Chapter One



APPROXIMATELY FIVE STINKING HOURS AFTER THE PORTAL SPAT US OUT INTO MERENWYN

I've made a few quiet and unsettling personal discoveries.

Sad fact: I've always thought I was a nature lover. Partially because I like flowers and butterflies and the scent of woods-spruce, maple, pine, earth, bark-invariably gives me the warm fuzzies.

Guess what? I'm not Hedi, the tree hugger.

After a while, no matter its girth or its magnificence, a tree is a tree. And a gorge fades from an awe-inspiring visual to a thing placed there with the sole intent of frustrating the shit out of you.

Other things this city dweller has placed high on the hate list during her first day in Merenwyn: almost invisible flying bugs that make a peculiar humming noise as they zoom in for a snack of my Fae-sweet blood; heat rashes in sensitive places; prickers that try to pierce my baby-soft soles.

Believe it or not, I'm starting to miss Creemore.

And cars. Those I really miss.

You see? This is the problem with epic quests. No matter what's on the list, the damn things seem to come with gritty realities that just drain all the epic out of them. For instance, the necessity of wrapping my shoe-deprived feet with the sleeves torn from my mate's sweatshirt because Trowbridge and I traversed the Safe Passage into the Fae world without any travel preparations-my shoes, a box of matches, an industrial-sized bottle of DEET, a case of PowerBars, a roll of toilet paper-or, for that matter, any discussion.

There'd been no time for it.

I'd vaulted through the Fae portal first, all hell-bent on rescuing my twin, Lexi, and the world. Since then, I've had a few hours to think about that leap. And I've asked myself-was that a piece of heroism or what?

Unfortunately, the answer is "hell no."

My hop, skip, and jump into Merenwyn was 80 percent guilt fueled

I left my brother bearing the burden of my own mistake: being the Old Mage's nalera was no walk in the park. Plus there was the whole save-the-world issue. Foul magic dripping through the portals and polluting everything that is good and fine and untouched in my home world.

People will get hurt. Like Cordelia, my mom-that-isn't, and Anu, my niece.

I can't have that either.

But here's the element of doubt. Would I have been struck by the pressing need to protect the innocent if the goons with the guns hadn't been giving me the buh-byes? After all, St. Silas had made it impossible for me to nottake that step.

Turns out, I'm not heroic at all.

Sad, no?

On the other hand, Robson Trowbridge came to Merenwyn because he's heroic and he loves me. Any doubt I had on the subject of my mate's devotion was wiped out the instant I'd recognized the cacophony coming from the portal for what it was-the metallic shriek of a chain-link fence scoring the passage walls as it was dragged willy-nilly into the land of the Fae.

St. Silas, one of the big woofs of the werewolves' Great Council back in our world, had handcuffed my mate to such a fence. The asshole should have cuffed the Alpha of Creemore to a Chevy. My Trowbridge simply brought a six-foot panel of chain link with him, as well as a fence post, a set of handcuffs, his scent, and-not to overwork the phrase-his love.

Trowbridge loves me.

I turned my head slightly to regard my beloved. After enveloping me in a breath-defying hug that had quickly evolved into a truly memorable and searing kiss, my lover had divested himself of the handcuffs. Then, he'd taken care of what was left of the fence by rolling it into an untidy cylinder, which he'd stashed behind a handy outcrop of rock. After that, he'd performed a quick scent test of the air and a squint-eyed examination of the forest below. Finally, he'd turned to look at me. For four long seconds he'd stared at me, his expression inscrutable, but in the end he'd swallowed down whatever sermon he'd entertained delivering and all he'd said was, "Ready?"

I'd smiled back and said, "Born ready."

Though his mouth had tightened, he'd never thrown that back at me, not once, during the last few hours.

