Where Wild Things Roam

Fold

Darby    

“She doesn’t seem excited to see her family,” I whisper to Lili, watching as Anna paces slowly along the covered length of the packhouse’s wraparound porch.

“She’s excited, but a little freaked out too.” Lili flops herself onto the porch swing beside me, cuddling up as she normally would with Anna in Jack’s absence. “As the mate of a wolf and now, having become a wolf, it’s a big deal for her tribe. Pawnee are the Wolf People.”

“Ah. So this pairing is more significant than simply having found a mate and assuming a role in Jack’s world.”

“Very much more so.” Lili toys with the brush end of my braid, wrapping it around and around her finger. “Even the medicine man is making this journey. Anna’s afraid she won’t live up to the expectations for her.”

“Why is that?”

“Everybody always thought it would be her brother, not her, that heralded the wolf descending from the spirit world.”

On the other side of me, Tessa’s curled up in a little ball, and absently, I stroke her white ruff, stark against the black fur. I make a mental note to explore what the spirit wolf returning to the mortal world is supposed to bring, though the resources available to me here are lackluster at best. I miss my library.

The silence around us is stifling, settled upon us like a heavy blanket. Even the chirping crickets and croaking frogs seem muffled somehow. I wonder again where Ian and Jack have gone so late, and as if summoned by the very thought, I see headlights illuminate the gate to the packhouse.

“You got awful quiet on me, angel face. Something bothering you too?”

I hear the ring of the siren voice in her words and glance at her. “No. Sympathizing is all. Familial expectations and obligations can be suffocating and isolating sometimes.”

As the car winds slowly down the drive, Lili asks, “Makes me glad I’m an orphan. What’s your family burden?” The compulsion I hear in her voice is stronger, though still nothing I can’t resist.

“Nothing quite like Anna’s. There’s only my father to flaunt my failings in my face and I have as few dealings with him as possible.”

Before she can press further, the car stops on the circular drive, parallel to the porch, and the lights dim. Leaping out, Jack’s all grins. He takes the stairs in two bounds, wrapping his arms around Anna and Lili as they crowd him.

“What have you been into, lover?” I hear Lili ask as they start inside. “You stink.”

Ian and Sean exit the car more slowly, and I wonder what they might have been talking about. Until I see their grim faces and both men’s gazes directed towards me where I rest in the swing with Tessa.

Sean’s feral eyes gleam with the same intensity he had on the plaza the day after Jack found Lili and Anna, when he told me he knew I was hiding things. The distrust, perhaps even hatred I read in his eyes, only grows each time I catch him watching me. His thwarted designs frustrate him more as the days pass to weeks, but there’s no real harm he can do me, and no way he would ever learn what secrets I keep without me telling him, regardless of his resources. 

And whatever poisonous seeds he plants in Ian’s head about me clearly struggle to find traction if they do at all. Though I hate that Ian has become our battleground, there’s little I can do about a situation of his own choosing. The solution is readily available: since he won’t reject me as his mate, he must release Sean from his obligation to find the witch and send him back to Desert pack. Then the source of internal strife in Candlewood pack would be gone.

Ian stops before the porch swing, his large frame blocking the view both Sean and I have of each other. He extends a hand to help me up, says softly, “Come to bed with me?”

“Of course.”

I put my hand in his and he pulls me up, but instead of leading me inside, he crushes me against him. He buries his face in the crook of my neck, inhaling my scent as though it’s the first time he’s smelling it.

Or perhaps the last time.

Sinister fear blossoms inside me, coiling its dark and twisted vines into every corner of my consciousness. I wrap my arms around him tightly. “Ian, tell me what’s wrong.”

“Why do you stay?” His breath whispers along my skin, a loving caress he can’t disguise. “Why did you come, knowing I couldn’t protect you.”

I draw back, meet his deep blue eyes, a personal sea of sadness. “Of course you’re protecting me! I’ve never been safer than I am at your side. I know you worry that the vampires keep getting into Candlewood, but you haven’t had to fight a single one and that’s not something I can say about my valley. Don’t you see? I don’t have a fraction of the wards here that I did there. The only change is you.”

“Maybe you should, Darby.” Ian sighs resignedly. “I think they’re among us—brushing past us on the sidewalks on the plaza, watching and learning. Weres can’t protect you if vampires smell and look human.”

I debate for a long minute the latest secrets I keep. I made no promises to hold them in sacred trust and if their exposure reassures Ian, then revealing them is worth it. “At least two among you can.”

Ian’s brows draw together. “What do you mean?”

