Red and Her Wolf (6 page)

She smiled when she finally sailed clear of the woods. Peering through the darkness, she looked for her marker: a series of boulders in a helix formation. Finally spying it, she dove. It took only a moment before landing on gray rock. Glancing both ways, she tapped out a quick sequence of sounds on the stone face.

Tap.
Taptaptaptap
.
Taptap
.

Danika
nibbled her lip. She was much too exposed.
What if the keeper had left? What if he’d been discovered?
What if…
Squeezing her eyes shut, she blocked out the incessant questions and tapped her foot.

He’d come.

A groove in the rock, little more than a jagged edge, shifted. A narrow pinprick of an opening soon grew into a
hole
large enough for her to pass through. Cool air emanated deep from within the earth, brushing past her face and making her break out in goose pimples.

“Who goes there?” A voice, hollow and deep, boomed from the cavernous depths.

“Goblin, it is I,
Danika
of the
fae
,” she said, proud that her voice did not quiver.
Though the same could not be said for her knees.

“
Danika
,” the goblin growled, “tribute first.”

She clenched her teeth. Of course he wouldn’t care that she was exposed. That any moment
Malvena
might discover Mir’s whereabouts; which every moment she stood outside, threatened not only herself, but the whole of Kingdom.

None of that mattered though, because the stupid goblin must have tribute.

“Fine,” she muttered, yanking her wand from her sleeve and with a swish and flick produced a mound of rotten, stinking silver streaked fish.
“There, you putrid, slimy toad.
Now let me pass!”

“Proceed,” the disembodied voice poured through the hole, blasting her face with the fetid stench of decay.

Wrinkling her nose, she covered her mouth, and flitted inside, following a winding staircase down deep into the heart of the rock. There was no light. But there didn’t need to be.
Danika
knew the path well; she’d met Miriam here many times.

Her pulse rate decreased the deeper she went into the shelter of the earth. Quickly, she ran down the steps, smile growing wider with each step, until finally she spied the mirror.

Well, mirror wasn’t the right word. It was a looking glass of sorts, though in no way resembled a mirror. Long ago she’d learned to hide the amulet by altering its true form. If anyone, let alone the
Ten
, knew she still communicated with a shunned fairy,
Danika’s
life as she knew it would be over. She’d be thrown into the fiery dungeon and stripped of her wings.

She shuddered. She was rather partial to her wings. Thank you very much.

Still, the fear of reprisal didn’t stop her from her monthly check-ins with Mir. Glancing both ways--habits died hard--
Danika
rubbed her hand across the golden genie lamp.

Immediately an image flickered, and then a grim face stared back at her. “Oh, Mir,”
Danika
gasped, “what has happened to you?”

In the span of a month, Miriam had gone from looking fleshed out and rosy of cheek, to gaunt and withered. Her eyes were sunken in and rimmed in purple. Her hair was lackluster in color, differing shades of gray and brown. And though every fairy could change their true form, all fairies could see through the magic. This was Miriam, as she really looked.

“My friend.
My friend,”
Danika
patted the cold metal screen. “
Och
…”

Miriam gave her a weak smile. “I’m tired,
Dani
. Aye,
verra
tired. No more, no less.”

“What has happened, my dear?”

Mir closed her eyes for a brief moment and rubbed her nose. “Times have gotten worse.
Malvena
,” she shook her head, “I
donna
ken how, but she’s found us. I’ve killed three wolves now already, not a fortnight ago.”

Danika
tsked
. “Does Violet know?”

“Nay,” Miriam shook her head, “I’ve been careful. I don’t think she’s seen one yet. But it’s only a matter of time. Her memories return clearer every day.”

Danika
sighed. “Was that wise, Mir? Allowing her memories to return? What if you just kept her hidden longer?”

“How long?!” Miriam sneered, thin nose curling up. “We run, always the same thing. I’m tired, worn down. So is she. We cannot keep this up. But she is strong; I see the magic building in her. Soon she’ll be strong enough to hunt
Malvena
herself.”

Lips thinning,
Danika
rocked on her heels. “You know the
Ten
will not like this.
Galeta
said you were never to return. It--”

“
Galeta
knows nothing of the truth. Esmeralda saw it, years ago, she knows. It is time,
Dani
.” Miriam’s brows drew together sharply.

“Yes, but is this wise, dear one? Did we go about this the wrong way? Should we have told Violet everything? Maybe if we had…”

“Nay, my friend.
She must discover the truths on her own, only then will she make the right choice. In the end, the choice is hers. The safety of Kingdom rests in the palms of her wee hands.”

A chill breeze caressed
Danika’s
cheek. She glanced up at the wet black rock, remembering that awful night of long ago. So many choices they’d made since then; keeping Ewan from her, never letting Violet know the truth, allowing her to believe a lie. Had they made the right choices?

