The soldiers behind Joanne parted, and Daragh, the captured Guardian, was pulled in.
Daragh spoke, his voice ragged. “They captured him from the Fae army Kian’s men just wiped out. I mean, wiped out down to the last Fae standing. The head of the leader is decorating a pole out front. Kian wants you to tell him who this man is, and why he was so valuable to the ex-leader of the enemy Fae.”
Chapter Fifteen
Broderick had no effing clue how to get himself out of Faerie, though he figured if he built another makeshift door and shoved the medallion from the Guardian’s sword at it, that might work. He might end up in downtown Chicago, stark naked, but oh well. At least he’d be out of this place.
But like hell he was going to try without Joanne. He’d find her and take her the fuck home. Then mate with her, let the frenzy take him, and drag Liam out of his house to perform the sun and moon ceremonies. Then they’d be together always.
First, Broderick had to find her. He’d kill every single one of the Fae if they’d touched her. Hell, he might just kill them anyway.
Broderick took cover in a stand of tall forest that seemed to be everywhere. The clearing in the middle was full of tents, though the barn looked like a permanent structure—likely the army had kicked out a hapless Fae farmer and taken it over.
The tents were made of what looked like canvas, most striped in a black and purple design, and each had pennants flying at the entrances and from the top. The pennants didn’t flap much in the still air, but he could make out that they were blue with a gold dragon emblem.
The tents all looked alike, but he figured the leader stayed in the one with the most guards. At least the guy wasn’t stupid enough to make his tent more lavishly decorated and obvious from the others. Anyone with a good projectile weapon would know which one to take out.
In front of this compound of tents, soldiers were erecting a wide pole with a spear lashed to its top. A couple Fae climbed this, then the ones below handed something up with great delight. A Fae at the top smashed the object onto the spear.
A head, Broderick realized. Bile rose in his throat. Stupid Fae dickheads. Shifters honored their dead, even that of their enemies, sending them off with dignity. The Fae, who’d been barbaric for centuries, defiled everything they touched. They had no compassion inside them, only brutality.
Broderick settled in between the trees and waited. Feline Shifters might brag about what great stalkers they were and how long they could lie still, but Broderick was going to give them a run for their money. Wolves had infinite patience. Broderick was also willing to bet the Felines simply fell asleep and woke up when something interesting happened.
On the other hand, Broderick was itching to charge, kill, tear down the fancy tents and dig through their shreds until he found Joanne. If she was even there.
She was. The entrance to the head honcho’s tent opened, and out came a guy dressed all in black and silver. Two guards had Joanne between them and they pulled her along behind the black-and-silver guy.
Joanne looked all right. She wasn’t covered in blood or contusions, or staggering, limp and defeated. She struggled even now, giving her captors a fiery look. Good for her. Now to get her away from them.
Broderick calculated that if he charged, he’d make it about a hundred feet before he was shot full of arrows or slashed apart with swords. The field was flowing with soldiers, and more joined them every minute.
Stealth it was, then.
Broderick chose his target and slunk toward it on his belly across mud and dead leaves. He hated the stink—it would take him days to wash the smell of Fae from his fur.
The soldier watching the perimeter was disgruntled, Broderick could tell, having to stand guard while his friends celebrated by cutting more captives to bits and splashing each other with their blood. Fae were sick bastards.
Broderick paused to shift to human before he made his final approach, not trusting himself to be able to change quickly enough when he got closer.
The Fae soldier never heard him coming. Broderick had his arm around the man’s neck in a chokehold before he could react. The Fae’s halfhearted shout became a gurgle, the guy struggling for breath. Broderick smacked him hard in the temple with his solid hand, and the Fae went down in a tangle of limbs.
Broderick had chosen this particular soldier because he was large. Broderick wasn’t thrilled with the Fae fashion of leggings, surcoats, and chainmail, but he planned to steal one of the dragon-horses and didn’t want to ride it bare-assed.
