9: Journey

Ian    

Darby looks a little green as she sits at the kitchen table with the three of us. Beside me, her plate is filled with mixed leafy greens, sliced fruits and chopped vegetables, but she can’t seem to take her eyes off the rest of us eating rabbit, even though we’re eating vegetables too.

It’s one of my pet peeves—I insist on good table etiquette—so I know it’s only the adjustment to dining with omnivores, but I figure better here and now to introduce that change, rather than when we get to the pack house where the dining room resembles a small cafeteria circus and is often filled during at least one meal time each week with various leaders and prominent citizens there to sort community business with Jack, Ivan and me in a less formal setting than our main street offices.

I lean over to her, tucking my lips against the baby-soft hollow behind her ear and whisper, “Are you alright, baby? You’ve barely touched your food.”

As if she’s completely forgotten everything else but the cooked rabbit on our plates, Darby startles and a tight, uncomfortable smile pulls her lips before she looks down at her untouched food. “Yes. It’s just been a long time since I’ve dined with company, let alone weres.”

I know she thinks I don’t know it, but there’s a whole red riding hood thing going about me in her head, especially when my wolf half has taken the lead in the bedroom. So I whisper in her ear again, this time in the low, menacing-seductive wolf voice, “The better to eat you with, my love.”

Against her creamy skin, her blush is wholly obvious and irresistible. Even if I didn’t also pick up the subtle fragrance of womanly lust, seeing her normally rosy cheeks and full pouty lips darken to cherry wine and the mounds of her generous breasts flush is enough to arouse a dead man. Knowing that it also happens to her plump perfect nipples and even the silky hidden folds of her nether lips exacerbates my own response in a colossal backfire. It takes all of my self-control not to scoop her up and head for the bedroom.

Across the table from us, Jack’s watching with a knowing look and smile, even though he’s atypically quiet. But his eyes linger a little too long on Darby darkly, lit with sexual awareness, his wolf ravenous and close to the surface. My lips pull back, flashing my lengthened canines and he looks aside quickly, respecting my alpha claim. The whole thing highlights and heightens the need to make Darby my Luna—to make public my exclusive and possessive rights as her mate.

“Where exactly is your valley located, Darby?” Ivan asks, and around the table the tension eases. It’s a gift he has and I’m grateful to have such a statesman as part of my team.

“About five miles from the nearest human community, Mountainrose. It won’t take terribly long to reach it, though about half of the trip is over terrain. Nothing the jeep can’t handle, of course.”

“Mountainrose.” Ivan’s brow furrows. “I don’t recognize it. Do you, Jack?”

“Do I look like Google Maps?”

“Jack. We need information, not juvenile attitude. It’s your job to know our territory.”

“Sorry, Ivan.” His tone is contrite after my correction. “I’m just antsy to get back to Candlewood. I don’t know Mountainrose, but it’s my understanding Darby’s been here exclusively for a while, so maybe the name’s changed.”

As the conversation starts flowing, Darby’s focus shifts with it and the meal goes more smoothly. Ivan’s diplomacy is always good for that. By the time we’re finished eating and everything is cleaned up, there’s a plan in place for getting us to Mountainrose then reconnected with our pack.

We’re following Jack and Ivan out to the shed to get the jeep when Darby abruptly stops at the door. Immediately, Tessa nestles against her leg in a sit, lifting her chin to nose at her mistress’ hand, and almost absently, Darby’s delicate, trembling fingers stroke under the dog’s chin.

When she turns, her eyes skimming a last time over her cottage, heavy tears quivering against her lower lashes, I feel her sadness, her sense of loss, as acutely as if it were mine and my wolf half gives a long, melancholy howl in my head. With Tessa offering her comfort on one side, I wrap my arms around her from the other. When Darby leans her head against my chest, her tears soak my shirt, carrying her sorrow into my soul.

“We’ll come back, my love. Any time you want.” It’s a promise I’ll die to keep.

It takes only a few minutes for her to pull herself together and I’m proud of her strength.

Ivan and Jack have pulled the jeep outside the gate and into the meadow near the garden wall. I can see Ivan’s hand clutching his side and hope we’re not far from Candlewood. I can’t fault Darby’s care, but he definitely needs were medicine for the injury to heal right.