Now my Trowbridge lay supine on his flat stomach beside me, propped up on his elbows, his eyes narrowed on the scene below. As visual feasts go, what he was frowning at was the ultimate photo op-literally a landscape of improbable beauty. Two thick wedges of old forest framed the green valley. Diamonds of light glinted from the winding blue river, and the tops of the grasses on its banks swayed. Add to this perfection the requisite background of wooded hills rolling to oblivion and beyond-

Goddess, Merenwyn would have given Ansel Adams a chubby.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not a tree hugger, remember?

Let's go back to talking about Trowbridge.

Normally, I'm all about the splendor of his face: eyes that were as blue as the Mediterranean, cheekbones that could cut glass, a lower lip that could be hard or tender. But at the moment, he was scowling again, so I allowed my eyes to rove over and my nose to enjoy the other totally Trowbridge delights. Like his body and the totally appealing scent of his sweat.

Mine.

If I blurred my eyes a bit, he was naked Trowbridge. Which, by any personal measure, is a better thing than a paper bag filled to bursting with Cherry Blossoms, Kit Kats, Skittles, and chocolate fudge.

My mate had come through the gates wearing the clothing he'd been given before his trial in front of the council: a pair of jeans that were too large and a sweatshirt that was too small. That's it, except for the fence. Nobody had coughed up a T-shirt for the doomed Alpha of Creemore. Also-and this was crucial-nobody had thoughtfully tossed him a pair of tighty whities either, because he was wearing his jeans commando.

I knew this because I'd been watching his back all morning, enjoying the "now you see it, now you don't" scenery as those jeans tried to shuck themselves off his narrow hips, then biting my lips every time he'd jerk them back up again with a hiss of annoyance that I found inexpressibly endearing.

One man's pain, another woman's gain.

When he'd gone down on his belly to case out the valley, those faded jeans had already been sailing at very low mast. Now they rode so low, I could see the dimples at the base of his spine and the upper swell of his tight ass cheeks.

And the small of his back.

I'd become fixated on that patch of skin. I wanted to tramp-stamp it with the words "Hedi's property." I wanted to lick it and stroke it, and press my cheek to it so I could absorb his heat, and breathe in his scent-woods, salt, sex, and yum. I'd do all those things right now except my bone-liquefying exhaustion had placed all lustful thoughts into a holding pattern.

Later.

That's when I'd satisfy my need to claim that patch of skin. If one didn't dwell overlong on the sub-goal list, I had lots of "laters" in my future, during which I could explore every slope, plane, swell, and groove of his body. He's mine. I exhaled, glorifying in the awesomeness of him and me, and my breath bounced back, slightly sour and definitely metallic.

Yup. Later.

Right now, we were trekking to the rendezvous point-a place named Daniel's Rock-where Trowbridge and I were supposed to meet Lexi. Though time differences between this realm and the other are vast, we had lots of time.

We were early.

I mean, really early. I don't know precisely how early, because one Earth hour is the rough equivalent of eighteen Merenwyn hours and that is a bitch to figure out without a calculator and piece of paper.

But Trowbridge and I had crossed far earlier than instructed. Which meant we were way ahead of schedule and at this moment Lexi was betwixt worlds, still going through the unenviable process of having his addiction torn from him.

I tried to imagine what it felt like for my brother. Waking and realizing that you're trapped inside a fog-filled portal passage. Slowly recognizing that you're a prisoner-you can't go forward to Merenwyn, and you can't go back to Creemore. And worse, your transit plans are hostage to your own addiction. There'd be no freedom until such time as a mage-and Lexi has no fondness for them-pronounced you clean of your cravings for sun potion.

It would suck balls.

It had to be worse than being stuck in LaGuardia for an indefinite layover, your only company the walls, the clock, and an evangelist preacher.

Goddess, Hedi, when you screw up, you screw up.

I cleared my dry throat and nodded toward the river. "This looks like a good place."

"Uh-huh." Trowbridge scratched his nose, then looked up at the mid-day sun with a scowl. The thin wedge of maple he'd fashioned into a homespun toothpick gave another bob. He'd given me my own stick to chew earlier. Apparently, they keep the hunger pains at bay. Mine had fallen out of my back pocket when I squatted behind some bushes. No way was I putting that back in my mouth.

