The Problem with Promises (43 page)

The first set was dismissed because they were too close to the steel tracks. A Fae would take one look at the rust and back away. The second couple was disqualified because of their positioning (shoulder to shoulder versus snout to snout) and aspect (poised too close to the restaurant.) They felt wrong.

Those two are guards, watching out for humans.

The final duet sat square in the middle of a large loop of track. They’d been posed in a playful montage. Significantly larger than his mate, the male stood, paws braced for challengers, as brave as Nanu of the north. His jaw was open—
hungrily
open.

The other half of the bonded pair was unique among the statues, as she’d posed in the act of giving her mate a shoulder check instead of mid-howl. Her mouth was slightly ajar, her dainty head coquettishly cocked sideways, as if she planned to nip his snout.

I chewed my lip. Was the oddly heart-shaped space between them large enough for a doorway to another realm? Possibly. Though the portal traveler would have to be a diminutive biped or a four-pawed canine.

The Fae had to have modest height. Hadn’t Whitlock said she resembled a troll? According to Mum, they were short and ugly, and quicker-tempered than a dwarf who’d spent too long underground in the caves of Cairynglaze.

Goddess, don’t be a real live troll.

My mouth dried. It took two hard swallows to acquire enough saliva to say, “I’ll need Trowbridge.”

“Why?” asked St. Silas.

“I need his blood. Mine isn’t pure enough.” Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t. But I did need Trowbridge. Here. Beside me. Rescue got less complicated if I could pry him out of the van.

St. Silas considered it for a moment, then turned to call to Mathieu. “Bring the Alpha of Creemore.” Then he turned back, his gaze sweeping the enclosure. “Your mate and I will go this far,” he said, “and no farther.”

Mathieu swung the van’s back doors wide to reveal the Alpha of Creemore sitting on a tire, his arms braced on his knees, his thumb slowly working his palm. Trowbridge gave the guard a long look from under his brows.

He didn’t move. He just looked.

Perhaps my lover’s scent was particularly pungent. Mathieu took a quick step backward and raised his gun.

Trowbridge growled. “You think this puppy’s going to keep me from my mate’s side?”

“I am confident he cannot,” replied St. Silas. “But I can and will.” He pulled out a pair of handcuffs. Metal. The type you see hanging from a cop’s belt. “Join us, if you will.”

Trowbridge leaped out, all agile grace and coiled menace. He took a few steps down the slope, then paused, his gaze flicking from Mathieu to the mud slick I’d left. In daylight, the deep twin trail my knees had gouged looked worse—wider somehow. “That’s my mate’s blood,” he said, lifting his head. Impotence and fury—never a good combination for my man. “Who dragged her up this hill?”

As no one volunteered the information, I said, “Liam.”

“Where is he?” His tone was pitched so low I had to strain to hear it.

“Probably having tea with Lucifer. Because I killed him this morning.”

The vein by his right eye pulsed. “Did you make him hurt?”

It saddened me to remember just how much I’d wanted to make Liam hurt.
Watching Newland’s punishment had sickened me. Killing Liam had thrilled me. Knifing Whitlock had felt … so very right. There’s a certain de-evolution going on here.

I lifted my shoulders, Merry glowering orange on my chest. “Feathers flew.”

Trowbridge’s smile showed all his teeth.

St. Silas snapped one cuff to the chain-link fence and offered the other to my mate. “Will you do me the courtesy of attaching this to your wrist?”

A blue comet spun around my mate’s dark pupil. “I’m not putting those on.”

“Then I will instruct Mathieu to shoot both kneecaps. It amounts to the same. Your mobility will be compromised.”

“Stop with this shit, okay?” The angry flush reddening Trowbridge’s hollow cheeks went all the way to his throat. “You’ve got guns, we don’t. We all know that this is a dead end. I’m not going out tied to a fence.”

St. Silas sighed. “Though Gregori is of the opinion that your mate will dart through the portal at first opportunity, I believe he is wrong. She would never leave you here, alone to face our anger.”

No. I wouldn’t.

The Quebec Were shook the cuff impatiently. “Thus, the need of these restraints. Bridge, I am not, by nature, a man who enjoys the guns. Let us be civilized. It is obvious your mate will attempt to take you with her. Thus, I must anchor you to this realm. It is only practical.”

