Woodland Fae: The World of Fae, Book 10 Read online

  The queen took a seat on a chair nearby to anxiously wait with them, her foot tapping nervously on the floor. Brett appreciated her vigilance. She could have returned home to let them deal with this on their own. She was a good queen. He knew her father, had he still been king and wasn't dead for his own treachery, would have let Bryan stay here and perish, or get better. The king wouldn’t have returned Bryan to the fae world.

  Then Bryan moaned, and Viviana was on her feet in a flash, moving toward the bed, Brett and Mark trying to speak with him.

  “Bryan, tell us what happened,” Brett said, holding his hand. “Was it Hannah who bit you? Did she turn into a wolf?”

  Bryan stared at him as if he couldn’t understand the question.

  And then, the unthinkable happened. Right before his eyes, Bryan's body blurred and in an instant, he shifted into a snarly, gray wolf.

  AS WOLVES, Simon and his three brothers rushed into the cave to take care of the person who had so gravely wounded his sister, only to see Ena and a fae he didn’t know. Her hair was pale blond, and her eyes blue. She looked like she was a daughter of the moon.

  He was taken in by her appearance for a moment, so were his brothers, but then he snapped out of it when he smelled his sister’s blood, and another wolf’s, on her. He approached her, sniffed her, and realized she wasn’t a wolf shifter. The other wolf that had been here had gotten away.

  He shifted. “Valoran and Aegis, you search for the wolf’s trail. Killington, Ronan, you guard Alton’s treasure.”

  The other two wolves took off and Killington and Ronan stayed put.

  “You are coming with me,” Simon said, seizing the fae’s arm. She couldn’t fae transport out of the cave because of the iron ore, but he knew very well that she could, once he moved her out of the cave. “Tell me what you were doing here.”

  “And how you think you know about me,” Ena said, hurrying after them.

  Simon glanced at the dragon shifter, wondering what that was all about.

  “I was looking for shelter from the rain. I smelled the wolves and hesitated to venture further into the cave, when a brown wolf came out of the dark and attacked me. I hit her with…” She hesitated to say.

  Simon observed her. He figured she hadn’t wanted to reveal the kinds of powers she had. But he was glad to know she hadn’t been in league with the wolf, if the rogue wolf had attacked this woman also.

  “With?” he growled. They needed answers, not half-truths.

  “An electrical charge. I didn’t kill the brown wolf, because I didn’t know if she was just protecting cubs in the cave. I didn't know she had fought with another wolf. When I saw Myla, and how badly she was injured, I knew the wolves had fought. But whose fault was it? What if the two wolves were just having a quarrel?”

  “Goddess’s wounds, you could have killed her! The brown wolf, I mean. Now we have to try and track her down,” Simon said, irritated to high heaven with the unknown fae.

  “I…didn’t…know…that." The fae's face was crimson with anger. "What if Myla was the one at fault? And the other wolf was part of your pack too? And I’d killed her? Then you’d want me dead.”

  Simon snorted. Though he had to agree her reasoning was sound and she had tried to heal his sister. Alton wouldn’t like that the fae knew where his treasure was though. Since she hadn’t been there to steal from the dragon fae, Alton might let her go with a stern warning. Or not. Dragon shifters could be really prickly when it came to anyone knowing where they hid their gold. And what if the story of her trying to get out of the rain was just a ploy? What if she had suspected a dragon's treasure was in the cave? Then she came across the vicious wolf, and the other that had been badly wounded, and everything had changed?

  “How do you know about me?” Ena asked again, her eyes wide.

  “I…have exceptional hearing.”

  Simon looked at the women, expecting one of them to enlighten him, but when neither did, he heard the rain had stopped and moved the woman out of the cave. “What’s your name?”

  “Letta.”

  “And your fae kind? I don’t recognize your aura.” It was a pretty, mystical silver.

  “Woodland fae.”

  “I’ve never heard of them.” Then he paused, his hand still on the woman’s arm. “I’m Simon, and Myla is my sister. Thank you for saving her life.”

  “Where are you from?” Ena asked Letta.

