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Maurice

A sher calls me just as I’m heading away from Kieran’s pack house.

“Where are you?” he says when I answer. There’s a tight edge to his voice that I immediately hate.

“London.”

“ Where , Maurice?”

I sigh. I really don’t want a whole conversation about what I’ve been doing, but… “Not far from Kieran’s pack house,” I say. “Still in vampire territory.”

“Get over to Deacon’s pack house,” he snaps. “Now.”

I stare at my phone when he hangs up. The fucking cheek on him, ordering me around like that.

As I look at the screen, I see again the notification I ignored earlier, so I open it up. Fuck Asher. He doesn’t get to order me around.

Missed calls. I have several missed calls from Njáll, all dated last night, when my phone was off.

Why was he calling me?

I try to call him back, but it doesn’t connect.

I shake my head and wander in the direction of Deacon’s pack house. I debate calling Vlad on the way, but if Asher called me, then he’s probably called Vlad already and that’s why I’m being dragged into whatever this is.

Maybe they’ve found Augustine? But that would be Njáll’s problem, surely, and nothing to do with me anymore.

I knock when I arrive, and the young wolf inside immediately ushers me in and through to Deacon’s office.

He, Vasile, and Asher are all inside, and I know straight away that something is very wrong.

Vasile is pacing, his face dark and angry, and Asher looks so tense that I’m worried he might break something.

“What’s going on?” I ask.

Vasile’s head jerks up. It is as though he did not notice me until I spoke. Deacon lets out a heavy sigh.

“Maybe you should sit down, Maurice.”

I ignore both of them and look at Asher. His sigh rivals Deacon’s. “It’s Njáll,” he says. “No one has seen him since last night.”

“What?”

“He met with me and Kieran early in the night,” Deacon says. “Before midnight. We left, and he sent a message to Afsaneh saying he’d be out of the clan house for the rest of the night, and no one has seen him since.”

I feel numb. I can pretend I don’t know why they’re telling me this, but I do. Neither of us was discreet about our feelings, not really, which is probably why the Huntsman removed me from my post in the first place.

“When did he send the message to Afsaneh?” I ask.

Deacon frowns and looks at his phone. “After Kieran and I left. Just after midnight.”

He called me between half past eleven and quarter to midnight, so he’d wanted to talk to me first. And then he went out?

“You told him about the attack. Quinn’s attack.”

Deacon nods.

“Fuck.” I run my hands through my hair. “Fuck!”

Asher gets to his feet. “Maurice, what…”

“He went to fucking investigate, didn’t he?” I growl, and Asher jerks back in surprise. “He realised that a high fae had to be involved in the attack.”

“How would he…?” Asher’s face darkens as he realises.

“Why would he think that?” Vasile asks.

I do not bother to look at Asher for permission. Vasile and Deacon might as well know the truth. “We were attacked a few weeks ago. That’s what set this whole thing off.”

“And you think the same high fae who attacked you helped with the attack on Quinn?” Asher asks.

“I know it,” I reply.

Asher shakes his head. “How are we supposed to find him? If this fae even took him, if he didn’t just wander off on his own.”

“He wouldn’t,” Vasile and I say at the same time. He looks at me in surprise, and I sigh, turning my face up to the ceiling.

Where would he go? If he was investigating the fae at all and not simply looking for one of us, that is.

Spectra’s pub, maybe, except I’d know about that. Spectra would have spotted him, attack or not, and told me.

There’s The Green Man, the pub I first found him in. Or The Goodfellow, where we found Reijo.

Reijo…

Could Njáll have gone looking for him? Except he’s gone, too. Taken by the same fae, at least according to Sparrow.

I pull out my phone and call Vlad. Asher starts to say something, but I shake my head, waving him off.

“What is it, Maurice?” Vlad asks, voice terse when he answers.

“The high fae is making moves,” I say. “Njáll is missing.”

“What does that have to do with the fae? It could be this vampire—”

“The vampire who is clearly being assisted by him? Vlad. I think Njáll went looking for Reijo. Maybe he was looking for us.”

“Maurice…”

“He tried to call me. He tried, but my phone was off.”

“What do you need?”

“A list of anyone Reijo might have associated with, for starters. Someone might be able to lead me in the direction of a clue.” I’m not sure how, but I need to be doing something.

Vlad moves his mouth from the phone, speaking quietly with Grant. “We will send you the list,” Vlad says. “But be careful. Do you need help?”

“No,” I say. “But you might want to keep an eye on the hunters.”

Asher frowns at me, and Deacon and Vasile look equally surprised.

