The Danger of Destiny (26 page)

No.

They'd fallen on their knees and accepted me. They'd found me a trailer and set it up—exactly as I'd asked them to—even though they'd have much preferred to see me installed in the Trowbridge manse. And when I'd said, “I need a cookie,” they damn well had smothered me with sweets. For
months
.

During those golden days, they'd sent me invitations of all sorts, from dinners, to store openings, all the way to eighth-grade graduation events. They'd bruised their knuckles on the door to my silver trailer, searching for my advice.

They'd waited for me to embrace their life, their pack.

But I never had. Alphas prowl their territory, alert to any threat for their people. Not me. I'd let others handle the disputes and I'd let others worry about possible dangers. And eventually, I'd begun entirely avoiding any interaction with the wolves of my pack because—oh, the insult!—they hadn't loved me just for being me.

Worse—I'd refused to meet my wolf. She'd been right there, waiting for me to let her free. And that bitch was freakin' awesome.

As Trowbridge had said, I'd missed out on one of the best parts of me.

And that, Hedi, is what led you to the old oak tree.

Crap. And double crap.

*   *   *

Trowbridge's scent touched me with questing fingers, but I backed away from it. I was on the cusp of turning the page in my own book of painful learning and if I let his essence wrap around me I was going to fold like a baby and the decision would never be mine. And I was not a know-nothing infant. Not anymore. Going, going, gone. I rubbed my ear harder, my thumb stroking it so fast it was surprising a puff of smoke didn't erupt from its tip.

Well, well.

So here we were. Despite all my efforts in keeping my life down to me and mine, we'd arrived at the
Casablanca
moment. Rick's standing on the tarmac with Ilsa, and heroic Victor's waiting by the plane. Do the problems of three people amount to
more
than a hill of beans in this crazy world?

Goddess. Big pictures suck.

They
fucking
suck.

“Hedi,” my mate said softly. “We need to talk.”

“Can't,” I said faintly. “Feeling a tad light-headed.”

My brother, aka the shit-disturber, got in another shot. “Tell her what's supposed to happen to your flare and you.”

There's more?

“Shut up!” yelled Trowbridge. “I swear to God, I'll—”

Faster than a cobra, Lexi struck. “It's supposed to become as bright as a blue flame, and as hot as the sun, and then, it's supposed to explode.”

I whipped around to face Trowbridge. “You're going to explode?”

“I'm not going to explode,” he said tautly.

 

Chapter Sixteen

I sat down. Or rather, my legs folded and I decided to go with it.

“I am sorry, twin,” my brother said.

I lifted heavy eyes. “For?”

“He should have picked you up and carried you right back to your world. He knew you weren't equipped for Merenwyn.”

There was so much objectionable in all that, I didn't know where to start.

I fixed Lexi with a quelling stare. “I got this far.”

Evidently, not the response my twin was hoping for.

Lexi limped-stalked to Trowbridge, who was leaning against the rock, in a way that at first glance might have been construed as casual—arms folded over chest, hips jutting forward—but wasn't in the least: neck tendons rigid, balance positioned for a quick takeoff. Heedless to the simmering danger, my twin shoved his face into my mate's personal space and said accusingly, “You should have taken her home.”

Trowbridge got points for not immediately nailing my twin. He slowly straightened from the wall and collapsed the distance between himself and my brother until his breath warmed my brother's nose. When Trowbridge spoke it was through lips that barely moved and his tone was lethal-soft. “She's got her heart set on saving your soul. Personally, I think they beat the good out of you and there's nothing worth breaking into a sweat over. You should remember that when you get in my face.”

“Lexi, move back,” I warned. “You're not helping.”

The Shadow remained where he was for another taunting second, then took a few jerking steps back, his hands spread. Lexi's smile would have made Gandhi foam at the mouth. “Did you ever tell her about Wryal's? Or of any of the dangers she'd face there?”

That sounded like a disease. “What's Wryal's?” I asked my mate.

