Chapter 14

14

I ’d gotten used to being unconscious.

It felt like a natural state at this point, much more natural than being awake. Even the slow lift back to reality wasn’t nearly as bad as it was the first few times I’d passed out.

This time, I woke up with the hum of moving wheels beneath me and the chill of leather against my cheek.

Both arms and my legs were bound with rope that did little for my magic but certainly cut off circulation. I twitched my fingers to get the blood pumping, and feeling returned with the violent prick of a thousand pins and needles.

I kicked out with my feet, the darkness impenetrable and only a glimmer of sickly sunlight cutting through the horizon enough for me to make out the back of a truck. The entire back of the vehicle appeared to be boxed off from the rest. The windows looked thicker than regular glass and turned the watery light of dawn to shades of blue. Early daylight.

Noren lay with his front and back legs lashed together and his jaws restrained by a horrifying looking iron muzzle.

I didn’t see Onyx anywhere.

Relief flooded me with such force that black dots danced across my eyes. He must have gotten away. At least one of us managed to evade the shifters.

Had we been driving all night? My head gave a single, thumping pound before the ache set in and I worked my jaw, trying to relieve the pressure.

Noren whimpered pitifully and I turned to reach for him with my fingertips. “It’s gonna be okay, boy.”

My mouth tasted like someone ground sand against my gums and I grimaced, running my tongue over my teeth and swallowing. My throat had gone dry. Noren seemed especially anxious and the feeling didn’t abate even when my hand made contact with his fur.

He leaned his weight into me like he sensed me getting worse and worse.

My imagination .

“It’ll be fine, Noren,” I whispered. “We’ll make it out of here. Just give me a second to figure out a plan and I’ll free you.”

He whined again and pushed into me hard enough to strain my wrist.

My arm felt like it was being stung by an entire nest of hornets. The sensation brought a wave of acid to my stomach and my mouth filled with a vile bitter taste.

I wasn’t sure how long we drove. I slipped in and out of consciousness until the drone of tires over tarmac changed to the rough crunch of gravel. Eventually, the vehicle pulled to a stop and a ring of large trees obscured any view I had of the sky.

The men came around to the back and a wave of magic had one of the walls sliding open. The brutes from the roadblock last night . The dude with the single eye glared at me before he grabbed the rope around my ankles and hauled me out.

I kicked at him, the hit lacking any real strength.

My legs turned to rubber and the rest of me jelly, neither part working in tandem with the other. Not only did my feet not make contact with the brute but I keeled over, losing my balance in the process. I listed to the side and he jerked me up.

“Get up, girl,” the man with one eye growled. “You’d think you’d never been tied up before. You can walk.”

No, I actually couldn’t. My body refused to hold me upright.

Growling in frustration, he threw me over his shoulder as though I weighed nothing at all. He barked out a command to one of the others, who then dragged a howling mad direwolf out of the back.

Every step he took jarred the breath from my lungs and sent my ribs clacking together.

Finally he set me down and grabbed my face, forcing me to stare straight ahead. “ Look . What do you see?”

In front of us, a giant wall stretched as far as I could see to the right and the left. Made of tightly stacked gray stones, the wall shimmered, vacillating between airy lightness and solid matter.

What was on the other side?

Craning my head high, I looked up, up, the top of the wall nonexistent as it stretched up into the puffy clouds of dawn.

My stomach dipped and swirled in surprise. Vertigo had me tilting dangerously backward. This was crazy.

Almost too crazy to be believed, and I’d seen some insane things over the years.

“Will you stay put like a good girl?” the man whispered in his razor-edged voice, directly next to my ear.

I winced, immediately regretting it. He saw the motion anyway and chuckled.

A second later he wrenched my head back with one hand and slid a thick golden chain over my face with the other. The necklace dropped to my collarbone, and the small stone at the center, adding weight, found the natural hollow at the base of my throat.

The cool metal warmed against my skin.

“What’s this?” I croaked.

“It keeps the wall from destroying you on impact, sweetheart. Trust me. You’re going to want to keep it on.”

“Free my hands and I’ll take it off and choke you with it,” I snapped back.

He chuckled in mild amusement at my comeback and pushed me forward. There was enough give in the ropes around my ankles for me to be able to shuffle but running away would be impossible. I’d trip and fall flat on my face. A terrible whine sounded and I glanced over to see four other men hauling Noren toward the wall, each one of them the size of a heavyweight champion.

They hadn’t put a necklace on the direwolf.

Would he be okay?

I struggled against One Eye.

He knocked me hard enough in the side with his elbow to force the breath from my lungs. “Easy. This will all be over soon.”

We walk through the wall, magic cascading over me in a frenzied torrent. It pricked against my skin in an eager, almost hungry inspection before sliding around me, through me. Pure magic, I realize in some distant way.

