Faerie Forged Read online

  Dropping the phone in my purse, I blinked until my tears were no longer in danger of falling. Somehow, I had to repair my friendship with Maggie. I couldn’t afford to burn any more bridges. But first, I needed to find out what, if anything, had happened to the werewolves.

  Chapter 2

  ROLLING OUT OF the lot, I headed back up the canyon toward Nederland, retracing my morning drive. Boulder Creek was sculpted in ice, patches of running water showing through only where it tumbled against rocks. The path alongside the river was shoveled clear and spread with thick, pink salt crystals, until I reached the edge of town. Then packed snow claimed the sidewalk, marred by tire and boot tread.

  Ice sparkled on Barker Reservoir as I came up over a hill and headed down into the valley that held Nederland, but I turned off the main road before reaching the town proper. I passed by the dirt driveway that connected my little piece of nowhere to the rest of the world, and several others just like it. Then I turned up the road to Marc’s house. He lived about a mile back from the main road on a mountain estate similar to my own. A large yellow sign proclaiming bodily harm to trespassers greeted me at the edge of his property. The house was two stories above ground, and two below, including a dungeon I hoped never to see again.

  My Jeep shuddered to a stop behind a silver pickup truck, a red Jetta, and a black SUV.

  I whistled. “Somebody’s home.”

  I stepped out of the cab, but hesitated with my hand still on the Jeep’s door. That many vehicles meant I was likely to find quite a gathering inside.

  I’d met a number of werewolves over the past two months, but usually one at a time. The idea of being surrounded by them was. . . . I rubbed my hand over the jacket sleeve covering my left arm, imagining the scars beneath. There hadn’t been much I could do against even one werewolf, and the group inside might not be happy to see me since my last escapade resulted in several of them getting hurt.

  My breath formed clouds that hung like fog around my face while I hesitated. Finally, I stepped away from my Jeep and crunched past the line of vehicles leading to Marc’s front porch.

  I raised my hand to ring the bell, but before my finger connected, the door swung open.

  It wasn’t Marc who answered.

  Standing just inside the door was a fine-boned, middle-aged Asian woman with papery brown skin. She stood straight and tall, except for a slight bow in her shoulders, but still only came up to my chin. A few strands of jet black streaked the loose, steel gray braid that trailed over her shoulder.

  The woman pursed her lips. “Alex Blackwood.”

  I dropped my hand back to my side and raised an eyebrow. “Do I know you?”

  Then I remembered. I’d seen her before, in the aftermath of the vampire nest infiltration. She’d made a report to Marc about the wolves who’d been injured during the battle.

  “You may call me Yumiko,” the woman said. “Why are you here?”

  I frowned. “I was looking for Marc.”

  “He’s not here.”

  My fear ratcheted up a notch. “Did the PTF take him?”

  Yumiko’s expression stiffened. “What do you know of it?”

  “I had a visit from a PTF agent this morning who implied someone I knew had been brought in for testing. When I couldn’t get Marc on the phone . . .” I raised my hands, shrugging. “I came to investigate.”

  She pursed her lips, then stepped back from the door. “Come inside.”

  Stomping my boots on the welcome mat, I stepped into the home of the local werewolf alpha. The smell of frying sausage hit me on a surge of warm air when I crossed the threshold. Pushing the door closed behind me, I followed Yumiko’s bobbing braid farther into the house.

  A lanky black man lounging on a faded blue recliner peeked over the top of last month’s Make magazine in the living room. I didn’t recognize him, but if he was comfortable in Marc’s home, chances were he was a werewolf. He watched me pass, then tossed the magazine onto an already cluttered coffee table.

  “In here.” Yumiko gestured through an alcove to one side, and I followed her through to the kitchen.

  A rustic wooden table and chairs filled one side of the room. The middle of the room was taken up by a large marble-topped island surrounded by bar stools. A slender man with reddish-brown hair perched on one of the stools. He wore a checkered shirt and a tweed jacket. A pair of rectangular glasses sat on his nose. Behind those lenses, his eyes were red and puffy.

