Hell or High Water (Gemini Book 3) (22 page)

“Aisha came back to check on Bianca from a distance, I caught her, and she copped to the whole thing.” Nathalie wrapped up the whole sordid tale. “Bessemer kicked her to the curb without a penny to her name, just the clothes on her back. I’m not saying stalking you with intent to kill was the best idea ever, but she did save Bianca’s life.”

Graeson’s voice vibrated against my back. “Which is the only reason I didn’t kill her to save us the headache of deciding what becomes of her now.”

“What do you think?” I tilted back my head. “She’s been living with the pack, I assume, for several weeks.”

He returned my stare. “She’s been the perfect guest.”

“That makes you suspicious.” It made me twitchy too. Or maybe that was Nathalie’s expectation that I would know what to do about Aisha. “Honestly I’m too overwhelmed to make a decision of this magnitude right now.”

“I understand.” Aisha’s face fell. “I’ll figure something out.”

“Nathalie, are you willing to take responsibility for her?” Sympathetic I might be, but stupid… Well, I hoped I wasn’t that. Nathalie rubbed a finger over her lips for an eternity before nodding. “In that case, we’ll take this one day at a time, unless you attempt to harm me or mine. Then we’ll ship you back to Bessemer in a silver cage and let him decide what happens to you.”

“That’s…fair.” Her brown skin paled many shades. “But there’s more.”

Nathalie did a double take. “What?”

Chin up, Aisha set her shoulders back. “I blew up your aunt’s truck.”

“It wasn’t blown up.” That might have left it salvageable. “It was spelled into an inferno.”

“The Garzas owed me a favor, and I cashed it in before I left.” Heat flushed her cheeks. “I’m sorry.”

“Take it up with my aunt.” I waved her in Aunt Dot’s general direction. “She’s the one you owe an apology to. Not to mention a new truck.”

After raising three kids, Aunt Dot had elevated punishment to an art form. Insurance ought to cover replacing the vehicle, but Aisha didn’t have to know that. I had no doubt Aunt Dot would find other ways for the former alpha to make amends.

“Enough pack business for one day,” Graeson proclaimed as he threaded my arm through his, hauling me away from Aisha. “I would have let this wait until tomorrow, but Nathalie won’t let Aisha out of her sight, and we had to explain her presence.”

“I can’t say I blame Nathalie.” Aisha had a history of trying to kill me. As alpha, my pack was bound to take issue with her murderous inclinations. Yet she had saved one of us. “Maybe a new pack, a new environment, will set her straight.”

“Maybe,” he allowed, steering me toward the buffet line. He pushed a plate into my hands, giving me the chance to load up with favorites before the wargs decimated the food. “Either way, it’s not a problem for today.”

“What are our problems?” I mounded a generous portion of home-style potatoes beside a scoop of pulled pork. Clearly this was a Cam-themed meal. “Where do we go from here? Back to the RV park? Where do we call home?”

“Well, about that.” For an alpha warg, he sure had trouble meeting my gaze. “I might have made an executive decision in your absence.” He heaped more potatoes onto my plate as if that might fix the problem. “I would have asked you, if that had been an option. The arrangements I’ve made aren’t permanent. We can leave if you want, if that’s what your job requires, or if you want to put that place behind us.”

“It sounds like you made the call to stay in Butler.” I shook my head to clear it. “I didn’t see that coming.”

“That’s where we’re needed,” he said cryptically.

“Okay, then Butler it is.” I placed my hand over his before he dumped another mound of potatoes on my plate. “I trust you.”

“Look how far we’ve come,” he teased. “Not too long ago, I would have had to bribe you with homemade brownies to earn that endorsement.”

“You can pay me a retroactive bribe once we get home.” I leaned over and kissed him softly on the lips.

“Home sounds good.” He hooked his arms around me. “We could slip away while the others are busy eating—”

“—my potatoes.” I cradled the plate to my chest, laughing as he playfully growled in my ear. “I missed this.” I rubbed my cheek against his. “I missed you.”