I pushed the tall grass aside to get another look at the river below. Its banks were pebbled, the center of its span an undeniably traversable froth of water.

Finally.

I closed my eyes and rested my forehead on the crook on my arm. No more tramping along the escarpment, trying to exude resolute calm while inwardly being piddle-pants scared about the very real possibility of toppling into the River of Penance's churning water below. No more-

"My gut's not happy," he said.

Neither was mine. It kept squeezing, making clear its expectations that I should hustle and find a honey hive or five for its satisfaction. The handful of berries we'd nibbled on a couple of hours ago were naught but a faint memory.

Don't think about food.

"No," he repeated thoughtfully, "it's not happy at all."

I worked up a reply for that.

Normally, I'm quick with the quip and observation. I'd started our journey through the Fae realm leaking exclamations-"the sky's so blue, Trowbridge!"-but my general enthusiasm had naturally ebbed as the realities of being in Merenwyn had worn in.

We needed to cross the River of Penance. Because the two places high on my must-see destination list were on the other side of it and because its deafening roar had battered my right eardrum all morning. It had been nothing but rapids and waterfalls.

Finally, it had shut up and calmed the hell down.

I was done with the River of Penance and all its frickin' tributaries.

Done.

Merry slid down the inside crease of my elbow, snaring her feet in my tangled hair. I slit my eyes open and watched her through my lashes. She landed near my nose in a tiny puff of dust, then stalked along the inside of my curved arm.

My best friend was a sentient being, enchanted and imprisoned inside an amulet that hung from the chain I wore around my neck. She was an Asrai, like Ralph, the amulet that Trowbridge wore. "Merry and Ralph are hungry. We should feed them," I said, pointedly adding, "when we get to the other side."

"Mmmph," my darling man said.

With frayed patience, I carefully scratched around an insect bite. "Tell me again why we didn't cross the river where the Gatekeeper did."

I'd hated parting from her trail. Without the Gatekeeper, we were stuck in the land of the sneaky biting midges, because I didn't know the sequence of words and secret hand gestures to reopen the Safe Passage. The portal had closed itself while Trowbridge was occupied hiding the crumpled chain-link fencing. I'd tried to stop it from sealing, but the stone I'd quickly rolled into the doorway had been crushed into pea gravel.

The only plus? I hadn't followed up on my first instinct of shoving my foot into the doorway.

Ralph unwound two long golden strands from his setting and re-formed them into two long legs. He pushed himself upright, his bright blue stone winking with a self-satisfied light, then trotted to the end of his chain, so that he could take a gander at the old River of Penance. The line of grasses edging the outlook obscured his view so he hopped onto Trowbridge's forearm and started to prance upward.

Smack.

My guy swatted Ralph off like he was annoying ant. Indignantly, the Royal Amulet righted himself, then whipped out two more strands of gold, presumably to fashion them into something sharp and pointy with which he could demonstrate his outrage.

Trowbridge's lip lifted enough to expose his teeth and the chew stick clamped between them.

And just like that, the fight went out of Ralph. He lowered his pincers, and he stood down, save for the little blip of insolent white light bleating from his jewel.

My mate removed his toothpick and said softly, "When you travel with an Alpha, you don't get in his line of vision. Ever. You watch, you listen, you try to be helpful, and if you want your Alpha not to leave you swinging over the gorge you make an extra effort to stay still so that your chain's not sawing away at the back of his neck. But most of all, you keep your shiny ass out of his line of vision. Got that, Ralphie?"

Point taken. Ralph picked up the slack in his chain and sidled out of the Son of Lukynae's sight line.

"Who's the big bad wolf?" I murmured with only a little bit of sarcasm. "Now, returning of the question of why we ditched the Gatekeeper, your answer is..."

"If we followed her across the river, we'd be walking right into the Fae's hands. We've got time. It's smarter to play it safe."

