The next morning I awoke with a desperate fever to get to Sawyer. I hadn’t heard from him no matter how many times I’d reached out, and because we were in the middle of Dark Fey Territory, we had no access to a radio or anything for me to know what was going on in Light Fey City, where the jail was. Marmal had crept out of the tent early this morning for her daily shift at Trip’s barn. Sage and I would go in a few minutes and steal a cart and buggy to tie our horses up to. Then we’d start a fire at the back door to create the distraction she’d need to work her untold magic and open those cages. It was a solid plan, assuming nothing went wrong.
‘How’s the pack?’ I did a quick check in with Rab. He’d been keeping me abreast with little comments here and there through our connection, but it didn’t work in Troll Village, so I could only talk to him here in the fey lands.
‘Good. Had an issue with the water tank. It’s cracked, but we got it fixed and morale is high. Everyone loves being outdoors.’
That was a huge relief. I wasn’t sure what I would do if he told me there was a big problem and I had to come home.
‘How’s my mom doing with Creek?’ I tried not to think about my baby, but it was hard, I missed him so damn much it hurt. I felt emotional whenever I thought about him too much, so I just tried to push him from my mind.
‘Great, Willow is helping her, and Creek and Daisy have become best friends.’
I smiled, a tear slipping down my cheek at that.
‘Hunting going okay?’ I switched gears. Twenty thousand people was a lot to feed. We’d brought what dwindling provisions they had from the bunker, but it wouldn’t last long. My magic seemed to have healed the land, but I wasn’t sure how that translated into actual food to feed that many people.
‘We are already smoking elk meat in excess,’ he replied. ‘The blueberry fields are ripe with fruit.’
Another relief.
‘Astra? Is she okay?’
‘Alpha, everything is fine here. Astra is well and walking among the people again. Don’t worry. I’ll contact you if we have a problem. You just focus on bringing your mate back.’
I sighed in relief again. ‘You’re the best. Thank you.’
After that, I met up with Sage and helped her break down the tent. A tent was a luxury compared to what we’d gone through in the Dark Woods. Water treatment tablets, freeze dried food, all the stuff she’d packed was way more than we needed out there.
“Thinking about our time in the woods?” she asked as she shoved the tent into the saddlebag on the horse.
I nodded. “Do you miss it?”
She chuckled. “I do. Is that weird? I mean the woods were constantly trying to kill me, and before I met up with you I was starving half the time, and scared, but then … there was a peace there, ya know? Our little cabin by the creek.”
I bobbed my head. “I know.”
“But let’s not ever go back there.” Sage scrunched her face and I laughed.
A pang of sadness struck through my chest at that: never see the cabin where I birthed Creek again? I guess not, huh? Why would I ever go back there?
“But we could build you and Sawyer a little cabin on the creek in Paladin Village,” Sage offered, probably noticing my sadness.
I beamed. I hadn’t really gotten to explore Paladin Village as much as I’d liked to. I knew there was a creek and so much farmland to explore. I was alpha of a place I hadn’t really spent much time in.
“I’d like that,” I told her, my bottom lip trembling as I suddenly became emotional.
“Hey.” Sage gripped my shoulders. “We’re going to get Sawyer back. I promise.”
I nodded, wiping my cheek. Now that I’d envisioned a house on the creek with Sawyer and our son, I didn’t want to give that future up.
“Now, let’s go steal a horse buggy,” I said, and we both burst into laughter.
Sage grinned. “So many things I never thought we would casually say.”
With our mood lightened, we walked our horses over to the thick trees behind the barn and tied them up. Then we hiked up to the back door and around the side to a large storage shed that Marmal had told us held the wagons.
“Time to walk through a wall,” I told Sage as we ducked behind the storage shed. I could hear two men talking at the front, so I was going to send my wolf in first.
I pulled off my cuffs for two seconds and my wolf jumped out of my body and through the wall like it was no big deal, then I slipped the cuffs back on quickly. Shifting my awareness to hers, I was suddenly looking at a giant storehouse of animal saddles, bridles, cages, and carts and wagons of varying size. This was exactly what we needed! The giant front double doors were wide open, but two men were standing there talking loudly and clearly hadn’t smelled or heard my wolf.
The two men were very large. We were going to need a small distraction to lure them away, not one that would tip them off that we were about to ambush the place but enough to make them run off into the woods for a few minutes so I could get the wagon out.
I wished I could mentally talk to Sage in human form. It was annoying to have to whisper as a human and try not to be heard.
“Get ready to run with the wagon,” I nearly mouthed, trying to speak as low as possible to her as she stood beside me. She nodded and I blinked back to my wolf’s awareness.
She already knew the plan, since we shared the same mind.
‘Be safe,’ I told her.
‘I’m faster than them,’ she replied.
My wolf totally had an ego. Or I did, I guess. Great.