“Wherever you go, I go.” His breath blew warm across my throat. “I was never far. You realize that, right? I only gave you the illusion of privacy because it’s what you needed.”

I laughed at his earnest expression. “I’m almost afraid to ask.”

“I rented a room.”

Edelweiss’s shadow peered over our shoulder, a party to the conversation. “This isn’t exactly a hotel.”

“Mai found me sleeping in my truck one night and introduced herself. The name rang a bell, and once we discovered we had Thierry and you in common, she hauled me inside and gave me the grand tour. There are four guest suites in the basement outfitted for supernatural out-of-towners unable to blend into human society who come to visit with their loved ones.”

“You were here the whole time?” Two floors away from me, and I never knew. No one had told me.

No wonder he had decided to throw my party on the lawn. This place had been his home for months.

“Did you honestly think I would leave you when you needed me the most?” His fingers dug into my hips. “You’re mine, Ellis, from the top of your blonde head to the tips of your pink toes. If you wanted out, you should have run a long time ago. Now you’re stuck with me. You and me are forever.”

“Forever.” I breathed in his deep-woods scent, the smell of my true home, and exhaled with happiness too large to be contained. “I like the sound of that.”

Allowing my lids to fall shut, I focused on the security of Graeson’s arms as he stole kisses between bites of food snatched from my plate. Aunt Dot’s animated voice carried as she swapped anecdotes with Mom and Dad about our childhood, earning groans and pleas for mercy from Isaac and Theo. Shouts and good-natured ribbing ensued among the pack as they scuffled for prime spots in the buffet line.

“Open up.” Graeson pressed a crisp morsel to my lips. “You don’t want to miss this.”

Blinking the world back into focus, I bit down on the pad of his thumb, relishing his possessive growl, and had to agree. “I wouldn’t miss this for the world.”

E
ight weeks earlier
.

I planted my hands on my hips and squinted up at a burnt-orange sky that was a heck of a lot closer than it ought to be. Parts of the ceiling of this world dipped so low I imagined rising up on my toes to brush my fingers along its voluminous underbelly.

“Freaking monkeys,” I muttered. “This is not great.”

The churning vortex fraught with otherworldly winds whipped my long black hair into my eyes until I caved to annoyance and yanked it back in a quick and dirty bun.

“I don’t have time for this.” Cord Graeson stood at my elbow, glaring at the sky as if his pissedoffedness might sear the void closed. “Ellis needs me.”

His mate, a Gemini woman by the name of Camille Ellis, had drowned herself in a bid to take a body-hopping serial killer with her.

All things considered, I got that he wanted to wash his hands of this place and bolt.

Too bad we didn’t always get what we wanted.

“Make time, wolfman.” I angled my head to better take in his disheveled appearance. “This was the endgame, and we all got played.”

The words registered, and a growl pumped through his chest. “The circle.”

“On a much, much smaller scale, yes.” The same fruitcake fae Cam had died taking down had been wilier than any of us dreamed. “Charybdis used his sacrificial killings to create the circle around the entire state. When that fell through, he moved to plan B.” The part of his plan I hadn’t guessed at until my hiding place allowed me to overhear his villain monologue seconds before Cam knocked him unconscious with an enchanted gem. “Cam was his target all along. He tailored his victims and their deaths to echo her sister’s drowning.” Even though, much to her surprise, her sister had been alive. That part wasn’t Charybdis’s fault, though. He just wielded the knowledge over her like the sword of Damocles. “Thanks to his mind-bending tricks, he finagled Cam into position as primary on the kelpie case, which wasn’t hard considering it was designed to appeal to her on a personal and professional level.”

“Okay,” he grunted. “I follow.”

