Holy shifter.
I looked back at the dragon, sad to see the brokenness in her eyes, the same brokenness I once recognized in Sawyer and in myself. My wolf whimpered and I knew exactly what she meant. The cages were too small and all of the animals looked mistreated. This place was a nightmare and I’d wished we’d never come.
One by one, the crowd of people parted, craning their necks to stare at us, nostrils flaring. The room was ninety percent made up of dark fey with long, inky-black hair and sharp pointy ears. But I also spotted trolls, vampires, and a few witches. This was clearly some kind of black-market trading post that was open to all races… except for ours. Wolves stuck together mostly. Pack over everything else. I pulled the hood higher over my face and remembered my name was Jessica.
Walsh boldly walked us through the crowd until I saw why there was crowd at all. In the center of the barn was a… fighting ring. A cage sat in the middle of the room and my stomach sank when I saw the dead form of a fey man lying in the center of it. A giant troll loomed over him, snarling, black blood dripping from his mouth.
The crowd erupted into cheers just as a dark fey man in a sleek charcoal suit turned to look at us. His eyes flicked quickly from Walsh, to Sage, to me, before lingering on my wolf.
He simply nodded his head to the back of the barn and then walked away.
Walsh gave us a distressing look and we followed.
This had to be Trip, and luring us into a back corner of the barn wasn’t my idea of safe and fun. We passed more cages, and Ididspot a small lemur, causing a whimper to die in my throat. I’d always wanted a pet monkey. I told my mom when I was twelve that if she didn’t get me one, I’d run away. She didn’t get me one, and I never ran away, but dammit I’d wanted to. Now I realized the irony here, that a pet monkey would have been stolen from their parents and kept in a cage just like this one.
When we reached the corner of the barn, the man opened a hidden door in the wall and stepped inside. Walsh hesitated a moment and gave me a look. It was a look that said,If we get jumped, I need you to be a badass and flex those freaky powers.I nodded. I didn’t yet know the full extent of my powers, but I could feel my wolf thrumming with anticipation. Walsh stepped through the door first and looked left and right quickly, before moving more fully inside. We followed him in and I left the door open for easy escape.
The office was tiny, which was made all the more uncomfortable by the fact that the man at the desk lit up a giant cigar, puffing a few times before it started smoking. Behind him stood two giant troll-fey Ithaki. The two huge dudes stood over seven feet tall and had scars all over their faces. One of them who had a dyed purple mohawk had a seriously broken nose; it bulged and protruded oddly. They were ugly as sin, but looked like his most prized fighters.
The man, Trip I assumed, had paper-thin white skin, peppered with black veins. His long dark hair hung halfway down his back and my gaze flew to his black-painted fingernails. This guy was like an emo goth dark fey. Quite a character.
“What can I do for you fine wolves?” he purred.
I didn’t like or trust him.
“You Trip?” Walsh asked.
The man just nodded, once.
Walsh produced a small bag of gold coins, palming them and holding them out to Trip. “I need a horse and carriage or any other type of animal that can get me across the fey realm quickly.”
Trip grinned and I tried not to wince at his yellow tobacco-stained teeth. He took the gold from Walsh, peeked inside the velvet bag and chuckled. “This isn’t enough for what you want.”
Walsh growled. “That’smorethan enough.”
Trip stood, inhaling a deep drag of his cigar, and puffed it out in Walsh’s face. “Before the war, yes. But this morning I got an order from the dark fey king to deliver all of my riding animals and carriages to prepare for war.”
Holy shit. Prepare for war? With us?
I kept my face a mask of calm as Trip looked at me, gaze narrowing as he tried to peer inside of my pulled-up hood. “She looks a bit familiar,” he commented, and I had to refrain from lowering my head to hide because that would be shady.
Walsh stepped in front of me, ignoring his comment.
He pointed to the gold. “There must be something you can give me for this.”
Trip sneered, looking Walsh up and down like he was a specimen. “What are four pretty little wolves doing so far from home anyway? Dodging the war?” His gaze turned skeptical.
Had a full-on war broken out or just this little tiff with the vampires? Now I was nervous. I’d need to check in with Sawyer when I had time.
Walsh nodded. “Can you help us?”
He looked back at his two troll guards, who nodded. Turning back to face Walsh, he clasped his hands together. “I’ll give you one horse and buggy if you win your fight.”
I saw Sage tighten next to me at the same time that I did.
“Fight?” Sage growled.
The man’s gaze snapped to hers and he grinned. “We haven’t had a female fighter in ages. Would love if—”
