The Red Wolf (The Wolf Fey #2) (11 page)

It was just as the crone had said.

He encountered many challenges on his journey. He battled with sea monsters, and he thrust his trident into the hearts of vicious mermen; he barely survived shipwreck and storms, and lost nearly twenty men when a great tsunami nearly sank the boat. But Connell did not waver in his plans. No danger, he knew, was as great as the danger presented by the Dark Hordes. And if he died in the attempt to save Feyland, so be it. It was worth it.

And then one day, after many years at sea, when Connell had grown bearded and haggard with exhaustion, and his hands had grown rough and blistered with the salt of the water and the ache of his wounds, he found the island of which the crone had spoken. It was a tangled chaotic place – vines were overgrown over ancient ruins, and all was green and savage. Nobody had been here, Connell knew, in centuries; the ancient magic was strong here, strong and untouched. As he made his way through the jungle, forcing his way through brambles and twisted grape-vines and miles of brush, he began to feel a sense of hope at long last. Could this be the home of the mysterious Panthea, the old Queen of ancient Feyland, who slumbered, awaiting the deadly kiss that would awaken her.

Twenty different beasts guarded her cave – giants and banshees and dark phoenixes and savage sphinxes – Connell fought and killed all of them, each time adding another wound to the many silver scars that streaked his once-marble frame.

And then at last he entered the cave. The Queen Panthea lay before him, slumbering upon a slab of marble. Her lips were red and half-parted. She was beautiful and yet terrible – she had a strange agelessness: she was neither a maiden nor a crone, but rather a creature that defied all time.

This was the moment, Connell knew. It was time for him to awaken her. Even if it meant sacrificing his immortality in the process. He had no other choice. He leaned in and touched his lips to hers.

Immediately he felt his life force ebbing out of him, felt the deep power within her pulling out his magic, clutching at it, stealing it. He trembled; his knees shook; at last he fell to his feet, screaming in agony.

Panthea sat up straight, her eyes blazing. She coughed, and from her mouth she produced a small red stone, the color of animal blood. She took it and placed it in Connell's hands.

“You have sacrificed much, young man,” she said. “You clearly wished to find me. What brings you here – what made you risk such dangers?” Asleep, she had been terrifying; awake, her palpable power left Connell breathless.

Connell trembled as he recounted his story to her. When he had finished, Queen Panthea nodded.

“Yes,” she said. “I will help you. But it will come as a sacrifice. First you have given me your immortality. Now, I will need your magic. To fight these beasts you must become beasts. Your blood must run red, not silver. Hold out your arm.”

Connell did not hesitate. He did not cry out as she punctured a vein in his arm with a sword, catching droplets of his blood in a capsule. He watched her go to the mouth of her cave, hunting and killing a wolf with a single shot of an arrow from her enormous bow, and then return the carcass.

“These two bloods will mingle,” she said. “And make you a hybrid, too. I will come with you to Feyland. I will do this for all of your men who wish it. And then I will return to sleep again – but this time, young Wolf, you will not find me. I can be found only once by he who seeks me, for I am never in the same place twice. I told you my location once – I came to you as that crone – for I found you worthy. But I will not come to you again.”

And so Connell and his men became wolves.

And Connell, to the end of his days, kept the stone that Queen Panthea had produced from her mouth. Panthea had ordered him to guard it well, with his life; he kept it hidden from all prying eyes.

I dreamed this dream over and over again, and then I was awakened by a rough kick to the stomach.

It was a pixie guard.

“His majesty wishes to see you again,” the pixie scowled.

Chapter 14

I
groggily got up, stumbling to my feet. The dream had been so real, so vivid, that coming back to myself was like crossing universes. I had lived alongside Connell the Red Wolf; I had
been
Connell. In my dreams I had been free of the torture, free of the pain. I had lived in an ancient time more magical than even the revered territories of Autumn Springs. But now here I was again – back in the dungeon. No light. No food. Only filthy water and nightly beatings. Last night, such treatment – combined with the memory of Breena's love for Kian – had reduced me to despair. I had prayed for death, looking upon oblivion as a deliverance. I had waited hopefully for that final blow, that definitive kick, that would release me from my agony and let me sleep the wandering sleep of the Dead. I had dreamed of being set upon that mysterious path from which return was impossible.

