Page 14

Wynter

A s I roll over on the mattress, a thin ray of moonlight slants through the basement window, glinting off a stack of dusty newspapers in an open trunk set beneath a workbench.

Two days ago, Summer discovered me naked—glamour failing spectacularly—in her kitchen, and yesterday, I crawled out that window and followed her to work, watching from the trees to keep her safe.

Can’t shake the feeling that whoever, or whatever, shot me with that fucking arrow might still be out there, watching her. Waiting for the right time to strike and steal her away again.

I’m so pissed off she made me vow not to follow her today or sleep outside her bedroom last night or tonight. But I didn’t promise a damn thing about the next few days.

Unfortunately, it isn’t just fear that lingers.

I can’t stop thinking about the sweat shining on her collarbone yesterday while she worked, the way her fingers dug into the dirt like she loved the earth as deeply as I do.

The stubborn set of her jaw when she ordered me to help.

And the way she watched me at the burger place when she thought I wasn’t looking.

Heat coils low in my gut, flooding my blood with need. My cock hardens, heavy and aching, but I refuse to give in to it like a creepy sex-offender lurking in a basement.

Eager for a distraction from the weird mix of impending doom and inconvenient lust, I shift Ollie, the bald, judgmental feline, off my chest. He makes the sound of a dying demon being wrung by its neck as I crawl to the suitcase and drag out a pile of papers, coughing as dust fills my lungs.

Earth is my magical element, so there’s always something sacred about getting dirty, but the mortal particles have an irritating quality. Dry and acrid, they cling to the inside of my nose and make me sneeze till my eyes water.

Ollie jumps onto the stack of papers and butts his head against my shoulder. “Come here, bewhiskered, bald imp,” I say, hugging him to my chest before setting him on the floor. I’ve grown fond of the strange creature and his near-constant, grumbling presence.

A death rattle echoes from the doorway. I whip my head around and find the oddly named Mr. Smiles glowering at me. He’s the least joyful creature I’ve ever come across, and that includes the howling tomb-maggots of the Unseelie Mourning Mound back home.

“Feel free to leave if you’re so displeased with me,” I advise, but he only glares harder. I summon the wolf within, rumbling a low growl, and the foolish orange cat turns its back on me. An unwise move. If I were hungry, he’d make a very tasty appetizer.

I flip through a few newspapers near the top, then extract one from the bottom of the stack.

The cover photo on a story dated eight years ago stops me dead.

It’s a dark image of Summer’s house, looking in slightly better condition than now.

The porch isn’t sagging, and the roof has a lot more tiles.

The headline says: A HOUSE CURSED. A NAME TAINTED. The Bloodstained Legacy of Gravenshade Hall.

Celebrated Irish scholar Sorcha Brady, one-time heiress to the powerful Astellia banking dynasty, and her disgraced husband, former stock market speculator, Daniel Brady, were found dead in their Lake Grenlynn home Tuesday night, victims of what police are calling a brutal knife attack.

Their seventeen-year-old daughter, Grían Brady, known as Summer to her family and school community, disappeared before she could be taken into police custody.

A neighbor witnessed the girl running toward the woods behind the property, advising police and reporters she was dressed in sleepwear and covered in blood .

I fold the paper shut, the edges trembling between my fingers.

Grían. Summer’s true name is Grían.

And she may or may not have killed her parents.

If she did kill them, such an act would have released enormous clouds of dark energy that resonated through the realms, an irresistible summons to the riders of the Wild Hunt. To them, violence is a call to action they cannot ignore.

No wonder she ended up a captive of the Shade Court. I’d wager anything she was taken by them on the night her parents died.

Am I protecting a murderer? Have I been obsessed with a girl capable of brutally ending the lives of her own parents ?

I put the newspapers back in the trunk, plumes of dust choking me, and drag it fully open. A cracked leather-bound book lies tucked into the side, and my fingers hover over it, hesitating. Whatever this is, it’s been buried. Forgotten. Maybe even hidden by Summer herself.

What’s in it? Somehow I know it involves her. I can feel it emanating from the book. Maybe she wouldn’t want me to look. Maybe it's too personal , as humans are fond of saying. I pick it up anyway.

It’s lighter than I expect, the cover warped and flaking at the edges. I settle back against the cold stone wall, drawing my knees up to brace it, and flick it open too forcefully.

The spine cracks, and there she is—Summer as a child, grinning, all teeth and wild, dark hair. Mud up her arms. Bare feet in the grass. Green eyes brighter than any glamour I could ever conjure. It’s a photo album, like the ones my mom showed me when we visited my human great aunt in Blackbrook.

Heart pounding, I flick through page after page of images of her.

This is fucking gold.

I drag my thumb over one picture, smearing decades of dust off her face. She’s laughing so hard her eyes squint shut. Someone—her mother or father?—has written in the margins in careful cursive letters. This one says: Summer, age six. Wouldn’t hold still. Ruined her flower-girl dress .

She was so small. So fragile.

My chest tightens, and something hot and wet builds behind my eyes, burning. Not tears. Gods, no. I haven’t cried since… well, since Merri sent Summer back to the human realm. Sent my mate away without telling me first .