True. We'd journeyed into this world a day earlier than anticipated, so we were ahead of the game, considering there was a time limit on my epic quest. Time considerations only became crucial once Lexi finished his passage between the two realms. If the old man's soul wasn't wrenched from Lexi's by my twin's third sunset in Merenwyn, their soul merge became permanent.

Don't think about it. Just do one thing at time.

Get to Daniel's Rock.

Though, you see, there it was-another tiny crack in the mental image I'd held of what Trowbridge, aka the Son of Lukynae, Hero Alpha of the Raha'ells, would be like in Merenwyn. I'd figured he'd be impatient. Feral. Violence simmering, glinting eyes showing hints of his undomesticated masculinity, musk so strong that it made me damp.

He wasn't.

He was ... pragmatic. Calculating. And mostly, very damn quiet.

Huh.

I listened to the sound of the water running over the river's rocks. It was clean and fresh, a cheery chortle versus an outraged thunder. Merry's chain tightened, signaling she was on the move again. I could feel the pinch of her little vine-tipped feet as she minced down my arm for a better view of the valley.

Why was Trowbridge balking now? For the first time in a couple of hours, we were on a section of cliff that had great handholds. We could make it down to the valley below without loss of limb and life. And even more important, the freakin' River of Penance had worn out some of its anger. Sure, it was moving fast, but we could ford it. And even if we lost our footing, the other side could be reached in a few determined strokes-after all, the river didn't look that wide.

I kept my eyes closed, careful not to look at him. "Is this because you're afraid of water?"

"I'm not afraid of water."

"I'm a great swimmer," I told him. "If you lose your footing, I'll tow you."

"That's. Not. Going. To. Happen."

"So it is about you drowning."

"You do remember that I'm an Alpha, right?" I heard Trowbridge murmur mildly. "And that I'm used to-"

"Ordering people about like a puppet master." The sun was pleasant on my back.

"Choosing the correct path for my pack." He shifted, releasing a thread of scent that slid along my arm in an invisible caress. "People used to jump when I spoke."

"Not. Going. To. Happen." My empty stomach rumbled.

Trowbridge's head swiveled, his blue eyes narrowing on me. "Where's your chew stick?" he demanded.

"It was bitter."

"Chewing it will make your belly hurt less."

"I'm not hungry." But my words came out sharper than I meant-he loves me-and so I softened my tone. "I'm tired. That's all."

He chewed on his toothpick for a thoughtful moment, his gaze roving over me. His eyes missed nothing. My bundled feet, my sweaty hairline, the pulse at my throat, the sunburn that made even smiling hurt.

The shuttered look in his eyes hurt me. Because I couldn't shake the thought that he understood something I didn't and instinct told me that I wasn't ready to ask what it was. After a beat, he turned his head to study the scene again. "Something feels wrong down there, Tink," he said. "And I can't put my finger on it."

Crap. That was different. Merry scuttled for a more secure perch as I went up on my elbows. "What am I looking for?"

"Not sure," he said, his head swiveling. "But it's too quiet."

I scanned the valley. The river was blue; the firs were green; the forests on the other side of the river stretched for eternity and beyond. I tucked my hair behind my pointed Fae ears and concentrated, trying to listen over the sound of the river rushing over the rocks.

He was right.

Missing were the ambient forest noises. The tweet-tweet-tweet of the cardinals having the last word about who's the prettiest; the rustle of leaves as squirrels moved along the wood's arterial highway of thick tree boughs searching for nuts and other delights.

I shot a glance at Trowbridge. His chin was tucked in, his focus intent: a wolf tracking sound that still eluded my Fae ears. "Something has spooked the wildlife."

I went back to studying the terrain. Nothing, nothing-

Something.

At least five miles north of us, a flicker of unexpected light. Very tiny, very brief. As small as a speck of glitter. What was that? A trick of light? The sun reflecting off a weapon? I focused on that spot, willing for the flash to happen again. And it did, not a second later, except this time it was an elf-sized fistful of flickers, clustered over the distant notched treetops. I leaned forward, my own eyes slitting.

