CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The wolf gnawed on the leash Vaughn clung to by sheer will to stop himself from going after Elena and confessing that he would take it all back if he could.
Everything but the kiss.
It played in his head over and over, every second making his heart thump faster and his animal half wrestle harder for control.
Crouched on the ground, he ran his hand across the cool earth, digging his fingers into the soil, locking down the wildness inside him.
Gods, he could still taste her, could still feel the skim of her fingers whisper across his skin. If Dare hadn’t come along he would have lost himself to the all-consuming need to mark her, would have rolled her beneath him right here in the dirt like an animal.
And she would have let him, would have welcomed his touch. Even if she wanted to play games, her scent would always betray a hunger not so different than the one churning inside of him.
He lifted his head. Thirty seconds. Thirty seconds and he could be inside with her, holding her, kissing her, taking her, and the rest of the world be damned.
Guilt punched him hard in the chest, tempering the instincts that left him at war with himself. He couldn’t abandon Piper. She needed him. He would save his sister the way he hadn’t been able to save his parents.
The wolf growled in protest, knowing how much it would cost them.
Lingering as long as he dared, Vaughn let the pebbles and soil slide through his fingers and rose. With the wraith no longer an imminent threat, the wolf in him gained some small measure of comfort despite the feral need to track the other immortal and tear him apart for touching Elena.
Now that he had Erec’s scent fresh in his head, the former knight wouldn’t be getting that close to her again undetected. It wouldn’t have happened the first time if he’d kept her close instead of assuming space would make things easier.
He needed to stay closer than ever and somehow deny the protective instinct already driving a wedge between him and his animal half, between the man who coveted Elena above all else and the son who would not fail his family again.
He took a few steps and stopped, hissing out a breath at the fire that bit into his side. The wound from the wraith’s claws wouldn’t heal until he went to stone, and he couldn’t see that happening anytime soon. He couldn’t risk leaving Elena vulnerable a second time.
Ignoring both the wound and the ankle he’d injured in the fight, he made his way back to the cottage. He found Dare waiting for him on the steps.
Needing another moment before facing the inevitable barrage of questions, Vaughn surveyed their surroundings. The wraith might not be in the immediate area, but he wouldn’t go far now that Elena was in his cross-hairs.
Who in the hell had dragged the blood-thirsty mercenary into this?
With Rhiannon out of commission and most wraiths running wild, no one should be able to pull Erec’s strings at all, and Vaughn couldn’t imagine someone having leverage over the former knight.
As far as he knew, Rhiannon was the only one to wield that kind of power. If someone else had found a way to control the wraiths, it could change the power balance in Avalon, depending on who ruled the pack.
Vaughn turned as Dare threw a pair of pants at him. He caught them easily and slipped them on.
Dare took a seat on the steps. “I don’t know whether to ask for the teaser version or insist on hearing every detail. I knew you liked her, but that—” he gestured in the direction of the woods, “—that was not like that was—”
“Erec was here,” Vaughn interrupted.
Dare frowned, the potential implications slowly dawning on the other gargoyle’s face. He bolted to his feet and sprinted toward the car parked in front of the cottage.
He riffled through the trunk, taking a step back a moment later, relief relaxing the tight lines around his mouth. “It’s still here.”
Erec hadn’t taken the box. At least they had that much going for them. The wraith wouldn’t have gone after Elena if he’d been tasked with retrieving the ancient Fae crown.
It was Dare who’d taken it upon himself to dig into the origins of the mystery box while Vaughn had been stalking Piper’s kidnappers after they told him she was dead.
The significance of the crown once owned by a Fae queen who’d been dead so long no one could separate fact from fiction, didn’t concern Vaughn as much as what other trouble could be headed their way if someone finally figured out he’d stolen it.
He couldn’t imagine anyone but the Fae being interested in the crown, and they wouldn’t send a wraith to do their dirty work. They’d come for it themselves. Unless whoever he’d stolen it from at the Wolf’s Den wasn’t Fae at all.
That might explain Erec’s sudden appearance, but if he’d been engaged to retrieve the crown, why bother going after Elena and not Vaughn?
“Leave it there for now.”
“You sure?”