  He lifted a hand in greeting. “Remember me?”

  His face was easy enough to place—he’d been my ride home after the vampire infiltration—but I’d been so exhausted after coming back from the dead that the trip home was a blur. I wracked my brain for a name, but came up empty.

  He smiled. “Gilbert, but you can call me Gil.”

  Beyond the island, a large Hispanic man with dark hair and darker eyes was standing by the stove in a plaid, grease-spattered apron.

  “What’s she doing here?” The cook jabbed a pair of metal tongs in my direction.

  “Don’t mind Jedd.” Yumiko motioned me to one of the island stools. “He’s just cranky because he hasn’t had breakfast yet.”

  “I’m—” The man, Jedd, pressed his lips together and turned his back on the room. Tongs scraped, and a storm of violent sizzling ensued, punctuated by muttered curses.

  “You sure Marc would be okay with this, Auntie Yu?” The man from the living room had followed us. He now leaned against the arch, arms crossed over a baggy gray sweater. “Her being able to ID so many of us?”

  “Marc vouches for her,” Gilbert said. “And so does Sarah.”

  Jedd snorted and began lifting seared sausages out of his pan and piling them on a nearby plate. “Sarah wanted to kill her.”

  Gil shrugged. “She got over it.”

  “Good to know,” I muttered.

  “Besides,” Yumiko said, pinning me with an unyielding look. “It’s not like we don’t know her secret, too.”

  A shudder rippled through me. Somehow, it hadn’t occurred to me that the whole werewolf pack, including a bunch of people I’d never met, would know I was a halfer—part human, part fae. Was that how Marc had convinced them not to kill me when I hadn’t turned into one of them? Since I’d never registered with the PTF as I was supposed to, my secret was like a looming death sentence. If I was outed, the best I could hope for would be exile to the fae reservation. More likely, I’d be locked up in a testing facility and spend the rest of my life as a PTF guinea pig while scientists tried to discover why I was immune to iron. And if they ever did. . . . My relationship to the fae Lord of Enchantment was a secret even the wolves didn’t know.

  “So how did the PTF get their hands on Marc? I’d have thought he’d run rather than risk exposing you all.”

  “Except it wasn’t just Marc,” Yumiko said. “Sarah and Oz have been taken as well.”

  I gripped the island, finding comfort in the solid stone. “How could they have found so many of you?”

  Yumiko crossed her arms. “The PTF has only ever needed suspicion to pull people in for testing, and with Governor-elect Anderson’s victory, they’ve become more aggressive.” She looked away, and her eyes became unfocused. “I hate to think what his policies will mean for the paranatural community once he takes office.”

  I shook my head, trying to recall the tests administered in schools when the fae first came out. Scraps of iron shavings were mixed with blood samples and tested for reaction. Chances were they’d made some changes since I was in middle school, but when I’d “come out” to my adoptive guardian, Uncle Sol, he’d assured me the standard PTF test wouldn’t identify me as fae. And he would know, being a high-ranking official in the organization. If I could pass thanks to my immunity to iron, maybe the werewolves could, too.

  “PTF tests are desig
ned for fae. If it’s just the basic test, a werewolf should be able to pass.”

  “Maybe, maybe not.” Yumiko sighed. “Either way, it’s a moot point.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Ceramic clinked against marble as Jedd set his plate on the island and pulled up a stool. “The moon. Marc might be okay, but Oz . . .” He shook his head. “Considering the stress he’s under, I doubt he’ll make it to the full moon.”

  “Sarah won’t do much better,” Gil added. He paled visibly as he spoke, and his hands fisted on his thighs.

  I tapped my fingers against the stone countertop as an idea started to form in my swirling thoughts. “Maybe I can help.”

  Jedd snorted.

  “I owe you for that debacle with the vampires,” I said. “Speaking of which, where’s Sophie?”

  Gil looked away. Yumiko just scowled.

  The man still standing in the arch said, “She’s around.”