He dragged the guy out of sight, stripped him, and pulled on the clothes. They were made of a light gray and black fabric which rested easily against Broderick’s skin. The leggings were a little too tight, and the tunic tore, but what the hell. Broderick also took all the Fae’s weapons, buckling them around his torso.
He skulked along for a while, the gray and black coloring of the clothes helping him hide in shadows and mists. Many of the dragon-horses were tired or injured, coming in from the battle. Those wouldn’t help him. Broderick needed a horse that had been held in reserve, one with plenty of energy.
That meant that the crazy dragon thing would try to fight him. Oh, well. For years Broderick had managed to keep in line three seriously angry wolf Shifter males who barely acknowledged that their oldest brother was their alpha. Taming a horse that could slash Broderick to bits would be a picnic in comparison.
He kept to the shadows of a large tree with feathery growths hanging from it. Those stunk too. Goddess, how could the Fae stand this place?
A soldier came out with a horse that was nearly dancing on its cloven hooves. The Fae dressed light for riding, with no armor and only a short sword. A messenger of some kind, Broderick deduced.
The horse was keyed up from the excitement and probably wanted to stay with its friends to party just like the soldiers did. The Fae guy cursed—Broderick understood the gist if he didn’t know the words. The Fae turned the horse in a circle, trying to calm it.
The horse reached out with its sharp canines and ripped the Fae’s tunic from his shoulder. The man snarled, smacked the horse in the side, and the horse attacked him.
Broderick was out from under his cover, running for them. The Fae saw him, mistook him for another soldier coming to help, and opened his mouth to shout. Then the Fae’s eyes widened, shock on his face, as he registered that Broderick was no Fae. The horse took advantage of the Fae’s distraction to try to tear off half his arm.
The Fae screamed, the scream cutting short when Broderick clamped his hand around the man’s mouth. A smash with the butt of one of the handy knives had the Fae on the ground.
The horse, loose, went insane. It tried to trample the soldier—Broderick shoved the horse until its hooves landed on dirt and leaves, and rolled the Fae back under the cover of the trees.
The dragon head then came at Broderick, fire in the beast’s eyes. Mason looked kind of like that if you woke him up too early.
The dragon-horse went for Broderick with its teeth. Broderick ducked, grabbed the leathery tendrils of its mane, and launched himself onto the dragon-horse’s back.
The creature danced around, bucking and twisting. Broderick held on grimly, lowering himself to wrap his arms around the thing. If there were a rodeo event with one of these demons, Broderick would be on his way to bagging a trophy for it.
Broderick’s hand brushed the medallion he’d thrust into the pocket of the leggings. Still clinging to the horse, he worked the disc out with his fingers, needing to hold it for some reason, even now, of all times.
Once the medallion was in his palm, he pressed it to the horse’s side. The horse reared and bucked, screaming, then suddenly it settled down, shying sideways and trembling.
“That’s more like it,” Broderick growled. Keeping the medallion in his hand, he turned the horse with his legs and its mane, and rode off into the woods.
***
Joanne blinked at the man who faced her. He wasn’t much older than she
was—late twenties, early thirties at most—though his face held the grim lines of someone who’d seen the hard side of life. His uniform was desert camouflage, ragged, his name tag torn off. He had stripes on his sleeve, but Joanne wasn’t familiar enough with rank insignia to know what they meant. A sergeant of some kind, she assumed. The tag that remained read “U.S. Army.”
The man stared back at her in suspicion. That she was a fellow prisoner, there could be no doubt, but he wasn’t going to trust her blindly. Joanne didn’t blame him—he’d likely been through too much to easily trust.
“Who are you?” she asked. She glanced at Kian. “He can’t understand us.”
“Who are you?” the man countered. His accent was Southern though not Texas.
“My name’s Joanne. I’m from Austin. I got caught when I stumbled in here …” Her gaze went to the makeshift equipment, the wires, clamps he’d shaped from the wires, pieces of clear quartz. “Were you trying to build a radio from crystals?” She went down on her knees to look at it all in wonder.
“What do you know about it?” the man demanded.