Vaughn glanced through the front cottage window, glimpsed Elena in the bathroom. “I’m sure.” The last thing he needed was the sorceress sensing the box. Her magic was under lock and key for now, and it needed to stay that way.
Dare closed the trunk and crossed back to Vaughn. “Now about that Fifty Shades moment I interrupted earlier,” he prompted.
The door flew open. “There’s no mark.” Elena stood in the doorway. “Why the hell am I not marked?”
Dare shot him an incredulous look. “You marked her?”
Elena glanced at Dare, something that might have been surprise blinking across her face.
She paused as if waiting for Dare to saying something, then continued on when the pup just stared at her, no doubt intrigued by the unusual sight of her tracings.
“Not him, the wraith.” Elena yanked her ripped shirt over her head. “Unless there is a mark where I can’t see it.” She waited for Vaughn to look her over.
Dare continued to stare, his gaze considering.
Vaughn growled, and the warning shook his friend out of his stupor. “Wait.” Dare held up a hand. “Erec went after her?”
“You should really catch your sidekick up on recent events.”
Vaughn ignored the pair, confirming for himself there was no spider-web mark on Elena. However, his relief at finding no sign that the wraith had officially targeted her for assassination was short lived.
Every cut and bruise on her skin, some that should have healed by now, made the wolf howl in fury.
Elena didn’t bother to put her shirt back on when she faced them, her green bra hanging on by a thread. “If he didn’t mark me, then why would he attack me?”
Vaughn wished like hell he knew. Erec had been far too cryptic.
“I heard him say something to you. What was it?”
Vaughn merely held her gaze.
Her eyes narrowed to dangerous slits. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“Someone needs to catch the sidekick up,” Dare cut in, his eyes lingering a little too long on Elena’s tracings.
“Easy, Cujo,” Elena quipped at Vaughn, sensing his rising aggression, then faced Dare. “Your fearless leader here broke into my house, swam naked in my pool, and then used some Fae voodoo to turn me into his magic-less concubine.”
“Concubine?” Dare mouthed.
Elena continued, “Then he abducted me, took a cat nap—” she faced Vaughn, “—puppy nap?” She shrugged and turned back to Dare. “He crashed on a nasty bathroom floor for a while, then drove us off the road and figured he’d lay low here. How’s that working out for you?” She nodded to his side without pausing for a breath. “By the way, you’re still bleeding.”
He glanced down at the trail of blood, the material at his waist already saturated. Apparently his injury was worse than he thought.
Elena studied his side, her brow furrowed.
Shit.
His lungs seized in his chest as he waited, his last breath trapped until she finally dismissed the wound and walked back into the cottage without a word.
He exhaled slowly, not relinquishing his hold on the wolf continuing to fight him. Exhausted, injured and not healing fast enough, how much longer could he really fight his animal half for control?
“We need to talk,” Dare said quietly, motioning to the telling wound.
“In a minute.”
His friend shook his head, piecing together the one thing Elena hadn’t. “If you do this, it will destroy you.”
He stopped Dare with a sharp look. “We’ll talk in a few minutes.” He needed at least that long to look after his wound, and while he might still be the one holding the reins between man and beast, the wolf wasn’t the only one who needed to be close to her.
Elena didn’t say a word when he nudged the bathroom door open a minute later, only briefly meeting his gaze in the mirror before continuing to wipe away the blood on the side of her neck. He let his attention linger on the scrape from the car accident, then turned the shower on.
“Stay put,” he said, stepping out of the borrowed pants and under the hot spray.
“And here I was entertaining ditching you in favor of luring the wraith to my family’s front door.”
The water hit his torn flesh, and he grit teeth, snarling through the pain.
Elena ripped the curtain back. “He could have killed you.”
“Disappointed?”
“Why risk it? You’re no good to your sister if you wind up dead.”
Vaughn held up the bar of soap. “If you’re going to let in the cold air, you might as well wash my back.”
“Why did he back off? What happened when I ran?”
Turning his face into the spray, he focused on the lull of her voice even though he had no intention of answering her questions.
“You’re worried he’ll be back or you wouldn’t be keeping me close.”
“Maybe not close enough,” he countered without opening his eyes.