Without wasting another second, my wolf solidified and slammed into a nearby cage to make it rattle. Both men stopped talking and spun, just as she darted out of the barn between their legs.
“Oy! A wolf got loose from the barn!” one of the men said and took off running after her.
The second man stayed where he was, watching the scene unfold. My wolf pounded the ground as fast as she could, and it was clear the one dude wasn’t going to be able to catch up with her.
Come on, go help your buddy, I thought.
“That damn troll woman is useless!” the second man growled, slamming the double doors of the shed shut and taking off into the woods.
“Let’s go!” I whisper-screamed to Sage, and pulled my attention fully to my human form. We burst around the front of the storage shed and yanked the doors back, running inside. We needed something big, big enough to carry Pearl and us and not break our horses’ backs.
“That one!” Sage hissed, and we ran over to a large sturdy wooden carriage. It was tented with some type of lightweight material that would conceal us.
Perfect.
It had four giant wheels, and then two long poles to connect to the horses’ saddles. I grabbed one stick and Sage grabbed the other and then we heaved it forward.
Holy Mother.
This thing was heavy, but it was our only way through Dark Fey Territory until we could steal a car in Light Fey.
Come on…
Inch by inch, we heaved it forward, stopping to move other junk out the way. We were too slow, I could hear the men’s far-off voices, and knew they might just give up on catching my wolf and come back. Without a second thought, I ripped off the cuffs, shoving them into my cloak pocket, feeling my magic flaring to life under my skin. With a grunt, I yanked the wagon forward and dragged it at super speed out of the storage shed.
“Whoa!” Sage yelled and scrambled to get out of the way as I almost dragged her under it.
“Sorry,” I whisper-screamed, unaware of how much strength and speed I had at the moment. I dragged the cart behind the shed and back down the hill to where our horses were grazing while Sage covered our tracks behind me. Magic pulsed through my body in electric waves and my heart pounded in my chest. I felt like the Hulk on steroids.
When I finally stopped, panting and feeling lightheaded, I slipped on the cuffs quickly and looked at my friend. She was watching me with wide eyes.
“The fuck was that?” She looked at my arms as if she expected them to grow in size.
I laughed nervously. “Magic, I guess.”
Sage just shook her head. “Incredible, your powers are getting stronger.”
Were they? Or was I just starting to discover them all? Since the moment I found out what I was, everyone was trying to suppress my powers or hide them. I wondered if I was able to just be free and use them, what I would be capable of. I probably should have tried in the woods, but I was too busy learning to trust my human side and getting food and looking for the cave to bother with magic.
“Okay, you hook up the horses, I’ll go start the fire and then get ready to scram,” I told my bestie and second-in-command.
She nodded and got to work tying our horses to the wagon. My wolf pulled at my attention and I focused on her, seeing that she’d allowed the men to catch her. She growled as they pulled her into the front doors of the barn with a rope around her neck. The big dude then handed the rope to Marmal, who was bent in front of Pearl’s cage. She had a special key in her hand and was opening the lock. She’d told us last night that on Pearl’s “harvesting” day she was permitted to use the key to take Pearl out and bring her to the back room. She’d worked there a year and they trusted her to do this alone now without an escort. She wasn’t able to open the lock with her magic, as it had some type of protective spell over it that the others did not.
“Keep the damn animals in the cage or I’ll have you fired!” the troll-fey Ithaki snapped at Marmal, handing her the rope-leash that was connected to my wolf.
She took one look at my wolf, eyes widening slightly, and nodded curtly to the man.
Good. My wolf was safe with her, and she’d gotten the key to let Pearl out. Time to light this place up.
Literally.
Scrambling up the hill to the back barn door, I pulled out the lighter and kindling from my pocket that I’d stashed there earlier this morning. Shoving the kindling into a crack in the wooden siding of the barn, I lit it, blowing softly to increase the flame. It caught and slowly flickered up the wall, causing tendrils of smoke to waft up to the sky.
Okay, now to throw some fuel on that fire.
Pulling out the small bottle of fuel Marmal had given me, I stood back and popped off the lid.
Here goes nothing.
I threw the liquid, dousing the bottom half of the flames. For a second I feared they would go out, but then the fire roared to life and engulfed the entire back wall of the barn in seconds. I stumbled backward as the heat became too intense, the crackling and popping growing louder.
Time to scram.
Running to the side of the barn, I pulled my hood up as I heard a commotion inside.
“Fucking fire!” I heard someone yell.
I snapped my attention to my wolf, who was still inside the barn, and was immediately assaulted by the smell of smoke. Marmal was in the corner near Pearl’s unlocked cage, looking at the ceiling like she was in a trance. My wolf was curled protectively around her feet, staring up at her. The scent of hot wires and burning electricity filled the air.
Magic. Troll magic.