Pure fae magic because I felt it even with the necklace keeping me protected.

The wall connected to the land itself, and although it seemed improbable, it had been built to reach the stars in the sky. It felt old. Primitive and powerful and…sentient.

It knew me, recognized me, wanted to learn more.

All of a sudden we were out the other side and I gasped, inhaling sharply. Had I forgotten to breathe the entire time? I blinked to clear my gaze, my jaw wanting to drop bumpkin-style at the sight on the other side.

A large expanse of tents extended back into the tree line. The canvas structures looked sturdy enough to survive a harsh wind but not out of place in the shadows of the forest.

Several fires had been lit and scattered between the tents of the small village. Camp. Whatever it was.

This felt temporary, like the tents might be easily taken down and reassembled at a moment’s notice. Did these people, whoever they were, move around constantly to avoid detection? My stomach dropped further and my heart gave a single threatening thud against my ribs.

“Where are we?” I asked One Eye.

The other men emerged from the wall, the facade of stone melting away with their passing like walking through a waterfall. They threw Noren to the ground and he glared at them, his eyes promising retaliation. I felt an answering need rising up inside of me.

“I asked you a question. What is this place?”

I lifted my voice to make sure they all heard me but there was no forthcoming answer from any of the men. One Eye took my elbow and marched me through the village.

Behind us came the sounds of a scuffle as the others took hold of Noren. Through the camp they paraded us, going slowly I suspected on purpose to give the people here time to come out and enjoy the procession.

They were fae going about their lives but without fail, they stopped to watch me. Us. Curious about the capture, no doubt. They had the vacant stares of the displaced, of refugees, of people on the run. I knew this because I recognized their expressions as the same I’d worn in the past.

Noren growled from my side and although his jaws were still bound, the sound rippled through the crowd and several shocked gasps rang out.

One Eye changed direction abruptly and took me right through the heart of the camp. The tent rising up in front of us stood out from the others with a slightly lighter shade of canvas. It glowed in the dim light from overhead with the gray translucence of fog.

The four men carrying Noren deposited him at the opening flap of the tent and then stepped back to give One Eye the floor. He paraded me inside, snapping to attention once the flap fell closed behind us.

“Sir? We’ve brought her to you, as requested.” His voice carried an alarming tone of deference.

My spine prickled.

A figure rose from behind a quaint little chiminea belching metallic smoke through a hole in the center of the tent. The dimness of the interior cast shadows on his features but his air was unmistakable.

I knew exactly who stood in front of me, without having to ask. The infamous Dorian Jade.

My mouth went dry, my throat constricting dangerously.

Dorian Jade stood a little over six feet tall. Hair so dark it shone almost purple rippled around a rectangular face. Slight stubble decorated a strong chin and his pert lips stood to attention against the pale cream of his skin.

His eyes were a deep rich blue, shining with an inner light and ringed by black lashes and thick brows. His nose was long and straight.

His trousers and shirt were tailored to his slender figure, the cut of his jacket embroidered with silver and gold thread adding to his general debonair civility. He didn’t look at all the way I’d always pictured—more like a mad zealot than an attractive thirty-something man.

“Tavi Alderidge. Finally.” Dorian took a step closer and his features twisted in an alluring smile. He snapped his fingers and the ropes keeping me bound fell to the floor, undone by invisible hands. “It’s a pleasure and an honor to meet you. I’ve heard much.”

I wished I could say the same but anyone I’d asked had been closed lipped about him .

He reached for my hand and took it between his thumb and index finger. His lips made a graceful arch across my knuckles.

Charm, I saw in an instant. This was the kind of intensely charming and good-looking combination that established a person as a man a cult would follow.

My guard rose higher than normal.

“Welcome to my village. It’s a quaint set-up, don’t you think? Morgan, give us a moment alone, if you please. Miss Alderidge, have a seat. Get comfortable.”

Morgan, or One Eye, bowed his head and disappeared out through the tent flap. The low tingle of magic burned the inside of my nose as a silencing bubble descended around us. Exhaustion kept me from recognizing its depths but I marked the smell for its uniqueness. Fresh raspberries and sulfur.

What an awful combination.

Dorian continued to watch me, waiting with one hand extended toward a plush loveseat tucked against the side of the tent.

“No one intends to harm you,” he continued. “You have my word.”

“Will you release my direwolf?” I hiked a thumb over my shoulder.

Dorian arched a brow. “Pardon me?”

“My direwolf, Noren. I won’t speak to you until he’s free.” I made the demand boldly.

These people might not mean any harm to me, yet , as long as I cooperated, but I refused to allow my friend to suffer through the iron muzzle.

We both needed to be ready to run.

Just in case.

Irritation flashed across Dorian’s face and screwed his features into an ugly grimace. In an instant, however, his smile returned. “I’m not generally in the position of allowing people to make demands of me.”

