The Danger of Destiny (2 page)

I never said thank you.

I should have.

Also, I never said how I felt about you.

Love,
Hedi

 

Before…

 

Chapter One

APPROXIMATELY FIVE STINKING HOURS AFTER THE PORTAL SPAT US OUT INTO MERENWYN

I've made a few quiet and unsettling personal discoveries.

Sad fact: I've always thought I was a nature lover. Partially because I like flowers and butterflies and the scent of woods—spruce, maple, pine, earth, bark—invariably gives me the warm fuzzies.

Guess what? I'm not Hedi, the tree hugger.

After a while, no matter its girth or its magnificence, a tree is a tree. And a gorge fades from an awe-inspiring visual to a thing placed there with the sole intent of frustrating the shit out of you.

Other things this city dweller has placed high on the hate list during her first day in Merenwyn: almost invisible flying bugs that make a peculiar humming noise as they zoom in for a snack of my Fae-sweet blood; heat rashes in sensitive places; prickers that try to pierce my baby-soft soles.

Believe it or not, I'm starting to miss Creemore.

And cars. Those I
really
miss.

You see? This is the problem with epic quests. No matter what's on the list, the damn things seem to come with gritty realities that just drain all the epic out of them. For instance, the necessity of wrapping my shoe-deprived feet with the sleeves torn from my mate's sweatshirt because Trowbridge and I traversed the Safe Passage into the Fae world without any travel preparations—my shoes, a box of matches, an industrial-sized bottle of DEET, a case of PowerBars, a roll of toilet paper—or, for that matter, any discussion.

There'd been no time for it.

I'd vaulted through the Fae portal first, all hell-bent on rescuing my twin, Lexi, and the world. Since then, I've had a few hours to think about that leap. And I've asked myself—was that a piece of heroism or what?

Unfortunately, the answer is “hell no.”

My hop, skip, and jump into Merenwyn was 80 percent guilt fueled

I left my brother bearing the burden of my own mistake: being the Old Mage's nalera was no walk in the park. Plus there was the whole save-the-world issue. Foul magic dripping through the portals and polluting everything that is good and fine and untouched in my home world.

People will get hurt. Like Cordelia, my mom-that-isn't, and Anu, my niece.

I can't have that either.

But here's the element of doubt. Would I have been struck by the pressing need to protect the innocent if the goons with the guns hadn't been giving me the buh-byes? After all, St. Silas had made it impossible for me to
not
take that step.

Turns out, I'm not heroic at all.

Sad, no?

On the other hand, Robson Trowbridge came to Merenwyn because he's heroic and he loves me. Any doubt I had on the subject of my mate's devotion was wiped out the instant I'd recognized the cacophony coming from the portal for what it was—the metallic shriek of a chain-link fence scoring the passage walls as it was dragged willy-nilly into the land of the Fae.

St. Silas, one of the big woofs of the werewolves' Great Council back in our world, had handcuffed my mate to such a fence. The asshole should have cuffed the Alpha of Creemore to a Chevy. My Trowbridge simply brought a six-foot panel of chain link with him, as well as a fence post, a set of handcuffs, his scent, and—not to overwork the phrase—his love.

Trowbridge loves me.

I turned my head slightly to regard my beloved. After enveloping me in a breath-defying hug that had quickly evolved into a truly memorable and searing kiss, my lover had divested himself of the handcuffs. Then, he'd taken care of what was left of the fence by rolling it into an untidy cylinder, which he'd stashed behind a handy outcrop of rock. After that, he'd performed a quick scent test of the air and a squint-eyed examination of the forest below. Finally, he'd turned to look at me. For four long seconds he'd stared at me, his expression inscrutable, but in the end he'd swallowed down whatever sermon he'd entertained delivering and all he'd said was, “Ready?”

I'd smiled back and said, “Born ready.”

Though his mouth had tightened, he'd never thrown that back at me, not once, during the last few hours.