Click, click, click, the sound of hundreds of locks opening clattered throughout the space like an orchestra. The fire had fully engulfed the entire back wall, including Trip’s office, and people now abandoned all thoughts of putting it out as they fled for the exit.
“Magic!” someone yelled, and that’s when Marmal stepped over to the door of Pearl’s cage and pulled it wide open.
My wolf tipped her head back and howled, long and deep, and I felt a stirring in the air, as if she’d somehow sent out a signal to the other animals that it was time to fight and be free. The animals had gotten wind of the fact that their cages had been unlocked, and now they butted the cage doors open with their snouts. Marmal’s magic was so powerful, she’d unlocked every single cage. I was in complete awe of her.
A gray plume of smoke filled the barn so quickly I worried they wouldn’t get out in time. Dozens of different animals leapt out into the commotion, all abandoning their cages. Foxes, bears, wolves, otters, eagles, it was insane.
“Come on!” Marmal screamed as she yanked Pearl’s neck. The dragon looked afraid, like she wasn’t sure if they were going to do another experiment on her. “I promise,” Marmal said with a fierce look, peering into Pearl’s eyes. “Never again. You’re free.”
With that, Pearl stood, climbing out of the giant cage and standing to her full height just outside of it.
Holy shifter.
She was huge. Like … definitely not going to fit in the wagon huge. She stood over twenty feet high, her head almost touching the barn roof, and her wings weren’t even outstretched yet. Her gaze darted around the burning barn with paranoia, and then suddenly she swooped down, grabbing the back of Marmal’s shirt with her teeth and lifted her into the air with a squeal. Flicking her head backward, she tossed Marmal onto her back and then took off for the open doors, running on her talons.
Holy shitballs.
‘Get out of there,’ I told my wolf. Pearl clearly had an instinct to protect Marmal, but not my wolf, whom she didn’t know from any other animal there.
My wolf ran for the entrance, where I was waiting as people and animals passed me in a panic. She darted through the terrified animals like she was stuck in a maze, when suddenly a sharp pain shot up her back as someone grasped her by the skin and lifted. The second Trip pulled my wolf to his face and sniffed her, my human-self tried to rush forward and help her, but there were so many people blocking the entrance in their urgency to escape.
“You look familiar,” he growled to my wolf, walking quickly toward the exit as his barn burned behind him and the freed animals ran for their lives.
Switching back to my human perspective, I looked over my shoulder to try to locate Sage or Marmal, and gasped when I saw a shiny blur of white take off into the sky above me.
Pearl had gotten out, and now she flew, with Marmal on her back!
“Follow them!” I yelled down the embankment at Sage, who was riding as fast as she could on our horse and buggy to get up to the main road. I wasn’t even sure she heard me, but I couldn’t waste any more time or Trip was going to hurt my wolf. Pushing through the crowd, I finally broke into the smoky barn and stopped a few feet inside just as Trip ran for the exit.
Trip took one look at me and stopped dead. He stood in the doorway of the smoking barn and wrapped his fingers tightly around my wolf’s throat until she couldn’t breathe.
“It’s you,” he growled.
Motherfucker.
Without another thought, I yanked my cuffs off and threw my hands outward. An unseen force slammed into him, flinging him backward into the burning barn. My wolf went down with him and I surged forward, past the panicked people and animals. My wolf went spectral and wriggled free of Trip’s grasp as he attempted to stand up, and then she bolted toward me.
‘Run!’ she said.
I didn’t need to be told twice. Pivoting where I stood, I kept my cuffs in my hands and took off at vampire speed with my wolf hot on my heels. I blasted past the scared animals and screaming fey, troll and Ithaki, and caught up with Sage in no time. With a giant leap, my wolf sucked back into my body and I snapped the cuffs on.
“I almost shot you!” Sage grumbled as I appeared quickly at her side. Reaching out, she extended her arm and then pulled me up onto the moving horse carriage.
“Where the hell is Marmal? Did she get away?” Sage peered behind us at the smoking barn that was now in the distance. So she hadn’t heard my order to follow them.
I grinned and pointed up to the sky.
Sage looked upward at the shiny white dragon with a tiny brown dot on its back and her mouth popped open. “So … it can fly…” she said.
I grinned. “Yep.”
Jumping over to my horse, I took the reins and we urged them to go faster. The ride was rough, the carriage bulky, and Trip was no doubt not going to stop looking for us. I chewed on my lip. “If Pearl can carry Marmal all the way to Magic City Prison, we don’t need the carriage,” I told Sage.
She nodded. “I agree. Cut it loose. We’ll go faster without it.”
Without another word, I went to work cutting the ropes that tied the carriage to the horses’ saddles. We had to slow them so that they didn’t get hurt, but I made quick work of it.
“Ready?” I asked.
