Page 59

There’s no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing.

~Icelandic saying

L ike hell. Iceland was freaking cold.

Marjani wrapped her hoodie tightly around her as she slipped out of Keflavik Airport. It was the end of July, for Goddess’s sake. She hadn’t expected the bite in the wind.

Her cougar did not approve. Back home in Baltimore, the weather had been sunny and humid, and the cat liked the heat.

Oh, well, she wasn’t here on a pleasure trip.

Beneath the hoodie, her quartz hummed against her heart.

A sheath in her right boot held an iron dagger, and she had an iron switchblade in her front pocket, an iron blade being the most efficient way to kill a fada or a fae.

Her left boot held a steel stiletto, and her fishing knife was in a pocket on the leg of her pants.

To get through TSA, she’d had to stash her blades in her backpack and check it as luggage, but she didn’t go anywhere without them.

Reykjavik was thirty miles away. As she got in the bus line, a burly man smelling of alcohol jostled her. Her cat, edgy at being confined for six hours in a plane full of humans, bristled. Her head whipped around, fangs lengthening, eyes flashing a cougar-blue.

The man squawked and stumbled backward.

She hurriedly reined in the cat. This was ice fae territory. If they found her sniffing around, she was fucked.

Worse, Corban might find her before she found him.

She sent a quick glance around, but all she saw were humans. The nearest ones edged away.

Marjani hunched deeper into the hoodie. She would not lose control of her animal. Too much depended on this trip.

The bus for Reykjavik pulled up. She took a seat at the back next to the emergency exit and scanned each face as the bus filled up. Nobody but humans boarded, their salty, iron scent pressing in on her like on the jet.

The seat beside her remained empty. Word must have been passed that she was an earth fada. No one wanted to sit next to the predator in a woman’s body.

It was almost noon, local time. The weak sun shone on moss-covered black rocks and scrubby tundra grasses. Houses appeared, colorful concrete boxes topped with corrugated steel roofs. To the north, a white-capped mountain range towered over the rapidly approaching city.

The bus let her off near the city center. She leaned against the bright blue wall of a coffee shop for a few minutes, making sure no one had followed her from the airport. When she deemed it safe, she grabbed a coffee and an egg sandwich and ate standing at the counter, one eye on the door.

After that, she walked the streets for several hours, getting the lay of the land and searching for Corban. But if he knew she was in Reykjavik, he wasn’t making himself known.

Sleep dragged on her eyelids. Except for a short nap on the flight from Baltimore, she’d been up for more than twenty-four hours.

She checked into a hostel and curled up on the pristine white sheets, the switchblade beneath her pillow, her right hand on the iron dagger’s smooth ivory handle.

She slept lightly in the way of her cat, one ear cocked for danger. But all was quiet.

When she awoke, it was late afternoon. This time, she donned a wool sweater beneath the hoodie. The iron dagger went into her right boot, the stiletto the left, and the switchblade back into her front pocket.

Five minutes after she left the hostel, she scented silver.

Her breath sucked in, but she forced herself to look casually around.

A couple of tall, glittering ice fae males strode toward her, pointy ears poking through their long, white-blond hair.

She turned and stared into a shop window, heart pounding, watching their reflections as they passed by.

Against her side, she held the switchblade, open and ready.

But the men only gave her a quick, uninterested glance before continuing into a nearby pub. She released her breath and continued walking.

Where in Hades was Corban? His animal was a wolf. If he was in Reykjavik, he should have scented her by now.

Her stomach grumbled. Dinnertime. She fingered the meager amount of krona in her pocket and chose a pub that didn’t look too expensive.

The décor was cozy, with dark wood and warm lighting. A long bar ran the length of the room, and in the back, a small fire was burning in a stone fireplace. A slim, dark-haired waitress greeted Marjani with a cheerful hallò and showed her to a small corner table.

Removing her hoodie, Marjani sat with her back to the wall and surveyed the crowd. It was mostly locals, the Nordic rhythms of Icelandic mixing with English, and everyone dressed casually—jeans, T-shirts, cotton sweaters, even a flannel shirt or two.

The waitress recommended a local ale and something called a lamb boat sandwich.

“Sounds good.” Marjani shut her menu.

She touched her quartz, which also served as a smartphone, through her sweater. She’d turned the phone off when she boarded the jet and never turned it back on.

She should probably call Adric, but she’d left him a note. If she contacted him, they’d just argue. And then he’d order her back to Baltimore, because he thought she was too broken to be out on her own.

She didn’t want to be forced to disobey a direct order from her alpha. Even if he was her brother.

The lamb boat sandwich turned out to be an upscale sub sandwich—a bun stuffed with slices of fried lamb topped with onions, red cabbage and pickles. She ate slowly, sipping the ale between bites.

Her skin prickled. She sipped her ale and glanced around.

A tall, rangy man with shoulder-length blond hair slouched at a nearby table, drinking a beer. He met her eyes, not bothering to hide that he was checking her out.

Her breath snagged.

Holy singing crystals, he was beautiful, with slanted cheekbones and sky-blue eyes framed by dark eyelashes. His straight nose had a small bump on the bridge, a tiny imperfection that only heightened his appeal, and his black ribbed sweater stretched across a hard chest.

