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  For Wild Bill Evans

  Ever loved. Ever missed.

  Acknowledgments

  I’d like to thank my editor, Holly Ingraham, for buying my first novel; for leading me through the highs and lows a novice writer is sure to experience; and for giving me consistently strong advice. But mostly, I’d like to thank her for being who she is: Holly Ingraham, St. Martin’s best damn editor evah.

  Next, I’d like to mention my amazing agent, Deidre Knight. I had a manuscript in deep need of burnishing. Deidre showed me how to improve my writing, and then springboarded that debut novel into a four-book contract. Along the way, we’ve gone from freak-outs to laughter, from contracts to conventions, from agent-client to dearest friends. She is the best agent you could ask for.

  Additional thanks to the lovely Bella Pagan, my UK editor, and the fabulous art design team at Pan Macmillan.

  Last, here’s to the people who helped me cross the finish line: Julie Butcher, Suzanne McLeod, Rebecca Melson, Janice Pia, Kerry Schafer, Tricia “Pickyme” Schmitt, Amanda Seebeck, Susan Seebeck, and Lynsey Taylor.

  Now…

  WRYAL’S ISLAND

  AN HOUR BEFORE THE MOONRISE

  Dear Cordelia,

  Forgive the crap handwriting. Trowbridge’s head is on my lap, which makes letter writing complicated. Don’t worry—he’s not wounded; he’s just taking a short nap. Ever the Alpha, he’s claimed my leg, declaring it a preferable pillow to the stone floor. The latter is hard and unforgiving, and in that way it’s rather like Merenwyn.

  Yes, we made it to the Fae realm.

  Big surprise, huh? Last you saw of me, I was walking into the hotel on my way to meet the wolf council. My prospects didn’t look good and I wouldn’t have bet my last stash of chocolate that Trowbridge and I would have got out of that kangaroo trial. But we did. We proved our innocence to St. Silas and the other members of the council, and Whitlock died.

  I killed him myself, Cordelia.

  Told you I would.

  Anyhow, the end result is that the Ontario wolf pack is no longer in hot water with the council. I don’t know if you care about that, but if Creemore is home to you, you can go back to it.

  I’m smiling right now because I’m imagining you reading this.

  Your face is screwed up into a diva scowl, and if there was a thought bubble over your head it would read: “Who gives a damn about Creemore? What the hell are you doing in Merenwyn?”

  I didn’t have much of a choice. The council wanted the Safe Passage sealed, and the Fae, with the key to it, dead. I was told to track down the Gatekeeper, kill her, and close the portal forever.

  Unspoken in those orders was, “And don’t come back.”

  Trowbridge told me not to go.

  He was there at the Peach Pit, handcuffed to the fence surrounding the mini-train enclosure. Though no one actually came out and said it, it was very much a case of “do what we say or your mate gets it.”

  When St. Silas told me to take the jump, Trowbridge said that we shouldn’t. That we should just take our final bows right then and there. He was really pissed with the NAW.

  Plus, he knew what was waiting here.

  But I had to take the leap.

  I did it partially because I was completely convinced that there could be no happily ever after for any of us until the Old Mage’s Book of Spells was turned to ash. That thing is a recipe book for bad magic, and it has fallen into the worst hands. Every spell that the old wizard ever conceived, every conjure that he ever produced, every exploration in elementary magic that he ever made—the details are all there, written in ink by his hand. And now the old man’s protégé has begun to read it.

  Evil will come your way when the Black Mage reads that last page.

  It will come for all.

  Tonight, no matter what happens, I’ve got to see that part of our epic quest through to the end, or little of this makes sense. I have to put a match to the book, see the flames dance, watch its pages burn.

  I have to.

  Goddess, I wish I was home. Even if it was just to receive a tongue-lashing from you. You’re angry, right now, aren’t you? Your mouth is a tight line; your shoulders are stiff—you never lose your posture even when you’re ready to blow.

  Okay, Cordelia: you’re right. I also crossed the gates between the two realms to rescue my twin. Before you start cursing me from here to Creemore, remember: I made the original bargain with the Old Mage.

  I set everything in motion. I’m the person who said, “Why, yes, Old Mage, thank you for asking me to be your nalera. I accept!”

  It should be me sharing my body with the old guy.

  Not my brother.

  And before you point out that Lexi was already a wolf-killing drug addict who amounted to a waste of space, you need to understand that when I jumped I believed him to be salvageable. And that I was running on guilt, because I’d briefly experienced being a wizard’s nalera.

  How do I explain what being a nalera means to someone who hasn’t lived it?

  Imagine that you wake up blind. After a few seconds of blinking in total darkness, you realize you’re posed on a bed of satin wearing your best dress and those tap-taps that woke you are the sounds of someone hammering in your coffin nails. When you work your throat to summon up a scream nothing comes out. When you tell yourself to move—to hammer on that coffin lid for some help—you can’t. You’re fully aware, you’re mentally struggling, but for all your angst and agony your efforts to free yourself amount to squat.

  That’s what sharing your soul with a powerful mage feels like.

