Chapter Twenty-Five

I’d never been to Disneyland, and after seeing the king’s palace up close wouldn’t soon have any need to. What could a man-made fictional castle fabricated from drywall and plaster do to match up to the awe-striking splendor of a building unlike any I’d laid eyes on in my life?

I didn’t tend to think of things in poetic terms, it wasn’t how my mind worked, and I’d even scolded Ghillie for his bard-like leanings during our walk. But it was hard to see the shimmering edifices and walls that seemed to ripple and wave in the moonlight and not think of them in the terms dead poets would use to describe their lovers.

We passed under a gate, a set of armed guards hanging back when they saw Ghillie approach. As we moved into the large courtyard behind the wall, the palace itself beamed down on us with the bright glory of a second sun, lighting up the space in a white gleam so beautiful it made my heart ache.

Fae of various sizes moved out of the lit areas and into the shadows as we approached, sinking into the night and nearly out of my sight. I saw fairies—the high fae—and the familiar forms of hobs, and what I suspected must be pixies, not that I’d seen one before. But tiny flying women were few and far between, and they looked like Tinkerbell.

That is, if Tinkerbell had bloodstains around her mouth and wore tattered dead rose petals as dresses. Apparently my mental image of pixies had nothing right except they were small and had wings. If these critters had an attitude half as bad as Tinkerbell’s, they must be the fae version of mosquitoes.

“This way,” Ghillie directed, stealing my attention away from the fae moving about in the shadows.

One of the pixies made a high-pitched snarling noise at us. In response, Desmond unleashed a growl so menacing it wouldn’t have been any scarier if he’d been in wolf form. It served to silence the pixie and make everyone else in the courtyard shut up as well. I hadn’t realized anyone had been speaking until their whispers hushed.

So much for keeping our entrance low-key.

Unperturbed, Ghillie crooked two fingers in the direction of our party and climbed the steps of the palace without further instruction. Holden moved ahead of me and was the first to get to the top of the steps. Ghillie stiffened, visibly uncomfortable to be close to the vampire.

If I got out of this without one of them dying, it would be a miracle.

I’d buy a lottery ticket to celebrate.

I climbed the stairs and waited for Desmond to follow, which he did slowly while continuing to watch the fae surrounding us. The whole group held their collective breath. The moment Desmond slipped by me I heard an audible sigh.

The shine of the palace vanished as soon as we stepped inside. The highly polished floors were marble with veins of quartz seemingly lit from below, but they were almost the only form of illumination. The walls were dark—not painted black, but made of shadows instead of raw material.

The ceiling swam with pink and green light, muted into near oblivion, but much like the Northern Lights on a smaller scale.

It should have been beautiful. It should have made me feel awed and dazzled and all those pretty, charming things. Instead I felt cold, uneasy, and the smell of the interior reminded me of a funeral home. Not dead, but devoid of warmth.

This was the last place I wanted to be.

My wolf stirred, whining internally, begging me to turn around and get the hell out of dodge.

Usually I didn’t take her at her urges, but I couldn’t help but think she was right about this one. Regardless of what my wolf suggested, I held my ground and stood inside the entrance hall, letting the shiver of uneasiness skitter over my skin like a million tiny bugs. I liked the outside much better than the inside.

“Follow me, please,” Ghillie directed.

“Does it get darker?” I asked, not liking the hitch in my voice.

“Everything must get dark before there is light. His Majesty is the light.”

“And we must pass through darkness to reach him?”

Ghillie pointed to the end of the long hall where the light from the floor and ceiling faded away and the bleak nothingness was complete. Pitch-black.

“Go that way.”

“Didn’t you say follow you?”

“To the end…then you will go alone.”

“Awesome.” I touched my gun and sword, reminding myself I had protection.

“Are you afraid of the dark?” Holden interrupted.

“No. But I’m not too keen to learn what’s hiding in the dark in a place like this.”

“Come along,” Ghillie said, moving ahead as though he hadn’t heard me.

I got the feeling it didn’t matter whether or not I wanted to go into the pitch. I was going. “Look,” I said, turning to Holden. “This isn’t your problem. Kellen is nothing to you. You could stay here with Desmond and wait—”

He raised a hand, cutting me off mid-sentence. It was probably for the best. I wasn’t good at big heartfelt speeches, and being selfless wasn’t my strongest character trait.