“Why?” Vlad says.

“The fae have tried to capture Njáll twice,” I say. No point worrying about the two gancanagh in The Green Man. I’m pretty sure they were just out for a good time. “He’s new to his role, and there’s a high fae running around while the Otherworld is in turmoil. Alwynn is new to her role, too.”

Vlad makes a sound of understanding. “You think they’ll go after her.”

“I think it’s possible. If this is happening at all.”

“I’ll go and speak to her myself tonight,” Vlad says. “Jeremiah and Paxton should be back in the city tomorrow. Paxton will be better keeping an eye on her for any length of time.”

“Yeah. Thanks, Vlad.”

“Stay safe, Maurice.”

I shove my phone back into my pocket and look at Asher. “You need to stay here.”

“I need to help you search. If you’re right—”

“If I’m right, you need to stay here .”

Deacon makes an affronted sound. “What, can’t we take care of ourselves?”

“Not against the fae,” I say.

Asher sighs. He’ll stay.

Deacon makes to speak again, but Vasile is by his side now, and his hand moves to gently rest against the back of his mate’s neck. “Leave it, lupul meu,” he murmurs. “This is a fight you will not win.”

“Fine,” Deacon says, clearly not happy about it at all. “Should I call the other packs in? Kieran’s…”

“I think they’ll be fine. They’ve got a fae with them now, anyway.”

Deacon jerks in surprise. “What?”

“Who?” Asher asks.

“Spectra. The high fae attacked her bar last night.”

“Fuck.”

That seems to surprise Deacon too, Asher swearing, and I take it as my chance to leave. “I’ll call you if I find anything,” I say to Asher before I slip out of the office.

I don’t like this. I don’t like that something is clearly wrong. Njáll would never abandon the clan like this, no matter how overwhelmed he feels.

I track down almost every fae on Grant’s short list—heading back to The Goodfellow first, which is where Njáll and I met Reijo in the first place.

I don’t recognise the bartender, and when I ask him about the woman who was working the night Njáll and I met Reijo, he won’t tell me where to find her.

After much discussion, it turns out he doesn’t know her address and he only got called in because she was taking the night off last minute.

The sky is beginning to turn pink as I push the front door to the base open and walk inside.

I’m greeted with silence, but the kind of heavy, waiting silence that puts me straight on edge.

I tilt my head and listen. Vlad and Grant are here, both upstairs in their respective rooms. Vlad isn’t asleep yet; he’s moving, pacing.

Magic reaches me and I let out a quiet sigh.

The Huntsman is here. I don’t know why I’m surprised.

He’s waiting in the sitting room, idly turning the pages of a book I know he isn’t reading. He doesn’t look up when I enter, and the sleek fall of his hair hides his face from view.

I don’t speak. I don’t really know what to say, what he wants. He told me to stay away from Njáll, and I have. I had nothing else to be doing tonight. Searching for him should not matter.

I’m on edge, though, from the lack of fruition with my hunt to the Huntsman’s presence, and I fight the urge to curl my hands into fists.

“I gave you orders,” the Huntsman says. He’s still turning pages, his voice deceptively mild.

“I didn’t break them.”

“Not about the crai. I understand the necessity of searching for him if you believe a high fae is involved. I told Vladimir and Asher to maintain their watches.”

Not that Vlad is. Not if he’s upstairs.

“What then?”

“What is the purpose of the Wild Hunt, Maurice?”

“To protect humanity from the wiles of the fae.”

“And where in that does your duty extend to delivering a pair of fae to a wolf pack?”

I gape at him, shock giving way to a sharp slap of anger. “Are you joking?”

His head jerks up and for a split second, he looks just as astonished as I feel at my outburst. He recovers faster, though. “I am not. You should not have helped them.”

“Why not?”

“They do not require it. It is not your duty.”

“I wasn’t doing it out of duty ,” I all but spit, fairly vibrating with anger now, and not at all heeding the warning signs evident in the Huntsman’s posture. “And it doesn’t matter. I wasn’t on a job tonight. I wasn’t helping them as part of the Hunt.”

He stands then, movements too fluid, too fast, and my mouth goes dry in terror as his power expands to fill the room around us. I have forgotten exactly what he is, and this might be the moment I pay for it.

“While ever you carry my blessing, you act on behalf of the Hunt,” he says, prowling closer. “If the fae believe we are here to help them, then they will try to trick us. They will want more and more and more.”

I stand my ground. Fuck this. I don’t want to die—and there’s every chance he will kill me because I’ve never seen him as angry as this—but I’m not going out cowering. Not even before him.