“Not a lot,” Joanne admitted. “I used to read about this stuff when I was younger—I wanted to know everything I could about electronics. Where do you get electricity to run it?”
The man’s eyes were blue, his hair sand color, as were his eyelashes. He studied her for a time before he answered. “The other Fae, the one who caught me before this bunch slaughtered him, had a small generator. Used friction, usually from enslaved people pumping it. But enough to spark a battery and run a signal.”
“Why?” Joanne touched one of the quartz crystals, then she snapped her gaze back to the man. She thought about the signal she’d seen on her computer screen, and the outline of a man in the static. “You’re the guy in the computer! I mean—the one sending messages in the code. Right? You did it with this?”
“I sent pulses.” He shot a glance at the Guardian, who was watching them, Kian’s big hand on his shoulder. “Are you going to tell him all this?” he asked Daragh.
“Only what he needs to know,” Daragh said. He switched to the Fae language and began to talk.
Kian grunted a few times, his shrewd eyes running over the man and Joanne.
“He wants you to build it again,” Daragh said. “Whatever it is.”
“We’d better do it,” Joanne said. “I’ll help you. If Cilla is still out there, waiting for you to send another signal, she might be able to do something to help us.”
“Cilla? Is that her name?” The young man gave Joanne a half smile, which made his face suddenly handsome. “I only knew her as wildkitty287.”
“Oh, she has a name, all right,” Joanne said. “Plus she’s out of control. Don’t get any warm fuzzies about her.”
“She was scared,” the young man said. “Desperate. Caught. Like me.” He started laying out the crystals and wires against the electronics board he pulled out of his pack, something he’d obviously brought into Faerie with him. “The Fae who captured me was trying to open a way to our world wherever he wanted, not just on ley lines. He planned to lead his army across, grab Shifters, and take over. Short-sighted, but what do you do with guys like that? He made me send the messages. So, thank this Fae here for stopping him.” He jerked his chin at Kian.
Joanne glanced at Kian, who’d folded his arms and settled in to watch. “What’s to say he won’t try the same thing?”
“He’s not interested,” Daragh said. “I haven’t studied him long, but he’s all about power within Faerie. The other Fae took up territory he wanted. So Kian stole it and wiped the other faction out. Fae logic.”
“Hmm,” Joanne said. She looked up at Daragh. “Why does Kian want this radio to work then?”
The Guardian and Kian exchanged a few phrases. “Anything to help him in his conquest,” Daragh said. “If he can’t use it, he’ll destroy it.”
“Good to know,” Joanne said. At least, with the other Fae dead, Cilla would be free of the threat to her friends … well, if whoever worked for the defeated Fae didn’t take his revenge on Cilla. Joanne would have to alert Dylan, if they could get back. “We won’t have long to contact Cilla, I’m thinking,” Joanne said to the man. “If we even can.”
He flashed her a resigned look. “Hand me that clamp. My name’s Remy, by the way. Fayette. Staff Sergeant. Didn’t mean to be rude.”
Joanne hid her start by dropping a set of wires and scooping them up again. She said casually, pretending to ask him a question about what went where, “You’re Bree’s brother.”
His eyes widened slightly, and he looked down so Kian wouldn’t notice his expression. “Now how the hell did you know that?” The Southern accent deepened.
“I know Bree. She lives in Austin now. She thinks you died when your helicopter was shot down in Afghanistan.”
“I should have,” Remy Fayette said as he bent over the board. “I really should have. Is she all right? And my mom?”
“They’re both great. They’re in Austin now. Bree’s living with a Shifter. Your mom lives in your great-uncle’s house.”
“Man.” Remy’s eyes opened and closed, moisture on his lashes. “You get shot at and dragged into Faerie for a few months, and look what happens?”
“We’ll have a big party when we get back. Now, let’s build us a computer out of scraps.”
“Sure,” Remy said. “How are we going to power it?”
“Heck if I know.” Joanne helped him twist wires into holes. “I’ll think of something. If I can hack the Guardian Network, I can hack a bunch of quartz crystals.”