"Trowbridge," I said, pointing to far-off trees. "Do you see it?"

He squinted, then gave his head a rough, impatient shake. "Show me."

"Look northeast and concentrate on the tops of that stand of firs. You have to really focus to see it. Look for a blurred sheen over the horizon. And-there! See those tiny flashes?" My finger outlined its shape. The almost translucent haze was moving fast, heading in what looked like a zigzag pattern. "What is that?"

"Some short of Fae shit," he said under his breath.

"Have you ever seen it before?"

Grimly he shook his head.

I watched it for a while. "It reminds me of that alien movie with Arnie."

"Huh?"

The scar on my wrist was aching faintly. "You know, when Arnie's staring at the trees and he realizes that there's something off?"

"Predator?" He twisted to stare at me. "We're in Merenwyn where we're at the top of the wanted list and you're thinking of some old Schwarzenegger flick?"

"If the sun wasn't reflecting off its glittery bits, I'm not sure if we'd have seen that thing. At first glance it's more of a pixilation than anything else. A blurring of the defined edges. It moves fast. What do you think it is?"

"There are no aliens running around Merenwyn, Tink. There's just a lot of Fae shit." Abruptly Trowbridge rose to his feet in a fluid motion of muscle and grace.

"You realize that I find the term 'Fae shit' vaguely insulting, right?" My fingers went to the pointed peak of my ear. I'm half Fae and half Were.

Trowbridge began pacing. Six steps in one direction, hands jammed in back pockets, a turn, then six steps back to me. A short but energetic circuit.

Kind of mesmerizing, really.

All those muscles, all that grace.

I rolled on my side, planted an elbow, and propped my head on my palm to watch him. He was either thinking or worrying. Whatever the distinction, my mate was walking and just watching him made my feet hurt. Despite the swaddling insulation of Trowbridge's socks and two layers of fleece jersey, they were sore. Fully washable 60 percent cotton does not measure well against shoe leather.

I cleared my throat. "Are we crossing the river here or not?"

"Fucking jeans," he said, yanking them upward again.

That would be a no. "I can't see how a tiny bunch of sparkles in the sky-"

"Listening to my instincts has kept me alive over here."

I rolled to sit and stared at the vista on the other side of a river whose rightful name should be Frustration, not Penance. "We're not going to get to Daniel's Rock tonight, are we?" My voice was small.

"Not until I understand what's going on down in the valley."

I drew my knees up and leaned my chin on them. "Can I see the rock from here?"

His knees brushed mine as he sank to his haunches beside me. "No, but you can see the Two Sisters. Daniel's Rock is right behind them."

"What sisters?"

"See those two hills?" he asked, lifting an arm to point across the river.

I twisted my head slightly, searching for two rounded humps that could be potential siblings, and came up empty. He glanced at me, then muttered out of the side of his mouth, "You need to look farther east."

East?

Oh, my word. The twin peaks-and they were peaks, not hills-were decidedly east if one was thinking of foot power. But hadn't I noticed those two snow-topped dames a couple of hours ago? If so, we'd been performing a long, lazy loop around them all freakin' afternoon. My gaze flicked to his. "How much of a detour did we take today?"

"It was worth it," he said, lowering his arm. "Everything on the other side of the river is Fae territory. The area's populated with farms. We can't pass as one of them. I haven't got the ears, and we haven't got the right clothing."

But I was an excellent thief. I could have raided someone's clothesline. "And what's this territory?"

"All the land on this side of the river belongs to my pa-" He stopped himself, mid-word.

He didn't have to finish it. I knew he was going to say "pack."

"This is Raha'ell territory?"

"Yeah."

Oh. Joy.

You would think that the two of us would have had some sort of discussion about the Raha'ells before this. But we hadn't. Our landing in this realm had been abrupt and on the heels of near disaster. Since then, we'd been on the move and it hadn't come up.