Elena jerked the curtain closed and went back to whatever plan she was cooking up in that sharp mind of hers. Her earlier plea in the woods, the one that fisted his heart every time he looked at her, wouldn’t stop the sorceress from bolting at the first opportunity.
Twice he opened his mouth to say something—anything—but there weren’t any words that would ever make up for what he’d done. And it wasn’t over yet.
Torn between dragging her into the shower and telling Dare to take her straight to Rutger to let the rebellion’s leader finish this, he forced himself to stay where he was. He’d agreed to the exchange knowing he might not be able to live with himself when it was over. He wouldn’t walk away from it no matter how much it was eating him up inside.
He finished his shower, and after affixing a makeshift bandage over his wound, he dressed and left Elena sitting on the couch. She stared pointedly at where the television used to be even though they both knew she wouldn’t have watched it anyway.
“Stay where I can see you.”
She dismissed him with an eye roll. “Yes, master.”
He left the curtains open so he could keep an eye on her and stepped outside. He’d rather be stuck in a bear trap and have to chew his leg off than face Dare’s questions. Unfortunately, he knew his friend wasn’t going to let this one go.
His friend pivoted to face him the moment he hit the bottom step. “How long have you known?”
“Does it matter?”
Dare looked at him as if his response proved there really was such a thing as a stupid question. “Of course it matters,” Dare hissed, smart enough to keep his voice down.
“It doesn’t change anything.”
“The hell it doesn’t. I’m calling Rutger.” He turned away.
Vaughn wanted to let him go just so the conversation would be over. He already had Elena furious with him, he didn’t need Dare pissed too. “He already knows,” he admitted.
Dare took his time facing him. “Anyone else? Do they know?”
They being Piper’s kidnappers.
Dare didn’t give him time to answer before continuing. “I’m thinking probably not. They wouldn’t trust you to hand the sorceress over in exchange for Piper if they knew the truth.”
Vaughn let his silence speak for itself.
“So let’s try this again,” Dare began, “ and I want the truth. How long have you known that Elena is your mate?”
***
“Elena.”
A gust of wind snapped Elena’s hair back in her face.
What the hell?
She spun to find herself on the edge of a cliff, a night-drenched ocean spread out beneath her, the white-capped waves glittering like diamonds for miles in every direction.
Except one.
Behind her, beyond the cloaked figure standing a few feet away, the once green and lush countryside was scorched. Dots of orange and plumes of smoke rose where the lick of determined flames found something that had escaped its earlier carnage.
She’d seen this place before, the field covered in broken bodies, and so much blood…
She took a step and something crunched under her foot. She stepped back and found the brittle remains of a doll with yarn hair that had been burnt off….
“You killed them all.”
“I did what was necessary.” The Iron Queen lowered her hood and faced Elena, her waist-long ebony hair snatched by the wind. The wild strands moved like a tangle of oily snakes.
Elena shivered, the raw power radiating off the Fae making the tiny hairs at her nape rise in warning as nausea bubbled in her stomach. There were innocents here, children.”
“War does not discriminate. It is all-consuming.”
“Who were you at war with?”
The Iron Queen smiled. “Were? The war rages on.” A haze of red brightened her eyes then retreated, leaving only a soft gray shade.
The same shade as Elena’s.
“I can help you,” she said.
Come into my parlor said the spider to the fly. “How do you know who I am?”
Another amused smile. “I can set you free.”
When something sounds too good to be true… “What do you want from me?”
“They’re holding you back, Elena. All of them. You don’t need them. You’re stronger than you realize.”
“Strong enough to follow in your footsteps?” Because there was a connection between them that went beyond a shared heritage. Elena could feel it. “Strong enough to bring the world to its knees? To slaughter anyone I deem useless or weak?”
The Iron Queen turned away. “Don’t take too long to decide. Time is running out.” The Fae swung around, her leg snapping out impossibly fast—too fast to dodge.
Her heel slammed into Elena’s chest, knocking her backward.
The ground vanished beneath Elena, the ocean reaching up to swallow her…
Elena jolted awake.
She gripped the side of the door, her heart pounding so loud the wolves in the front seat could undoubtedly hear it.