“What we didn’t pick up on fast enough was he had a secondary reason for targeting Cam. It wasn’t just that he believed she was capable of sustaining him indefinitely, because any Gemini could have, in theory, worked in a pinch.” Fate, convenience or plain old bad luck led him to fixate on her. “The original spell, the circle, was woven with a secondary layer that fed entirely off Cam’s emotional distress. He was priming her for this all along.”

“The others…” his throat worked, “…they were sacrificed. Does that mean Ellis’s death was the trigger for the spell?”

“You catch on quick.” I pursed my lips and debated how to go about explaining this next bit. “He told Cam he chose her because the first contact he had on this world, Marshal Ayer, had knowledge of her that he exploited. From what I overheard, it sounds like his plan was always to use Cam as fuel for his spells and her sister as his permanent residence.”

“He sent Ayer to attack the Ellis’s home,” the warg reflected. “He was attempting to lock down his preferred vessel before Cam caught wind of her sister’s existence.”

“That’s how it looks to me too, in hindsight.” Which always sparkled with twenty-twenty clarity. “The problem is, he feeds on emotion, and Lori didn’t emote.” I jerked a thumb toward the sky. “The only way he could hotwire his ride was by plying it with enough magic to kick-start its engine.”

“You’re telling me he ripped a hole in the fabric between worlds all for Lori?” Doubt sat heavy in his voice.

“Nah.” Last night Charybdis, whoever he really was, had been eager to chatter once he got Cam alone and at his mercy. “He did it for himself. He might have figured out how to wear a Gemini suit long term, but fae here don’t have the juice they do in Faerie. He was hedging his bets.”

A black dot, a teeny-tiny speck, materialized in the center of the churning skies, and I got the feeling first contact was about to happen. Oh boy.

“I guarantee you Charybdis came here thinking Earth was a paradise of untapped resources.” Read: Humans for snacking. “But once he got here and realized he was stuck because the tethers were severed, he went from skipping through daisies to wading through a briar patch. I’m betting he hatched this scheme to tap into Faerie’s magic. He wanted that energy to leak into this world so that he could have his cake and eat it too.”

“Freedom from Faerie’s rule but access to her power,” Graeson agreed with a nod. “Makes sense.”

“Faerie has had her belly sliced open, and until we figure out how to close a gash this size, which will require my dad’s intervention, she’s going to bleed into this world.”

The coolheaded warg snapped to attention as the reason I’d invited him out here despite his mate’s declining health sank into his wolf skull. “Humans are going to learn about the fae.”

His tone said he didn’t give a damn about those consequences. His alpha brain was churning what-if scenarios that included wargs and vamps and all manner of native supernaturals having their cover blown too.

Earth was a sinking ship. Much like the dumbass who hadn’t outfitted the Titanic with enough life rafts, I could tell him right now there wasn’t enough glamour, illusion, deceit or sleight of hand to save us all. I had a fae working right now to slather glamour over the sky to block out the surreal anomaly until we figured out what the heck to do about this.

“I can’t see any alternative.” I leaned against a tree, wishing Shaw was here to bounce ideas with me. “I don’t see the conclave sewing this rift shut fast enough to stop what’s coming.”

“Your father could stop this?” He examined my runes as he spoke.

“The current threshold to Faerie is his handiwork,” was the best answer I had for him.

“Why did you want me to see this?” He angled so he faced me. “What is it you’re asking without asking?”

Winding up my sales pitch, I let it fly. “Wargs are tough, smart and have the home field advantage.” Lucky me, there happened to be an entire pack right here, right now. “Until the conclave locks down the area, we need sharp eyes—and teeth—on patrol. We need a buffer between what comes out of that hole in the sky and the people here on the ground.”

The firm set of his jaw confirmed his decision. “We can help.”

“Great.” I did a mental fist pump. “What I need you to do is—”

“What you need to do is speak with my beta, Adele Preston.” He spared the Vortex of Doom one last flicker of attention. “I’m going to Kermit, Texas to be with Ellis.” His voice went deep, gold flecks in his eyes warning me the wolf was near the surface. “Where she goes, I go.”