I turn another page, and another, and another, and the years slide by. Age seven, eight. A gap where a photo’s been torn out. Nine. Ten. She’s changing, growing thinner and warier. That same spark is in her eyes, but by fourteen her smile is guarded. Closed.

And then…

My fingers freeze.

What’s this one?

The background is the porch of Gravenshade, and Summer’s leaning over the rail.

She’s wearing a black T-shirt with a man’s scowling face on it, dark pants, and boots.

Her hair is tangled, eyes smudged with black kohl—eyeliner, I think Summer called it.

But the way she’s standing… chin lifted with one hand on her hip, it’s like she’s daring the person taking the picture to fuck with her. To say no to something important.

She looks younger than she is now, about the age the Hunt took her.

I close my eyes and exhale slowly, a chill seeping through the stone wall and into my chest. The photo album trembles a little in my grip.

Fucking Landolin.

My throat tightens.

I flip back through the pages, my thumb brushing over her chubby child’s face, paint-smeared and shining with pride. If only —

“Hey, Wyn.” Summer appears at the bottom of the stairs, jolting me from my chaotic thoughts.

I snap the album closed and shove it behind me.

“What were you reading?” she asks .

I swallow hard. “Nothing.” Technically, I wasn’t reading… just spying on her entire childhood.

“Want to come out for a drink with me and Zylah?” she asks.

A drink ? What does she mean by that? I shake my head and point at the faucet in the sink. “Thanks, but I have water down here.”

“No, silly. I meant come out to a bar… for wine and conversation. A local place. Zylah’s already there with her brother. We can walk over and meet them.”

A bar must be a human gathering place, similar to a tavern in Faery. Or a diner, like Max’s Vinyl City where Mom worked when she lived in the Earth Realm.

I get up from the basement floor, wiping my palms on the worn denim pants. Turns out jeans are a hell of a lot more comfortable than the leathers I wear at court, even if they don’t turn as many heads.

“Oh, yeah, sure,” I say. “A drink sounds good.”

Her smile is sunshine, chasing away the bittersweet ache of the tragic story in the newspaper and the vulnerable child in the photographs. This girl is incapable of hurting a gnat, let alone ending anyone’s life.

As we walk through the lamp-lit streets, memories of Summer’s time as a thrall in the Emerald Court creep in. How she spun and danced, joy radiating in blinding waves of energy. How I could never take my eyes off her and only ever wanted to be close.

That hasn’t changed.

Not when she’s walking beside me now in a tight black singlet and a skirt short enough to make my teeth grind. She’s radiant. And gods help me, I want to wrap my arms around her waist and keep every other soul in this realm from touching her. From looking at her.

I want to worship every inch of her and never let her go. She’s not mine yet, but the wolf inside me howls to get closer and drink in her spicy scent. Is that so wrong?

I know I shouldn’t scare her, but curiosity opens my mouth before I can stop myself. “You really don’t remember Faery? Or me?”

Her narrowed eyes cut to mine. “For a second, I thought you said Faery . Like in the children’s books. Celtic mythology. My mother wrote about the folklore of the British Isles and lectured on the subject. But maybe you already know that.”

I stare at her for too long and trip over a crack in the sidewalk.

“What? No. I might have said Fairly… a tiny island off the North Atlantic Coast. I thought I heard you tell Zylah about a night you “partied too hard” there and couldn’t remember what happened.

” I wince, the pain of the almost-lies lashing through my muscles.

As a halfling, unlike most fae, lies usually roll off my tongue without too much effort. But that seems to be reversed in this realm, and I’ve gained an understanding of how difficult it is for full-blooded fae of my court to twist the truth to hide their intentions and ill deeds.

“Nope. As far as I’m aware, I’ve never been to this Fairly place you mention.” She gives me a smirking glance that says she’s not buying it. “Don’t ever let Zylah hear you talking about shifters and faeries. She’s got enough weirdness on her plate, managing her roadkill menagerie.”

On her plate? What does that even mean? Humans and their strange food metaphors .

“I think I’ve convinced her to let you stay at Gravenshade for a while longer. If tonight goes well, she’ll let you sleep in an actual bedroom instead of on the basement floor.”

“Really?” I grin at her.

Summer told her housemate that Hank the wolf escaped and I’m a family friend from interstate, who’s homeless due to mental illness, which I think means to be in possession of a fractured mind.

I grin, flashing my much-admired-in-the-Emerald-Court dimples. “Then I’ll be on my best behavior tonight. Cross my cursed, black heart.”

No idea why Zylah is concerned about me . I’m not the one who keeps a growing collection of preserved dead creatures and personally stuffs them with wood shavings. Still, she obviously cares deeply for Summer, and that makes her an ally, whether I like it or not.

Summer gives me a wobbly smile, and I can’t tell if she is growing more comfortable around me or less.

In this realm, my erratic mind-reading skill seems to have vanished. Such a tragedy. I’d love nothing more than to know what Summer really thinks of me.

“Wyn, if you slip up and accidentally mention the naked-kitchen incident, just say it happened because you’d gone off your meds,” she instructs. “And you’re back on them now. Okay?”

“Sure. Are meds a type of potion?” I ask.

She cuts me another frowning glare. “Um, yeah. Kind of. What country are you from again?”