Jack pats his chest as we approach and with a bounding start, Tessa leaps gracefully into his arms. He takes the passenger seat of the jeep, pulling the seat belt around the border collie with him on his lap. Her doggy smile and excitement are contagious and we’re all grinning in seconds. When Ivan is loaded in the back, I turn to Darby. “Lead on, baby.”

With a mischievous flick of one brow, she winks. “Catch me. If you can.” She turns then, and streaks down the meadow the same way she did when we first arrived and I found her in the orchard healing her tree. Though I’ve seen it before, it’s still astonishing.

Beside me, Jack’s mouth falls open and he breathes, “Holy shit.”

Her sylphide form, though it retains her shape, is wholly translucent and wraithlike. Ghostly tendrils of her passing trail her behind like translucent smoke, their glittering residue dissipating into the air. I engage the clutch and smile proudly. “Just wait. She’s not even moving yet.”

We follow her on a narrow path through the forest trees, finding ourselves at the base of the rocky ridge. The jeep bucks and skids but holds steady on the long steep climb to the rim where Darby stops us near the base of a familiar looking boulder. I see from his expression Jack recognizes it too and his eyes scan the surrounding forest warily.

Where we came in.

She’s standing beside us, in as much as a woman made of air can, looking out across the valley and we hear the Old Tongue whispering in the breeze. Below, the earth rumbles. Then a circle of stones erupts onto the surface, supports for the dome of glowing green magic that closes over the cottage, garden and orchard. It shimmers like heat rising off metal, then all signs of the stones, the cottage, its gardens and orchard disappear from our sight and the meadow stretches out unblemished below us.

My brows pull together in a frown. “You added another ward? Why?”

Darby’s voice is a ghostly whisper around us. “Because I don’t know when I’ll return. The final seal must be in place.”

“To do what?”

Even translucent, I can see her expression change. “To destroy it if someone tries to get in. Let’s go.”

We bump and jostle along slowly, rounding the boulder and coming level on the ridge above the valley. Darby’s whispering again and we watch as she touches the boulder with spectral fingers. Before our eyes, it wavers and I shake my head, blinking rapidly to clear my sudden double vision.

But it’s not my vision. When the environment stabilizes, there are two identical boulders before us, one on either side of the jeep. Darby leads the way between them, stopping a final time on the other side. We watch as she touches the enormous stone and two that separated moments before, merge once again.

“The fuck was that?”

Darby faces Jack, her expression blank, then shrugs. “My valley sits in a fold,” she breathes in the air.

“Uh-huh. Wha?” Brows raised, Jack gazes at her, prompting for more details.

Recognizing this might take longer to explain than she planned, Darby materializes into a solid form. “A fold.” When Jack doesn’t move, she adds, “In the earth.”

He continues to stare, disinterestedly, then says flatly, “A fold.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Jack. Earth is a surface in space.”

“Duh.”

With a deep sigh, Darby looks up, blinking, trying to find a way to explain what she means. “It’s like a blanket. Or a sheet of paper. This stone marks the edges where I folded the valley. To hide and protect it.”

While I recognize Jack’s pushing her, I let it go on, needing more myself to understand. She holds out one hand, palm up and flat. Touching her fingertips with a finger of her opposite hand, and the base of her palm with her thumb, she mimes folding her hand closed. “What’s inside is still there. It’s just not visible or accessible from the surface. Unless you know where the edge of the fold is. I prefer to mark mine with a big rock. They’re usually fixed and stable where a tree or plant might die, a spring or a lake might dry up, or a river might shift.”

Jack looks at me wryly. “Just so we’re clear. Faery girl here confuses the shit out of me.”

“You had to have touched it. All three of you or you wouldn’t have been able to get into my valley. Don’t you remember this rock, Jack?”

It’s Ivan who replies, his voice uncharacteristically low. “We all remember this rock. This is where we first caught your scent.”

Darby’s face is a smooth mask, her peridot eyes wide and startled like a deer, her skin starting to flush. “Ah. Well this just got awkward. Shall we carry on then?”