“Two weres here, one bound and one soon to be, bear distinctive, personal protections. A vampire can’t fool them, even if—.” I blanch, nauseated at the kind of magic necessary to make a vampire pass for human and how it’s acquired.

Ian’s eyes widen, a complex concoction of betrayal and relief blazing in them. “Who?”

“Lili has one, though I don’t think she knows beyond mild use of her—.”

“Voice.” Ian rolls his eyes skyward. “Dammit! Why can’t I detect that?”

I stroke his shoulders and chest, soothingly. “If you knew there was something about her voice before I told you, then you did. These are sophisticated charms, Ian, thoughtfully and carefully crafted. In her case, I don’t know if we’ll ever know by whom, or for what purpose.”

“Who’s the other?”

Though I can’t think of why, suddenly I hesitate. I’ve no love or loyalty to Sean, but I can’t make myself believe he’s applying his charm maliciously either, even if he’s schooled in its use. And I don’t know what impact it might have on the antagonism between he and Ian.

Ian’s arms tighten around me. “Tell me.” Then whispering, he adds, “Or are you afraid?”

I think it’s safe to assume by that question he has a suspicion. I shake my head no. “It’s Sean.”

A smooth mask closes over Ian’s face, a c****d eyebrow the only indicator of the whirling thoughts behind it. “Like Lili’s? He doesn’t know? Or he does?”

“Lili’s was bestowed – she was the direct recipient. Sean’s is older, inherited from some ancestor. And yes, he knows of it. His is perhaps even more refined than Lili’s. I’m under the impression even I might not have detected it if he hadn’t chosen to reveal it to me.”

“Why would he do that?”

“I can’t claim to know in the least. His motivations elude me as much as the limits of his protection charm does. But he can detect lies. A vampire masquerading as a human—he’ll feel it.”

“Can you give me one?”

“Oh, Ian.” I caress his cheek. It’s impossible not to love him. “If it was an elemental gift you asked, I could give it. Such charms as theirs are cast by witches. In both cases, very powerful ones.”

“Then I’ll have to make do with what’s been given me.” He kisses me then, lightly at first, then hungrier, more needy. “Come to bed with me.”

**

Sean    

Ian’s boulder arrives early the next afternoon, and lacking instruction, I have it unloaded behind the new landscaping where the courtyard will be off the packhouse addition.

“What is this for, Ian?” I watch as he circles it, his arms over his chest, grinning like the cat that swallowed the canary.

Before he answers, I see his eyes glaze—he’s talking to someone briefly through the link. When they clear he answers, “You’ll see in a minute. Excellent work, by the way. You have no idea how much I appreciate it.”

A few moments later, I hear the tinkling of female laughter and it feels like the sun emerging from behind a cloud. When did I become this masochist, yearning for these moments of agony? I turn in time to see Darby tossing Tessa’s ball out into the grass, Lili and Anna trailing behind them with Jack bringing up the rear.

Stopping suddenly, Darby stares, and still grinning, Ian leans one arm against the boulder, crossing his legs at the ankles. Darting across the space between them, she leaps into Ian’s arms, wrapping her legs about his waist and kissing him. To say I’m green with envy is an understatement. I’m also painfully aware of how little I know about my mate who is also my alpha’s mate.

 my wolf chimes in.

A moment later, Jack and his mates come abreast of me, watching Darby mauling Ian over a giant rock.

“I’m so confused. Why is she excited? It’s a rock.”

Beside me, Jack scratches the back of his neck. “It’s not just any rock. It’s a really big rock.”

Releasing Ian, Darby’s wings unfurl before her toes hit the ground and she flutters like a hummingbird to the top of the stone. “It’s wonderful, Ian! I absolutely adore it! This is the best surprise! Thank you! Thank you so much!” Zipping around him in the air, she steals another kiss, quintessential fairy style, bent at the waist with her wings humming lightly behind her, before dropping lightly to the ground beside Tessa and whispering excitedly.

Still wearing his grin, Ian shrugs. “What can I say? Girls like really big rocks.”

I glance at Lili and Anna, searching for confirmation. Without a word, both raise their left hands, the backs of their fingers towards me. The fourth finger of each woman’s hand sports a diamond engagement ring that I’m certain totals half of Jack’s generous annual salary.

“That’s not the same. Those are sparkly.”

“Can I do it now?” I hear Darby ask Ian and direct my attention to them again.

“I don’t see why not.”

A sudden swirling gust whips around us then as quickly settles. That’s when I hear wisps of magic dripping in the Old Tongue from Darby’s lips. The language is dominated by soft hisses and hard vowels, rises and falls in an unnerving cadence that sets my protection charm ringing in my head. Before us, the stone wavers into two as though the images are overlaid. They slide apart, settling on opposite sides of Darby.