Daragh growled when Joanne mentioned the Guardian Network, but he said nothing.
Kian got up and came over to watch what they were doing. He pointed and asked a question. Daragh translated, but there wasn’t much need. “What does that do?”
Remy explained. “It can send and receive signals over long distances. If there are signals to receive.”
Kian followed Daragh’s translation with interest. He reached down and touched a crystal, then snatched his finger back as though worried it would bite him.
“Signals are all over our world,” Joanne said. “All kinds of waves. Why shouldn’t there be some here as well?”
“There are,” Remy said. “Different ones. I’m in the signal corps—communications was kind of my raison d’ȇtre. There’s plenty of stuff in the atmosphere here too. Faerie’s an alternate world to ours—like what would happen if the timeline had veered off centuries ago—not a different planet. Near as I can figure, anyway.”
“Which is why we can pass back and forth on ley lines and through magic doors,” Joanne said, thinking it through. “Worlds running almost in sync, then growing more dissimilar with the passing years. Huh. Will give me something to think about in the middle of the night when I’m back home.”
“Yeah, me too.”
“We still need electricity,” Joanne said. She looked up at Daragh, a muscular Shifter in T-shirt and stained jeans and motorcycle boots. “There’s power in your Collar,” she said. “If you’re no longer truly alive, can’t you take it off?”
“Now, there’s an idea.” Daragh gave her a wry look. “I might be dead, but it still hurts like hell. As you saw.” He put his hand to his throat. “I tried. I can’t get it off, no matter what I do.” He glanced at Kian, who was tracing the wires and clips with his gaze, as though memorizing the pattern. “How about if I piss him off? I’m sure he’d be happy to trigger my Collar for you.”
“No,” Joanne said quickly. She already knew in her heart she couldn’t help Daragh—not to save his life anyway. But she refused to stand there and watch him be tortured on the off chance it would send a signal to their side of the ether.
Remy said, “Without power, this will be just a pretty collection of rocks and wires. I can try to make a battery. Got any salt water?”
Joanne was about to answer when the walls shook, shouting sounded, and smoke poured through the doorway into the sto
ne room. Joanne coughed. Remy caught her and dove for the ground, pushing her underneath him.
Kian disappeared into the boiling smoke, his sword making a ringing sound as he drew it. Daragh, unaffected, walked calmly to the door and out. Kian wasn’t far behind him, and then the room moved. The Fae were going to try to make it mobile.
Joanne struggled out from under Remy and was up, running for the door, left open, Remy right behind her. Soldiers were everywhere, yelling, silhouettes in the smoke.
Joanne heard the scream of a horse, hoofbeats, and then a demon-creature was charging through a slit in one of the canvas walls, right through the smoke and fire.
The beast was a horse—at least, half of it was. Its neck and head were sinuous, covered with scales. Its eyes were red, its teeth sharp points in a wide, dragon-like mouth.
On its back was Broderick, dressed like a Fae.
Broderick rode straight at her, like a knight in shining armor, grabbed Joanne by the arm, and hauled her up onto the horse in front of him.
Chapter Sixteen
“Wait!” Joanne yelled as Broderick turned the dragon-horse and prepared to charge back out through the tent wall. “We can’t go without Remy. And his radio—we need that!”
“What?” Broderick shouted back. Having the weight of Joanne against him was all he needed. “No Oh, Broderick, my hero! Or even How the hell did you find me? Who is Remy, and why do I care?”
“He’s Bree’s brother, and he has a way to get us out of here.”
Broderick growled even as he turned the horse. “Damn it, I knew this couldn’t be that easy.”
He rode through the smoke at the wall with the copper door, as a man in an army uniform carrying armfuls of junk came out. Joanne slid down before Broderick could stop her and went to help him. How Joanne expected Broderick to take the man and all the stuff, and Joanne, somewhere safe he had no idea.
Broderick smothered more astonishment when another man bulked through the smoke.
He was a Shifter. He had the build, the take-no-shit green eyes of a Feline, the attitude. Broderick would have known he was Shifter even before he saw the Collar.