The Problem with Promises

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  For Katie’s kids: Bob, Susan, and Melanie

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  Dinner at the Trowbridge Manse

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Acknowledgments

  Series card

  Praise for Leigh Evans

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Dinner at the Trowbridge Manse

  Approximately two hours after I sent my brother to Merenwyn—

  Robson Trowbridge pushed away his dinner plate and knuckled his red-rimmed eyes. There wasn’t much left on the chicken carcass. The bones had been picked clean.

  He ate a whole bird. On his own.

  I poured another measure of maple syrup into my bowl. Not too much, just enough to coat the bottom of it. I was saving some space for the white chocolate macadamia nut cookies that sat on the counter.

  “You need to sleep,” I said quietly. My mate was all cheekbones and blue eyes now that he’d lopped off his dreads from hell. It made his skin look thin and taut, and only served to emphasize the blue smudges under the line of his thick black lashes.

  Despite his exhaustion, he was still utterly beautiful.

  Trowbridge nodded. “I will after I—”

  “Uh-huh,” I cut in. “After you’ve battened down the hatches. Set the picket lines. Shored up the defenses. Got all that. But anyone could see that you’re about to do a face-plant into your plate. You might want to talk fast.”

  I’m hell with the love talk. But we were both exhausted, even though it was only eight P.M. It was taking everything I had not to crack my jaw into a yawn. I wouldn’t mind going to bed even if it meant lying flat on a mattress and going “ah.”

  Gorgeous sat up straighter. “I don’t need much sleep.”

  I licked at the spoon, tasting the sweetness of the maple syrup. Damned if Trowbridge’s gaze hadn’t shifted to the point of my tongue. A little flicker of a single blue comet did a quick circuit around his widening pupil.

  I gave him a faint smile before my gaze drifted to the black felt bowler sitting on top of refrigerator. I’d done very well not looking at my twin’s hat through the meal, but now its presence could not be ignored.

  My palm went from warm and safe in Trowbridge’s grip to a trifle damp and sweating.

  I slipped it free.

  Goddess, spare me. I’m going to Merenwyn to rescue Lexi. Where, according to the few facts I’d chiseled out of Trowbridge, there were no four-lane highways that had service stops every hour or so, where you could pee, and buy some coffee, and order a sandwich. Nope. Apparently, the Fae rode horses. And they shot arrows at people they didn’t like. Silver-tipped. Who does that? An arrowhead piercing your spine had to hurt worse than a bullet. Hell, just shoot me and get it over with. Having something stick out of you and bob with every one of your breaths? I’ve done that. It sucks. I don’t ever want to do that again.

  If the Fae don’t get me, the wolves will.

  I’d demanded to be there when the Old Mage destroyed the Book of Spells. And I’d made a pledge to myself—yeah, we all know how well Hedi sticks to pledges—that I would destroy the old wizard’s soul, and in so doing, free my twin’s.

  Sounds noble. Until you deconstruct the act. Take it down to a step-by-step event. First, I had to summon the Gates to Merenwyn and travel to the Fae realm. Usually, calling the portal to this world posed a real problem for me (as in hah-hah-impossible), but now, finally, Hedi Stronghold Peacock Trowbridge had the means to call the gates. All because last night—Goddess, was it only last night?—a man named Knox tried to kill me. He’d been sent by the NAW (the Council of North American Weres) to call me on the carpet for a blatant case of treaty-breaking plus two counts of murder.

  For the record, I only killed one person and she totally deserved it. Though on reflection—and I try so hard not to waste time doing that—I don’t think my guilt or innocence really mattered. There had been a whiff of kangaroo to the trial that had followed.

  The outcome of that inquiry hadn’t ended well for my accuser, Knox.

  He’d died. I lived.

  C’est la vie.

