words. The alphas expected a beta who could fight with her head as well as her heart and teeth. The pack was entitled to leadership that paused to deal with the ramifications of their actions instead of diving into the deep end and hoping we didn’t all drown. The people in my life deserved the best version of me, and I was determined to finally give her to them.

  Chapter 14

  A fae who could have been any teenage boy, minus his barklike skin and the rumpled leaves he sported in place of hair, ducked into Cord’s office and hopped into the seat Zed had vacated not all that long ago. He grinned at me, exposing teeth the yellow color of acorn meat, and settled in for the long haul.

  “Heard you were dead.” His tone gave no clues as to which was his preference. “Norma was quite upset.” Anger that I’d made her worry I read loud and clear. “She cried for you. I didn’t care much for that.”

  Norma was the pontianak girl who had first led us to the Bloodless army and to Branwen, and he was, so far as I could tell, head over heels for her.

  “Tell her I said hi the next time you see her.” Probably within fifteen minutes of the end of this meeting. “She’s welcome to visit me anytime to see with her own eyes that all my pieces are back in the right order.”

  “I’ll do that.” Arno kicked his legs like a kid on a swing waiting for a good push. “I assume there’s a reason why you wanted to see me?”

  Short and to the point. I l
iked his style. “Did you ever find a dryad to ask about my…condition?”

  “Yes.” His pendulum rhythm stopped. “Three lovelies are in service to Branwen. They arrived last week.”

  Whatever his news, it must not be good for him to hesitate over its delivery. “And?”

  “The trees have claimed the right of coimirceoir.” Each word came faster than the last. “Coimirceoir translates to guardian more or less.”

  “All because that one tree wanted to keep me?” I needed more context for this to make sense.

  “All because that one tree connected with you, yes.” He shifted his weight, and the chair rocked under him. “Trees have no voice. No one hears their cries for help. No one, except those like me, and we are few and far between. The trees want more, and they see in you a way to get it.”

  “What more could trees possibly want?” Other than not to be cut down and sent to processing plants? Things I had no control over, though with the power out for the time being, they would be safe enough from that fate for a while yet.

  “They, in turn, want to make you a guardian too.” He lifted a hip, pulled a small bag from his pants pocket and tossed it to me. “See for yourself.”

  The contents of the bag shifted in my palm, and I had an idea of what I’d find even before I opened the drawstring pouch. “Seeds.”

  “Magic seeds,” he agreed. “The tree you met and the ones who commune with me are descended from Faerie stock. Some have interbred with Earth varieties and lost their voices, but many are unique creations that consider this world their home. There’s a real chance that all the magic in the air might kill them, that the energy seeping into the ground might wither their roots.”

  “What do they want me to do?”

  “Guard those seeds with your life. Wait until this ends, however it ends, and plant them. Seeds can adapt the same as small children, to overcome myriad obstacles. Protect those precious lives, nurture them, and keep their legacy alive.”

  Funny, the pouch hadn’t weighed a hundred pounds when I caught it. “I can do that.”

  As long as I tried very hard not to think about why they had been given to me and not to someone worthy like Arno or the dryads he’d mentioned. It was a matter of survival, plain and simple. There was a better chance of a predator with a pack of other predators at her back making it through the other side of this than any of the solitary, peace-loving fae attempting to withstand the onslaught.

  With so many lives already balanced on the edge of a blade, what were a few dozen more?

  Arno wasted no time with subtleties. “Aren’t you curious what they’ll offer in return?”

  The glint in his eyes made me nervous. “All the fruit I can eat?”

  “They’ll grant you passage.” He mimed opening a door. “Anywhere the trees are, so shall you be allowed to go.”

  Fae trees. Living trees. No, not living. All trees were alive. Sentient.

  “This would have really come in handy about a week ago.” A doorway from the site of the RV wreck to the prison and then home would have been flippin’ fantastic. “How does it work?”

  “I’ll walk you through it your first time.” He winked. “You’re a bright girl. You’ll figure out the rest.”

  “About that.” I had no choice but to lay it all out for him. “We’re on a mission to find Tiberius before anyone else does.”

  The young-looking fae whistled. “Last I heard he was wandering the forest on foot with that demon bird of his striking down any who got too close.”

  The wolf held me predator-still when I wanted to lunge forward and shake the information from him. “When was that?”

  “Days ago,” he admitted, oblivious to the threat. “I can put out feelers, but what does it matter now?” He examined his cuticles, the wood splintered at the base of his nails. “Soon they’ll haul us all back to Faerie. We’ll be cuffed and caged and—it only gets worse from there. Not many will allow themselves to be taken. Few would suffer that fate again gladly.”

  “Why are you so sure we can’t win?”

  “Have you been outside yet?” He flicked his wrist at the office. “Within the wards, you barely feel the impacts. Stand in the center of your homestead, and you can pretend the end isn’t a thin bubble of magic away.” He shook his head. “Your witch is fraying, coming unbound one thread at a time. He can’t hold his wards much longer, not over the size of the area you’ve claimed. I give him another week, and that’s generous. Another day is more likely. He’s going to fall, and the wards—and your pack—will fall with him.

