Of Wings and Wolves (16 page)

“You want me to go find it for you,” Gwyneth said. “That’s an awfully big order. I don’t even know where to start looking.”

“Ah, but we do.” He pointed at the cave they had just exited. “The third door.” He pointed to the lake, and then in the direction of Wildwood. “The second, the first. They form a triangle. The fissure will most likely be at the center, in the forest north of Marut University.”

“The forest is awfully big.”

“But you know it better than anyone else. In any case, you’ll know the fissure when you see it. You’ll only need to get within perhaps a thousand meters of it to hear the humming.”

“What will you be doing while I’m off looking for ‘visual artifacts’?” she asked.

“I will find the second door, just to be certain,” Nash said, capturing one of her hands in both of his. “I must ask you to do this for me. If Leliel’s guarding it, then I dare not send Summer there. It’s too dangerous. But you…”

“Do you love Summer?” Gwyneth asked.

He lifted an eyebrow. “Is that relevant?”

“Maybe.”

Nash dropped her hand.

Did he love Summer? Love was a mortal thing. It incited fights, created new life, caused pain and splendor. If someone had asked him if he loved Leliel in the days they were married, he most likely would have denied it. Angels were above such silly emotions.

He had no definite answer for Gwyneth, but he could see that it mattered to her—it mattered very much.

“I am fascinated with her,” he said finally. “She fills the hollow spaces in my mind.”

Gwyn grinned. “I’ll see if I can find this ‘fissure’ thing for you, so long as you promise to keep an eye out for Summer while I’m gone. Whatever’s going on in your head,
I
certainly love her, like she’s my own daughter. I don’t want none of them nasty things eating her.”

“I’ll care for her until your return,” Nash said. “I’ll lay my life at her feet if I must.”

She snorted. “Don’t be getting all dramatic now. Let’s go find the way out of this world, huh?”

Something about Nash’s gardens had
a tranquilizing effect on Summer’s mood. She stretched out on the damp soil underneath an apple tree, closed her eyes, and let the misty drizzle of rain sprinkle on her skin. It washed away all of her stress.

But the peace of the garden did nothing to solve Summer’s problems. There was still no sign of Abram. Gran was keeping secrets from her. And her parents didn’t even love each other.

The bushes rustled. Someone sat beside her.

“Where’s Gran?” Summer asked, rolling onto her side to look at Nash. He had a black umbrella propped on one shoulder again.

“She’s agreed to run an errand.” At her look, he amended that to, “Actually, she’s doing a favor for me.”

“Must be a heck of a favor to convince Gran to do it for you.”

His smile did funny things to her stomach. “You have no clue. She’s an incredible woman. You’re blessed to have her.”

“That’s the truth,” Summer said, sitting up. She wiped clumps of damp dirt off of the back of her arms.

“I must say, I enjoy your grandmother’s company. You have a lot in common. A certain fire.” Nash’s hand brushed over her back, wiping off more dirt. Even that casual gesture made her body ache. “She also possesses great humility. I believe she is truly happier living in that forest hovel than in the grandeur of my manor, and I suspect you’re much the same.”

Her mouth suddenly felt dry. His gaze dropped to her lips when her tongue darted out to wet them.

“So why did you want that scholarship in cash?” he asked.

“Huh?”

“That was one of the terms of your internship that you insisted upon,” Nash said. “A cup of coffee, and fifty thousand dollars in cash. Very uncharacteristic of Gwyneth Gresham’s granddaughter.”

She had completely forgotten about that stipulation. She had been so busy with the attacks and the mystery that the computers presented that money seemed utterly unimportant. “I don’t know.”

His eyes sharpened. “Don’t lie to me. Why do you want the money, Summer? What do you plan to buy?”

She swallowed hard. She couldn’t lie when he was looking at her like that. “A bus ticket.”

His surprise quickly turned to anger. “You want to leave,” he said in a low growl, his hand closing over her hip. His fingers dug into her side.