  But before he was dispatched with a one-way ticket to the happy hunting ground, the fool had actually captured the Fae portal’s materialization—from the first notes of the summons all the way to the end of the big event—on his cell phone. With his last breath, he’d hit send, and a copy of the video had been delivered to his girlfriend’s e-mail address.

  I’d seen the tape. Trowbridge had played it for us once during dinner. In the last frame the Gates of Merenwyn hovered over the fairy pond like something out of a Disney movie. All myst and lights and magic.

  What had seemed like a sour lemon last night—just who the hell was Brenda Pritty and what damage could she do to us?—had turned into big glass of sweet lemonade. Now, thanks to the video, all we had to do was hit Replay. The song would be sung, compliments of the recording, and the portal would appear. Trowbridge and I would step through the gates (whoosh), then take a stroll through Merenwyn’s countryside (Who me? Sure I belong there) to find my twin (no sweat), and somehow maneuver to be in the right place (beside Lexi), in time to watch the Book of Spells being destroyed (tadah!).

  Following that, I planned to effortlessly transport my soul to Threall where I would tear the Old Mage’s soul free from what remained of my brother’s and earn freedom for all.

  All of which would be doable if I wasn’t Hedi, the mouse-hearted.

  “Stop thinking,” murmured Trowbridge. His hand lay lax on the kitchen table. There was an odd callus on top of the first knuckle of his thumb. I should ask him about that, I thought, studying the way his veins forked like warm tributaries.

  Truth? I could stare at his tendons, scars, large knuckles, and oddly callused skin all night. To me, his paw was beautiful, even if the world deemed it ugly because it only had a thumb, a pointer, and an f-u digit left.

  It was the hand that stroked my hair and killed Knox.

  It was a very good paw.

  The tap ran as Harry filled his glass. His white hair gleamed in the light as he tilted his head back for a long drink. Once finished, he used the back of his gnarled hand to wipe his mouth dry.

  Biggs scratched his shoulder as he stifled a yawn.

  “Close your mouth, Chihuahua.” Cordelia brushed past him, pen and notebook in hand. She’s big on lists, and sublists. She sat, adjusted her red wig, then put nib to paper. “What do we really need on this trip, Bridge? Can we take weapons across the portal?”

  They shoot at people in Merenwyn. They trap wolves. And they’ve probably never met a six-foot ex–drag queen. All right. That. Was. It. I fixed her straight. “Y
ou’re not coming with us. It’s just going to be Bridge and me.”

  “If this is about me being—”

  “This is about the fact that I’m not losing any more people that I care about.”

  Especially not another mother. I stared her down. Gritty-eyed and stone-faced. I’d accepted that I couldn’t change the course already set for me and Trowbridge—our lives would always be irrevocably entwined. It’s the downside, the hidden clause to the wonder of the mate bond: if a Were dies, his chosen mate soon follows.

  But their lives—Cordelia, Anu, Harry, and Biggs—would not be added to the butcher’s list. I wasn’t giving up another family member to satisfy retribution’s appetite.

  I’ve lost too much, and I’m a very sore loser.

  It took three “Mississippis” before my mother-who-wasn’t lowered her eyes.

  Feeling a sweep of queasiness, and a general unwillingness to catch my lover’s penetrating gaze, I took refuge in the deep contemplation of the dregs of syrup coating the bottom of my bowl.

  All hail, Hedi.

  Queen Bitch of the Trowbridge kitchen.

  * * *

  This sudden need to assert myself—where’d that come from? Last week I’d been the slacker. Now, I was kept trembling on the edge of hear-me-roar-Hedi. Had some until now untapped portion of me finally realized the urgent and somewhat tardy need to haul ass?

  Silence hummed in the room—appliances’ motors filling in the place where words should be spoken. Feigning calm, I picked up my spoon.

  Don’t say anything, Trowbridge.

  Let it be my decision.

