Page 62

Sav

“W elcome to the rebellion, Love.”

I spun in a circle, taking in a place I thought I’d never see again. “How are we here?”

Creig held up a hand, grinning, and his oversized incisors inched over his bottom lip. “Did you really think I left my people and just fucked off to the human realm?”

“Well…Yeah.”

His smile widened. “I’d never leave them behind.”

“But Shel…and Raine…”

Creig’s smile faltered for a moment before it slid back into place. “If you think I’d abandon my kind over a female, you don’t know me at all.”

My cheeks heated. I did know him. He was the father I needed when mine was lost to his despair.

When he’d left nearly a decade ago, before any of our treaties with the humans, before the courtless fae were forced to live on Earth and all the rules that bound us made us little better than their chattel, I’d assumed he wasn’t coming back.

It seemed that no matter how old I got, Creig was still teaching me lessons.

I rushed forward wrapping my arms around his wide shoulders.

He disentangled himself from me, tipping my chin up. “I missed you little Sav.”

I blinked back tears. I wanted to melt into the memory, into the safety Creig represented—but my thoughts kept circling back to Jack. To Dane. To the bounty.

He stepped back, leaning against a broad tree trunk. “Now, tell me it isn’t true.”

“That I tried to kill the folk?” I asked incredulously.

“That you fell in love with a human.”

“I’m not an idiot,” I snapped. My pulse jumped. I looked away too fast, rubbing my wrist to hide it. Creig’s silence told me he’d heard it anyway.

Creig’s black eyes searched my face, as a braid fell over his nose and he tucked it back. “Love isn’t a bad thing. If you find it with one special enough to deserve it.”

I snorted. “Are those words for you or for me?”

“Don’t deflect.”

My brows dipped low, hating how well he knew me. But I couldn’t help wondering if this speech was him giving voice to the thoughts still plaguing him. Was he still not over his wife of more than a century leaving him? “I’m sorry about Shel.”

“It couldn’t be helped.”

I hadn’t ever heard of orcs having mates before, but I supposed every species deserved their happily ever after, even if it meant someone else’s anguish. “What about Larek and Yolmar?”

“What about us?”

I spun around squealing as Larek scooped me up and hugged me. He set me down and my smile was so wide I thought my cheeks would burst. “You’re here! I can’t believe it. I thought you stayed with your mother.”

“Dad needs us,” Larek shrugged. Besides, I can’t stand Raine and his rules.”

Creig boxed his son’s ear. “Don’t talk that way about your uncle.”

“Uncle, stepdad. Whatever. He sucks.”

“Larek, watch your mouth.”

Larek grumbled something under his breath and bumped my shoulder. “Don’t feel bad for dad. He has no shortage of ladies chasing after him.”

“Oh yeah? Do tell.”

“Hey! Sav!” I searched the forest for the owner of that voice and raced forward meeting Yolmar halfway.

He wrapped me in a tight hug. “Okay…can’t…breathe…”

He set me down, moving to stand beside his twin.

I hadn’t realized how much I missed this trio until they were standing before me. Emotion welled inside me. Once, Sage would have been right here beside us, and Kaspar. Innocent children, wholly unaware of what life would bring.

Larek and Yolmar linked arms, as inseparable as ever as they moved to stand beside their father.

“Kaspar has offered you a reprieve. In exchange for helping me.”

Creig clapped Larek on the shoulder, saying something in their language and both boys disappeared back into the forest. “Sav. There’s a lot you don’t know. I want to help, but Dane is up to more than anyone knows. And I won’t go back to Faerie while so many of our kind are exiled from it.”

He moved deeper into the forest, motioning for me to follow.

I chased after him, climbing over logs and vines. The farther we traveled the more convinced I was that I was still on the path and hadn’t yet returned to reality. If this much of Faerie existed somewhere, was it all still intact? Was there room for everyone?

We crested a small hill, and a massive thatched home spread out, connected by the trees that grew within and around it. It was large enough for five families, if you weren’t a royal. Creig tugged open a door made entirely of vines and stepped inside.

Like most orc things, the outside had been a deception.

If it looked big before, it was a palace inside, with walls stretching up so far I could hardly make out a ceiling far overhead.

Although no windows were visible from the outside, expansive circular port holes lined the walls letting in natural light.

Overhead, pixies buzzed to and fro, dusting the floor in glitter.

As we continued—the open space stretching into the distance—anger stirred in my gut.

“Creig, you have space for anyone forced to live among the humans. Why haven’t you helped them?”

Creig stopped beside a long table covered in maps and parchments. “Come. I’ll show you.”

I stood beside the table scanning the various maps. Some were of the human realm, some of Faerie. My gaze lingered on several scattered smaller maps. They were bordered by nothing and seemed to be bits and pieces of Faerie. Taken from the various courts.

“Are these the missing parts of Faerie? Have you found them all ?”

“Not all.” Creig stabbed a pile with one black nail. “Summer.” He pointed to another. “Winter.” He laid his hand on the largest stack. “Spring.”

“Where’s Autumn?”

“Exactly.”

I searched his face, returning my gaze to the piles of papers spread out over the table and moved to stand over a map of Faerie. In all the courts, Xs were drawn over places where corresponding new maps had been drawn.

“So you’ve found all these places?”

“Either I or the others helping us. But we’ve found nothing that belongs to Autumn.”

I pursed my lips, scanning the map again. “Are all the entrances in New York? Who’s creating them?”

Creig moved around the table to stand beside me. “We still don’t know who’s creating the pockets. Likely the same creature responsible for moving them to begin with. And no. Only Winter is exclusively in New York. Entrance points to Spring span the entire East Coast.”

“What about Summer?”

“Summer’s an interesting one,” a refined voice said from the corner.

I looked up and reached for my dagger. “What’s he doing here?”

Foxglove Hawthorn, the male who’d fed my secrets to my sister, strode across the room, straightening his coat. Magic flared in my veins, begging to be released. I flexed my fingers. If only I had access to it.

“Lady Briar. I aligned my cause to Creig’s more than a decade ago.”

Boiling anger flared to life in my chest and warmth licked up my spine as my gaze narrowed on the traitor claiming allegiance to Creig’s rebellion.

It would be a cold day in hell before I trusted any of my secrets to Foxglove Hawthorn.

My gaze swiveled to Creig. “A decade. Faerie only started shrinking six years ago.”

Creig’s mouth flattened into a thin line. “So they would have you believe.”

My gaze returned to Foxgloves and he extended a hand. “So glad to have you on our side, Lady.”

Rage tingled at the ends of my fingers as my bound flames begged to be released on him; to give him the retribution he deserved for betraying me to my sister.

I slapped it away, storming past him. At the door to the room, I spun, facing Creig.

“If you think he isn’t feeding information to Sage, I can promise you’re mistaken. ”

Perhaps this rebellion was weaker than I thought.