His cheek creased in a smile—and fear wrapped icy fingers around her lungs.

She jerked her gaze back to her sandwich, her stomach tight, heart thudding in her ears.

Fuck, she hated this. A couple of years ago, she might have smiled back, seen where this led. But not anymore. No one touched her. She didn’t even let members of the clan get too close.

A shadow fell across the table.

She snarled, her cougar rising to meet the threat. She forced it down. Shifting in the middle of a human pub could be fatal. The fada and humans had treaties about those things. A fada shifting in a pub for no reason would be automatically targeted by the authorities as feral.

She could be shot on sight—or slapped into a cage.

And she’d have to admit Adric was right after all—she was too broken, too close to going feral, to be out on her own.

The tall blond male smiled down at her. Spoke.

Still fighting the cougar, she had to concentrate to make sense of his words.

“I said, mind if I join you?” A surprisingly deep voice, gravel wrapped in silk.

She gave a shake of her head. “Yes.”

He lifted a single dark brow. “No, you don’t mind, or yes, you do?”

“Yeah, I mind. I don’t want company.”

His gaze went to the slight lump her quartz made beneath her sweater. “Your accent is American, which means you’re from one of two clans.”

Fine hairs rose all over her body. He was correct; the only earth fada clans in North America were her own clan in Baltimore and the Navajo clan in Arizona.

But how the hell had he made her as an earth fada so fast?

Her nostrils flared, subtly testing the air. Human—he smelled of salt and iron—but with a trace of silver. The man had fae blood, although it might be so faint he didn’t know it himself. Overlaying it was a pleasant grassy scent, as if he spent a lot of time outdoors.

Her cat liked his smell, but the human part of her didn’t like that hint of fae. Not on top of the fact that he knew a little too much about earth fada.

Easing the switchblade from her pocket, she released the catch.

“You don’t want to use that.” He set his plate and glass on her table and took the chair across from her.

“No?”

“No.” He leaned back in his chair, resting an arm on the back as if she were an old friend instead of a pissed-off shifter with a sharp blade aimed at his privates. “Too messy.”

“How did you know I’m an earth fada?” she asked, soft and dangerous. “Did Corban send you?”

“Who?” His surprise seemed genuine—and besides, her cousin would never ally himself with a human.

She shook her head. “Never mind.”

“Don’t worry.” His voice dropped. “No one else in here noticed—or if they did, they didn’t care. Icelanders are used to magical creatures.”

She narrowed her eyes. “That’s not an answer.”

“What was the question?”

Her breath hissed between her teeth. The man was maddening.

“How,” she repeated, “did you know what I am?”

He grinned, a flash of white against tanned skin. “It’s your walk.”

“My walk ?”

“You didn’t walk in here, you flowed—like a dancer…or a cat. Every earth fada I’ve ever met walks like that.”

She made a mental note to clomp out of the pub like a freaking Clydesdale horse. “And that interests you—why?”

“It doesn’t. I just liked the look of you. If you want me to leave, I will.”

She relaxed fractionally. He was right, she didn’t want to draw attention. And his scent had the pureness of truth. He didn’t mean her harm.

In fact, all she scented was…interest, of the sexual kind. Was he flirting with her?

She scowled, sick of being on edge all the time. Hating that she couldn’t have a simple conversation with a stranger without going into fight-or-flight mode.

Yeah, she was jumpy because of Corban, but this wasn’t about her cousin.

This was about her.

The too-pretty male arched a brow. “Well? Would you like some company?”

She reminded herself that she wanted to blend in and slid the blade back into her pocket. “Sure. Why not?”

He smiled and extended his hand. “Fane.”

“Jani.” Shaking his hand, she gave him part of her name.

“Jani,” he repeated it in that gravelly voice. “I like it. So what brings you to Iceland?”

“I’ve always wanted to see the Northern Lights.” That was the truth…just not the whole truth.

He sipped his beer. “Not much chance of that in July. The peak time is November to February, although I’ve seen them as early as September first. They’re a sight worth seeing.”

“Maybe I’ll get lucky.”

“Maybe you will.” His mouth curved, and for a second, the air was charged with something that made her blink—and then hunch her shoulders. He saw that and continued, “So you’re heading north? You have to rent a 4x4 to get up there, though—or take a flight.”

“Mm.” She ate another bite of her sandwich.

The ice fae court was in the north, near the wild Strandir coast, but Corban had told Adric to meet him here in Reykjavik.

But was Corban actually in the city? What if he was at the ice fae court—or even holed up somewhere else in the country? Iceland was an island the size of Virginia.

Blue eyes regarded her, clear as the sky on a cloudless day. “I’m driving north tomorrow. Want a ride?”

She drew a slow breath. He was being too helpful. Her hand went to her switchblade again.

“Look. I don’t know you. If you want to share a table, fine. But why I’m here and how I get around is none of your fucking business.”

“You're right.”

Those clear eyes seemed to see straight into her soul, to understand what she wasn’t saying: Why she was so wary of strangers, even though she was a cougar and a trained soldier.

Why a knot of rage had lodged in her chest, so big and black and tight it threatened to choke her.

What he couldn’t know was why she was in Iceland—and what she planned to do when she found her cousin.