“If you think I followed you into a different goddamn reality just to sit in the waiting room, you’re sorely mistaken.”

“But—”

“And what’s more…do you have any comprehension of how much trouble you tend to get yourself in when you go running off on your own?”

My brain told my mouth to retort, but my mouth was smart enough to stay shut.

“Can we go please?” Desmond added. His voice was getting gruffer and less human every time he spoke. We needed to hurry the hell up before it was too late for him.

“Okay.”

Ghillie was already waiting for us at the end of the hallway, and in spite of the sudden leaden quality of my feet, I managed to guide my motley crew up to his side. “Any last words of advice before you throw us to the lions?”

“Lions?” He cocked his head to the side, his green eyes appraising me thoughtfully. “Certainly not lions. But depending on the mood of His Majesty, I wouldn’t bet against arm-wrestling an ogre.”

I gave him a dumbfounded stare in return and waited for the punch line. There was no haha, gotcha or a just kidding. He merely smiled as though he had a secret and nodded into the abyss. “Good luck to you, my lady, and those who follow you. I hope the Lady Calliope has foretold a long and healthy future for you all.”

Oh, well, didn’t that sound promising?

I clenched my hands into fists and pretended not to think about his creepy omen and how it might apply to me. I had a socialite to collect and next to no time to do it in. I’d worry about my mortality when I was back in New York and hunting for my psychopath-with-a-death-wish mother.

Fairies had nothing on the werewolf bitch out for my head.

I threw my shoulders back and gave Ghillie a terse nod. “I just go right in?”

“If you’d please.”

I did not please, but I walked into the murky void nonetheless. It didn’t feel like passing through the door of Starbucks into Calliope’s mansion usually did. There was no tug or swirling sensation of being moved from one plane to the next. But there was no air, either. A gasping, hollow void greeted me in the blackness, sucking the breath from my lungs and striking me cold with the realization that if I were to stand still for too long, I would die on my feet. It felt strange to me—as someone who confronted fear and death on a daily basis—that something as simple as one breath to the next could be the difference between life and death.

I felt small.

A hand nudged me forward, and soon I was on the other side, sucking in air like it was going out of style. Holden, who had no need to breathe, followed me out, and was tugging Desmond along behind him with the grace of a parent leading a bratty child through the mall. He looked disgusted in spite of the fact Desmond was behaving very well for a man about to yield to his inner beast.

The new room we entered was quite unlike the hall we left behind.

Every wall shone in gold tones, rendered alive by thousands of cream-colored candles lighting the round chamber. The floor looked like it was made from pearl, and the shifting illumination caused our shadows to creep and dance over the pale ground.

In the center of the room, on a gold throne carved to resemble the twisting branches of a tree, sat the single most beautiful man I’d ever laid eyes on. And that was saying something, taking into account the company I kept.

His features were delicate, and on another face might have looked too feminine. But with his dark hair curling past his ears and the fierce expressive tilt of his eyebrows, he did not look like a girl in the least. His brown-eyed gaze met my own, and for a long moment all we did was stare at one another, my poor heart rattling with each passing second he did not blink.

“Calliope sent you,” he stated.

Though his words didn’t demand a response, I dipped into a low curtsy—I couldn’t believe I remembered how to do one—but did not drop my gaze. “Yes, Your Majesty.”

Behind me I heard the rustle of material and knew Holden and Desmond were following my lead. Thank goodness.

The man on the throne waved his hand from side to side and let out a disgusted sigh. “Don’t patronize me. I know who you are. You’re royalty in your own right.”

“In a manner of speaking.”

“Queen, yes? Of the wolves.” The way he said the last word let me know what his opinion on wolves was, and he wasn’t about to start writing sonnets about how delightful my pack was.

“Queen of the Eastern Pack,” I elaborated. “For now.”

This, of all things, was what made the fairy king smile. “What marvelous insight for one so young.”

“Oh?”

“Yes… To know everything in life is fleeting. Even life itself.”

What was it with the fae loving to give me the heebie-jeebies with their foreboding one-liners? Was I supposed to quake at his feet with a sentence like that? Not bloody likely.

“Maybe, but I think I’ve still got some time on my hands.”

“We’ll see.”

Chapter Twenty-Six