Beside me Anna and Lili gasp. Looking down at Tessa, Darby smiles and the dog turns beside her in excited bouncing circles.

“Oh shit.” Jack stares at the space between the stones beyond Darby. “We should have talked about this first.”

At the worry in Jack’s voice, Darby turns. “Is there something wrong, Jack?”

“Yeah. A lot wrong,” he nods, moving closer, his eyes on Ian. “You’ve said that as long as you knew where the valley was, you could get in. That rock amounts to an open door between your valley and this city. One I have no way of securing.”

“Well of course you do. A fold is not much different than any other ward, plus there are other protections around my valley.”

At that, Jack takes a step back, shuddering and looking squeamish, then rubs his chest like he’s having a heart attack. “I don’t like wards.”

“Not like that, silly. Like the one I put around the hotel while we were there. If you want, I can make it so only we four can open it.”

“Us too!” Lili adds indignantly.

“If this poses some kind of security risk, don’t think it should be just us.”

“I want a team,” Jack agrees. “Regular patrols of both locations.”

“I’m going to override on that one.” At Ian’s words, both Jack and my mouths fall open.

“Say what?”

“Jack, it’s not an open door if only we few can use it. Darby, put the protections on it for the six of us,” Ian orders. “If anything happens here, the valley’s a safehouse, one only we’ll be able to reach.”

Kneeling, Ian extends a hand to Tessa. Delighted, she drops her ball into his hand. Ian’s face twists in an instant of disgust at the squishy plop, then he stands, hurling dead on line in a soaring arc into the valley with an arm the envy of MLB outfielders everywhere. “Go get it!” He urges Tessa, extending his hand to Darby.

Beside him, Darby’s face pinches up and she gives a tight shake of her head. “I’ll have the other one if you don’t mind. Anyone else up for a little hike?”

Anna bolts through, waving behind her to Lili. “Over here! There’s a trail down.”

It takes perhaps a half hour to make our way down the rim to the valley floor, through the trees and into the meadow surrounding a boxy two-story stone cottage, during which time Darby has been disarming some of her present fae protections.

A painted moon gate swings open soundlessly into a lush wild garden, overgrown with blossoming plants of every hue, mossy flagstone paths and even a sparkling pool with a bubbling spring. Hummingbirds, butterflies and varying kinds of bees dart from flower to flower, completely ignoring our foray through them.

At the front door, Ian sweeps Darby into his arms, grinning, and carries her over the threshold like a newlywed couple, the rest of us following them inside.

“I’ve missed this place,” Darby sighs wistfully, glancing about with a dreamy smile on her face.

“Oh, angel face,” Lili gasps, looking around. “Can we snoop?”

“Make yourselves at home,” Darby giggles. As Lili and Anna disappear—the former upstairs and the latter out to the orchard, Darby rounds on me, waving me to follow. “You know, triumvir. Now that we’re here, we have access to my library.”

“Oh, bright Arianrhod! Look at this place!” I breathe, standing motionless in the doorway behind her.

The library occupies half the cottage, both lower and upper stories and except for a few small windows and the door, is lined floor to ceiling with books. I walk around the room slowly, my hands skimming reverently over the spines, reading the titles where I can. I recognize Latin, Greek and the romance languages, but there are books here in cuneiform, runic, a least a couple different types of hieroglyphics and even what I assume must be Chinese.

Jack’s face screws up as I return to where he waits with Darby and Ian. “Book nerd. I did not see that coming.”

Ian’s eyes skim the shelves of books, his arms crossed over his broad chest. “I don’t think we came in here last time. We should get copies of these.”

“I don’t think you and Darby left the bed for more than three minutes the last time we were here,” Jack retorts snidely.

Beside Ian, Darby blushes, her normally rosy pink lips darkening in her embarrassment to an alluring wine color. Her wings unfurl, and though there’s a library ladder with rails around the entire room, she opts to fly to one of the upper shelves to retrieve a book. “I believe this one will serve you best, Sean,” she says, touching down lightly beside a simply but gracefully carved reading stand and chair. She makes a swishing gesture with one hand at the book that rests there already and it lifts lightly, the wind carrying it toward its home on the shelves.

Before it can go far, I snatch it from the air. “You have a Scripta Conoscenza.”

“Yes, of course. What library is complete without it?”

I blink, staring at her, uncertain if she’s teasing me. “This book was written twenty-five hundred years ago.”

