by Jayne Hawke
Copyright Jayne Hawke (2020) ©. All rights reserved.
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and dialogue are purely from the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is fictionalised and coincidental.
Licensed material is being used for illustrative purposes only and any person depicted in the licensed material is a model.
Cover art by Deranged Doctor Design
Table of Contents
Copyright Page
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Twenty-Four
Twenty-Five
Twenty-Six
Twenty-Seven
Twenty-Eight
Twenty-Nine
Thirty
Thirty-One
Thirty-Two
Thirty-Three
Thirty-Four
Thirty-Five
Thirty-Six
Thirty-Seven
OTHER BOOKS BY JAYNE HAWKE
One
I yanked on the great wolf’s tail. His forward momentum slowed, and he turned to glare at me. I spun on my heel and took off through the forest as fast as I could. The fae forest might not have been my true home, but I’d spent a lot of time training there. The ground had a slight give to it, offering me grip without jarring my joints. Leaping over fallen logs and ducking beneath thorn-covered branches, I pushed my legs to go as fast as they could. I could feel the wolf behind me. He had the advantage here, his powerful muscles designed for speed and endurance. Not that I was going to be beaten. It had been my job to draw Elijah away from Liam while he shot through the forest with our flag, but with Rex on his heels Liam would need me back in place at our flag, even if that meant Elijah came with me.
The light dappled through the thick canopy overhead. I swept through golden spots painting the dark ground in an artful but unappreciated light show naively superimposing itself onto the life-and-death chase scene playing out beneath. The broad dark trunks were marble-smooth there, emphasizing the unnatural origins of what was otherwise a fairly normal-looking section of the fae forest. Even focused as I was on the chase, I couldn’t help but notice the lower branches swaying in the stillness as though the trees were both sentient and unamused. There was a good chance they were, in fact, sentient, although I didn’t want to consider that too hard. It wouldn’t be the first time that the fae had locked someone into a tree, and only they knew what it was to undergo that.
My distraction was expensive. A huge weight collided with my back and drove me to the ground at the very edge of the clearing. Short brilliant blue grass coated the ground. My fingertips reached out reflexively, pressing against the silky strands of grass. They hardened beneath my touch and became sharp crystalline blades. Jerking my hand away, I refocused on the problem at hand - the huge wolf pinning me down and reducing Liam’s chances of giving us a win. I struggled to roll myself over and get Elijah off me. He held me down with a victorious grin upon his lupine face, panting hot breath onto me from above. Liam’s fox form could be seen between the trees racing towards the yellow flag with Rex hot on his heels.
I wasn’t done yet. I threw my weight around, trying to find Elijah’s weakness and get back on my feet. A blur of gold crashed into Elijah’s side, and I was free. Jess’ cougar form was smaller than Elijah’s wolf, but she’d moved with enough speed to do what was needed. The blue grass changed to a deep steel grey in a slow wave beginning where Elijah landed. Liam was weaving back and forth, staying just ahead of Rex, who was snapping at the fox’s tail.
Running towards the scene, which could have stepped right out of a cartoon, I reached down and took the flag from Liam as he shot by. Thankfully, the grass was back to its softer form as I ran across it. Rex didn’t react quickly enough. I drove the flag down next to the yellow flag and let out a feral cry of victory. Rex huffed and growled, but Jess did a distinctive victory dance around the clearing. Her steps were high and prancing, a huge grin on her face.
It had been a month since we’d saved the world. Since I’d chosen the pack over Castor. Elijah had made a point of engaging me in bond-building exercises to reinforce the point that I was part of the pack now. That I wasn’t alone. The hole in my chest wasn’t shrinking, nor was the weight of the guilt. But at least I wasn’t alone.
The shifters all returned to their human forms, which had everything hanging out. The underwear they wore into town had been magically imbued to remain with them through the shift, but as Rex frequently grumbled, it was damn expensive. So, when they shifted outside of the city, they did so stark naked. I kept my eyes front and centre as I led the pack back to the house, a troop of marble deities made flesh talking smugly along behind me no doubt deeply amused at my discomfiture.
I’m not going to deny that I was tempted to sneak a few peaks back at Elijah, though. I’d seen him down to his boxers a few times. He wasn’t ashamed of his sculpted body, nor should he have been. Things were progressing between us, at my pace. I was torn between the need to jump him and sate my painfully deepening desires and the implications of the emotions that would come with that. The bond that would fall into place. Thus far, my fear of the bond had won out, but my needs were growing day by day. Knowing he was naked right behind me didn’t help that in the slightest.
“You cheated,” Rex huffed.
“How!?” I said, glad to have the silence broken.
We’d decided to do wolves versus non-wolves, as the wolves were so sure they’d win easily.
“I don’t know, but you did something,” Rex said.
I rolled my eyes.
“Stop being a sore loser. And I want Thai for dinner, with extra mango pudding.”
“Is that mango pudding even Thai?” Liam asked.
“I have no idea. All I know is it’s really good,” I said.