“I respect the sentiment.” The loss of the alpha burst my bubble, though his defection wasn’t totally unexpected. “Are you sure it’s wise to leave your second-in-command?”

Diplomacy wasn’t my strong suit, but I didn’t mention he was a young alpha with a pack cobbled together out of troublemakers. As straight of an arrow as Cam was, Cord must have sweet-talked her to get them into her good graces. That or she hadn’t seen the files the conclave kept on them.

“Part of the reason we left our old home is because the old ways weren’t working for us.” He gave his answer consideration. “This pack will be different. We’re melding the strict control required to make our wolves happy with the flexibility to please my fae mate. We’ll either succeed, or we’ll fail, but I’m alpha. I didn’t sign on to wipe their asses, and I’m no babysitter. They will honor the vows they made, or they will defect.” A feral grin amped up with possessiveness split his lips. “I have Ellis. That’s all the pack I need.”

“All right.” I respected a man dedicated to his mate. “I’ll parse details with Dell.”

He backed three steps closer to the road before speaking. “If that’s all…?”

“Go on.” I flicked my wrist. “I’ll handle things here.” Getting into a dominance fight with a beta held no appeal. “Just make sure Dell knows that’s what I’m doing, okay?”

Not slowing to answer, he lifted his hand in what I took as a
sure thing
gesture.

Figuring I had a few minutes until impact, I pulled out my phone to call Shaw and startled when it rang with an unlisted number in my hand. “Marco’s Pizza.”

An elegant sigh worked as well as any greeting.

Biting my lip to keep from snorting at her haughty disdain, I tried again. “Hello, Magistrate Vause.”

“Thierry,” came her long-suffering acknowledgment. “I understand Camille Ellis suffered a rather unfortunate incident.”

While I filled her in on Cam, and she updated me about how she had resumed her duties now that Charybdis was no longer a threat, I kept an eye on the dot in the sky. When its shape turned more birdlike than bloblike, I cut her loose with a promise to keep her informed that I mostly intended to keep.

Minutes later, a black bird the size of a Chihuahua swooped over my head. The bastard buzzed me, and I had to drop to avoid getting creamed. Still his talons raked through my hair, yanking down my bun, before he lit on the ground with a few hops and morphed into a striking fae man.

“Wife,” he greeted me with a courtly bow.

The King of Faerie was almost as pretty as he was arrogant. Almost.

“Ex,” I corrected him, middle finger extended.

Chuckling like I was the wittiest girl in Witville, he sauntered over to me and beheld the seam between worlds that appeared to unzip more the longer we watched. “What do you propose we do about this?”

Cute how he managed to make it sound as though we shared a side when, for as long as I had known him, the only cause Rook championed was himself. I played along, our union being amicably annulled and all. “We try and minimize the casualties.”

His regal nod almost read as sincere. “Faerie, and her king, are at your disposal.” A thin smile bent his perfect lips. “How may I be of assistance?”

The urge to roll my eyes left me staring at the patch of sky directly over my head.

The prophecy Cam emailed me had been a thorn under my skin for days. I had tap-danced around the truth with my new friends, but I was a beast apart from them. The thirst for judgment parched my throat, and the battle to hold Earth hadn’t yet begun. This lake might soon run with blood, and if it did, I had made the decision it would be spilled on my orders.

Cam was hardcore, and the Lorimar pack was badass. Their involvement might persuade more native supernaturals and their human allies that earthborn fae could be trusted when the alternative was former apex predators getting bent over a barrel sans lube by first-wave Faerie mercenaries. So, yeah, the wargs made an excellent addition to Team Save Earth. But at the end of the day, I was half human
and
half fae, and I was an equal opportunity recruiter.

“Send me the Huntsman.” Hunger coiled in my gut, my runes sparking to life as magic caressed my skin. I met Rook’s intrigued gaze and held it. “Unleash the Wild Hunt.”

And may God have mercy on our souls.

* * *

* * *