  I knew it must be mine, just like I recognized that I needed to catch up to everyone else in the worst way. Yes, Hedi had been a slacker; not doing much more than dozing over the last ten years. Okay, we’re talking figuratively now—I didn’t spend a decade lying on some posy-strewn bier, pale hands folded over my maidenly chest, eyes closed, lips sealed, whiling my way through a fairy princess’s enchanted snooze.

  But nonetheless, I’d not been here either—participating in life like other people my own age, getting my requisite bruises, learning how to self-heal. I’d been both awake and asleep. You can do that—move through life in a dazed semicoma. Seriously. People do it all the time. They go to their job. They come home, watch television, or read a book. They eat, and drink, and shower, and do the laundry, and play who-gets-paid-now with the bills, and sometimes, they watch people from a window, wondering what it would feel like to embrace life again …

  I traced a circle in the bowl with the edge of my spoon.

  Yes. You can do all those things without being really here. Three-quarters asleep. Just doing the stuff you needed to do, while some part of you dozed and waited to be brought to life.

  That sounds sad, and I’m not a sad person.

  Biggs suddenly asked, “Do you think Whitlock doesn’t know that Knox is dead?”

  “Oh dear God,” I heard Cordelia mutter. “The longer I’m around you, the less I’m convinced that you have anything between your ears other than the cheat notes for Skyrim. Do you really think the head of North American Weres doesn’t know that two of his men are dead? Of course he knows. Reeve Whitlock probably knows what we had for dinner.”

  “I have thoughts,” said Briggs, clearly aggrieved. “Deep thoughts.”

  I listened to someone pick up the liter of pop and give it a cautious shake.

  “Anyone want the last bit of Coke?” asked Biggs.

  I felt for the point of my ear, traced the sharp peak and felt absolutely no cessation of anxiety.

  “There’s one more thing I have to do,” my mate said.

  “What’s that, boss?” asked Harry.

  “I have to call the Sisters.”

  The silence that filled the room after that pronouncement was simply deafening.

  Chapter One

  Trowbridge’s belly button was kind of amazing—the tip of my baby finger fit perfectly in its shallow divot. Underneath it, the muscle was a hard slab. I stroked it again, marveling how two opposites could be such a good fit.

  For instance, if you’re talking navels, I have to admit mine is deep. Only my Goddess knows exactly how deep. I’ve never stuck my finger in it to check, possibly because you don’t do that sort thing when you have an inner-bitch taking a snooze by your spine. She might bite it. Or worse—my Fae might grab it because she’s the type of ride-along persona given to doing “gotcha” crap like that.

  Shortly after Biggs had drained the bottle of Coke, Trowbridge and I had come upstairs to our personal sanctuary to catch a couple of hours of sleep before “the Sisters”—what the pack calls a certain coven of witches who practice dark arts—arrived at eleven.

  To be honest, I’d anticipated lust—after all, he’d given me a slightly worn wink as we’d stumbled up the stairs, and let’s face it, Weres are randy as hell—but by the time I’d come back out of the washroom from my presleep tinkle, he’d crashed into a sleep that bordered on coma.

  I knew he was exhausted but how does a person do that? Close their eyes and fall instantly asleep? I wish I could do that. But sleep was an avenue for dream-walking, and that activity was a potential doorway to Threall. Unfortunately—given that most of us mystwalkers found the realm of souls kind of fascinating—every trip to the land of myst was akin to playing roulette with a loaded weapon. Why? Because every time a mystwalker traveled to that realm, she reduced her chances of remembering how to return to her own.

  Goddess, this feeling I keep smothering—a touch of self-hatred melded to worry and fear—better not be the new normal.

  “Trowbridge?” I whispered to my mate. “Will it get better?”

  No answer. The bed hog lay flat on his back, one arm folded over his head, the other loosely wrapped around me. He’s pretty, my Trowbridge. Though, in my opinion, he was too thin, even if he was sporting some new and disturbingly magnificent muscles.