  I nodded and let it go. She wasn’t a prisoner of the PTF—a good thing considering the complete lack of control she’d shown the last time we were together. If O’Connell had gotten hold of her, there’d be confirmation of werewolves by the end of the day.

  Sophie’s safety was a relief, but I was happy not to have to see her in the flesh. There’d been a time when Sophie and I were friends. Before I’d invited her on the hike that turned her into a werewolf. Before her outburst in Abandon—a vampire-owned dance club—kicked off a cycle of imprisonment and torture that led to the wolves bailing my ass out of the fire when shit went sideways. Before a lot of things.

  “And what exactly can you do?” Jedd spoke around a mouthful of sausage. “You can’t even—”

  “Jedd.” Yumiko cut him off without raising her voice, then turned to me. “If you can help . . .”

  Uncle Sol was a big enough muckety-muck in the PTF organization that he could probably pull some strings to get a few potentials released. He was also important enough that it would be pretty damn strange for him to do so, and the last thing I needed was to raise red flags for O’Connell to follow.

  “I can’t promise anything, but I know someone who might be able to get them out before the full moon.”

  Gil set a hand on my forearm. “Please try. Sarah. . . . She’s my mate. If they find out about her—”

  “We’re all done.” Jedd stabbed his fork into a sausage. Clear liquid seeped from the wounds. “Once they’re sure about even one of us, they’ll hunt down the rest. They’ll cage us, study us, and kill us.”

  The smell of cooked meat suddenly made my stomach clench, and I looked away as Jedd bit into his skewered sausage.

  I nodded. “I’ll make the call.”

  I pulled my arm out from under Gil’s hand, trying to ignore the squishy gnashing sounds of Jedd enjoying his breakfast, and slid off my stool. “I’ll let you know what he says.”

  The man who hadn’t introduced himself watched me pass. His arms were still crossed, but the edge of his lip lifted when I met his eyes.

  “Good luck,” he said. “For all our sakes.”

  I was halfway across the living room when a familiar voice stopped me in my tracks.

  “You think it’s a coincidence the only wolves taken were the ones you interacted with?”

  Pulse thundering in my ears, I turned. Sophie was peeking out from the laundry room that led to the back door. It also led to the basement and, below that, the dungeon. The long cascade of her hair had been cut short. Blond clumps stuck up every which way on her head. Her cheeks and eyes were sunken, her lips thin.

  My fingers curled into fists. She might not have meant to leave me to the tender mercies of a sadistic vampire any more than I’d intentionally led her into the jaws of a rampaging werewolf, but that rationale didn’t quell the wave of anger that boiled through me when I saw her. From the look in her eyes, she hadn’t forgiven me yet, either.

  “They didn’t take you.”

  “I’ve been on lockdown since—”

  We both looked away.

  “You shouldn’t be up here.” The man who’d been leaning against the arch stepped between us, eyes locked on Sophie. His voice rumbled like rocks in an avalanche.

  “Back off, Dillon. I just wanted to say hello.”

  Dillon kept glaring until Sophie dropped her gaze to the floor. Then he straightened and looked at me. “Don’t you have a call to make?”

  With one last look at Sophie, I pushed through the front door and trotted to the Jeep.

  I cranked the heat up to chase back the cold that had seeped into the cab, and thought of Marc, Sarah, and Oz in the PTF’s basement, a.k.a. torture chamber. Werewolves weren’t fae; they were humans who’d been infected, changed. They didn’t have the protection of the Faerie Peace Accords, flimsy though those were. If the PTF found out what the werewolves really were, they’d be hunted, trapped, and experimented on.

  You think it’s a coincidence the only wolves taken were the ones you interacted with? Sophie’s words pounded in my mind like a hammer. O’Connell was after me, but he’d take down anyone associated with me if it gave him a chance to hurt me. I’d seen as much when he targeted Kai for the murder of a human woman, despite having no evidence against him. I couldn’t let the werewolves suffer O’Connell’s misplaced wrath.

  I pulled out my cell phone.