Darby scrunches up her face, giving her head a little shake. “Probably not that copy. I lent my original out and never got it back. I picked that one up in some burgeoning little town with a funny name—Eblana, I think— on the east coast of Ireland. That copy’s maybe… eighteen hundred years old.”

“The monotheistic religions persecuted anyone who had a copy. All of them have been destroyed.”

A smug smile tugs the corners of her mouth and one delicate brow flicks with amusement. “Obviously not all of them.”

“May I borrow this?”

Darby gasps in pleasant surprise. “You read the Old Tongue?”

“No.”

“Well it’s not much good if you can’t read it, Sean.”

It’s one of the few times she’s called me by my name instead of my title and a strange feeling unfurls inside me.

Darby drags the chair behind me. “This might make you feel a bit woozy. Now hold still.”

Closing her eyes, she puts a finger to her lips like she’s shushing someone. With her standing directly in front of me, even under Ian’s watchful eye, I’m free to look at her in ways I seldom am. My charm stirs—it’s getting more sensitive to magic every time I’m around her when she uses it.

Darby’s strange whispers of the Old Tongue begin and as I watch, silvery-white lights swirl under her skin. Concentrating at her forehead, they move to her mouth. She reaches out with her finger and touches my forehead.

I slump to the chair, my eyes wide and staring, still conscious, but unable to focus on anything besides the ripples inside my mind, like pebbles dropped in water, as an alphabet, vocabulary, grammar, syntax and phonetics for the entire language expands into my headspace, like extracting a compressed datafile.

Beside Ian, Jack gags and flees the room, Tessa following him. “Oh gross!”

 “Is he going to be alright?” Ian asks, watching me carefully.

Darby looks up from where she stands near me. “Who? Jack? I’m sorry, Ian. I don’t think he’s ever been ‘alright’.”

Drawing closer, Ian laughs, kissing her temple. “No. Sean. That’s not a good look for him.”

“Oh, of course. He’s a were.” She waves away Ian’s concern with a hand. “Get him some water, maybe something to eat. He’ll be fine.”

Leaving briefly, Ian returns and kneels in front of the chair where I sit. He presses the lip of a cold glass filled with water to my lips. “Sean, try to drink this.”

The glass is nearly empty before my body and mind return to my control.

Observing me start to revive, Darby speaks to me. “Heeoholly eeohweh hoon dershalen?” (How are you feeling?)

“Ahr quochee deuu.” (Fine, I think.) I gasp, and above me, Darby beams. Her brows lift and she points to the book still resting on my lap.

I flip it open to a beautifully illuminated page. “Voun degoo eeiay goo ahr kohcee deuu inhah.” I look up at Ian, laughing with excitement.

“Well?” Ian asks.

“It says: ‘Only in following the heart can a man walk the course fated him.’ This is amazing.” Leaping to my feet, I crush Darby in a hug. “This is amazing!” I sing in her ear.

Flattened against me, her arms pinned to her sides, Darby groans, “Ungh. Damn weres.,” but she doesn’t resist.

At a knock on the doorframe, we all turn. Holding a thumb over her shoulder, Lili asks, “Did you know there’s an arrow lying on the floor in the surgery in a little pool of dried blood?”

“You didn’t touch it, did you?” Darby’s eyes have gone wide.

“Anna, don’t touch that,” she calls over her shoulder. “Why?”

“It’s poisonous.”

Before the words are out of Darby’s mouth, Anna walks up with the arrow clutched in the blades of one of her ever-present garden tools. “The grain looks like it came from yew. Right?” Studying it a moment, she looks from the arrow to Darby.

“Yes. Silver tips against weres and there was an enchantment on it. But with no one here, there was no reason to remove it.”

“Well, we have it now,” Ian says. “Might as well take it home. Might be worth talking to Mattie about at some point. We should head back. Anna, your family will be at the border of our territory soon and the hike up will be worse than the one coming down.”

Jack! Tessa! Ian calls through the link. We’re leaving. Meet us at the trailhead to the rim.

When we reach the trailhead, Jack’s standing completely naked beside Tessa, his clothes clutched in one hand and two dead rabbits hanging by their feet from the other.

Ian throws him a scathing look. “We haven’t been here two hours and you’re naked. Again.”

“What?” Jack shrugs. “The rabbits have grown complacent with Tess gone.”

“I’ll help you with those clothes, lover,” Lili purrs.

“No.” Ian snaps, pointing at his brother. “Jack, get dressed. You save that s**t for your own rooms in the packhouse.” He takes Darby’s hand and starts the hike up the trail and I follow their shadows, my head tucked into the book.