I wanted to be furious that he rejected me and refused to have sex, but part of me was also relieved he had better sense than I did. Which only made me more pissed off. How dare he be the reasonable one? He was supposed to be a meathead wolf, motivated by his dick and nothing more, and easily manipulated. And yet Nick walked away. I growled in irritation as lust settled heavy and low in my stomach. Rubbing against him had been the closest I’d gotten to getting off in months. Since... Well, since Cal died.

That hit me like the bucket of ice water I’d hoped to throw on Nick. Cal.

Nick was the opposite of my fiancé—all rough around the edges and uncouth and assertive. Infuriating. The true lone wolf. Cal had been refined and charming, the perfect balance when my hyena side spun out of control and all that anger took over. Being around Nick felt like chained fireworks—one explosion after another, building and building until everything was flames and smoke.

I clenched my jaw and straightened the T-shirt where it had rucked up around my breasts, and tried to focus before thinking of Cal made me too sad to do anything but cry and sleep. Nick was just another distraction from figuring out what the hell I was going to do about the djinn and BadCreek.

Nick reappeared after a few minutes, looking pleased with himself, and occupied the chair once more. For a brief moment, I wondered what he looked like what he came. And then heat surged to my cheeks that I’d thought that.

His grin widened. “Why are you turning so red, Your Majesty?”

“No reason,” I said. Exhaustion hit me like a ton of bricks and for a moment I swayed, wishing I could just curl up and sleep. We had planning to do, though, and rest was still a few hours away. “And you’re going to focus, Nikolai. We have to figure out how to get Ray back.”

“Why the fuck do we want him back?” Nick leaned back and reached for a bag of jerky from the shelf of food, gnawing on a piece before tossing me the rest of it. “Besides, he’s probably dead.”

“He’s not. He’s stuck somewhere.” I hesitated before going on, and wondered how much Iskander wanted me to share with others. It wasn’t as if he’d sworn me to secrecy. But something in Nick’s eyes grew guarded, and I wondered what he’d been up to the last few months. He didn’t have a job, and there was only so much working out he could do. And a bored wolf was a dangerous wolf...

I put that aside to question him about later, and moved so I could lean back against the pillow and headboard of the bed, easing the tension in my back. Grappling with him definitely wasn’t as easy as throwing Savannah around; Nick was pure muscle and a tricky bastard to boot. That throw he’d used did something crazy to my ribs. “I don’t know how much you know about how I disappeared, but it’s not all that clear to me either. During the raid, the djinn grabbed me out of the conflict and I ended up in... this weird in-between gray place. It was horrible. There wasn’t anything there until he kind of wished it into existence, but I could only walk so far before I ran into a wall. I couldn’t escape.”

Nick started growling as my breath caught at the memory of the djinn’s prison. The claustrophobia compressed my lungs once more and I had to focus on being present in the cabin so I didn’t race for the door and the open night sky. His teeth grew too large for his mouth and pressed against his lower lip. “I never liked that guy.”

“He’s stuck because the alpha isn’t dead. So Iskander isn’t free and can’t get free. He’s just stuck in that awful place. Apparently he can still reach out and touch people in this world, near the compound, but that’s it.” I took a deep breath, my hands trembling at the memory. “He offered to let me go if I’d find the alpha so he can be freed. The djinn said he would help us get the rest of the people out of the compound when I free him.”

Nick shook his head. “Don’t trust him. Don’t trust any of the fae. You think you’re getting a straight deal, but there are traps in all their words.”

I’d heard the same thing, but it wasn’t like I’d had much of a choice. “I’ll hire you to help me find the alpha. He disappeared with Smith a while ago, but someone with your background should be able to track him down.”

“I’m flattered,” he said, fluttering his hands in the air to demonstrate just how flattered he was. “But you can’t afford me.”

I snorted, ready to make a joke about him whoring himself for God only knew how much money, but Nick beat me to it, and made a mocking bow from his chair. “Lucky for you, I’ll do it pro bono.”

Except “bono” sounded a little too close to “boner” the way he said it. Juvenile. Ridiculously juvenile. I knew he was just screwing with me, testing boundaries, maybe trying to get a laugh. “Great. Once we find him, we can figure out how to get him back here. He uses up his last wish, and then we—“

“His last wish?” Nick sat forward, immediately shaking his head. “He’s still got a wish left? Oh, hell no. That changes the ball game. That’s way too dangerous.”

“It is what it is,” I said. “I’ll deal with it when it comes up. The alternative is to just kill him.”

“I can get on board with that,” Nick said. “But if Ray has a wish left... He’s a dangerous man. A crazy bastard with a taste for vengeance. None of us are safe.”

“None of us are safe so long as he lives, either. Wherever he is. He could show up tomorrow and wish us all dead, so what’s the issue?” Fatigue weighed my eyelids down, and the lumpy bed looked more and more inviting. Maybe he had coffee hidden in that shelf of cans and bags. I didn’t have time for sleep.

Nick frowned as he studied me. “Well, right now Ray is stuck. He can’t really do anything. Neither can Smith. If anything upsets that balance, we can create a whole shitload of trouble.”

