Mate Bond
Page 76

“I don’t know,” Brigid said. “I started to explain that the runes called to me.” She gestured to the sword, her hands tied with a thin piece of clean leather—Bowman didn’t want to know why Cristian had been carrying tethers around with him.
The sword in Pierce’s hands was quiet now, simply the Sword of the Guardian as it always was.
“She might be telling the truth,” Pierce said, sheathing the sword and slinging it on his back. “I’ve carried this thing around for thirty years, and I still don’t understand all it can do.”
“She speaks the truth,” Cristian said. “I can scent lies, and she has not made any so far.”
“Then where is Kenzie?” Bowman demanded.
“I do not know,” Brigid answered, unhappy. “Why not use the sword and try to part the mists again to find her?”
“That might not work,” a new voice said.
Bowman swung around to see two men striding toward them. He recognized both, but Cristian and Pierce came alert, and Jamie and Cade stepped behind the newcomers, blocking their way out of the clearing.
The speaker was a tall man with a wiry runner’s build, black hair, and eyes like pits of night. Brigid stiffened as she saw him, her nostrils flaring. She took a step closer to Cristian.
The other man was a Shifter. He was big, almost as big as Cade, but he was all Lupine. He had flame tatts down his muscular arms, buzzed black hair, and hard gray eyes that looked upon the world and dared anyone in it to mess with him.
“She is right that the sword called to a Fae,” the dark-eyed man continued. “It knew danger, and it sought one who could wield it against a powerful, magical enemy. It might not be able to go beyond the mists again now that she is here, not there.”
The Lupine, Graham McNeil, growled. “He’s been spouting shit like that all the way across the country. Just my luck I get holed up with a crazy Fae in the cargo hold of a tiny plane. I hate airplanes.”
“I am dokk alfar,” the dark-eyed man corrected him. “Not Fae.”
“Yeah, whatever,” Graham said, making a dismissive shrug.
“I’m Stuart Reid,” the dark-eyed man said to the others. “Eric told us you had a problem with the worlds in the mists.”
“Whatever the hell that means,” Graham rumbled.
Bowman was as impatient as Graham. “My problem is that some asshole has taken my mate and cub and hidden them behind these mists. What I want you for is to help me get them out.”
“And kick some evil human ass,” Graham said. He grinned, his harsh face softening. “That’s where I come in. I get the fun part.”
The Fae woman said, “If you let me loose, I can help in the, as you say, ass kicking. Find me a weapon to wield, and I am as good a warrior as any of you. This Turner has stolen my life and my work, has taken me from my children and my sisters. He must die.”
Graham gave her a look of grudging respect. “I like her. Huh. Never thought I’d say that about a Fae.”
Cristian studied Brigid as though examining a new species of insect. “She is intriguing. If I decide we can trust her, she might be useful.”
Brigid shot him a withering glance. “How kind. I would say, as my daughter does, bite me, but I fear that you, wolf, actually would.”
“Hmm,” Cristian said seriously. “You never know what I might do.”
Brigid turned a wary eye on Reid. “This one, he is . . .” She spoke a word that sounded like a lawn mower crushing metal.
“She means I’m an iron master,” Reid said. He raised his hand, showing them a straight piece of rebar he’d held by his side. “The dokk alfar have always been able to wield iron, I more than most. And so the hoch alfar fear us.”
“It is not fear,” Brigid returned, though Bowman heard the lie. “It is disgust.”
“I see the Fae are at each other’s throats again,” Gil said, stepping out of Turner’s house. “Typical . . . Ah . . . Whoops.”
He started to hurriedly retreat, but Graham leapt forward and grabbed him by the back of his neck, hauling him off the steps and around to face them.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Graham shouted into his face. “Misty’s been worried sick about you. She’s driving me effing crazy.”
Bowman abandoned Cristian and the Fae woman to move to Graham in sudden swiftness. “You know Gil?”
Graham stared at Bowman. “Gil?” Graham’s face flushed with anger, and he shook Gil by the back of the neck. “His name’s not Gil. It’s Ben. Ben Williams. He’s some kind of species—a gnome, he calls it—that got kicked out of Faerie a thousand years ago. He’s magical, he’s a total shithead, and Misty says he helped her save my life.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Bowman studied Gil in great distrust. He’d known something was off about him, even before Kenzie’s discovery that he wasn’t really Gil Ramirez, police officer.
“Your name’s not Ben either, is it?” Bowman asked, amazed at how steady his voice was. “Who are you?”
Gil abruptly stood taller and shook Graham’s hold off with ease. His appearance didn’t change, but his nice-guy helpfulness faded, and something old looked out of his eyes. He had a strength that had nothing to do with physical prowess; it was the strength of a boulder that had endured centuries of wind and rain.
“What happened to your prison tatts?” Graham growled at him. “You look the same, but not exactly the same.”
“As I explained to Misty,” Gil said in a firm voice, “I have learned to alter my appearance and blend in with the human world over the centuries. In Las Vegas, I was an ex-con. Here, I am a police officer when I need to be, or the beloved hired hand who became the bed-and-breakfast ghost in Fayboro.”
“And what is a gnome?” Cristian asked. “I have not heard of this outside human children’s stories.”
“It is what my race called itself,” Gil answered. “We’ve also been called goblins. The Fae killed and banished us long ago, exiling us to this world, where most of us didn’t survive. We hate Fae as much as Shifters do.” His gaze went to Brigid. “I see that you caught one. What does she know?”
Bowman leaned to him, barely containing his rage. “Don’t fuck with me, whoever you are. Kenzie was following you when she vanished, and you were with Ryan when he went. If any of this is your fault, you’re dead. I don’t care if you’re a thousand years old; you won’t live to see a thousand and one.”