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M arjani’s heart slammed into gear. If they were caught, she didn’t know what they’d do to Fane. But she’d be thrown into one of those gleaming iron cages.

Fuck that. She’d die first.

Her cougar surged to life, trying to take over. Claws pricked her fingertips and she knew her eyes had gone a feral blue.

“How many?” Fane whispered, reminding her that she wasn’t alone. She had him to think about, too. And he knew the court—if she worked with him, they might both get out of here undetected.

Not now , she hissed at her cougar.

It snarled warningly.

Fane jerked, and she realized she’d snarled aloud.

“Jani?” Their eyes met, and she knew he must see the cougar. And then he did something unexpected. Instead of pulling away like any sensible person would, he wrapped an arm around her. “Shh. I won’t let them get you. Now how many?”

She gulped. To her surprise, the cougar subsided, soothed by his scent and calm voice.

Quickly, she sorted the voices and footsteps into separate people—a man and two women. Keeping the switchblade ready in her right hand, she held up her left, showing Fane three fingers.

He nodded and put his finger to his lips. Taking her hand, he made the two of them disappear, and together, they crept toward the door.

Marjani sent a last look at Corban. He panted softly, painfully, head on his paws, eyes half-shut.

Waiting for death.

She gritted her teeth, feeling cheated and angry and deflated, all at the same time. She’d come all this way to kill him, hated him for so long. The man wasn’t just her enemy, he was her brother’s enemy, too.

And he’d proven he would do anything to be alpha, even tear apart their still-healing clan. Just like his father.

She didn’t want to pity Corban. He’d made her and Adric’s teenage years a living hell. And later, when he couldn’t beat Adric in a fair fight for alpha, he’d tried every dirty trick in the book to undermine him. Marjani and Jace had simply been collateral damage.

Corban needed to die. But not like this, weak and maddened from iron poisoning and as mangy as a third-world dog.

The three fae were on the landing below. “The goblins reported activity in the tower.” A man’s voice.

Fane eased the door shut and pulled her into a corner opposite the door, keeping her tight against his body. He’d put himself between her and the fae, but she peered around him as the man reached the top of the stairs.

Her jaw loosened. It was the tall, leather-clad fae with cropped silver hair that she’d followed through the portal. So she’d been right to be uneasy; he must’ve known she was there. But why hadn’t he captured her immediately?

Behind him came two women. One rail-thin with ebony skin and silver hair who Marjani would bet was his sister; the other curvy with a night fae’s black eyes and an ice fae’s blond hair. Both wore short dresses that appeared to have been spun from glitter and cobwebs.

Marjani caught a whiff of the curvy blonde’s scent and recoiled. Night fae smelled of graveyards and dank basements, and this woman’s odor was strong. She had to be the fae lady in Fane’s story.

The silver-haired man shoved the door open and strode inside, followed by the woman who looked like his sister.

“Someone was here,” he snapped at Corban. “Who?”

The wolf responded with a feeble growl.

With a curse, the man reappeared in the doorway. “He can’t tell me anything as a wolf,” he told the curvy blonde. “Can you force him to shift?”

She gave him a level look. “Of course.”

He nodded and turned back to Corban.

Marjani gulped soundlessly. Fear sheeted up her spine. Only a fae who knew the secret of their quartz could force an earth fada to shift.

How many fae had Corban told, anyway?

The curvy blonde glanced around, black eyes narrowed. A dark, questing energy whispered over Marjani’s skin.

She stilled, afraid to even breathe. Beside her, Fane did the same.

Calm. Cool. Emotionless as a chunk of cheese. A slice of bread.

Night fae fed on negative emotion; the blonde must have sensed Marjani’s spike of fear. The only way to hide from a night fae was to remain still—and very, very calm. Another hint of fear, and the woman would be on them.

Marjani’s fingers tightened on the switchblade.

A frown creased the blonde’s unnaturally perfect face. The seconds ticked by.

One. Two. Three.