Sage gripped her horse’s reins tightly and I hacked the last rope loose on either side, seconds apart. It swayed left, since I cut that rope first, and then right, before finally crashing to the ground. Our mares picked up speed then, and I almost fell off with the sudden haste. Clinging to my mare with my thighs, we burst forward with double the speed and set off for Light Fey City.
‘Sawyer, I’m almost there. Are you still okay? You’re not answering me.’ I knew it was probably pointless, but I had to try.
I was beyond relieved when he answered. ‘Sorry, love. I got thrown in solitary for the day.’
My stomach turned to knots at that. ‘Why? What happened?’
‘Got in a fight. Someone jumped my roommate. Had to help him out.’
I’m one day away from breaking my felon hubby out of jail and he’s getting into fights! ‘Well, I wish you weren’t fighting, but that’s good that you protected Walsh,’ I sent back.
He bristled between our bond and I could feel pain in my shoulder and under my left eye for a moment before he sucked it all back into himself. ‘No, love. My roommate isn’t Walsh. They would never let us room together. It’s Luka … a vampire.’
I froze, clutching the horse between my legs tightly. ‘You went to solitary for a vampire?’
Sawyer sighed inside of my head and I kicked myself for starting a fucking fight when we had such little time to talk.
‘He’s not like the others. He’s saved my ass more times than I can count over the last year. I need you to trust me. He’s family.’
Family! Geeze. A vampire and Sawyer becoming besties? That was … weird. I blew air through my teeth. ‘Okay, I trust you. Is there anything else you can tell me that would help me get you out of there? Like how far is Walsh’s cell from yours? What floor are you on? What’s your schedule?’
‘Walsh is on the same floor as me, eighty, the top one. He’s in cell fifty-seven. I’m in cell sixty. We eat lunch together and work out together every day.’
Relief ran through me at that information. That was something I could work with. ‘They let you work out? When? Where?’ An idea hatched in my mind as I tried to remember what the map of the eightieth floor looked like. Seam said all the cell block floors were laid out the same.
‘For one hour a day. No weights, just running, basketball, and other non-lethal things. Four p.m. sharp, before dinner at five. It’s a training room on the same floor. We don’t leave the top floor. Ever.’
Unless you get thrown in solitary, I wanted to say, but thought better of it.
‘How many people work out together?’ It would be riskier to break into a room with a bigger group, but probably easier than getting both Walsh and Sawyer out of two separate cells.
I could physically feel him getting further away, like a radio signal going out.
‘There are ten guys in my four p.m. workout cohort and ten armed guards.’
Damn. That was a lot of guards for ten men in cuffs that rendered their magic useless.
‘Okay. I’ll try to aim to get you guys out then, so that—’
‘Babe,’ Sawyer interrupted me, and I could feel his agony tighten in my chest through our bond. ‘If anything happened to you while trying to get me out … I could never live with myself. I’m on the top floor. Even if we do get out, how will we get down and across the river and—’
His concerns were valid. I think a year in that place had made him lose hope, but I don’t think he understood that I wasn’t going to stop until he was with me, consequences be damned. How could I look my son in the eye when he was older and tell him I let his father be beheaded?
I couldn’t.
‘Fragile like a bomb, Sawyer, remember?’ I reminded him of his own words and what they had meant to me. Everyone underestimated me, Rab, Arrow, even Sawyer. In fact, I think the only person who didn’t underestimate me was Astra. I was going to show everyone just what I was capable of. I was going to finally go off, like a bomb.
‘Also, I have a flying dragon,’ I added.
His shock ripped through our imprint and filled me up so quickly that I gasped. It felt so good to feel him like that, but with it came a darkness, pain, depression, anger, desperation, love, devotion. So many things he’d been keeping from me.
‘A dra—’
His words cut off mid-sentence and then all of his energy was sucked away from me, leaving me feeling like I had a gaping hole in my chest. I clutched the base of my throat, gasping at the sudden loss of him. Tears slipped from the corner of my eyes and I swallowed down the sobs that wanted to rip free.
“You okay?” Sage yelled over the sounds of thundering hooves.
I wiped my eyes and nodded, tightening my grip on the reins and pushing my conversation with Sawyer from my mind as best I could. “Let’s ride fast and hard until the Light Fey border. Once we get over, they will stop following us.” I looked behind me at the blurs in the distance. Hopefully, Trip didn’t have any other animals that could ride faster than a horse. We had a decent lead, so if he was following we should still outrun them. I’d heard rumors of the dark fey binding animals to them like a shifter would have a wolf. Marmal had confirmed this and more.
Sage pushed her mare harder, then I did the same. My eyes flicked to the sky and spotted the white blur that was Pearl and Marmal. They were tracking us above. We just needed to get to Light Fey City, steal a car, and then make it to the harbor without being spotted.
Easier said than done.