Okay, I'll own to not being terribly keen about opening a topic that touched on the fact that I had sent my lover to Merenwyn for nine numbing years. A lesser man wouldn't have survived exile to a realm that hunts wolves. However, my Trowbridge had thrived, discovering unsuspected leadership qualities as the Alpha of the Raha'ells. Under his tutelage, the dissident pack's guerilla warfare tactics had sharpened and their war on the ruling Fae had evolved from a fringe irritation to a real threat.

It was a given that Trowbridge would rise to the top of the Fae's wanted list. Eventually, he was captured and brought to the Spectacle grounds, a prison within the Fae castle that serves as a theater of death for those with wolf blood. Executions are scheduled for full moons and well attended by the Fae. After all, it's a fine spectacle for those in the stands-gladiator games played without any weapons. Death was inevitable for a wolf; the only thing left to chance and self-will was the length of time it took to die. I'll be forever grateful that Lexi kidnapped Trowbridge and led him out of those killing grounds.

But it had looked bad.

It had appeared that the Son of Lukynae had turned his back on his people.

Trowbridge squeezed my arms, then stood.

"What will happen if we run into them?" I asked. Would the Raha'ells tear him apart limb by limb? Feast on his internal organs? Use his head to play soccer?

Goddess, my imagination is too vivid.

For a long time, he said nothing. "A cowardly Alpha who turned his back on his people-there's no coming back from that. They'd go to town on me and they'd have every right to do it."

"You're not a coward. You were under Lexi's compulsion spell. You would never have-"

"Left some of my pack to die at the Spectacle? Walked right out of that hellhole with my pack's worst enemy? That's what I did. Doesn't really matter why I did it."

Note to self: see a Raha'ell, run like hell. "What are our chances of encountering them?"

"I know their hunting grounds. I know which trails they take, and where they choose to camp down for the night. We've stayed clear of those areas and the wind's been in our favor. As long as we stick close to the river, we should be all right."

I hate the word "should."

"I doubt we have anything to worry about," I heard him say.

Not a fan of the word "doubt" either.

He walked away, turning his back to me to meditate on the land behind us. We'd been following the edge of what had to be a very long escarpment. Behind us were mountains. Big ones. A long range of the type that adventure seekers flock to. Take Everest, K2, Mount Ranier, and Mont Blanc and throw in some of their craggy cousins.

"What are you thinking?" I asked, hoping it didn't involve scaling K2.

He turned back to study me. Rubbing a hand over his bristled hair, he shook his head at my jersey-wrapped feet. "Jesus, I wish we had shoes for you."

"You're not wearing any."

"I'm-"

"Used to this place."

"I was going to say that my feet are like leather." He walked back to me and sank into another squat. Two large, warm paws reached to cup my jaw again. Blue eyes surveyed mine. I read approval and respect. Love and worry. "We'll take a rest here." My mouth opened to issue the usual lie about being "perfectly all right," and he said, "We both need it, sweetheart."

"I can take whatever's coming, Trowbridge," I said, and found, to my surprise, that I meant it.

His expression grew tender and he shook his head. "When are you going to stop calling me Trowbridge?"

"The day I find a better name for you."

He grinned, and he was Robbie Trowbridge again. The guy who played a guitar and had long hair, instead of this buzz cut that I couldn't reconcile myself to. I studied him, taking in the gaunt beauty of his face. Then I finally said what I should have said several hours ago. "Thank you for following me back to this realm, mate."

His thumb stroked my bottom lip.

"Open," he said, tilting my jaw upward.

My tense smile softened into my Lolita come-hither. My lids lowered and my mouth parted, ready for his kiss. But instead of lips that could be either hard or warm, I felt the intrusion of a stick of wood that tasted like Trowbridge and bitter bark sliding into my mouth.

I opened my eyes.

Blue ones gleamed at me. "Chew, sweetheart. It will keep the hunger away."



Copyright © 2015 by Leigh Evans