Brayden looked at the melting, dripping trees and nodded. “A prison within the Ether Realm.”
My eyebrows shot up and he all but dragged me to the door.
Prison.He saidprison.
Prison, meaning bad guys were here.
Realm, meaning… I had no idea what that meant. Had we left Earth?
“What was that?” I pointed to the lamp and allowed him to pull me along.
“Bridgeway to the Ether. A portal,” he said casually and knocked on the door.
What the heck, dude? If he and Maddy wanted me to have fewer panic attacks, I was going to need more information from now on.
“This entire place is a prison?” I looked at the trees and swore one had moved closer.
Brayden simply nodded.
I frowned. “And Moon Valley are the wolf lands inside of the Ether?”
“Yes. The Ether is the magical realm where all supernatural creatures come from,” he replied.
“And we are in a prison land inside of the Ether right now?” I asked in a slightly panicked voice.
“Yes, I thought if I told you where we were going you wouldn’t come.”
“You’re damn right I wouldn’t!” I yelled.
The door to the creepy black stone cabin opened then and I yelped, freezing like a deer in headlights as I came face to face with a tall man with a long grey beard standing in the doorway looking down his nose at us with scrutiny. Elongated ears poked up and out of his hair and I stared at them, dumbfounded. He was like a cross between Gandalf and Voldemort. Scaryandwise looking.
When his gaze fell to me, he smiled. “Wren!”
Brayden dropped my hand so fast that it smacked against my thigh and I looked up at the fae horrified.
“What?” Brayden and I said at the same time.
The Elder stepped back and waved us into the house, looking at me with excitement. “I can smell your Greywolf power from here.”
Absolute heartbreak crashed into me in that moment. He called me Wren—with certainty he called meWren. Brayden looked crushed as well, staring at his hand like it had cheated on his wife.
“She’s Wren?” Brayden asked the man.
He waved his hands at me. “Has to be. Lena’s connection to her power was severed, Blake and Natalie are still imprisoned with the Fae Lords. Wren got free and still has her power.”
Brayden’s shoulders dropped. “Yeah, that’s what I thought too.”
“But Maddy said I could be Lena with restored powers.” I stepped towards Brayden, hopeful.
“Restored?” the Elder Fae said and chuckled, stroking his beard. “Who would have restored them?”
I shifted on my feet and shot him a glare. “How the hell do I know? I didn’t even know what a freaking portal was two seconds ago.”
“She’s sassy like Lena,” he mused.
People really needed to stop doing this Lena-Wren thing. It was driving me nuts. “I’m Averly. I got bitten a few days ago and now I have freaky powers I can’t control,” I told him.
Brayden nodded. “I was hoping you could hide them? So that if she’s found by the Fae Lords they will think she’s Lena or a regular wolf?” He sounded hopeful.