  I wrote “Move over, Stud-muffin” on his chest. With my nail. Very lightly. Because there’s such a thing as poking a stick at a sleeping bear. And because he had a thatch of hair between his nipples. Not terribly dense. Just enough to say “Here be a manly man,” and I enjoyed the feeling of the curve of my nail sliding through it.

  I glanced at the clock, wishing someone had reset it. How much longer before the witches flew in on their brooms? Neither Trowbridge nor I had any love for women who practice dark arts but we required their services. Tomorrow at sunset, we planned to summon the Gates of Merenwyn. Ideally, we wanted to do that without the pack noticing because the return of the portal would prompt awkward questions, like “Hey, are they breaking the treaty again?” Or “By golly, have they brought back her brother? I thought he was dead?”

  Either topic is a line of inquiry we’d like to avoid.

  However, keeping our trip to Merenwyn on the down low was going to be difficult without some help. The portal has a distinctive floral scent that even a Were with a head cold could detect. And then there are the pink-white lights and the chime of bells.

  No. We needed another illusion ward, set precisely where Mannus had ordered one cast six months ago—right over the entire fairy pond. That way we could go to and fro without anyone being the wiser.

  Though for the record, there was an additional and far less optimistic reason that we required a sheet of magic pulled over the pond like a piece of plastic wrap—failure. What if our seminoble quest ended in disaster? What if we couldn’t rescue my brother and destroy the Book of Spells? Bad things could drip into this world through the Fae portal. Trowbridge worried that the lives of his wolves would be threatened. I couldn’t quite muster the same level of concern.

  It would require more saintly qualities than I possessed to forgive people who’d tied me to the old oak tree. The scent of their blood lust had filled my nose.

  Enough. I need to move. If only to get up and trot around to the other side to restart the whole roll-over game.

  Merry was hanging from t
he lampshade, right where I’d placed her before turning the light out. I hadn’t wanted to put her on the bedside table because the wooden surface hadn’t been wiped down with Pine-Sol (the cleaning-product choice among Weres), and there was still a touch of the fugly Mannus scent to it. An oversight on the part of the cleaning team who’d karate-chopped the throw pillows?

  I think not.

  Score another point for the League of Extraordinary Bitches.

  Ralph, the amulet beside Merry, hung unmoving beside her on the parchment shade, either asleep or pretending to be.

  Trowbridge said something like “Mrrrph” as I squirmed over him to reach for her.

  My amulet gave me a little wink of light as I pulled her chain over my head. In another life, Merry would have done well as a mime. She can’t talk, as she’s imprisoned inside a hunk of amber that’s been set into a pendant fashioned from a nest of Fae gold, but she manages to express herself very well through movement and color shows.

  She hadn’t interacted much with Ralph since she’d returned from the Fae realm. Which was interesting as her amber stone used to pinken at the sight of him. Understandable, to an extent. The Royal Amulet was astonishingly pretty, what with his brilliantly cut jewel and his manly Celtic setting. Though, in my opinion, even the artistry of his setting couldn’t make up for the fact that personalitywise, he was a pain in the butt.

  Evidently, she no longer considered him the rock star among her people.

  I wish I knew why. One day, maybe she would tell me in her own way. I hope so, because I count her as my friend. Matter of fact, I don’t like going anywhere without her. Even if all I needed to do was pace the threadbare carpet that still carried the faint scent tones of the master bedroom’s former occupant.

  Put that on the list: replace all soft furnishings and strip the wallpaper.

  * * *

  The second I rolled off Trowbridge and swung a leg over the side of the bed, he woke up—fast. None of this bleary-eyed stuff for my guy. He went straight from limp to warrior. Lunging for me as if someone had snatched me right out of his arms, at the same time blindly reaching for something beside him. Which wasn’t there. With a downright feral snarl he turned to check for the weapon that he’d obviously grown used to sleeping with. The one he’d evidently left in Merenwyn. What was it? A blade? An axe? A wooden staff?