She melts into the air and leads us away, out of the forest that rings her valley along the ridge, then across another open meadow to a narrow dirt road. At a distance along either side, human homes dot the landscape, but never grow denser before we reach a boarded-up service station directly off the grated street. There’s a sun-bleached metal sign angled on bent stakes in the corner of its crumbling lot that says: ‘Welcome to Mountainrose’.

As Darby materializes, Jack jumps out of the jeep with Tessa and makes for a payphone on the side of the rundown building. He lifts the receiver to his ear. “It works, but I don’t have any money. Or any idea if we can bill the call to the packhouse.”

Beside me, Darby sighs and as she crosses to his side, I pull the jeep up and take the receiver.

“Step back, please.”

Jack takes a step back, leans against the jeep near Ivan with his arms crossed over his wide chest, then crosses his ankles. “Sure. By all means. I’m sure you flicking the lever without inserting payment will get a different result than me.”

Sighing heavily, she rolls her eyes at his pettiness, then reaches toward the phone without touching it. As with the jeep battery the day before, a spark leaps from her finger into the device. In my ear, the annoying automated female voice stops repeating, “Please enter your payment”, then says, “Enter the number you’d like to call,” and there’s a dial tone.

Grinning, I ask, “Will you dial for me, baby?”

The tight little shake of her head surprises me and I squint, peering at her.

“I can’t touch it.”

Unwinding his long limbs, Jack pushes himself off the jeep, eyeing her strangely. “Ooooh-kaaaay. I’ll do it.”

He dials the number to his security office and a few rings later, an unfamiliar voice rattles, “City of Candlewood Law Enforcement. How may I direct your call?”

“I need to speak to Security Captain David Sullivan, please.”

“Who may I tell him is calling?”

“Alpha Gallagher.”

“One moment, please, Alpha, while I connect you.”

I cover the mouthpiece with my hand as hold music begins to play in my ear and look at Jack. “You have to give them some better dialog.”

“Why? Was someone rude?”

“No. Just sounds like an automaton.”

Jack shrugs. “Eh. There are worse things.”

“Alpha? Ian? Is that you?” David’s voice is frantic in my ear.

“Hi David. Yes. It’s me. Jack and Ivan are here too.”

“Thank Arianrhod! Are you all right? Where have you been? Where are you?”

“David, calm down. We were set upon by vampires.”

“We found the ambush site—your phones, your clothes. And a royal mess of the vampires. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Yeah, something strange happened when we made our escape from the ambush and we wound up in a valley several miles south of a town named Mountainrose. That’s where we are now. How soon can you get here?”

“Mountainrose? Never heard of it. Mountainrose. Mountainrose.” I can hear him clicking rapidly on a keyboard, then a few seconds later, paper turning as he searches physical maps. “Mountainrose, Alpha?” he asks doubtfully. “Are you sure?”

“I’m standing across from the sign at the town limits. It clearly says: ‘Welcome to Mountainrose, population 147’.” Silence. “David?”

“Alpha, you’re over seven hundred miles away from where we found your clothes and phones.”

I look from the Mountainrose sign to Darby, stunned. Peering at me, Jack’s eyes narrow, detecting something wrong.

In my ear, David recovers, offering, “The nearest airport to you is a hundred-twenty miles further north, Alpha.” There’s silence again as David mentally calculates. “If we take the jet, we can be there in a couple hours. If we can get a helicopter out of there, we can get to you in three.”

“Just meet us at the airport. Can you give me a pick-up location near the airport but outside security?”

More clicking on the keyboard, then David supplies, “The closest location is O’Hare’s Gastropub. Corner of 19^th and Airport boulevard.”

“Got it, thanks. We’ll need some clothes, please, four new IDs, and a pet license with up to date shot records.”

“And the fourth ID and the pet license?”

“The pet license is for Tessa.” I can hear David scribbling as I start talking. “Female border collie. One year old. Black and white markings. Registered to Darby Gallagher.”

“G-Gallagher?”

I can’t help but smile. I focus on Darby and she melts under my adoring gaze. “That’s right. That’s who the fourth ID is for. Darby Gallagher. Twenty-four-year-old female. Five foot six inches. One hundred ten pounds. Brown hair, green eyes.” 