  You are his bitch. The legs to his will. You do what he says when he tells you to do it. And you have no place to hide because you’re sharing your mind with your master. He’s inside you. Seeing everything.

  I thought I couldn’t leave Lexi in that claustrophobic hell.

  You’re probably muttering, “Yes, you bloody well can. And you should let him take care of the book.”

  As always, you’re right.

  But I won’t.

  As I stood at the portal to Merenwyn, making a decision between certain death and maybe death, I didn’t fully understand why I couldn’t trust Lexi to burn the encyclopedia of magic on his own. I was more fixated on the fact that I needed to get here, as soon as possible, because if Lexi saw three sunrises in Merenwyn the soul merge would become permanent.

  Now, I understand those instincts were there, telling me I must jump, but there’s just not enough paper left to explain them to you. And perhaps it’s our story: Trowbridge’s and mine. Lexi’s too …

  Since I’ve been in Merenwyn, I’ve seen the evidence to support the notion that those wards the Old Mage placed over his pages are degrading, flaking away faster than that cheap nail polish you bought and moaned about for a solid week back in the summer. Believe me when I tell you that the old man’s apprentice, the Black Mage, has been t
humbing his way through the book and that I’m pretty sure he’s close to the end of it.

  I know what’s written on the last page now.

  A little late—it’s starting to look like we might not win this fight ahead of us.

  Which is why I ripped this honking big map out of its frame and penned this long-assed letter on the back of it. If I feel death coming, I’m going to try to get to Threall before I take my last gasp. There I’ll put this paper into Mad-one’s hands and I’ll fill her brain with as many memories as I have of you, so that she’ll recognize you when she finds your tree.

  Yes, that may take some time, but time passes differently in this realm. Trust me, she’ll have the time.

  I think you have a soul-bearing tree in Threall. You are a Were, which makes you a descendent of a Merenwyn wolf. And I firmly believe that whether a person is a Fae, a wolf, or a mutt, they have soul in Threall.

  I have to believe it.

  Mad-one might not be able to harm a mage directly, but she’s been dancing to their tune for a very long time and she wants to be free of them. If I fail, I think she’ll help you.

  If you get this map, you’ll know that Trowbridge and I aren’t going to be able to fix this. Bad things are coming your way. You have two choices: try to hide or come after the mage. If you decide to come, bring your courage and perfume, as many vials of iron shavings as you can carry, and this map. Don’t bring Anu with you.

  I never said thank you.

  I should have.

  Also, I never said how I felt about you.

  Love,

  Hedi

  Before…

  Chapter One

  APPROXIMATELY FIVE STINKING HOURS AFTER THE PORTAL SPAT US OUT INTO MERENWYN

  I’ve made a few quiet and unsettling personal discoveries.

  Sad fact: I’ve always thought I was a nature lover. Partially because I like flowers and butterflies and the scent of woods—spruce, maple, pine, earth, bark—invariably gives me the warm fuzzies.

  Guess what? I’m not Hedi, the tree hugger.

  After a while, no matter its girth or its magnificence, a tree is a tree. And a gorge fades from an awe-inspiring visual to a thing placed there with the sole intent of frustrating the shit out of you.

  Other things this city dweller has placed high on the hate list during her first day in Merenwyn: almost invisible flying bugs that make a peculiar humming noise as they zoom in for a snack of my Fae-sweet blood; heat rashes in sensitive places; prickers that try to pierce my baby-soft soles.

  Believe it or not, I’m starting to miss Creemore.

  And cars. Those I really miss.

  You see? This is the problem with epic quests. No matter what’s on the list, the damn things seem to come with gritty realities that just drain all the epic out of them. For instance, the necessity of wrapping my shoe-deprived feet with the sleeves torn from my mate’s sweatshirt because Trowbridge and I traversed the Safe Passage into the Fae world without any travel preparations—my shoes, a box of matches, an industrial-sized bottle of DEET, a case of PowerBars, a roll of toilet paper—or, for that matter, any discussion.

  There’d been no time for it.

  I’d vaulted through the Fae portal first, all hell-bent on rescuing my twin, Lexi, and the world. Since then, I’ve had a few hours to think about that leap. And I’ve asked myself—was that a piece of heroism or what?

  Unfortunately, the answer is “hell no.”

  My hop, skip, and jump into Merenwyn was 80 percent guilt fueled

  I left my brother bearing the burden of my own mistake: being the Old Mage’s nalera was no walk in the park. Plus there was the whole save-the-world issue. Foul magic dripping through the portals and polluting everything that is good and fine and untouched in my home world.

  People will get hurt. Like Cordelia, my mom-that-isn’t, and Anu, my niece.

  I can’t have that either.

  But here’s the element of doubt. Would I have been struck by the pressing need to protect the innocent if the goons with the guns hadn’t been giving me the buh-byes? After all, St. Silas had made it impossible for me to not take that step.

  Turns out, I’m not heroic at all.

  Sad, no?

  On the other hand, Robson Trowbridge came to Merenwyn because he’s heroic and he loves me. Any doubt I had on the subject of my mate’s devotion was wiped out the instant I’d recognized the cacophony coming from the portal for what it was—the metallic shriek of a chain-link fence scoring the passage walls as it was dragged willy-nilly into the land of the Fae.