“I want to explore. I’ve never been beyond the forest outside my cottage, or Hazel Cove, or Lake Ast. Your house is the furthest south I’ve ever seen. Gran said…well, she always told us that our parents were traveling. Exploring the world, doing good deeds, saving people. I just thought…”

“You hoped to travel so that you could find them.”

It sounded a lot stupider to say it aloud than when she had originally thought it. Summer blushed, but she lifted her chin high, stubborn and defiant. “Yeah. I want to travel around and find them. Is that so crazy?”

“There are no other cities,” Nash said.

“What are you talking about? I saw names on the computer. Denver, Chicago—”

“They’re not here,” he interrupted. “Gwyneth may want to keep you sheltered in the safety of your ignorance, but I am not so cruel. I’m not the only one imprisoned in this puny world. You are, too.”

Imprisoned
? Summer gave a shaky laugh. “I don’t think—”

“How clearly can I say this? You’re the only werewolf in the world because the world you know isn’t real. This is a construct built by angels.” He waved his hand at the forest, the sky, the truck inching down the beach. “There
is
no world beyond Hazel Cove.”

Was this what going crazy felt like? If the world wasn’t real, then what about everything she had done in her life? Exploring the forests, learning about art and science and history, her education at the university.

“But if the world’s so small, then where does out-of-season produce come from?” Summer asked. “Or—or the designer imports the Tri Delts wear? Or—”

“You’re trying to force logical rules on a place that is magical,” Nash said, stepping close enough that she could shelter under his umbrella again. “There is a need for food to sustain the populace. Food appears. Fashion changes on Earth, and this place eventually follows.”

“So why doesn’t anyone talk about it?” she demanded. “I’ve been in college for two years and nobody has mentioned any such thing.”

“This place bewitches you,” Nash said. “This is a Haven—a place of peace. The very air has a soporific effect on mortals, particularly those born here.”

She pressed a hand to her forehead. It felt like her brain was going to explode out of her temples. “I have travel catalogs,” she whispered.

“And you’ve seen pictures of rainforests, deserts, oceans, frozen tundra.” His cold exterior had melted away to something resembling sympathy. “All constructs, Summer. It’s Leliel’s magic, Leliel’s rules. She built this place a very long time ago.”

And that was what Gran had been lying about for so long. Wasn’t it? Her parents weren’t just
gone
. They were in another world—a place where other shapeshifters, immortals, and angels were common.

It was beyond absurd. Totally ridiculous.

But there was only one way to find out if it was true.

“I’m leaving,” Summer said. “And you can’t stop me.”

“I wouldn’t even try,” Nash said.

Summer had been certain that
she would find Abram at the cottage when she got back, but all she found waiting for her was the faint smell of balam and a very hungry cat. Only Sir Lumpy attacked when she stepped inside. There was no sight of the balam, so they must have only been snooping. Well, let them snoop—in her current mood, Summer was pretty sure she could take a dozen of them at once.

Sir Lumpy yowled at her and wrapped around her legs, almost tripping her on the way to his food bowl.

“
You’re
real,” she said, stroking him as he chowed down on pureed salmon.

She read the label on the can.
Processed in Wildwood
. But that didn’t mean anything—all of the food they ate was locally grown and processed.

Summer sat down at her computer and ran a few searches. Vacation websites claimed that they had cruises to far-flung places. There were blogs talking about world events, too—fashion, politics, scientific discoveries. That couldn’t all be a magical fabrication created by Leliel. It
couldn’t
be.

Sir Lumpy finished eating and curled around her neck, tickling her cheek with his tail. She stroked the paw that rested over her collarbone. “Either way, someone is lying to me,” she told him as he nuzzled her ear. His wet purrs were like a jackhammer.

Summer had been fantasizing about leaving ever since the day she started college, yet she had never tried to explore beyond the boundaries that Gran had set for her as a child.

The river to the east. The hills to the north. The town to the south. The gully to the west. That was Summer’s hunting ground, her territory, her home. She had only ever dreamed of what lay beyond.

Even though the woods were large enough for a normal person to get lost inside, claustrophobia crept up her spine and gripped her heart. Every article she had read about the outside world on the Internet suddenly seemed flimsy, like poorly-constructed fiction.

