Sav

I tumbled onto rough pavement cursing as I crashed into a dingy brick wall. Piss and some other horrid stench drenched the area and I scrambled back, climbing to my feet. I glanced around the alley behind the Hershey’s store and sighed.

A buzzing had already begun in my ears and all around me intrusive sounds and smells clattered against my skull. I hadn’t missed this place for a second.

The sun hung low in the sky, but even this late in the day, it radiated heat.

I hadn’t expected it to take so long to travel the path.

Every shadow whispered a memory—my sister’s face, my mother’s blood—but I gritted my teeth and pushed forward.

I didn’t flinch. Not this time. I’d been down the path and my past enough times.

My mother was dead, killed by a summer court assassin, my father too, dead from a broken heart when I was still very young.

They were older by fae standards when they had us, choosing to wait until they found their mate before having offspring, but my father should have had at least another few centuries of life.

Ultimately, the call of his mate was too strong, and he had succumbed to it.

My sister wasn’t who I thought she was—reminder after reminder of all the times she’d shown her true colors and all the times I’d given her another chance—had hurtled by at speed.

I had no desire to linger in any of those memories, to watch my own past mistakes play out again.

But when I stumbled over more recent memories, ones I hadn’t examined or accepted yet, my mind tried desperately to pull me off the path.

I might have ended up back in Faerie beneath the moon, curled into the side of Jack’s warmth if I lingered too long, but I had reminded myself of the plan.

Save the other fae and return to Faerie to sort out the life I’d been putting off for too long.

The sun inched across the sky as I paced the alley, glancing toward every flicker of movement. He should be here by now. A mangy cat emerged from a trash bin hissing at me and I bared my teeth at it.

I wasn’t staying in this alley to wait any longer. I stepped out onto a bustling sidewalk, packed with humans racing to get to their destinations and pushed open the door to the Hershey’s store.

Blood pounded a rhythm in my head as the overwhelming amount of iron in this store crashed against my senses. Holding my head to relieve some of the pounding, I backed out and into a solid frame. Spinning around, I looked up and up. “Creig!”

Sharp cheekbones, crisscrossed with thin white lines, strained against his grin. “Sav.”

I flung my arms around him, entirely uncaring of the crowd giving us a wide berth. Relief surged through me. Then guilt. I was hugging my old friend while Jack could already be dead on the path.

Releasing him, I stepped back. A pair of massive axes were wedged into his belt and his loose shirt did little to disguise the leather bands strapped to the gills with throwing knives bisecting his back. He was completely unchanged after so many years.

“What are you doing here? I was coming to find you.”

“A little birdie told me where you’d be.”

I glanced around the busy street, half expecting to find that damned fox, but out here we were the only oddities.

“Come on. The gang is waiting for you. Where’s the human?”

“He hasn’t made it through yet.” I bit my lip, swallowing hard.

Creig scratched his chin, winking at a woman who was gawking at us. She gasped and scurried by. “I’ll ask Murz to stay behind and keep an eye out for him. It’s not safe for you on the street.”

I peered into the alley, Anxiety gnawing at me. Stupid. So stupid to let him go first. “Murz will stay here until he arrives?”

Creig nodded and a tall, lean orc with darker than usual skin slid out from the shadows. Creig whispered orders in their native tongue and Murz dipped his chin, grinning at me before he moved into the alley I’d just come out of and disappeared from sight.

A man in an expensive looking suit, snapped a photo and began typing rapidly. Creig snatched the phone from his hand and he shouted in indignation.

“Reporting me to the ISHFA?” Creig flashed sharp teeth at the man and he backed up.

“It’s… It’s illegal to speak in your native tongue,” he stammered.

Creig’s grip on the phone tightened and it cracked under the pressure, screen going dark.

“You can’t… do that.” The man glanced at me, looking for support from a fellow human.

I shrugged. “Looks like he did.” He glanced warily at the massive axes strapped to Creig’s belt and backed up, disappearing into the crowd.

“Maybe I should stay and wait for Jack.”

Creig’s brows bunched over his wide nose. “You can’t. Morgan’s put a price on your head.”

My throat went dry. “What?”

“Come on, Sav. Let’s get off the street. If anyone recognizes you it could be bad.” Not waiting for me, he marched down the packed sidewalk.

I raced after him, catching up as my heart bumped against my ribcage. “What reason could she possibly have for putting a bounty on me?”

Creig strode confidently and people darted to get out of his way.

Envy colored my mood. I wished I had his confidence.

I wished I could wear my species like a badge of honor instead of hiding.

The wild urge to remove my glamour surfaced, but even if I’d wanted to, I didn’t have enough magic available to undo it.

I was stuck like this until my sister unbound me.

“It was reported that you were working with the AFF. That you helped plan the attack on the fae dwellings in Central Park.” He cast a disapproving frown over his shoulder and kept walking.

“Why would I help my sworn enemy? Why would I kill my own kind?”

“The Inter Species Human Fae Alliance council met to discuss just that. Seems someone on their committee has a kid living at the compound. The girl said you did it for love. Love of a human.”

I inhaled a sharp, disbelieving breath and my heart rate ticked up. “How do you know all this?”

“I have spies, Love.”

My stomach dropped. Things were unraveling in both realms and soon I’d have nowhere safe to go.

We stopped outside a row of arched tunnels in red brick.

“This is where you’ve been hiding out?”

Creig winked at me. “They call us animals.” I followed him through the arched entrance to the Central Park Zoo abandoned since the day our realms collided, I’d heard.

We crossed the brick path to the seal pool, empty now, and Creig hopped over plexiglass and dropped into the empty pool.

He disappeared behind a rock and I scrambled after him watching him vanish into a silvery pocket door.

A knot twisted in my stomach. I sent a silent prayer to Mab that Jack would come through the portal soon.

I stepped through the shimmering door and my breath caught. Moss underfoot, vines in bloom, trees I hadn’t seen in six years. This wasn’t just a hideout. This was a stolen piece of Faerie.

“Creig. What’s going on here?”