  “From the woodlands, a long way from here. It was time for me to leave.”

  Simon wondered if her magic had anything to do with it. “Because you’re trouble?”

  “Because I’ve come of age. Whoever comes of age has to leave the woodlands.”

  “I’ve never heard of anything that absurd,” Simon said. Most fae kind stayed with their own kind for friendship, family, and safety.

  Letta didn’t enlighten him further.

  Then Alton joined them as a dragon, settling in front of them. He shifted, narrowing his eyes at Letta. “Explain what you were doing in my cave.”

  The woodland fae rolled her eyes. Simon stared at her in disbelief. That was such a human reaction, he wondered if she’d lived among them for a while.

  She explained all over again about what she was doing there.

  Alton frowned at her. “You know you’ll have to die because you know where my treasure is.”

  “I have a job for her,” Ena said, “if she knows anything about what she says she knows.”

  Alton waited for Ena to explain, but she didn’t say anything more. Simon suspected it was something Ena didn’t want to share with anyone right this moment, which made him intensely curious as to what it was about.

  “What will Brett say to that?” Alton didn’t look happy that Ena planned to protect the woodland fae.

  “He will be fine with it.”

  Simon had been surprised when Alton hadn’t won Ena over to be his mate and the human Brett had instead. Though, Brett had turned out to be a dragon shifter also.

  “I hold you personally responsible if the woman steals any of my treasure,” Alton said, sounding like he truly didn’t trust the woodland fae and that, though he was now mated, and still Ena's good friend, he'd make her pay in treasure if Letta stole his.

  “Why are you here?” Simon asked Letta. “I mean, of all the places you could choose to be, why are you in this region?”

  “I met Princess Alicia once. She’s a dragon fae and her intended, a dark fae prince, dropped into my homeland. His cousin Micala also, and his human girlfriend. They seemed nice. I thought I could make a fresh start in the dragon fae territory because I knew Princess Alicia.”

  Ena's jaw dropped. Simon took that to mean Ena knew something about the woodland fae.

  “I wasn’t sure about living in the dark fae territory. I was trying to reach the dragon fae lands, and didn’t realize this was wolf territory,” Letta said.

  “If you’re finished with Letta,” Ena said to Simon and Alton, “I’ll take her home. Then I’ll return and help with the search for the wolf.”

  “Later,” Simon said.

  Ena arched a brow.

  Wolf Mountain territory was governed by the wolf fae. They had a nice arrangement with Alton, concerning protecting his gold, but it was still their territory. Alton couldn’t just take over the cave on wolf lands and store his treasure there without their permission.

  Simon wasn’t about to give up the woodland fae either. Not just yet. She might still be useful as far as her healing powers went. Then he wondered why Ena would even be here. Alton was here, checking on his treasure, yes. Maybe Alton's mate, Kayla, would have come, but not Ena.

  “Fine,” Ena said, not sounding as though it was fine with her one iota. “I’ll take her with me after I’ve finished the hunt for the brown wolf.”

  Simon narrowed his eyes at her. “That’s why you’re here? You were hunting the wolf down?”

  “She bit one of the men on my staff. He’s human and sick with an infection. Brett took him
to the human world to one of their hospitals.”

  “You have to bring him back to our world,” Simon said, alarmed. What a disaster that would be if he turned into a wolf while he was at the human hospital.

  “Didn’t you hear the part where he’s sick and dying?” Ena sounded totally exasperated with him.

  “The wolf fae genetics will help him to heal. Who’s with him?”

  “Brett and my wheelsmith, Jacob, and Bryan's human friend, Mark. I don't understand.”

  “They must return him at once before he turns."

  "Into a wolf?" Ena was staring at Simon like he was crazy.

  "Yes! We’ll deal with him and teach him to be one of us. If he doesn’t learn from us, he could lash out at anyone, your mate, his friend Mark, or Jacob even.”

  “He could turn my mate?" Ena sounded shocked to the core.