“How do you know?” Suspicion woke me up just as much as caffeine, luckily. “What have you been up to?”

He yawned and rubbed his jaw, apparently unconcerned. “I’ve been looking for Smith. I have some friends who are able to go to the Betwixt, and they at least know that Smith and Ray are in the same place. When Smith dragged Ray away from here, Ray apparently had a charm or something—from that fucking genie—that got them both stuck. I don’t know if there’s anyone crazy enough to go in there and... un-stick them.”

“I’ll go.” That was the easiest choice that night. “Just tell me—”

“It’s not that easy,” Nick said. “Shifters can’t cross into the Betwixt. Well, born shifters can’t. Ray was changed, so there’s enough of his human side left that he’s able to squeeze over. The fae don’t like it, but it’s a loophole.”

I blinked, squinting at him as if it would help make sense of the words he strung together into nonsense. “The Be-what?”

“You’re cute when you’re confused,” he said, and leaned forward to tweak the end of my nose. I swatted at him but he’d already moved away, and once more he looked completely relaxed in the uncomfortable chair. “The Betwixt. It’s... I dunno. A different plane, a different world, an alternate world. It’s where all the fae live, most of the time. They can cross into our world in some places, and some of the bigger fae can cross wherever the hell they please. Like Smith.”

“So Ray and Smith are trapped, together, in a different world?” My headache returned with a vengeance. “How do I get them back so I can free the djinn?”

Nick’s eyebrows rose. “You find someone who can cross over and free them.”

It was like talking to a stubborn child. I took a deep breath and gripped my knees. “Do you know someone like that? Someone I could hire?”

Uncertainty stole over his expression, and for a long time, Nick stared at the glowing wood-burning stove. Finally he sighed and nodded. “I might. They don’t like our kind, but for the right amount of money, they’ll probably do it.”

“Great. When can we meet them?”

“You’re not getting anywhere near them,” Nick said, frowning. “I don’t trust them enough for that.”

“If I’m paying them, I’m going to meet them.” I rubbed my eyes to try and stay awake. “I don’t care how much you trust them. I’m not yours to protect, hot shot.”

Nick smiled with only half his mouth, the scars pulling his upper lip into a snarl. “I prefer ‘ace,’ thank you. Now, before you fall asleep in your little nest, call your pack and tell them you’re fine, and we can—”

“No.” I ignored the cell phone he held out, and the rage turned cold and sharp around my heart. “I’ll deal with the cackle later.”

He still held out the phone, as if I’d change my mind. “You don’t want to be queen anymore?”

“I—” I didn’t know how to finish that sentence. The moment he asked it, the possibility of not being queen nearly overwhelmed me. I’d be free of all the obligations, all the burdens and bullshit paperwork. The decisions that no one wanted to hear, the arguments about petty shit that didn’t matter, the responsibility for the lives of adults and children... I could have walked away if I wanted to, and let them believe me dead at the hands of BadCreek. The cackle would have gone along under Cassidy’s leadership and probably ended up engaged in illegal and underground activities, just like under my mother’s leadership, and none of it was my problem. They hadn’t cared enough to even search for me.

My chest hurt. “I don’t know.”

Nick nodded slowly, but before he could speak, I swung my legs up on the bed and scooted to the far side, closest to the wall. “I’m tired. You can sleep up here if you want, but don’t try anything.”

“Believe me, if either of us would get handsy, I’m guessing it would be you.” He messed with the wood stove, fussing with the ashes, and shuffled around the cabin dealing with lanterns and other things. “So don’t you try anything.”

“You had your chance,” I said over my shoulder, facing the wall so I wouldn’t see his face. “And you blew it.”

Nick snorted. “At least one of us did,” he said under his breath, and I groaned, dragging the thin sheet over my head. So juvenile.

He laughed at his own joke though, and flopped onto the mattress, nearly launching me into the air, and yawned. “You should at least call Eloise in the morning and let her know you’re not dead.”

“I will.” She was the only one I worried about. I stared up at the ceiling in the darkness, listening to the steady rise and fall of his breathing. Not seeing his face made it easier to think and speak, and I waited until he might have slept before I whispered, “I could just disappear.”

“I know how to do that,” he murmured. “We could go anywhere. Paris, Prague, London, Reykjavik. Anywhere you want.”

It didn’t even bother me that he said “we” and invited himself on my trip. The cackle could go on thinking I’d died, and I would have a fresh start. My heart ached, because it was exactly what I’d planned to do when Cal and I eloped. We’d wanted to go to Europe and get married and travel, eating decadent meals and drinking as much wine as we could get our hands on. A honeymoon to last a decade... Tears blurred my vision as I thought of it, and him, and mourned that a different man lay in the bed next to me. “Paris.”

Nick took a deep breath and moved slowly to spoon me, his arms strong and comforting as he held me close in the curve of his body, and he sighed. “I know you’re not crying over me, darlin’, but you don’t have to tell me who until you want to.”

I closed my eyes; I didn’t want to share Cal. Not with him. Not yet, and maybe not ever. I just shook my head on the pillow, and Nick grumbled and held me tighter.