But as I faced the pixie guard, who grimaced as he struck me full across the face, crowing aloud as he did so, I no longer felt such despair.

“Mangy cur!” He kicked me to my feet, punching me in the nose until streams of blood jetted forth from my nostrils. But I barely felt the pain. Something had happened with me – something to do with the dream. I had dreamed of Connell before, but my dreams had never been as detailed, as vivid. They
felt
real. Almost as if the power of Connell was seeping through space, through time – his magic breaking apart centuries and coming to visit me in my dreams.

And for the first time, I had true hope. Whatever Connell wanted with me, whatever my dreams meant, they meant
something
. Delano was asking me about the Wolfstone for a reason – he knew, even if I had not known before, that somehow I was connected to that Wolfstone. Somehow these recurring dreams, the stone, the power of the Wolf Fey – they were all connected.

When I was a child, my grandfather had often told me that I was special. He used to tell me that I had a great destiny, a destiny that only I could fulfill. I had taken it as the fond ramblings of a grandfather adoring his favorite grandchild, but now I was not so sure. What if he had been right? What if I was really destined to do something special – to bring back the immortality of the Wolves, to restore them to their rightful position alongside the Fey?

I smiled grimly, refusing to cry out under the pixie's beatings, forcing myself to ignore the pain. No, I thought, I wouldn't give the pixie the satisfaction of seeing that he was hurting me. I would be brave. I would be strong. The way Grandfather would have wanted me to be. I wasn't going to let him now.

And yet how strange it seemed – that I could be here, in this dank pixie kingdom, with no hope of escape. Breena and Kian doubtless thought I was dead (Breena! How my heart ached for her again), and there was no way I could get out of here without backup. If I thought logically about it, I was done for: I had to prepare myself for death. And yet something about those dreams gave me hope, a steely strength that undercut my conviction that my time was running out. I had a destiny – a destiny I had not yet fulfilled. And until I did it, until I found the Wolfstone, I would remain alive. The ancient magic of Feyland had a way of making sure its ends were affected: not even the strongest fairy or pixie alive could interfere with the will of Feyland's old magic.

Not even Delano.

My heart began to beat faster as the pixie dragged me to my feet, handcuffing my hands behind my body as he kicked me one last time before bringing me down that now-familiar corridor to Delano's rooms. I wasn't going to let Delano lick me – not while I had breath in my body. I had a destiny; I knew it now – my blood was boiling with the surety of it – and I wasn't about to let Delano stand in the way. I would be strong. I would let my dreams give me strength. By day I was just another pathetic prisoner, doomed to rot away into nothingness in this pixie's castle. But by night I was a hero. I was the Red Wolf, fighting on the high seas, slaying cruel dragons and malicious three-headed tigers. Saving Feyland.

Not even Delano could take that away from me.

The gigantic jade doors of Delano's throne room opened, and I was thrust in, forced once again to the floor.

“Bow,” said the pixie, sneering. “Bow to your lord and master, Delano.”

I did not. I remained on the floor, staring into Delano's cold green eyes. I said nothing, my jaw set with defiance. I wasn't going to let Delano have the better of me.

“Bow!” The pixie brought the hilt of his sword down on my back with the full force of his weight. I heard a crack of the bone, but I bit my lip, refusing to cry out.

“That's no way to treat your host, now is it?” Delano asked me, his voice as sweetly false as soured honey. “Why not bow and get it over with, make it easy for yourself?”

I refused to answer. The pixie wrapped the familiar silver chain around me, so tightly that my arms and legs began to swell with bruises.

Finally the pixie forced my forehead to the floor, aping a bow, before kicking me again and then bowing himself, exiting the room when Delano gave a light wave of his hand.

“Feeling defiant today, are we?” Delano raised an eyebrow.

“I have nothing to say to you,” I said. “I know nothing about any Wolfstone. I never have. I never will, most likely, for I fully expect to die here in this castle. I am of no use to you.”