The losers were buying dinner, as no one could be arsed to cook. As I was on the winning team, I was appointing myself team captain, and thus we were having Thai.
“Oh I want green curry and laksa!” Jess said.
Rex muttered something under his breath.
“Next time we’re doing a straight up race,” Elijah declared.
“Endurance or speed?” I asked.
“Speed, through the forest,” Elijah said.
I knew he wouldn’t let me use magic. Part of the point of these exercises was to stop my leaning so heavily on magic, which was maddeningly counterintuitive but nonetheless important. There were going to be situations when I couldn’t use magic for some reason, and I needed to be able to get myself out of them. I remembered all too clearly what had happened when Cameron had removed the advantage that had come with my shadow magic.
“Deal,” I said.
It would be difficult. The long-legged wolves had a huge advantage on me, but if I chose the terrain carefully I might be able to even the odds. I remembered reading that humans had an advantage over virtually every wild animal over a long enough distance, but that was endurance rather than speed. I could find a sheer cliff face. Maybe a tree climbing contest? It felt good to be unwinding and thinking about such simple things. As much as I was far more used to going into the city to relax with a few cocktails, t
he pack way was proving to be a lot of fun.
Although, the night I’d gone with Jess would remain with me forever. Jess loved to dance. Unfortunately, at least depending on perspective, her idea of dancing included flaunting everything and getting us thrown out of two clubs. She’d practically performed a strip tease in the middle of the one dance floor, an impossibly agile show I had no doubt would have been transfixing if I swung that way but which was awkward to be the cast as the quiet best friend of. Half of the patrons were very interested; the rest were horrified. It was the latter half that won, which was almost comforting even as I couldn’t help but roll my eyes at the puritanism. Hypocritical of me, perhaps, to judge them for not wanting her show to go on, but I was becoming protective of the pack and it was undeniable that she was having the time of her life and hurting no one (with the possible exception of the girls whose boyfriends suddenly forgot they existed).
Regardless, as much fun as Jess was, she just wasn’t a relaxing cocktails and tame dancing kind of girl. I didn’t really have anyone else. Rex was a grump, Liam was allergic to dancing and clubs, and it would be a whole thing with Elijah. There’d be flirting, grinding, and the next thing I’d know we’d be life bonded in the bathroom. I needed to find myself a nice, normal friend.
Two
I woke up at dawn to three alarms blaring in brain-devouring disharmony, too early even for the near-constant scent of cooking meat to have filled the pack house for the day. It was my own doing, although I really regretted it most mornings. The goddess was somewhere on the horizon, and I needed to be ready to handle whatever she threw at me. That meant that I’d started engaging in a gruelling work-out routine. I wasn’t going to allow anyone to catch me off guard again. My hand-to-hand combat was second to none, I’d been reading through my old coven’s grimoires to improve my magical proficiency, and I’d gotten into the habit of calling through shadows every night. Any downtime I put into research on god killing, a topic which had seen a surprising and surprisingly public amount of research that produced roughly nothing. At least it kept me busy.
The waiting was killing me, though. It was the not knowing. The goddess might not arrive for years and then want to have a movie night and some nice girly time, or she might want a battle to the death at any moment. Whatever it was, I had to be ready.
I’d showered after a three-hour work out and headed down to the kitchen for breakfast, right on time as always, if only because the pack seemed to be in a constant state of eating or preparing to eat. Liam had prepared a heap of French toast, which I very much appreciated. The pack was composed of all morning people, which I’d hated at first. Mornings were not my friends, and I had required a lot of very good, very strong coffee to bring me around to the concept. The shifters, however, were all about rising with the sun and doing lots of exercise. Liam had explained it was partly to sate their inner animal as they hated being cooped up. The other half was pride and vanity. Doing that much working out meant they looked incredible and were far more able to kick ass. With the view it provided, I could hardly complain, at least not when they were clothed, but it was becoming a strange mix of emotions as they increasingly felt like family.
Mornings still weren’t something I enjoyed, but I could feel myself getting stronger, faster, more proficient. That helped ease some of the anxiety about the goddess and what was coming. I was on my second slice when my phone rang with an unknown number. I frowned at it while debating whether to answer it. Then I realised it was a client; it had to be.
“Thank fuck,” I said before I accepted the call.
It had been three weeks since I’d had a client, and there was only so much working out and research I could do. There was a fine line between preparation and killing time. I’d been tempted to start actively looking for a case just to ease the boredom that was threatening to eat at my sanity.
A sultry male voice came from the other end. Goosebumps formed down my arms as I realised it was the lord of the Brighton territory on the other end. He never deigned to lower himself to speaking to bounty hunters as far as I was aware.
My first thought was to bitch at him about stealing our loot from the finfolk stalker’s house. That was the hunger and pent-up frustration talking. Sense made me keep my mouth shut and listen to what he had to say. He’d laid claim to a few million pounds worth of items there, possibly more, but there was no point in dwelling.
When he’d finished giving me the details of the job, I dropped the phone and turned to the pack.
“We’ve just been hired by the lord.”