Now my Trowbridge lay supine on his flat stomach beside me, propped up on his elbows, his eyes narrowed on the scene below. As visual feasts go, what he was frowning at was the ultimate photo op—literally a landscape of improbable beauty. Two thick wedges of old forest framed the green valley. Diamonds of light glinted from the winding blue river, and the tops of the grasses on its banks swayed. Add to this perfection the requisite background of wooded hills rolling to oblivion and beyond—

Goddess, Merenwyn would have given Ansel Adams a chubby.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not a tree hugger, remember?

Let's go back to talking about Trowbridge.

Normally, I'm all about the splendor of his face: eyes that were as blue as the Mediterranean, cheekbones that could cut glass, a lower lip that could be hard or tender. But at the moment, he was scowling again, so I allowed my eyes to rove over and my nose to enjoy the other totally Trowbridge delights. Like his body and the totally appealing scent of his sweat.

Mine.

If I blurred my eyes a bit, he was naked Trowbridge. Which, by any personal measure, is a better thing than a paper bag filled to bursting with Cherry Blossoms, Kit Kats, Skittles, and chocolate fudge.

My mate had come through the gates wearing the clothing he'd been given before his trial in front of the council: a pair of jeans that were too large and a sweatshirt that was too small. That's it, except for the fence. Nobody had coughed up a T-shirt for the doomed Alpha of Creemore. Also—and this was crucial—nobody had thoughtfully tossed him a pair of tighty whities either, because he was wearing his jeans commando.

I knew this because I'd been watching his back all morning, enjoying the “now you see it, now you don't” scenery as those jeans tried to shuck themselves off his narrow hips, then biting my lips every time he'd jerk them back up again with a hiss of annoyance that I found inexpressibly endearing.

One man's pain, another woman's gain.

When he'd gone down on his belly to case out the valley, those faded jeans had already been sailing at very low mast. Now they rode so low, I could see the dimples at the base of his spine and the upper swell of his tight ass cheeks.

And the small of his back.

I'd become fixated on that patch of skin. I wanted to tramp-stamp it with the words “Hedi's property.” I wanted to lick it and stroke it, and press my cheek to it so I could absorb his heat, and breathe in his scent—woods, salt, sex, and yum. I'd do all those things right now except my bone-liquefying exhaustion had placed all lustful thoughts into a holding pattern.

Later.

That's when I'd satisfy my need to claim that patch of skin. If one didn't dwell overlong on the sub-goal list, I had lots of “laters” in my future, during which I could explore every slope, plane, swell, and groove of his body.
He's mine.
I exhaled, glorifying in the awesomeness of him and me, and my breath bounced back, slightly sour and definitely metallic.

Yup. Later.

Right now, we were trekking to the rendezvous point—a place named Daniel's Rock—where Trowbridge and I were supposed to meet Lexi. Though time differences between this realm and the other are vast, we had lots of time.

We were early.

I mean, really early. I don't know precisely how early, because one Earth hour is the rough equivalent of eighteen Merenwyn hours and that is a bitch to figure out without a calculator and piece of paper.

But Trowbridge and I had crossed far earlier than instructed. Which meant we were way ahead of schedule and at this moment Lexi was betwixt worlds, still going through the unenviable process of having his addiction torn from him.

I tried to imagine what it felt like for my brother. Waking and realizing that you're trapped inside a fog-filled portal passage. Slowly recognizing that you're a prisoner—you can't go forward to Merenwyn, and you can't go back to Creemore. And worse, your transit plans are hostage to your own addiction. There'd be no freedom until such time as
a mage
—and Lexi has no fondness for them—pronounced you clean of your cravings for sun potion.

It would suck balls.

It had to be worse than being stuck in LaGuardia for an indefinite layover, your only company the walls, the clock, and an evangelist preacher.

Goddess, Hedi, when you screw up, you screw up.

I cleared my dry throat and nodded toward the river. “This looks like a good place.”

“Uh-huh.” Trowbridge scratched his nose, then looked up at the mid-day sun with a scowl. The thin wedge of maple he'd fashioned into a homespun toothpick gave another bob. He'd given me my own stick to chew earlier. Apparently, they keep the hunger pains at bay. Mine had fallen out of my back pocket when I squatted behind some bushes. No way was I putting that back in my mouth.