“Curious that you're not even interested in sparing your own life,” Delano smiled a cruel and unsettling smile. “Most prisoners would lie – even if they knew nothing, they'd beg for mercy, tell me what I wanted to hear just so I'd give them a chance at walking free. But you're not even making anything up. Which makes me think that you
do
know something.”

“Or maybe that I have more of a spine than the others.”

“Oh, don't be so sure of that,” said Delano blithely. “I'll break you; you can be sure of that. I've broken all the others, and you – my friend – are no exception. You may last a little longer than the others, but you will break. I will make sure of that. And I enjoy the chance to see you broken.”

“I'm not afraid of you, Delano.”

“Your Highness, if you don't mind.”

“I
do
mind,” I said.

Delano smirked. “Feisty, are we?”

“And you're a coward!” I let out a shout. “Keeping me locked up here, beaten and tortured by your men. If you were a real hero you'd try to fight me man to man, instead of letting your guards do all the work for you. You don't even do the torturing yourself – your pixies do it for you. You don't like getting your hands dirty. But I've got news for you,
Delano
, I'm the better fighter and I always will be. I could take you right here, right now, after all the beatings you've put me through – after all the hunger, all the torture, and I'd
still
defeat you.”

“I don't doubt it,” said Delano with a shrug. “But I don't measure power the same way you do. I don't care if I have brute strength – I'm not an animal like you. I'm a creature of mental power, of prowess. I've used my wits to amass an army large enough to do my bidding – what does it matter if you could strike me if you wished. You won't be able to do anything against me, not as long as my soldiers take good care of you.” He turned to me. “So, you don't wish to talk about the Wolfstone,” he said. “A pity. You could do very well for yourself by telling me what you know. A good bed. Lean sheets. Water that has not passed through the castle sewers. Food that has been properly cooked. A night without a beating. Who knows, Logan, if you are useful to me I might even let you live? Think about it, my rash and foolish friend – do you
really
want to spend another night sleeping on the floor, your bruises festering and oozing pus in the fetid water that drains from the walls.”

I did not betray my pain. He knew as well as I did that the very thought of that dungeon filled me with nausea and terror. But I wasn't going to let him get away with trying to bribe me. Whatever I knew about the Wolfstone, I knew because the magic of Feyland had given me those visions. And that meant Feyland wanted me to get that stone back – for the Wolves.

Not for the pixies.

“Very well, then,” Delano waved his hand. “I suppose we'll have to change the subject. Talk about something else. Well, let me tell you what I want to talk about. Let's talk some more about Breena.”

“She's a million times too good for the likes of you! You ugly little...”

Delano turned white, and for the first time his arrogant smirk seemed to express true anger. “Insolent fool,” he snapped. “If I wanted to go across the Crystal River and seduce some stupid, simpering little mortal girl, I could do it in a heartbeat. I still have the power of glamour, you know – I don't care about stupid mortal ideas like romance and chocolate and flowers or whatever else you hybrids do when you want to pretend you belong in the mortal world. I want Breena Malloy for one thing and one thing only. The power that her crown would bring me. Those filthy Fey have stolen my territory – and I want it back.”

“She'd never marry you,” I cried. “Not if you were the last living thing on earth.”

“You think I care about love?” Delano was getting defensive, now, and I couldn't help but notice that a blush was involuntarily rising to his yellow cheeks. “You think I care about that? No, I care about her power, nothing more! As a mere child she was able to repel a kelpie from her crib, did you know that? A mere babe! With power like that, she could mother the most powerful creature in all of Feyland: a pixie with the powers of a Fey, heir to both my throne and hers. And then at last pixies will be allowed into the streets and cities from which our enemies have barred us – the streets and cities
rightfully
ours.”

“You're lying,” I said. “I can see it in your eyes. You care about power, sure, but you want her for her. Maybe you didn't at first. But you've met her now. You've gotten attached. You've seen how beautiful she is. How special. How strong. How brave. How proud. You know it all now. And maybe you've started to fall for her. But she'll never love you back.”