My One True Thing's gaze was still locked with my brother's. “It's an island,” he answered tightly. “Both the castle and the Spectacle grounds are on it.”

Of course they are.

Not only did we have to rescue the Raha'ells from freakin' holding pens, but now we have to get them off an island? It wasn't like the wolves could swim across—Weres can't swim.

“Is there a boat?” I asked. “Or a ferry?”

“There's a bridge.” Trowbridge's nostrils flared in and out. A racehorse before the jockey dug in his heels. “Very long. Nice drop to the water.”

“I was playing up to now, wasn't I?” I asked, my voice small. “Thinking that if I wore blinders and didn't let my head turn left or right, kept my eyes on the prize…” No one leaped to the fool's defense and I couldn't blame them. I chewed the skin on the inside of my mouth. “This is all so much bigger than me.”

Trowbridge walked to where I sat. He stood over me, looking down. Expression inscrutable, except for the tiny sparks of blue glinting in his eyes. His scent was spiked and sharp with musk. It did not try to weave itself around me.

“I'm scared,” I told him.

Wordlessly he sank down into one of his graceful crouches, his weight balanced on his heels. Three inches closer and his knee would have grazed my elbow. He plucked at some creeping weed, then tossed it aside. Then he swept the sandy loam with the side of his hand to make a canvas. With his finger, he drew an elongated oval. “This is Dhesperal Lake.”

He drew me a map
.

“Not a puddle or a pond,” he said, “but a lake.” The lines bracketing Trowbridge's mouth seemed carved. Inside his “lake” he drafted another irregular shape. “This is Wryal's Island.” He brooded over his diagram. “With me so far?” he asked without lifting his head.

“One lake, one island.”

He made a large four-sided box that took up most of the available space on the island he'd sketched. “This is the castle.” Then, so close to the castle it might as well be appended, he fashioned a far smaller square. “And these are the Spectacle grounds.”

I tried to make sense of the scale. The lake seemed oversized in comparison to Wryal's. “Where's the bridge?”

The tip of his finger added an L-shaped line from the castle to the shore. “There.”

Seriously, Karma?
The crooked bridge was on the south end of the island. As far away from the place where they're holding Trowbridge's pack as possible.

Trowbridge had sat back on his heels. “The Spectacle's a quarter acre surrounded by wooden walls that are too slick to climb and too thick to batter down. I've seen some crap in Merenwyn, but those holding pens…” He shook his head. “I've seen junkyard dogs kept in better conditions.” Gaze downcast, he said quietly, “The worst goes down in front of the viewing stands. The Fae watch shit happen and hoot like they're at some fucking football game.”

Lexi stared at my mate through slit eyes.

I remembered the grandstands. Though I'd never physically been on Wryal's Island, I'd visited the Spectacle grounds via my niece's dreams. Through her eyes, I'd seen the Fae in the stands. Not a rabble, but an elegant and cruelly detached assemblage of those who believed themselves rightfully privileged. They wore cloaks and sat in high-backed chairs.

“There was a cage too,” I said. “They put you in it with Anu and she was afraid of you.”

My mate's head jerked in surprise and I realized that he'd forgotten that I'd seen the Spectacle grounds through some dream-walking. Trowbridge studied me for a beat; then he said, “Yeah,” and his gaze returned to study the lines he'd drawn in Merenwyn's earth. “I knew I was pretty much fucked when I woke up inside it.”

“You didn't look frightened.”

“I was,” he said simply.

He rose and jammed his hands inside his back pockets, and those damn cutoff jeans slid low as he walked away from me. But this time I didn't fixate on the patch of skin on his lower back. Instead I noticed those jutting hip bones and the hard, masculine planes of his muscles.

A warrior's body honed to the bone.

His back pockets stretched as he made fists. “They have archers up on the castle's towers whose only job is to keep their eye on the Spectacle grounds, and more men patrolling the pens. The Fae are armed; you're not. Unless you can think up a miracle, you're shit out of luck.”