Yes. St. Silas, you utter bastard. That’s exactly what I’d planned to do—snatch my guy and make a break for it through the gates.
My Fae powers had been on the cusp of full revival. All the time during the ride, growing, glittering bit by glittering bit, inside my belly. Preparing to spring, a long thin coil of magic with which I’d hoped to lasso my mate.

And now I couldn’t.

It’s over.
My shoulders slumped.
I’ve played every ace I had in my deck.

Trowbridge gave me a searching look. “We don’t have to do this. You don’t have to call the gates and you don’t have to kill the Gatekeeper. We’ve tried, sweetheart. We really did. Let the Great Council take care of the mess Knox left. Let them deal with everything that follows.”

Tempting.

“We can end it here.” His eyes blazed. “Right now.”

“I know,” I whispered.

Oh how I did. My pounding heart understood precisely how much easier it would be to press myself against the chain-link fence. To twist my arms around his torso. To huddle under his chin while he wrapped those strong arms around me. It would be so much less frightening to let him hold me. I’d never see the death blow.

Dammit, dammit, dammit.

“I should never have lifted the
Tale of Two Cities,
” I muttered, shaking my head. Lines of confusion deepened on his forehead. “Dickens, Trowbridge,” I said helplessly. “I should never have checked out Dickens.”

Because that sentence fragment about self-sacrifice was playing in my head. “It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done…” I wished I’d never dwelled on that line—even for a nanosecond—or what it took to be a hero.

Far better thing … for whom?

Not for me.

What lousy timing. I was inches away from getting out of life without having to test my sense of responsibility any further.

I resent this.

It was so damn wrong. I don’t like humans. I don’t give a rat’s ass whether or not their empire of humanity fell under a deluge of bad magic. And whatever seed of liking I’d cherished for the wolf packs of this world had withered over the last week. Hurt me once and I was naïve. Hurt me twice and I was a fool.

Try to kill me three times, and I was so fucking done.

Love is as dangerous as a virus. Someone spreads their love onto you, and you spread those x’s and o’s onto someone else. And before you know it, you love a lot of people.

Or just enough people to make you a better person.

I loved my family-that-was-not. Cordelia and Anu in their green Subaru. Even Biggs—
damn you for betraying us
—with his too long bangs and his silly shoes. And those dear people—half of my cherished mines—lived in this world.

My soul-lights in this realm.

Could I chance that Lexi and the Old Mage would succeed in killing the Black Mage before he opened the Book of Spells’ final pages? Why not? Hate’s almost as powerful a motivator as love. My brother and his mage wouldn’t stop until they had their revenge.

So I shouldn’t have to worry about a gatekeeper with a key to this world. Or a portal door being left forgotten and ajar for a mage with a black soul. I shouldn’t need to squash that fear that he would destroy everything in his world and then …

Oh Goddess … I can’t chance it.

Don’t cry. Don’t make it worse.

I bit down on the inside of my cheek and gave my mate a helpless smile.

“Tink, you don’t have to,” he whispered.

“Gotta,” I whispered back. “Bad things might drip into this world.”

He didn’t say anything after that. Actions—they really do speak louder than words. Silently, he snapped the cuff over his wrist, his fierce gaze never leaving mine.

My anchor to this world.

My One True Thing.

He was looking at me like I was Boadicea, and Ripley, and Atomic Betty all rolled in one. Who knew seeing his pride in me would have made me want to howl like one of those damn stone statues?

I pulled the coin out of my pocket. It had warmed from my body. Then I turned to St. Silas. “I still need a drop of his blood.”

The Quebec Alpha snapped his fingers. “The knife.” There was movement in my peripheral vision, but Trowbridge and I … our eyes were talking.

I love you.
Blue eyes, dark eyelashes, full of sorrow and love.

It will be over soon.
Green eyes, pale as sea light, full of fatigue and love.

St. Silas said, “Bridge, your hand?” Trowbridge turned toward the Frenchman. He offered his damaged hand and didn’t flinch when the other drew a thin line across his palm. Liquid welled, filling in those curving lines of heart and head, fate and life.

“I only needed a drop of his blood,” I said.

“No,
ma chère,
” St. Silas replied quietly. “Your heart needs a quart of it, but this is the best I can give you.”

