Harper pressed her fingertips carefully to her forehead, as if she had a headache. “You paid Lucien for information?”
“Well, I paid him to get us an introduction to Abby Boy to ask that master vampire to go after Niall. Neither of them was interested until Niall attacked the Green Fairy.”
Harper covered her face with both hands and groaned. “Niall is really going after everyone, isn’t he? He wants Boston.”
“Yeah. Anything I should know about that? Did you maybe overhear where he might be keeping Casey?”
Harper leaned back against the seat, paused to recline it as flat as it would go, and sighed as she stretched out. She was shorter than Wade, built tiny, reminding him of Emma in that way. “The fae think of us as animals. Niall talked around me, not at me, but not about anything I’d consider important. He did say that if I tried to escape, he’d feed Casey to a sea monster.”
Wade tilted his head, Riordan’s warning about a threat in the sea ringing through his mind. “Out in the bay? Lady Caith warned us there’s something in the sea.”
“That ice queen finally came out of her redbrick tower to help us mere mortals? I find that difficult to believe.”
“We went to warn her about Niall and asked for help. She didn’t really seem inclined to join the fight.”
“We? You and Ella?”
“No, me and Riordan.”
“Ah. Niall did mention he had a selkie’s skin in his possession.”
Wade immediately perked up at that. “I’m guessing it’s too much to hope that he bragged about how he stole it and where he hid it?”
“Sorry. He only mentioned he had it. How’s my pack?”
“Uh, good? Ella has kept them safe.”
“You said she asked your pack for help?”
“Yeah, Niall forbade her and anyone else in the Boston god pack from asking for help from anyone within the city. He placed a geas on everyone so they can’t talk about what he’s done, but the loophole meant she could request aid from people outside Boston. So she did, and here I am.”
“Thank you,” Harper said after a moment, her voice quiet and full of emotion Wade pretended he couldn’t smell.
“No thanks needed. It’s what pack does.”
She nodded before finally removing the ring he’d given her. “Here. This is yours.”
Wade took it and put it back on. Conversation lapsed after that, and the silence stayed between them until Wade pulled up in front of Harper’s home in the god pack territory. He’d barely put the car into park when the front door to the house slammed open and several blurs streaked outside. One of the blurs resolved itself into Ella, and she yanked open the passenger-side door so hard she shook the car.
“Hey, watch it!” Wade yelped. “This is a rental!”
Ella ignored him in favor of her alpha. “Harper!”
At least she unbuckled the seat belt rather than rip it off. Ella carefully gathered Harper into her arms and picked her up out of the car with supernatural strength. Her eyes were shining with tears, and Wade could see other god pack members leaving their homes down the street and hurrying toward them.
“Hey,” Harper croaked, beaming at her pack as they crowded in close. “I missed you all.”
Wade couldn’t see her anymore, not in the crush of werecreatures gathering in the front yard. He leaned over the middle console and cleared his throat. “She needs some potions to reverse aconite poisoning. She won’t be able to shift until it’s cleared her system. Niall had her chained up in his hotel that hasn’t opened yet.”
The crowd of werecreatures parted until he could see Ella, who was still holding Harper, her eyes as watery as Harper’s had been in the car. “Thankyou.”
“Do you have somewhere safe to go to ground with her until I can find Casey?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Don’t tell me.”
Ella cracked a smile. “I thought you’d be with Riordan today.”