  "No, but he could kill him. The wolf bite will only affect humans in that way." He glanced at Letta, and saw the blood on her sleeve, thinking it was from his sister, but he realized it wasn't his sister's or the other wolf's. Not from the scent. Which meant it had to have been Letta's. And her sleeve was torn. He pulled up her sleeve, but her skin showed no indication that she'd been bitten. He was glad for that. Not that the wolf would have turned her, but he just didn't want her to be injured also. Still, why was he smelling her blood?

  "Oh, just great. I have no idea which hospital they ended up at,” Ena said, breaking into his thoughts.

  There was no time to delay. Simon warned her, “I strongly suggest you find him fast.”

  Ena nodded and vanished.

  “Are you sure?” Alton asked Simon.

  “Yeah. If the brown wolf hasn’t been with her kind before to learn how to socialize and be one of us, she could go on a real killing spree.” Simon looked down at Letta. “I’ll speak to the elders of the council and see what they want to do with you.” They were his advisors, but he always made the final decisions for the pack.

  “I don’t have to live here. I thought I was in the dragon fae territory.”

  “You aren't.”

  Alton said, “I’m looking for the rogue wolf. I’ll return to see how Myla is doing later.”

  Simon only hoped Ena would return the human, who’d been turned, to their world before it was a disaster for everyone she cared for, and for the human population too.

  ENA TRANSPORTED BACK to her castle, unsure as to what to do next. She didn’t know where Brett and Jacob had taken Bryan exactly. They were going to a hospital she'd never been to before. She'd never lived in the human's world like some of the others had, though she'd visited it from time to time, mostly to take care of a mission—like now.

  She went to see her brother at the royal castle and realized Brett had recently come here. She followed his faery dust trail to the queen's court. When she arrived there, she saw her brother Halloran and hurried to intercept him. “Do you have any idea where Brett took Bryan?”

  “He took him to a hospital in the human world.”

  “Right, but which one?”

  “I don't know. The queen went with Brett because he needed her to use her insurance to pay for Brett's hospital stay.”

  “Ohmigoddess, no.”

  Halloran frowned at his sister. “What’s wrong, Ena?”

  “Simon, one of the wolves of the pack at Wolf Mountain, said that if the wolf bit Bryan, he could shift and then fight any of them.”

  “God's wounds. Let’s go.” Halloran grabbed Ena’s arm, and they followed Brett and the queen’s fae dust trail to the hospital in the human world.

  The good thing was that most of the human buildings didn’t have iron ore in them, so the fae could go where they wanted to without any trouble. They found the floor where Brett and the others had gone. They finally reached the room where the fae trail led them and heard growling inside.

  As soon as they threw the patient room door open, a gray wolf lunged at Ena. Her heart lurched. All she could think of was protecting her babies.

  Immediately, Brett cast some kind of spell on the wolf and he sank to the floor.

  So did Ena, and she was not the fainting type.

  Halloran started barking orders, even though his queen was hurrying to see to Ena, Brett right behind her. “Jacob, grab Bryan. We transport to Ena and Brett's castle now.”

  Brett gathered Ena in his arms, cursing under his breath. The queen took hold of Mark’s hand so he could go with them. Jacob carried the sleeping wolf, and the whole lot of them vanished from the hospital room.

  Ena imagined the police would be called again to the hospital as soon as the staff saw that their patient had…vanished. The wolf fur on the bed would be just as tough to explain.

  4

  “Did anyone else get bitten?” Halloran asked the gathered fae at Ena and Brett’s castle: the dragon fae queen, Ena, Brett, Jacob, and Mark.

  They had locked a sleeping Bryan, still in his wolf form, in one of the cells in the dungeon where Ena and Brett stored their treasure. But it was the only place where he’d be secure at the castle.

  Brett was sitting on a couch in the common area of his and Ena’s castle, his arm around Ena. She still looked pale, and he wondered if that had all to do with the baby she was carrying. He was certain now that she was. He'd never seen her faint before, and he was sure she wasn't happy that anyone else saw her so indisposed either.

  “No, as soon as he jumped from the bed, we were talking to him, trying to reason with him to reach him. We didn’t know if he understood who we were even,” Brett said. “Did you find the brown wolf?”