Summer was trapped. She had been trapped all along, and never realized it.

This place bewitches you
, Nash had said.

That unsettled her in so many ways, not least of all because of the truth that rang out in his voice.

Had she been content to stay within her territory because she was really happy there…or was it because she had fallen under the spell of this “Haven”?

Carefully, she dislodged Sir Lumpy and set him on her bed. He glared at her.

“I need to know,” Summer said, rubbing the bald spots over his eyes. He gave a short, grudging purr. “I’ll come back for you.”

He jumped to the floor and disappeared under her bed.

Summer stripped naked and stood in her doorway, poised on the edge of a precipice. The familiar trees looked like the walls of a prison instead of open arms. It was a challenge.

She swallowed her fear.

“I need to know,” she said again, more firmly this time.

Summer stepped into her second skin, and she ran.

fourteen

Night fell quickly in the
forest. The trees were dense enough in some places that she had to backtrack to find her way around them, and it became dark for hours before the sun disappeared completely.

At first, she tracked time by the passage of the archer constellation through the gaps in the trees, just as she always did. But eventually, the branches grew too thick for that, too, and all she could do was run.

She reached the ravine where she had found the bear with Abram and raced along the edge. It was a deep gash in the earth that only grew deeper as she moved away from the territory she recognized. There was no way across but through.

Summer jumped carefully down the rocks, and she kept alert for the scent of wildlife as she lapped at a trickle of water dribbling into the gorge. The animals around her cottage knew better than to mess with her, but this was unfamiliar territory. She knew nothing here.

Climbing out of the other side was much harder, and by the time she hit the hills, night turned into day.

She ran and ran.

The sun moved across the sky. Morning, noon, evening. Clouds gathered. Rain began to fall again. The hills were endless.

She found Wildwood—a bigger city than Hazel Cove, and totally foreign to her. She could barely make out its skyline through the rain, but there was one tower that stood above the others. She had seen pictures of Adamson Tower on his website. The tower was real. Wildwood was real.

Summer ran again with new energy.

When the second night arrived, Summer stopped in the mountains for a nap. It was brief and restless, no more than an hour, and tormented by nightmares. As soon as she woke up, she was running again, cutting through a valley and splashing along a river.

The slopes were steep going down the other side of the mountains. There was more forest waiting for her when she reached the foothills. Unfamiliar trees. Summer had to be getting somewhere.

But when she stumbled out of the forest into civilization again, she was standing near The Cracked Teacup—the coffee shop in Hazel Cove.

Summer froze in the shadows of the alley, caught between forest and town.

No way
.

People stood outside the shop to talk about their classes at MU. She even spotted Yolanda, the teacher’s assistant.

How was it possible? Had she gotten turned around?

She
must
have gone the wrong way.

Summer whirled and ran back into the trees before someone spotted her.

She didn’t take any shortcuts through the mountains this time. She climbed the steepest trails she could find, and when those vanished, she scrambled up the cliffs.

The rocks crumbled beneath her paws, slipping and sliding and holding her back. But she dug her claws in. She wouldn’t stop until she reached the top.

And then Summer hit the highest peak.

Her lungs heaved for breath as she studied the world around her. Wildwood was on one side, a distant line of sparkling buildings. Hazel Cove was on the other, nestled against the side of Lake Ast’s shining waters. Everything was bathed in warm, golden light from the setting sun. There was curve to the ground—almost as though her mountain range was nothing more than a ridge on a small sphere.

The exhaustion of running for two days caught up with her, and Summer collapsed.

“Do you have your answers?”

Nash stood nearby, arms folded and features composed. He wore a charcoal gray suit without a jacket. His hair fluttered in the wind.

Summer was tempted to remain in her wolf skin. She didn’t have to talk to him as long as she didn’t have lips. But her emotions were too big and too human for her to remain a beast, and her skin rippled as she changed.

When her muzzle vanished into her face and her hair grew back, there were tears on her cheeks. Summer couldn’t even find the energy to be humiliated by her nudity.