“Aye,” Miriam whispered, “we did.”

Danika
smiled, her friend knew her so well. “Are you sure, Mir? Ewan grows madder each day for want of her. I’ve sent him on wild goose chases all over Kingdom, letting him think his Red’s been spotted, when the truth of it is, he’s never even been close. He grows weary himself. And yet if I tell him, I know he’ll force me to take him to her, exposing her location again.
Galeta
would surely discover his visit, she’d kill him… maybe even me.
Not that I care about myself, but I still have my other boys to consider.”
She shook her head, curls bobbing forcefully around her face with her frustration.

A faint smile feathered across Miriam’s thin lips. “In order for Violet to challenge
Malvena
, she must learn the truth, and there’s only one to tell it to her.”

“Ewan will be so angry at me for keeping the truth all these years,”
Danika’s
words were soft, echoing with the faint trace of bitter laughter.

Mir cocked her head. “Aye, he will. But in the end, he’ll know the truth, why it had to happen that way.”

Danika
snorted. “Such trouble we find ourselves in all the time.”

Laughing, the sound almost like what
Danika
remembered, Miriam nodded. “
Aye,
and that is the truth of it, my friend.” She glanced over her shoulder quickly. “Violet will return soon, I must go, but first… how fare your boys?”

Smiling,
Danika
sighed happily. “Hatter is mated.
Alice
is wonderful, crazy herself, in fact, I visit them often.
Quite fond of
Alice
’s cupcakes.”
She patted her stomach. “Gerard and Betty are doing well, vacationing in the
Bahamas
I believe. Wedding present, you know how it is.”

Miriam nodded. “Good. Good.
And Jinni?”

“Worse.”
Danika
frowned. “He’s fading quickly. There are days when he’s little more than a bodiless voice. I can barely see him.”

“His mate is coming; she’s not quite ready yet,
Dani
, cheer up. He too shall have his happily ever after.”

A rustle sounded, like a door knob turning, Mir’s eyes widened and she squeaked. “I must go now, I’ll contact you again. Love you, sister dear.”

And then she was gone.

Danika
swallowed when the lamp went black. Her friend was gone.
Again.
And though they talked once a month, it was still hard; and getting harder. Miriam was a sister to
Danika
, her only true friend, and she was desperate to get her back from mortal land. No matter what it would
take.

Even if it took angering the Big Bad Wolf to do it.

“I do what I must,” she whispered, and nodding decisively, went in search of her moody prince.

Chapter 3

Ewan howled
,
stamping his foot like a bull’s against the very edge of no man’s bluff. He hated visiting Jinni. Why the bloody fool insisted on living here baffled him. Jinni’s
home,
(and even calling it that was a stretch) was little more than a cave at the rock’s edge.

The exiled genie was more ghost than man now. The curse had long since stripped him of his body; he was now nothing more than an insubstantial mirage.

The
Seren
Seas
whipped forcefully into the cliff, gale winds clawed through his fur pushing him back and threatening to rip the skin off the pads of his feet.

He howled again, long and low, knowing the bloody bastard could hear him. It was time to hunt. Ewan would not leave until Jinni had joined him.

Period.

After the fourth howl, a vaporous shape manifested before him.

Pulsed as a dim blue, before coalescing into a tight shape of arms and legs, torso, and head.

“What?” The Persian lifted a fine dark brow, his nostrils flaring as he glared at Ewan.

Ewan shook his head, pointing his nose in the direction of the Mad Hatter’s woods-where the Jabberwocky roamed. Few were brave enough to enter, but Ewan was close and Jabberwocky or no, he’d not be detained again.

Last night he’d heard an echoing cry, haunting and so achingly familiar his body had broken out in a sweat. For the first time in years, he’d heard her. Jinni he brought along not for the help, the miserable man was terrible company anymore, but rather out of a sense of loyalty.

He was fading fast. Never had Ewan seen one so determined to release his spirit to the Great Wolf in the sky.

“Not today, Wolf,” Jinni said, turning to go back.

Rain fell like shards of ice; pricking the sensitive tip of Ewan’s nose and making him sneeze. Already Jinni was dematerializing. With a huff, Ewan called the change to him.
Unbecoming
, as easy to him now as breathing.
In moments his bones had shifted, his muscle lengthened, and he stood on two legs, attempting not to flinch as the rain pelted his sensitive flesh.

“Jinni, ye damn fool.
Ye’re
coming with me. I’ve need of
yer
assistance,” he growled, the weather making his words sharp and raspy.

Jinni had never been a gregarious sort, but it wasn’t hard to see the twinkle in his once vibrant brown eyes turning a dull shade of gray. He was disappearing, becoming nothing more than a pale imitation of his former self.