  St. Silas, one of the big woofs of the werewolves’ Great Council back in our world, had handcuffed my mate to such a fence. The asshole should have cuffed the Alpha of Creemore to a Chevy. My Trowbridge simply brought a six-foot panel of chain link with him, as well as a fence post, a set of handcuffs, his scent, and—not to overwork the phrase—his love.

  Trowbridge loves me.

  I turned my head slightly to regard my beloved. After enveloping me in a breath-defying hug that had quickly evolved into a truly memorable and searing kiss, my lover had divested himself of the handcuffs. Then, he’d taken care of what was left of the fence by rolling it into an untidy cylinder, which he’d stashed behind a handy outcrop of rock. After that, he’d performed a quick scent test of the air and a squint-eyed examination of the forest below. Finally, he’d turned to look at me. For four long seconds he’d stared at me, his expression inscrutable, but in the end he’d swallowed down whatever sermon he’d entertained delivering and all he’d said was, “Ready?”

  I’d smiled back and said, “Born ready.”

  Though his mouth had tightened, he’d never thrown that back at me, not once, during the last few hours.

  Now my Trowbridge lay supine on his flat stomach beside me, propped up on his elbows, his eyes narrowed on the scene below. As visual feasts go, what he was frowning at was the ultimate photo op—literally a landscape of improbable beauty. Two thick wedges of old forest framed the green valley. Diamonds of light glinted from the winding blue river, and the tops of the grasses on its banks swayed. Add to this perfection the requisite background of wooded hills rolling to oblivion and beyond—

  Goddess, Merenwyn would have given Ansel Adams a chubby.

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not a tree hugger, remember?

  Let’s go back to talking about Trowbridge.

  Normally, I’m all about the splendor of his face: eyes that were as blue as the Mediterranean, cheekbones that could cut glass, a lower lip that could be hard or tender. But at the moment, he was scowling again, so I allowed my eyes to rove over and my nose to enjoy the other totally Trowbridge delights. Like his body and the totally appealing scent of his sweat.

  Mine.

  If I blurred my eyes a bit, he was naked Trowbridge. Which, by any personal measure, is a better thing than a paper bag filled to bursting with Cherry Blossoms, Kit Kats, Skittles, and chocolate fudge.

  My mate had come through the gates wearing the clothing he’d been given before his trial in front of the council: a pair of jeans that were too large and a sweatshirt that was too small. That’s it, except for the fence. Nobody had coughed up a T-shirt for the doomed Alpha of Creemore. Also—and this was crucial—nobody had thoughtfully tossed him a pair of tighty whities either, because he was wearing his jeans commando.

  I knew this because I’d been watching his back all morning, enjoying the “now you see it, now you don’t” scenery as those jeans tried to shuck themselves off his narrow hips, then biting my lips every time he’d jerk them back up again with a hiss of annoyance that I found inexpressibly endearing.

  One man’s pain, another woman’s gain.

  When he’d gone down on his belly to case out the valley, those faded jeans had already been sailing at very low mast. Now they rode so low, I could see the dimples at the base of his spine and the upper swell of his tight ass cheeks.

  And the small of his back.

  I’d become fixated on
that patch of skin. I wanted to tramp-stamp it with the words “Hedi’s property.” I wanted to lick it and stroke it, and press my cheek to it so I could absorb his heat, and breathe in his scent—woods, salt, sex, and yum. I’d do all those things right now except my bone-liquefying exhaustion had placed all lustful thoughts into a holding pattern.

  Later.

  That’s when I’d satisfy my need to claim that patch of skin. If one didn’t dwell overlong on the sub-goal list, I had lots of “laters” in my future, during which I could explore every slope, plane, swell, and groove of his body. He’s mine. I exhaled, glorifying in the awesomeness of him and me, and my breath bounced back, slightly sour and definitely metallic.

  Yup. Later.

  Right now, we were trekking to the rendezvous point—a place named Daniel’s Rock—where Trowbridge and I were supposed to meet Lexi. Though time differences between this realm and the other are vast, we had lots of time.

  We were early.

  I mean, really early. I don’t know precisely how early, because one Earth hour is the rough equivalent of eighteen Merenwyn hours and that is a bitch to figure out without a calculator and piece of paper.

  But Trowbridge and I had crossed far earlier than instructed. Which meant we were way ahead of schedule and at this moment Lexi was betwixt worlds, still going through the unenviable process of having his addiction torn from him.

  I tried to imagine what it felt like for my brother. Waking and realizing that you’re trapped inside a fog-filled portal passage. Slowly recognizing that you’re a prisoner—you can’t go forward to Merenwyn, and you can’t go back to Creemore. And worse, your transit plans are hostage to your own addiction. There’d be no freedom until such time as a mage—and Lexi has no fondness for them—pronounced you clean of your cravings for sun potion.

  It would suck balls.

  It had to be worse than being stuck in LaGuardia for an indefinite layover, your only company the walls, the clock, and an evangelist preacher.