  “She tore into one of the wolves who guards Alton’s treasure,” Ena said. “A woodland fae took care of Myla and used some kind of spell on the brown wolf to stop her from attacking her. The wolf ran off. Simon’s brothers and Alton are searching for her. But he said Bryan needs to live with them, to learn how to be one of them. Otherwise, he could be a wild wolf, killing people indiscriminately all over the place.”

  “Like the brown wolf, if it’s Hannah,” Brett said.

  “If she had been left in the human world, she could have created real havoc,” the queen said. “It makes me wonder if we shouldn’t start capturing the fae seers and let them live here until they change, if they change. If not, they’re stuck in our world as humans. Or, we can return them to their world, if the years pass and they don't become one of us.”

  “I’m not taking in any more humans,” Ena said.

  “She can’t,” Ryker said. Ena’s butler sometimes served as her advisor, and he always had Ena’s best interest at heart. “Not when she’s got a little one on the way.”

  Ena scowled at him.

  “It’s true, isn’t it?” Ryker shook his head. “She can’t take in any more humans. Not when they can cause all this trouble.”

  The queen smiled at Ena. “I’m so happy for you, dear. Our first little baby dragon shifter in years.”

  “I haven’t had it confirmed, yet. Ryker is speaking out of turn.”

  “I’ll send my physician to see you at once. If Ena doesn’t have any objection, I think it best if we do what Simon suggests. Turn Bryan over to the wolf pack of Wolf Mountain.”

  Mark looked devastated.

  “He’ll return here, Mark,” Ena said. “He’s family, even if he’s a wolf shifter fae now. And you need help with the gardens.”

  “About that,” the queen said.

  Everyone looked at her, waiting to see what she had to say.

  She shrugged and smiled. “I had a deal with Brett that he’d have Bryan work for me on my gardens, once I paid for his medical expenses to save his life. But if that’s not possible, I’ll have Mark do the work instead. Not all the work. He can plan the gardens, and my people will create them.”

  Mark agreed to it, not that he had any other choice.

  “And for that, I’ll convey the title of Royal Master Gardener on you.”

  Mark smiled.

  “Let me know what happens to the brown wol
f.” Then the queen headed for the castle door and Ryker hurried to open it for her, with all the aplomb of a royal butler, since Brett and Ena were now royals too.

  “How long will the sleeping spell work on Bryan?” Ena asked Brett.

  “A few hours, more or less, depending on his ability to fight it,” Brett said.

  “Do you really think it’s a good idea to leave him with a pack of wolves?” Mark asked. “What if he fights them, and they feel they have no alternative but to kill him?”

  “We pray that it doesn’t happen,” Ena said. “But we can’t have a wild wolf at the castle, putting everyone here at risk. And we can't keep him locked up forever.”

  “My apologies for mentioning your condition in front of the queen,” Ryker said, returning to the common area.

  Ena frowned at him.

  Ryker shrugged, not looking in the least apologetic. “Now the queen is sending her—”

  There was a knock at the door.

  “Physician to learn the truth. Which means Cook will need to prepare special foods for you and the baby.”

  Ena scowled at him, not wanting her household to be in an uproar over the baby, or babies, if Letta was right. “She does not.”

  Ryker hurried to get the door, opened it, and said, “Do come in. The princess awaits you in the common room.”

  “My bedchamber,” Ena corrected him, and Brett took her to their chamber, though she gave him a look like he’d better not even think of coddling her over this. She was a fierce dragon fae shifter, after all.

  BRETT THOUGHT Ena might dismiss him from their chamber when the queen's physician examined her, but she didn’t. He about fainted when he learned they were going to have twins in the spring, not just a baby.

  Ena smiled at Brett, and then frowned. “That doesn’t mean I'm giving up working on missions until the babies arrive. Oh, and, though I don’t know her qualifications, the woodland fae who saved Myla’s life, at least I hope she did, said she could be my midwife.”

  The queen’s physician shook his head. “We haven’t had dragon shifter babies in so long, I would be honored and remiss if I didn’t deliver them.”