I felt like I should maybe have added a flourish, but it didn’t feel like it was something we should be celebrating too hard.
“You’re fucking with me?” Rex said.
“I wish,” I said before I bit into my French toast.
“Stop holding us in suspense,” Elijah said.
I smiled at him and took another bite of the toast. It wasn’t quite the perfection that Castor had made, but it was really good. Crispy on the outside with a sweetness that lingered, fluffy on the inside and beautifully balanced. Far better than anything I could have made, and perfect for savouring.
Elijah crossed his muscular arms over his broad chest and glared at me.
“Fine. So the lord has hired us to figure out who an arsonist is. Apparently they’ve been targeting abandoned buildings on the edge of the city thus far, but he’s concerned that they’ll escalate. It appears that the fires are being used to try and cover the brutal murders of lower fae and fae part breeds.”
Elijah exhaled slowly.
“He’s never hired outside of the fae fixers before,” Elijah said.
“So why us? Why now?” Liam asked.
“A set up. Why else would he hire shifters?” Rex said.
Elijah rolled his eyes.
“The lord has never shown any problem with shifters. Stop jumping at shadows.”
“He’s fae,” Rex growled.
“Oh, stop being a big baby,” Jess said as she drowned her toast in maple syrup.
“I understand why you’re concerned, but this lord is not the lord who harmed you,” Elijah said coolly.
“Rex’s birth pack was slaughtered by the fae lord they lived under over in Ireland. He didn’t much like shifters and eradicated them from his territory before he was overthrown,” Jess said.
Well, that explained some of Rex’s gruff demeanour. He’d never made any mention of his past; I’d assumed it was a pretty normal upbringing and he was a just a dick.
“Elijah saved him from a shitty life skulking between shifter territories as a lone wolf,” Liam said.
Rex flashed his teeth at the fox. Liam ignored him entirely.
That explained Rex’s loyalty to Elijah, though. It wasn’t that different to what Castor had done for me, at least apart from the fact that he’d been grooming me to serve unknown purposes for an unseen, borderline-malevolent deity. And the part where he tried to sacrifice everyone I cared about in the world. And probably some other stuff I didn’t even know about.
“The pay’s triple what we’d usually ask for a job like this, and our reputation will be set for life when we pull it off,” I said.
“Do we have a deadline?” Elijah asked.
“No, but he’s going to be pissed if many more fae die,” I said.
Elijah nodded.
“What information do we have? Any contacts?”
“A file’s being sent over.”
“This doesn’t mean that I have to dress fancy, does it?” Jess said.
I looked over at her neon pink cami and tartan shorts.
“I think you’re good.”
“I hear they love tartan,” Liam said.
Jess’s eyes lit up.
“You are not wearing your sleepwear - or a onesie - outside of this house,” Elijah said firmly.
Jess sighed melodramatically.
“Alright, why would they choose to set fires to hide murders?” Elijah asked.
“Cov
ers the evidence,” Liam said.
“Fires are pretty,” Jess said.
There was an unsettling spark in Jess’s eyes as she went somewhere in her head. I got the distinct impression she had a rather close relationship with fire herself.
“Why choose a fire over magical evidence removal?” Elijah asked.
“Because they don’t have magic,” I said.
“So we could be dealing with one of those human groups that hate the fae and want the world back how it was pre-Fall,” Elijah said.
Rex curled his lip.
“I fail to see what their problem is. Humans can achieve the same heights as the rest of us. There are human CEOs living in the stone district. Their lives can be just as luxurious or just as shitty as the rest of us,” Rex said.
“The idea of controlling the land as their own must be appealing. Can you honestly say you wouldn’t like to make this land one for shifters without fae?” Liam asked.
Rex narrowed his eyes and said nothing.
I wasn’t going to deny that removing the fae appealed at times. We were fortunate to live under a good lord, but there were other territories that weren’t run with non-fae in mind. Ryn, the fae overlord, mostly removed those who were cruel to the non-fae, but there were still small pockets and reminders of how it could be. Even apart from the weird tree transformation thing, there had been insanity curses, brain swaps, spontaneous repeated species changes, aging and de-aging, and plenty of good old-fashioned sacrifices.
There had always been rumours of fae who took non-fae to the fae plane as slaves and toys, and it was hard to discount them in light of some of the fae I’d dealt with. I’d heard that the fae plane was a very dangerous place for non-fae. The magic there was inaccessible to non-fae, and those fae who chose to remain behind were crueller and less interested in the thoughts or existence of those around them - let alone those who didn’t belong. My mind went to the goddess. What exactly had I gotten myself into that night?
Three
The file was delivered by a young-looking fae in a deep-blue uniform with crisp lines and soft yellow piping. She wore, or perhaps simply produced naturally, a scent of honeydew and tree bark. I had no idea what the colour meant, but, given that she appeared to be somewhere around thirteen, I assumed it meant she was low level. She silently placed the black folder in my hand, turned on her heel, and marched away as though she were in some fancy parade. Fae did have a talent for finding the fun in their work.