The mouthpiece at David’s end is covered and a string of excited, muffled babble ensues followed by several cheers. When the ruckus dies down, David returns. “Anything else, Alpha?”

“Nope. We’re good. See you in a couple hours.”

**

Jack    

The neighborhoods surrounding the airport are a safety and security nightmare. Even if we weren’t dressed like we just walked off the set of Saturday Night Fever and driving a fully restored World War II jeep, eyes follow the vehicle as Ian navigates Airport Boulevard, turns at 19^th and pulls into the parking lot of O’Hare’s.

Instantly, Darby materializes on Ian’s side of the jeep and Tessa starts wiggling on my lap.

Behind us, a shiny new pickup with security tinting on the windows, decked out with all the bells and whistles and lifted so stupidly high I could have walked under it without stooping, pulls into the parking lot. Another two cars pull in behind it, boxing us in on either side.

Fuck.

I wish I knew what David’s ETA is, I think, my eyes flicking from vehicle to vehicle, assessing our situation. When a back door opens on the last car that pulled in, a single passenger jumping out and racing into the bar, I look over Ian. “Darby, you need to get in the jeep,” I say quietly, unbuckling my seat belt slyly.

“I can’t. I’m not dressed for that.”

‘Dressed for that’? What the entire fuck?

Before I can get into it with her, the passenger window of the pickup rolls down smoothly and three tattooed, pierced faces poke out, blatantly ogling her. The female, her hair shaved and spiked in a hot pink mohawk puts her fingers up to her mouth in a V, flicking her tongue between them in an erotic gesture as the male with a fully shaved, tattooed head and gauges the size of the truck’s rims in his ears coos to Darby, “Hey, sweet cheeks. Ditch the queens and come on up and play. There’s some good stuff waiting up here for you.”

I’m all in for being open and honest about your needs when you meet someone, but I’m always surprised by the creep guys like this one that still think that this kind of talk ever pays off. I’d bet good money right now Darby would feel safer going down into a dark basement with a serial killer than getting in that stupid-ass truck.

Beside me, Ian gives a low growl and wraps a possessive arm around Darby’s waist, but doesn’t acknowledge them otherwise.

The idiot humans in the truck laugh.

Double fuck.

If David’s team doesn’t arrive soon, things are going to get uuuuuu-gly.

From above, Bald Guy continues his egging. “Hey, cream puff, don’t get upset,” he says to Ian. “Jackrabbit here is a door that swings both ways. He’ll be happy to service that sweet ass of yours too.” Bald Guy gestures with a thumb at the driver.

“You wanna negotiate, tough guy? Get down here on the ground.”

“Ian!” It’s Darby’s panicked whisper. “What are you doing?”

“About to fuck somebody up,” I mumble in response through gritted teeth. Total between the three vehicles, there are only nine men, all of them still in the cars. By the time Ian’s done with Bald Guy—and it won’t take long— they won’t be in a hurry to get out.

Behind Darby, the truck door opens and Bald Guy drops out of it like a monkey out of a tree. I nearly laugh as he struts up to stand next to Darby, making a show in front of Ian of examining and appreciating her backside.

He’s the quintessential big truck small penis type, not even as tall as her and I’d be surprised if he outweighs her, even if she didn’t have thirty-pound jugs on the front of her chest. The bar door opens and another couple burly guys, step out onto the crumbling sidewalk leading up to the door, their arms crossed over their chests.

When shit goes down, those two are mine. Tessa, get in the back with Ivan.

Yes, triumvir. She leaps over my shoulder onto the back seat gracefully.

Beside me, Ian unbuckles his seat belt, anticipating Bald Guy’s next move. He doesn’t have long to wait.

When Bald Guy reaches for Darby’s posterior, quick as lightning, Ian shoves her behind him. She gives a startled squeak and, strangely, I smell singed flesh, but my eyes are on Ian, towering over Bald Guy and glaring down at him.

Since he wasn’t anticipating were speed, Bald Guy has a handful of Ian’s crotch.