Vaughn tensed but said nothing.
His friend glanced at her, his critical gaze assessing her tracings in a way that could only make an awful situation a hundred times worse. She waited.
He shook his head a moment later, dismissing whatever he’d been about to say.
Elena relaxed back in the seat, resisting the urge to rub her chest where the brand heated her skin.
“You were dreaming,” Dare said.
“Not sure that’s what I’d call it,” she answered.
She closed her trembling hand into a fist. What the hell was happening to her? First the pull of old magic in the chamber and the voice, and now some kind of vision she’d be stupid to dismiss as a dream.
She’d seen the Iron Queen before, hadn’t she? Felt the power roll off her in poisoned waves.
Dare waited for her to say more, but she wasn’t about to admit she had a dead Fae queen stuck in her head. “I’m sure you’ll both find this devastating, but neither of you had a staring role. Although I am hopeful for the third act where the bad guys get their asses kicked.”
Dare’s brows rose as he glanced at Vaughn. “And we’re the bad guys?”
“Break and entry,” Elena said, embracing the distraction as if it would wipe away the chill of the ocean breeze that continued to give her goosebumps. She counted on her fingers. “Then there’s grand theft auto, assault, kidnapping, manslaughter—”
“Manslaughter?” Vaughn said, then snapped his mouth shut as if regretting saying a word.
Too late. “Well if the wraith kills me, you’ll be responsible whether you mean for it to happen or not.” She fiddled with her seatbelt where it rubbed her chest. “By the way, this is not how shotgun works.”
Unsurprisingly, neither of them acknowledged her earlier insistence on sitting up front. They were barely talking to each other, let alone her, which hopefully meant less probing into her dream or vision of whatever the hell it was.
She ran her hand across the back of her neck, the sensation of not being alone in her skin finally retreating.
She stretched her legs out, bouncing them lightly to loosen some of the tension. Vision aside, the back seat was vastly preferable compared to the cramped bedroom where she’d been locked up all day while Vaughn was doing his gargoyle imitation.
“At least it’s not the trunk.” Dare grinned, reminding her a little of a clumsy puppy trying to run with the big dogs.
Apparently she wasn’t the only one in the car who excelled at showing others only what she wanted them to see. And Dare was a pro.
“So,” she drawled, hoping she wasn’t pushing her luck. “How long have you been Scrappy to his Scooby-Doo?”
Dare laughed. “I’ve always been more of a Shaggy fan.”
The gargoyle was far too pretty for the comparison, and nowhere near as clueless, but he was finally talking after ignoring her numerous pleas to be let out of her bedroom before sunset.
Elena felt Vaughn watching her in the rear-view mirror as he drove, but didn’t meet his gaze. They’d exchanged only a handful of words last night after agreeing she hadn’t been marked by a wraith.
He shifted in his seat for the tenth time in the hour they’d been driving, almost as if he were uncomfortable. His injuries would have healed when he went to stone at dawn, leaving Dare to watch over her, and the current conversation couldn’t be bothering him.
Was he regretting his decision to exchange her for his sister?
Dare was staring at her again, his attention locked on the curl of ivy that twisted around her wrist.
“So tell me, Scrappy,” she began, needing to buy herself more time. She blew on the window and drew circles on the condensation she created. “Why do you think Piper was taken?”
He lost interest in her tracings, his wolf making an appearance in the blue eyes that weren’t as captivating as Vaughn’s but stunning nonetheless. Clearly it was a topic worth exploring.
“Oh, come on,” she prompted. “She was taken for a reason. She must have done something.”
Dare didn’t comment.
Elena shrugged. “Or maybe she was simply the innocent party like my sister. Just wrong time and place after someone pissed off the wrong immortal.”
“Vaughn had nothing to do with her abduction,” he growled, but it wasn’t the animal in his voice that surprised her.
It was the hint of something else in the gargoyle’s eyes that stayed with her. A look she was intimately acquainted with when she glanced at her own reflection.
Guilt.
“No one knows why she was taken.” Vaughn turned the car into the parking lot of a small strip mall that was probably closing shortly.
She glanced at Dare, doubting it was as simple as that. Not that it mattered at this point, not as much as finding a way to avoid becoming the abductor’s next victim.