“I’d think as a leader you’d be used to it by now.” I took a risk talking back to him, but a moment later, Dorian popped his head out of the tent and motioned for the men to unbind Noren.

An overwhelming sense of the surreal colored the moment.

I’d been kidnapped by Dorian Jade, the man behind the conspiracy against the kingdom. The leader of the Unseelie fae, and he looked nothing like what I’d thought.

Noren slunk into the confines of the tent half a heartbeat later, his head low and his focus entirely on Dorian. The fur on his ruff rose and his eyes were narrow, glowing, his teeth white.

They stared at each other until Dorian made the first move and settled. He dropped down casually into a chair opposite the loveseat and crossed one ankle over the other knee. Utterly unbothered by the menacing growls rumbling from the back of Noren’s throat.

“It makes sense for a half-werewolf to have a wolf protector. I enjoy a good bit of irony, and this seems to me the most perfect example. Yes.” Dorian nodded decisively.

Finally, I felt like I had no choice but to sit with him. I reached out and kept one hand on top of the direwolf’s head before cautiously taking the offered seat.

“As such a half breed, you must have seen how bigoted the Seelie can be. You’ve had to hide yourself from the moment you were accepted to the Halfling Academy in the normal world. Haven’t you?” Dorian asked me.

“You already know my history, it seems, so you tell me,” I snapped.

Instantly contrite, I reeled myself back. I’d learn nothing if I antagonized him too much.

I forced myself to relax. Of course he’d have to know all about me as leader of the opposition. One would be ineffective if one knew nothing about the people one was at war against.

Since coming here, I’d made my allegiance to Mike and his father clear to anyone on the outside, even when King Tywin kept his focus on me like a kid with an ant hill. The magnifying glass had inevitably come, and readily, curiously, he’d watched it burn me.

Dorian must have found the answer he searched for somewhere on my face. He tilted his head to the side and studied my expression, taking in every small change before his eyes met mine again. “Their world is unfriendly to anyone who is different,” he said at last. “You’ve experienced it with your own eyes. The terrible burden of being born different, made different, except you are only you. Don’t tell me you haven’t experienced these things.”

“You’re not wrong.” It seemed safe enough to agree with him.

Dorian leaned in eagerly, shifting again to balance his elbows on his knees now. His gaze took on a fiery light at my admission. “I’m sure you’ve lived through your fair share of tragedy since you crossed into our world. Beyond what my sources have reported. Being terrorized for a murder you did not commit is only one of them.”

It really had been damn hard since I came to Faerie. I’d never fit in anywhere.

I started to agree with him but quickly snapped my mouth shut. Less is more . If I wanted to get out of here, then paying attention would work in my favor, rather than spilling my guts.

“I see a future where no one who walks through the portal to Faerie feels unwelcome, Miss Alderidge. A future built on the principles of fairness and equality, where those deemed lesser fae are equal.” Unable to contain himself, Dorian rose to his feet, his arms out to his sides in a grand gesture. His manic fervor was contagious. “The king prefers to keep the status quo. I’m sure you've seen his convictions for yourself as well.”

Damn, but he was convincing. I saw the image he painted in my head as he tugged on the small thoughts I’d barely given voice to before, thoughts about how nice it would be to finally feel like I was on equal footing with Mike. With the nobility.

Where members of the Claw & Fang no longer had to hide from everyone else.

His ability to express this, I knew, was what must capture the attention of others. And gain him multitudes of followers.

“You would be such an asset to me, Tavi. May I call you by your first name?” He launched ahead without waiting for me to answer. “I’d greatly appreciate us being on a first name basis.”

He stepped close enough for me to scent his cologne, something spicy and complex.

“I suggest you join me. Let’s see what we can accomplish together. You’d be a rallying point for people just like you, those who have always felt out of place. Which is why I wanted to speak with you today.”

I eyed him skeptically and held my tongue again, waiting for him to finish.

“Please, eat dinner with my people tonight while you consider an alliance between us. Relax, warm your hands by the fire, and see who my people are before you automatically answer.”

“You kidnapped me to forge an alliance?”

“I brought you here because I knew there was no better time to meet with you face to face. Not to mention you are a wanted person.” He let the last part land heavily between us, then flashed a smile. “You are safe with me. Safe to be yourself.”

Safe to be myself , I repeated mentally. A pipe dream if I’d ever heard one.

I was a wanted person. And I still needed to track down my mother and find Onyx, who had managed to escape the brutes sent to fetch us.

Dorian stepped aside with a magnanimous half bow. As though I should be utterly grateful for this short time alone to compose myself. “Here’s to the start of a beautiful adventure together.”

I had goals to accomplish, my own, not anyone else's. And to be frank…

Joining forces with the great enemy of the man I loved sounded like a really bad idea.