More tendrils snaked over Marjani’s skin, cold and oily. A scream gathered in her lungs, ready to punch out of her chest.

Four. Five. Six.

“Blaer?” Just when Marjani thought she’d break, the silver-haired man appeared in the doorway. “Is something wrong, love?”

The fae lady shrugged. “I thought I sensed something.” She crossed to him, her diamond-studded high heels clicking on the marble floor.

The door closed. Marjani went limp.

She scrubbed her hands over her skin, trying to brush away the slimy feel of the tendrils.

And then she went stiff. Blaer? She recognized that name.

Last year, Sindre had hired Adric to find a Lady Blaer in northern India and bring her home.

By then, they’d suspected Corban was behind Marjani’s kidnapping, but without proof, Adric couldn’t accuse him.

Corban had too many allies in the clan. So her brother had sent Corban to India to get him as far away from her—and the clan—as possible.

Beside her, Fane drew a slow inhale through his teeth, and then reached for her hand and glided toward the stairs. She kept her switchblade out as they noiselessly descended the three flights.

As soon as they entered the maze, Fane sped up. She closed the switchblade, shoved it into her pocket and loped alongside him. She couldn’t help being impressed. The man moved as swiftly and silently as a shifter.

He didn’t slow down until they were a hundred yards from the dark tower and its shiny cages. He continued at a fast walk, long legs eating up the distance as he slipped between the few fae they encountered. She had to trot to keep up.

The maze twisted and turned in unexpected ways, but he always seemed to know which way to go.

She tuned into her quartz, trying to use the tiny crystals to orient herself, but it was like being on a spinning merry-go-round with the directions continually changing.

If Fane hadn’t been with her, she’d have been lost within a minute.

He didn’t speak until they were safely back inside his room. “That’s the fada who sent you the message?”

“Yeah.” She rubbed her upper arms. “It’s funny. I thought when I caught up to Corban and finally had my revenge, I’d feel happy—triumphant. The bastard was behind the attack on me, and he’s made no secret of the fact that he wants my brother dead.”

Fane touched her cheek. “I’m sorry.”

She fought the urge to lean into his hand. She was so damned tired. It seemed like forever since she’d had a good night’s sleep.

“I thought I’d feel happy. But I just feel hollow.” She sank onto the wood chair and stared at her boots. “Guess I could’ve stayed home in Baltimore. He’s going to be dead in a few days anyway.”

Fane slouched on the easy chair, face a little pale. “Sometimes I’m glad I’m not a pureblood.”

“That blonde with the scent of a night fae—she’s the fae lady in your story?”

“She is. Now you see why I wanted you to leave.”

“I felt her energy reaching for us.” Marjani rubbed her upper arms, recalling the feel of those snake-like tendrils. “Like during the Darktime.”

“The Darktime?”

“My clan—we went through a bad time when I was growing up. A civil war. You must’ve heard about it.”

“Yeah.” Fane’s eyes were sympathetic. “It’s just one more story the purebloods tell about the fada so they can justify treating you as animals.”

She grimaced. “Sometimes they’re not so far off. The bitch of it was that it was started by the clan elders. The ones who should’ve known better.”

“I didn’t know. I’m sorry.”

“Yeah,” she said flatly. “Killing each other off. Going after whole families. And the night fae were behind it—working with the alpha, my uncle Leron.”

“I thought you fada have as little to do with the fae as possible?”

“It’s…complicated. It was an alpha challenge that set off the Darktime battles.

But it turned ugly, and the night fae helped it along—whipping up people’s anger, encouraging revenge killings—so they could feed on the darkness.

And my SOB of an uncle let it happen. Hell, he encouraged it. To him, it was all about power.”

She heard the tremor in her voice and took a deep breath.

Now was not the time for her to dwell on Leron.

The man was feeding the trees in the dark Appalachian forest where she and Adric had buried him—and she had more important things to worry about, like the fact that Corban had apparently shared the secret of the earth fada’s quartz with more fae than they realized.

