Charmed Wolf by Aimee Easterling (best ereader for pdf TXT) 📕

was the one who stated the obvious. “If we haven’t travelled far enough, then blowing up the ceiling will put us right back in Faery. The Queen isn’t likely to let us go a second time.”

“But we’re not Between,” I answered. The pack bonds in my stomach proved it. I was never able to tell the pack existed while away from earth....

Well, the pack bonds pointed in the direction of us being out of reach of Faery. Natalie’s scientific mind would have put a number on my almost certainty.

And, sure enough, after eying me for a moment, my friend did exactly that. “Tara is 87% sure this is the right step,” Natalie said, picking the thought out of my mind as easily as if we’d been pack mates. “So we’re doing it. But I refuse to set dynamite while holding the baby.”

“I’ll take her.” I stepped forward, only to let my hands fall back to my side when Natalie’s eyebrows shot up.

“You’re willingly offering to hold the baby?”

“I’m willingly offering to hold Hazel,” I corrected her. Crossing my eyes and sticking out my tongue—I had learned something from Kale—I accepted my friend’s most precious burden. Then I paced backwards down the tunnel while Natalie lit the fuse.

THE WORLD WE BROKE into wasn’t Faery. I knew the moment the dust settled, revealing a sky overcast and leaking drizzle.

“It doesn’t rain in faery,” Erskine observed. “Not in the daytime anyway.”

It did, however, rain on the outskirts of town.

The sinkhole we created, thankfully, had opened in the middle of someone’s fallow pasture. Making a note to drop a hefty donation in the farmer’s mailbox, I considered our options. “We’re closer to Lenny’s house than to pack central.”

Rune nodded. “There’s backup at Lenny’s house. And transportation. Do you want me to hold Hazel now?”

I shook my head. I needed to prove to the world that I could carry this child without her screaming her head off.

Or maybe I just needed to prove to myself that someone was still willing to wrap their arms around me. Because Rune had been politely distant ever since he’d reappeared within the stone circle. I was growing heartily sick of politeness.

Unwilling to dwell on that, I set out toward town. After a bit of grumbling, everyone else followed suit.

The walk was short but painful. Kale, after his earlier bravery, started whining about a rock in his shoe the instant our safety grew obvious. Erskine kept running his hands through his hair, finding tangles, and snorting in a way that sounded like he still thought he was a unicorn. The baby whimpered and Natalie quickly took her back.

Meanwhile, Rune didn’t so much as glance in my direction. Not once. Not for the entire mile.

I was almost grateful when we trooped up the alley behind Lenny’s house and found all the other Samhain Shifters gathered there waiting for us. Almost grateful, but not quite.

Because Rune strode into their midst like he belonged there. Hands slapped backs. Hugs were exchanged. Ryder’s puppy-like affection nearly resulted in a stabbing when he forgot to first relinquish the sword pointing at Lenny’s wife.

“Almost made you prettier,” Ryder said, then laughed at his own joke.

And I found myself unable to swallow. This was it. I no longer needed a Consort and Rune no longer wanted to look at me.

“The kids are safe,” Ryder continued, “so who wants to skewer the fae then get drunk?”

I don’t know what came over me. Okay, that’s not true. I do know what came over me. I wasn’t ready for Rune to leave.

So I turned to the fae who had set the whole ugly mess in motion. “Maybe we should hear her story first.”

Chapter 42

“We already heard her story,” Natalie reminded me. Unlike Ryder, she wasn’t trying to be a smart-ass. She simply found it difficult to ignore the truth.

To my surprise, Rune was the one who turned to Lenny’s wife and prodded her for further details. “Do you want to tell us what you did with the woman you’re impersonating?”

“She’s dead,” the jowly fae started. Then, swatting away our leapt-to conclusions with a horrified hand wave: “I didn’t kill her. She died of natural causes the night I arrived in town. Lenny didn’t want to believe she was gone, so it didn’t take any glamour at all to slide into that gap.”

What came next was a sad sort of story. A husband’s yearning fed this fae her first bit of stolen magic. Then a human softness enfolded her, one she didn’t want to leave behind.

There were cookies in the story and adult children who wanted to believe they still had a mother. Townspeople who had never looked past a woman’s frumpiness so didn’t even realize when she’d been replaced.

“I deserve to be sent back,” the fae said at last. “I never should have drawn children into the struggle with my sister. There at the end, it turned into revenge rather than duty. If I’d realized sooner the beauty of this home....”

Her voice trailed off as she turned toward the house she’d soon be leaving. But after one glance, my gaze turned in the other direction while thinking something very similar.

Rune stood so tall and strong and distant. Why hadn’t I realized the beauty of what he was offering when he rejected the role of Consort? Why had I let my pack take precedence every time he’d tried to form a connection, pushing Rune back into his duty by closing the door between the two of us?

“My true name,” Lenny’s wife continued, “is Viola. If it makes any difference, I will swear on that name to never again use glamour. I swear here and now that all magic I have channeled on this earth, save the spell giving me a human face, is gone.”

Erskine was the one who pointed out the repercussions of such an oath. “Without glamour, you become just like any other mortal. Your body isn’t young. You might only have a decade