“So you're going to sacrifice yourself to be the Raha'ells' miracle?”

Say no.

His back muscles tensed; then he slowly swung around to look at me. “It's going to take a miracle and more just to get into the castle.” Blue sparks in his eyes. “But if we get that lucky,
after
I'm sure you're on your way back to the Safe Passage I'm going to stay to do what I can to free them.”

“You'll die.”

“I'll try real hard not to get killed.”

I rubbed my temples.

Was this how it was going to go between us? I'd connive behind his back and then say, “Oopsy,” and then he'd do the same to me? Back and forth? An endless game of tennis without rules or even a winning number of points?

“We have to stop doing this,” I told him, and I was surprised at the sound of my own voice, because it was quiet and firm.

He tilted his head. “This?”

“This modus operandi we have of jumping first and then saying ‘sorry.' This thing we do of only telling half-truths. It isn't working anymore.”

“It isn't working?” he repeated, his voice too soft, too low. “You've been playing that call since we met. You jump, I follow. What's your frickin' problem?”

“You should have told me what you were planning to do. Our destinies are entwined, Trowbridge. You know that.”

“I
would
have told you.”

“When?”

“When the time was right,” he said tightly.

“You mean when it was too late for me to stop you.”

“You really want to get into this? Now?” He jerked his chin toward Lexi. “I'm not doing this in front of him, so if you want to
explore
this topic,” he said, playing a biting emphasis on the verb, “I suggest you take your sweet ass to the cave.”

“Fine.” I stood up, weaved for a second because I momentarily saw spots, then stomped into the cave. Okay, it was more of a stagger-stomp, which, I devoutly hoped, hurt Lexi. Once inside, I didn't explore Lexi's cave. I went in as far as I needed to go to get a fraction of privacy and still be able to see the trees. But still, that put me a stone's throw away from Lexi's old campfire.

Trowbridge followed.

“What the hell do you want from me?” he said harshly.

It was a small, contained space. “Hell” echoed.

I snapped back. “I want us to be honest with each other. I want to know when you're planning to risk your life.”

“Like you warn me when you risk yours?” he growled.

He'd never been that angry with me before. I took a step backward, and my good heel crushed one of the charred remnants of Lexi's fire.

And
whoosh
. Trowbridge's thin control splintered. “You want honesty?” he shouted. “It tore my guts out to stay on the ridge, and watch my people be mown down by the fucking Fae, and not do anything for them! I was their Alpha! I should have been there with them. Down at that shallow crossing fighting with them! But I put you and your fucking epic quest in front of my pack! I put you in front of everything! God dammit, I came back to Creemore for you!”

I took a step out of the fire. “You couldn't have done anything to help the Raha'ells; they—”

“Also because of you!” he shouted over me.

My turn to draw in a sharp breath through my teeth.

Trowbridge spun around, presenting me his back. He pressed his hands against his temples and rocked as if his head were about to split open. “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus,” he repeated.

I breathed into the back of my hand. How did this fall apart so fast? “As I recall it, I didn't stop you from going down that hill to their defense. You stopped me.”

With a sigh, he dropped his arms and turned around to face me. “You'd have died before you made it halfway down the ridge. I thought of telling you to stay, but you never stay. I thought of going to fight without you, but how could I? You don't know how to survive here.”

“I have magic. You keep discounting how useful it can be.”

“Can it stop arrows?”

No, it couldn't.

Wearily, he leaned against the wall. “You got us involved in what you keep calling an ‘epic quest.' FYI, I don't want to ever hear that phrase again.” He frowned at Lexi's fire. “It's not epic; it's just fucking impossible. We haven't got a snowball's chance in hell of coming out of this. And if that's what it is—if that's what's going to go down—then we've got to destroy that book before it happens.” He raised his head, stared at me, little flits of blue light sparking in the dim light. “If I can't save the Raha'ells, I'll damn well save my pack in Creemore. I can't die knowing I let both of them down.”

“But you want to do both.”