The word left a bad taste in her mouth, and she wiped her hand across the glass, erasing her design. Without some kind of edge, she wouldn’t be able to save herself, let alone anyone else, and others were counting on her.
Others like Piper…
The car hit a pothole, and a whisper of magic stroked Elena’s skin. Her own magic stirred in response, and she hissed out a breath as the Fae glyph tightened like a living brand.
“What’s wrong?”
She rested her head against the back of the seat, willing the pain to pass. “Shock collars don’t agree with me.”
She’d been right. Dare had brought the crown with him. Too bad she couldn’t decide if that was a good thing or not.
The poisonous taint of iron tangled with the siren’s call of power that tugged at her. She let out a slow breath, waiting for another wave of ancient magic to hit her, but only caught the soft ripples of it fading away.
The crown was close. Maybe close enough to trigger that vision. Like in the trunk.
Vaughn stopped the car, grimacing as he twisted in his seat to look at her. “Do you know something about Piper’s abduction?”
Not as much as Dare, she suspected. “Seventeen.”
Vaughn frowned.
“My sister was abducted seventeen times. Sometimes only for a few hours, some for a few days. Others…” She cleared her throat, not intending to poke at her own guilt-ridden wounds. “The point is she always bounced back.”
“You almost sound proud of that.” A fact that clearly didn’t impress Vaughn in the least.
Proud would be a stretch. “My sister always came out stronger. Who says Piper won’t too?” And why the hell was she reassuring him when he’d made his choice?
A little annoyed with herself, she tucked her hair behind her ear and went back to staring out the window.
“Do not leave this car,” he grabbed the cell phone Dare had brought for him from the glove box then climbed out of the car. He walked just far enough away he could see her but remained out of earshot.
She turned her attention to the pup who wasn’t nearly as chatty as earlier. “What’s she like?” she found herself asking.
Dare didn’t hide his surprise at the question. “Piper is one of the good ones if it makes you feel any better.”
“Much,” Elena drawled. She unclicked her seatbelt. “Relax, Scrappy, just giving myself some breathing room. He only told me to stay in the car.”
Dare cocked his head, reached over and plucked the keys from the ignition before tucking them into his pocket. “Can’t be too careful.”
“So you’ve been helping him look for her,” she guessed.
“From the beginning.”
“I don’t remember you at the scene of my abduction.”
Dare shifted in his seat, attention locked on Vaughn.
“Ah, so you didn’t know about his plan then. He does like to play his cards close to the vest.”
“We both know you’re way too smart to waste time playing us against each other.”
He had her there. She shrugged. “I don’t exactly have better things I could be doing.”
Dare faced her. “I like you, Elena.”
Strangely enough, she believed he meant that. “Too bad not as much as Piper,” she muttered.
He checked to make sure Vaughn was still on the phone. “He promised them, you know. His parents,” Dare clarified. “Right before Morgana slaughtered them to remind the rebellion what happened to those who rose up against her. Vaughn promised them he would keep Piper safe.”
Safe was an illusion in their world unless you wanted to live in complete isolation at the farthest ends of either realm. And probably not even then.
Yesterday hearing that Vaughn was determined to keep a promise to his parents might have saved her from pouring her heart out. There really wasn’t any competing with the ghosts of his parents.
Parents who’d probably still be there, supporting and encouraging him, if they hadn’t been taken away from him, which was more than she could say about her own parents.
And that was one train of thought she was leaving parked at the station.
“And did you make the same promise?” she asked.
“That came later.”
“But you love her, too.”
“Like a brother.” The same flash of guilt darkened his eyes.
“Is that why you haven’t told him what you know about Piper’s disappearance?”
Dare’s gaze darted to hers, reaffirming her suspicions.
At least she wasn’t completely off her game. Maybe getting everything out of her system last night had been a good thing. Now she could really focus on the problem at hand. Like how she could use the crown to break the power of the Fae glyph, preferably without it corrupting her the way it had the Iron Queen.
“Since we’re on the subject of secrets,” Dare began, nodding to her tracings. “How about we talk about yours, and why you clearly don’t want Vaughn to know that you’re the Shadow’s Angel?”