“Can this Lady B really force Corban to shift?” she asked Fane.

He lifted a shoulder and let it drop. “I don’t know. We’re not exactly friends. But you heard her—she seemed sure of herself, like she’d done it before.”

“Well, right now, he’s too weak to shift. I don’t care how strong she is, you can’t force a shift on a fada that low in energy. If she tries, she’ll kill him.”

And it wouldn’t be an easy death. A fada caught between shifts died in agony, a monster made up of body parts from both the human and the animal.

“I hope you're right. You don’t want him shifting and telling her you’re in the castle.”

Her mouth twisted. “If she doesn’t already know.”

He straightened. “What do you mean?”

“That man with her? He’s how I got through the portal. He was on a motorbike and I followed him.”

“Hell. Why didn’t you tell me that last night?”

“I didn’t think he saw me, but now I’m not so sure.”

“That explains why the goblins were out. That was Jon. He and his twin Krysten are Lady B’s right-hand people.

They’re always with her. We have to assume they know you’re in the castle.

” Fane scraped a hand over his hair. “God’s balls.

I’m not sure if it would be safe for you to leave even tonight. ”

“Then maybe I should stay until tomorrow night?” Despite everything, her heart lurched at the chance to spend another day with Fane. “Unless,” she added, “I’m a danger to you.”

“No. She can’t enter this room without my permission. But—” He shook his head.

“What?”

“She’s not the only problem here. I’m afraid the king will find out you’re in the castle. We can only hide you from him so long.”

“Then I’ll leave tonight like we agreed.”

He blew out a breath. “Let’s think on it—maybe I can come up with another plan. Meanwhile, I’ll get us some breakfast.”

Marjani hesitated, and then nodded. Her stomach was still tight from her encounter with Corban, but when you spend half your life hungry, you learn to eat when you can.

Fane left and she bent forward, elbows on her knees, fingers interlinked.

“Damn you, Corban.” She closed her eyes, but all she saw was his too-thin body and mangy fur.

No, damn it. I fucking refuse to feel sorry for him.

He’d tormented her and Adric when they’d been forced to move into Leron’s den after the death of their parents.

As an adult, he’d supported his father right to the end, even when it became clear that Leron was the worst sort of alpha, tearing the clan apart with his petty feuds and killing any who opposed him.

Marjani’s own parents had been forced to spend years apart, fighting on separate continents as mercenaries to enrich Leron.

At first Marjani had felt bad for Corban. As the eldest, he took the brunt of Leron’s heavy hand. Nothing he did satisfied his dad. But Corban had turned around and beat on his two younger brothers and Adric.

Later, after Adric bested him in the challenge for alpha, Corban had pretended to support him while secretly working against him.

She touched the sharp iron dagger in her boot. It had an ivory handle and a sheath of thick leather to protect her from the iron’s poisonous effects. The iron switchblade worked in a pinch, but the dagger was her weapon of choice against a fada or fae.

She was a killer, an assassin. She could slip into that creepy tower and slice Corban’s throat in under a minute.

You can’t, Jani. You might as well send up a signal announcing there’s a fada running loose inside the castle.

What a fucking irony. She’d come to Iceland to kill Corban, and now that he was almost dead, she couldn’t just leave it be. Because why the hell would she endanger herself for that prick?

Rising to her feet, she paced across the small room.

An earth fada could kill himself with his quartz. You simply directed all the energy into your heart, speeding it up, making it beat harder and harder until it broke. But Corban’s quartz was too weak. Maybe he could’ve killed himself at the beginning, but he’d waited too long.

She’d tried to send him some energy, but without touching him, very little energy had been transferred. She was a soldier, not a healer.

She fisted her hands and brought them to her forehead, breathing hard. She’d promised Fane just to look—and she had.

If she went back later to do more, that wasn’t breaking her promise—was it?

Because if she left without putting her cousin out of his misery, she wasn’t any better than him.