Raising his massive hands to Bald Guy’s eye level, Ian balls them unhurriedly into fists, then tucks them across his broad chest, his pecs bulging and his biceps the size of tree trunks as they flex. “I’m not a door that swings both ways, douchebag. So have Jackass up there put down Rapunzel’s pink hair for you and get your hand off my cock. Now.”

Dumbfounded, Bald Guy looks up, then jumps back, trips and lands hard on his ass. “What the fuck!” He scrambles backward in a crab crawl.

I know what. Once Ian had his attention, he let his wolf show through his eyes. The shift, even from his normal deep blue to were black with ominous yellow and green streaks, is intimidating when you are expecting it.

Before Ian can advance on Bald Guy, Darby puts a restraining hand on his bicep, her other arm tucked up against her waist with a bright red, blistered burn on it. I don’t have much time to think about it as shiny black Rolls Royce with privacy tint pulls in directly behind the jeep, its engine purring like a jungle cat.

I grin. The cavalry has arrived.

All four doors open simultaneously and David and his three-man team step out. Though not as tall as Ian, they all look like professional wrestlers turned secret service in their dark suits and glasses, clean-cut hair and the emotionless set of their faces.

The burly guys creep backwards into the bar and the windows go up on the other vehicles in the lot. Still on the ground, Bald Guy scrambles towards the tire of his truck and a terrified Pink Mohawk pulls the door closed, ducking into the backseat out of sight.

Advancing menacingly, David grabs Bald Guy by the collar. We all hear the door lock on the truck, but it snaps easily when my security captain pulls the handle. Lifting him bodily into the cab, David stuffs Bald Guy face first into the passenger floorboards, then slams the door shut and extends a hand to Ian.

“Alpha, good to see you.” He nods to me and Ivan. “Second triumvirs. If you would please, the jet’s standing by. I have what you requested in the back of the car. Are we bringing this vehicle?”

Ivan and I get out of the jeep and Tessa leaps into my arms. Ian nods to David and two of the team advance to flanking positions, leaving a clear path to the Rolls.

**

Ian    

As I shake David’s hand, I reach behind me to pull Darby to my side. When she gives a pained hiss and flinches away, I turn, shocked to see an angry red blistered burn covering most of her forearm. I grab her shoulders, pulling her toward me carefully. “Baby, what happened?”

She cradles her arm protectively against her chest. “When you pushed me, I touched the jeep.”

I glance at the hood. Though it’s old and it’s been in the sun, I can’t imagine it being hot enough to make a burn like that, but I don’t have Darby’s fine skin either. I put my arm around her shoulders, sheltering her with my body and lead her towards the Rolls. “There’s a first aid kit in the back.”

Ivan and Ian are already in the vehicle, Tessa wiggling happily on the bench seat between them when we reach the back of the car. Ducking her head, Darby looks in first, then stands facing me. She leans, glancing around my body back to the bald douchebag’s truck and I see her golden-green eyes start to glow with green faery fire.

“One moment.”

She steps around me to a huge pothole in the parking lot. Bending, she picks up a handful of dusty soil, lifting it in her palm like she means to blow a kiss. The air swirls past me, picking up the earth in her hand and carrying it to the truck.

Inside, the tattooed douchebag has righted himself in the seat and he and his crew are staring at us like frightened rabbits. The vehicle groans around them, gives several loud, metallic pings and then both axles snap and the whole thing crumples into a crooked heap.

I can’t help but smile as Darby returns to our car, dusting her hands against each other and with a wicked smile on her pouty lips.

“That’s better.”

She slides in first, carefully avoiding the seatbelt buckles and looks about the cool interior. Up front, David and a security team member put the car in reverse and merge smoothly into traffic, the other half of the team following in Darby’s jeep.

“Where are we going now?” Darby asks, refusing when I ask to examine her arm.

“The airport. For private planes, we don’t have to go through TSA checkpoints, but security will still ask for ID before they let us behind the gate.”

“Why are we taking an aeroplane?”

I glance at Jack and Ivan across from us and see David’s eyes flick to mine in the rearview mirror. These three already know.

“Because somehow your valley is seven hundred miles away from Candlewood, baby.”

**