“Shut the fuck up, St. Silas.” Trowbridge’s hand was steady, cupped and ready. “Do it, sweetheart.”

I dipped the coin into the velvet-red pool. Without wincing or wanting to throw up. Or needing Merry to pinch me else I’d faint.
Look at me. I’ve matured into a badass.

“What next?” inquired St. Silas.

“I’ll need a weapon to kill the Gatekeeper.”

The Frenchman turned the blade around, offering the bone handle. Mathieu hadn’t done a good job of cleaning it. The detailed engraving was tinted with something suspiciously reddish in hue.

“Well, I guess I’ll get to it,” I said.

Trowbridge looked like he wanted to do a thousand injuries to a thousand men.
Let’s pretend,
I silently begged.
That I’m not scared, and you’re not enraged.
His scent spiked but he nodded, so I pivoted to face my court of stone wolves.

One foot in front of the other. Don’t think. Just do.

My skin goosefleshed. Despite the sun’s rays beating down on the cement pad, it was a lot colder inside the enclosure. I took a circuitous route toward the heart of the course, hoping to minimize my body’s reaction to the iron. But by the time we reached the double rail closest to the odd couple, shivers racked me, and my feet dragged.

How did the Gatekeeper tolerate it? It had to be much worse for her. And more to the point—how did she get herself over the tracks? The ties weren’t wood, they were steel, and the track was a double ribbon of the same rusting metal.

It would be no worse than playing hopscotch. One jump, and a hop on one foot, then another jump. And then I’d be over them. Safe on the other side. Pretending that the scar on my wrist wasn’t burning, and that the indents of the kid’s teeth weren’t faintly glowing.

While I considered the sad fact that wolf pups prefer games that don’t include a rock and a piece of chalk, Merry shortened her chain until she rested in the hollow of my throat. She bristled with caution and worry as I bent my knees.

Screw hopscotch.

“Hang on, Merry. I’m going for the long jump.”

One leap later, we were staring up at the stone plinths.
Goddess, even stone wolves are bigger than me.
I went up on my tippy-toes, stretching for the bigger wolf’s mouth. Success. The coin fit neatly between the male’s teeth.

With a hand balanced on the plinth, I counted to five. Then to six.

The bugger had
looked
hungry.

By twelve, I’d taken back my coin and moved to the lady wolf. Her snout was narrower, her lips almost sealed. It took delicacy and craft to get the coin posed on the tips of her canines. Hand braced on plinth, I started counting again. My calves screamed. The birds chirped. Cars whooshed by on the highway.

Crap.

“Is there a problem?” asked the Frenchman.

What do you think, genius?

I heard the fence rattle.

Portals. Why did saving this world have to depend on my personal plague?

Merry unfurled a tendril of gold to hook a hank of my hair. Tiny feet bit into the tender skin stretched over my breastbone. Her chain grew, lengthening from choke-Hedi to chest length. Now free to move, she did so. She minced across my collarbone, up my shoulder, to the faint mound of my almost nonexistent bicep.

She did this, without letting go of my hair. Which meant, as she turned, so did my head. And thus, I saw what I’d somehow managed to miss. “I see it,” I whispered.

And I did. Sunlight highlighted the faint notch carved into the female’s lower jaw. It wasn’t large or deep enough to swallow the coin, but … my gaze flew to her mate. He had an identical cut, below his lip.
A mate’s kiss.
My fingers shook as I repositioned the coin, so that an edge was balanced on either hairline crevice.

Positioned horizontally, Knox’s piece of brass was the perfect bridge between two lovers.

No sooner had I sunk back to my heels than the coin began to glow. Dull brass warmed into a golden-reddish copper. And light, of the most exquisite brightness, streamed through the coin’s keyhole.

I backed away.

The air between the two statues began to stir. The scent came next—a flood of floral. Then the lights, little pinpricks hardly visible in the sun’s glare. Sparking and sparkling, they faintly burnished the wolves’s stone ruffs.

The myst came last.

Goddess. There it was. Stripped down of grandeur. Set low, the window to Merenwyn was a simple heart-shaped opening, the view through its glass blurred by a vaporish film. Bending, I blew at it, and the smoke cleared, moving from the center to the sides of it, where it formed a living frame.