I pushed the tall grass aside to get another look at the river below. Its banks were pebbled, the center of its span an undeniably
traversable
froth of water.

Finally.

I closed my eyes and rested my forehead on the crook on my arm. No more tramping along the escarpment, trying to exude resolute calm while inwardly being piddle-pants scared about the very real possibility of toppling into the River of Penance's churning water below. No more—

“My gut's not happy,” he said.

Neither was mine. It kept squeezing, making clear its expectations that I should hustle and find a honey hive or five for its satisfaction. The handful of berries we'd nibbled on a couple of hours ago were naught but a faint memory.

Don't think about food.

“No,” he repeated thoughtfully, “it's not happy at all.”

I worked up a reply for that.

Normally, I'm quick with the quip and observation. I'd started our journey through the Fae realm leaking exclamations—
“the sky's so blue, Trowbridge!”
—but my general enthusiasm had naturally ebbed as the realities of being in Merenwyn had worn in.

We needed to cross the River of Penance. Because the two places high on my must-see destination list were on the
other
side of it and because its deafening roar had battered my right eardrum all morning. It had been nothing but rapids and waterfalls.

Finally, it had shut up and calmed the hell down.

I was done with the River of Penance and all its frickin' tributaries.

Done.

Merry slid down the inside crease of my elbow, snaring her feet in my tangled hair. I slit my eyes open and watched her through my lashes. She landed near my nose in a tiny puff of dust, then stalked along the inside of my curved arm.

My best friend was a sentient being, enchanted and imprisoned inside an amulet that hung from the chain I wore around my neck. She was an Asrai, like Ralph, the amulet that Trowbridge wore. “Merry and Ralph are hungry. We should feed them,” I said, pointedly adding, “when we get to the
other
side.”

“Mmmph,” my darling man said.

With frayed patience, I carefully scratched around an insect bite. “Tell me again why we didn't cross the river where the Gatekeeper did.”

I'd hated parting from her trail. Without the Gatekeeper, we were stuck in the land of the sneaky biting midges, because I didn't know the sequence of words and secret hand gestures to reopen the Safe Passage. The portal had closed itself while Trowbridge was occupied hiding the crumpled chain-link fencing. I'd tried to stop it from sealing, but the stone I'd quickly rolled into the doorway had been crushed into pea gravel.

The only plus? I hadn't followed up on my first instinct of shoving my foot into the doorway.

Ralph unwound two long golden strands from his setting and re-formed them into two long legs. He pushed himself upright, his bright blue stone winking with a self-satisfied light, then trotted to the end of his chain, so that he could take a gander at the old River of Penance. The line of grasses edging the outlook obscured his view so he hopped onto Trowbridge's forearm and started to prance upward.

Smack.

My guy swatted Ralph off like he was annoying ant. Indignantly, the Royal Amulet righted himself, then whipped out two more strands of gold, presumably to fashion them into something sharp and pointy with which he could demonstrate his outrage.

Trowbridge's lip lifted enough to expose his teeth and the chew stick clamped between them.

And just like that, the fight went out of Ralph. He lowered his pincers, and he stood down, save for the little blip of insolent white light bleating from his jewel.

My mate removed his toothpick and said softly, “When you travel with an Alpha, you don't get in his line of vision. Ever. You watch, you listen, you try to be helpful, and if you want your Alpha not to leave you swinging over the gorge you make an extra effort to stay still so that your chain's not sawing away at the back of his neck. But most of all, you keep your shiny ass out of his line of vision. Got that, Ralphie?”

Point taken. Ralph picked up the slack in his chain and sidled out of the Son of Lukynae's sight line.

“Who's the big bad wolf?” I murmured with only a little bit of sarcasm. “Now, returning of the question of why we ditched the Gatekeeper, your answer is…”

“If we followed her across the river, we'd be walking right into the Fae's hands. We've got time. It's smarter to play it safe.”

True. We'd journeyed into this world a day earlier than anticipated, so we were ahead of the game, considering there was a time limit on my epic quest. Time considerations only became crucial once Lexi finished his passage between the two realms. If the old man's soul wasn't wrenched from Lexi's by my twin's third sunset in Merenwyn, their soul merge became permanent.