  “From there, we’ll have no place to retreat. There will be no shifts to recharge the exhausted, no clinics to patch up the wounded, there will only be chaos, and chaos is absolute.” His leg gave one defiant kick. “We’ve lost. Against the rift, we could have triumphed. Against all of Faerie…no one can stem that tide.”

  A defiant howl rose up the back of my throat. The urge to rally him stretched my skin taut, but the desire to change was one I couldn’t indulge. The wolf didn’t like the idea of surrender any more than I did. Poor Enzo. I’d been so focused on Abram, Isaac and Zed, I hadn’t paused to consider the cost of maintaining this oasis of peace where I had awoken.

  Honestly? I hadn’t wanted to think too hard about how the outside world looked while I was safe in my cocoon of normalcy. Selfish of me, I know. But after I took that first look, it would be over. I wouldn’t pretend anymore.

  “I need your help.” I placed my palms on the desk. “I need you to take me a few places so I can—”

  “No.” He cut me off quick. “I’ll do as I promised. I’ll teach you the trick. I’ll take the first step with you, there and back, but you’re on your own after that. Branwen needs me.”

  Norma needs me too went unspoken.

  “Good enough.” Graciousness was the only option left to me. “I appreciate your help.”

  “Rook saved us, all of us, and this is as close to saving him back as any of us can get.” His knees creaked, the groan of wooden joints bending, when he stood. “For that, I owe you.”

  “Will I be able to bring people through with me the way you can?” Level-Headed Dell was calling the shots now, and that meant carrying backup with me.

  “You’ll have to ask for permission,” he decided after a moment’s deliberation.

  “That’s better than a no.” I wheeled around to join him on the other side of the desk. “I can work with that.”

  “This is no good.” He outlined the tread on the wheelchair tire nearest him with one fingertip. “The trees won’t accept this manmade contraption. You must be able to walk.”

  “I’ll see what Abram can do.” It would worry him, but he would patch me up. Enzo might have a quicker fix, but I couldn’t bring myself to distract him while he cupped so many lives in his hands. “He might be able to give me a boost.”

  “Why not ask the mistress?”

  “Branwen has a healing gift?” No one had mentioned what powers she might possess, and I had never questioned what the daughter of a death omen might consider a talent. Nothing good, I suspected. “Is she still in with Thierry and the alphas?”

  “She’ll make an exception for this.” He winked and scampered from the room.

  Once the door shut behind him, Isaac and Theo ducked in to get the scoop, and Zed wasn’t far behind.

  “Well?” they all asked at once.

  “Arno thinks Branwen can get me out of this chair.” I slapped my palms down on the armrests. “Assuming that happens, he’s willing to walk me through using the trees for transport one time. Past that, he’s needed here.”

  “What do you want us to do?” Zed asked from near my elbow. “How do you see this playing out?”

  There was no easy answer for how to reach the future I imagined, but I shared as much of the big picture as possible without tipping my hand just yet. Before I gave them even a taste of hope, I had to speak with Thierry.

  “I need you to stay here.” I looped my arm arou
nd Zed’s waist in time to experience his flinch. “The alphas are counting on you to help coordinate. You’ve watched this all unfold. You already know what it would take me days to fully understand. They can’t afford to lose you even for a few hours, especially when this mission might fail.”

  “Dell—” he began to snarl.

  “I don’t mean I’ll die in the attempt,” I rushed to assure everyone in the room. “I just meant there’s a big world out there, and Tibs has wings and a whole lot of heartache. There’s no telling where he’ll go. We may have to accept we’ve lost him.”

  “I still have his aspect,” Isaac said softly. “I could shift, let the Stoners catch me and hand me over to Rilla.”

  Considering all the risks I’d taken, all the ones yet untaken, I couldn’t afford to shut him down cold. “We’ll save that as a last resort.”

  A smile crooked his lips, and I knew he’d heard the lie.

  “I’ve never traveled via tree trunk,” Theo mused. “Do I get to play third wheel again?”

  “Do you mind?” Having a third would put everyone at ease, and it was still a manageable number.

  “It’s not like they’ve got me doing anything here.” He shrugged. “Might as well help where I can.”

  A light rap announced we had company, and I called, “Come on in.”

  Arno escorted a petite woman with heather-soft eyes and pale, gray skin.

  “Dell.” A pleased flush lent her some color. “You’re looking well, all things considered.”

  Following Arno’s lead, I got straight to the point. “Arno seems to think you can make me look even better.”

  “I do have a small healing gift.” She massaged her hands to work out cramps or warm them, I couldn’t tell which. “I’ve used it so often the past few days, I can’t say how much I have left, but I will try if this is necessary.”

  “It is.” I held her gaze, begging her not to ask me why, because I wasn’t ready to face that just yet.