  Uncle Sol spent a good deal of time out of the country. Even if he was willing to help, he might not be in a position to do so. At least, not in time. Pushing the thought away, I pulled up his entry in my contact list and pressed the call button.

  His voicemail picked up right away.

  Stammering through a greeting, I left a message for him to contact me as soon as possible. I couldn’t risk leaving a detailed message, even if I could find a way to explain the situation quickly. Hopefully, by the time he called back, I’d have thought of a way to convince him to break three people out of PTF lockup without telling him they were werewolves.

  KAI’S LITTLE BEIGE Toyota was parked in front of my house when I pulled up. The engine was still clicking as its warmth was sapped by the mountain air. He must have just gotten back from his shift at the convenience store. Crunching across my ice-crusted yard, I stomped a few times on the porch and pushed open the front door.

  “. . . wouldn’t make a difference.” Hortense, the curmudgeonly old river hag sent to tutor me on fae protocol, was standing, arms crossed, in front of the drooping, four-foot Christmas tree in my living room. Her perpetual frown was in place, crinkling the pale skin of her human glamour. Another knot loosened in my chest at seeing the grumpy old fae. I’d been pretty sure O’Connell hadn’t gotten his hands on her, but it was nice to have confirmation.

  Despite her sour expression and matching attitude regarding my education, Hortense had started to grow on me. At first I’d done my best to shut her out, but after she helped me make a stealth charm for my vampire infiltration, which she wasn’t supposed to know anything about, I realized she wasn’t so bad. She hadn’t mentioned my foolhardy mission either, before or after, for which I was grateful, and she’d done her best to teach me enough fae etiquette that I hopefully wouldn’t get myself killed as soon as I set foot in a fae realm.

  Turning to face me, she brushed a stray wisp of steel gray hair away from her face, tucking it back into a tightly braided bun. She arched one thin eyebrow and pursed her lips. “Malakai informed me you would not be back for several hours.”

  I closed the door. “I shouldn’t have been.”

  “What happened?” Kai was still wearing his work outfit, a red smock with a tacky iron-on image of the convenience store’s logo displayed on the breast. His eyes swirled with the glamourless galaxies I’d come to expect when we were at home.

  “I had an unexpected visitor at work,” I said. “O’Connell.”

  Kai s
cowled. “What did he want?”

  “The usual. To ruin my life. He dropped a hint about someone I know being brought in for testing.”

  Kai visibly shuddered.

  I met and held his gaze. “Are you guys all right?”

  Hortense didn’t know about the two shifters who’d been staying in my back room. At least, I didn’t think she did. We’d done our best to keep them a secret, sending them out of the house when Hortense was scheduled to visit, having them hide when she dropped by unannounced. Since my grandfather was the fae Lord of Enchantment, I doubted he’d approve of my association with Chase, who was a spy for the Shifter Lord. Though in Chase’s defense, he’d saved my life, which was more than Gramps had ever done.

  “We’re fine,” Kai said with a glance down the back hall to include our friends.

  Hortense crossed her arms. “I trust this O’Connell situation won’t impede your departure plans.”

  Twenty hours. That’s all the time I had left before my trip to faerie land. Frowning, I mentally corrected myself. The Realm of Enchantment. Best get used to keeping even my thoughts formal, lest something slip out that shouldn’t.

  I’d had a little over a month to learn a lifetime of fae facts, like the proper angle of a bow, the hierarchy of titles, the names of the races, the schools of magic, and a million other things that might come up at court, including how to handle a sword in case my education failed and I ended up in a duel over hurt feelings. Of course, that time had also been filled with saving my vampire would-be-boyfriend from a crazed psychopath who kidnapped and tortured me, being interrogated for murder, avoiding PTF scrutiny, and dragging the local werewolves into a paranatural war beneath the streets of Denver.

  What I wanted to say was yes, of course O’Connell’s machinations would impede my departure to Enchantment. Hell, I hadn’t wanted to go in the first place. But what came out was, “I’ll leave tomorrow, as planned.”