His eyes flared yellow for a split second and then he reached out with his free hand and touched the cord hanging from the lamp.
There was a yank at my navel and then my feet slammed onto the damp packed earth.
“Holy crap,” Leah gasped, doing a three-sixty spin.
Brayden had told us all in the car about the fae tree guardians and how they were living beings responsible for keeping the Elder Fae in his prison. Leah stared at them now in wonder. I couldn’t help but smile. This experience was a conspiracy theorist and fantasy lover’s dream.
Brayden looked towards the Elder Fae’s cottage and froze, his chin lifting into the air as he inhaled sharply through his nose. The hairs stood up on the back of my neck as a cloyingly sweet smell hit my nostrils. My stomach rolled with nausea when I detected an undercurrent of iron.
Blood.
“So, like, what happens if I poke a tree?” Leah started to stomp towards one and I hooked her by the armpit.
Brayden pulled off his shirt and then dropped his pants and I lost all rational thought when I was confronted with his naked butt cheeks.
He wasn’t wearing underwear?
“Okay… naked man.” Leah cleared her throat and I looked over to see her staring at Brayden’s giant muscular back and bare buns.
Bitch, I thought, and then shook my head, trying to dislodge the jealousy that had been implanted there.
She’s my best friend, I reminded myself.My sister.
“Something’s wrong,” Brayden said. His back muscles started to distort as the sound of snapping bones rang throughout the forest and fur exploded on the surface of his skin.
“Whoa,” Leah said, and then reached for her phone.
“No,” I growled, and she winced.
“Sorry, force of habit.”
She was going to have to stop trying to document everything. If a video like this got out, the Fae Lords would skin her alive.
Brayden shifting meant he expected trouble, and I wasn’t going to let him fight off whatever might be in that cottage alone.
“Still got your Glock?” I asked my bestie, and her eyebrows shot up.
“Oh crap, really?” she asked, and I nodded, pulling off my shirt and then slipping out of my jeans.
Leah reached behind her back and pulled her Glock out of the waistband of her pants as I shed the rest of my clothes and started to shift. Something was seriously wrong in there. The sickeningly sweet smell was worse to my wolf’s nostrils, and now that I was on all fours and bounding for the house I realized it was all underlaid with the smell of death and decay. The front door was cracked open and Brayden had just dipped his nose inside when I came up the steps behind him. He froze, looking back at me and then to Leah, who held her gun out before her, safety off. Leah and I had been shooting together since we were sixteen and trying to impress all the boys at the range. I trusted her to save my life with that hunk of metal if it came down to it.
Brayden seemed pleased to have backup, and then pushed on ahead, nudging the door fully open with his snout. The stench of death and sweetness hit my nose, making my wolf let out a whine. It was sickening, like someone took a rotting corpse and covered it in honey. My heart pounded in my chest as I padded in after Brayden and then I froze. It looked like a bomb had gone off inside of the small home. The walls were scorched black but it didn’t smell of fire, and the blackness had a slick shine to it like oil. Was this magic? I didn’t know enough to say.
“Oh, I’m gonna vom,” Leah said beside me and spun, giving her back to the gruesome scene before us.
The Elder Fae was flat on the ground of his little cottage, the skin on his abdomen peeled open like you would dissect a frog in biology. His organs were all missing, leaving an open cavity there. I loved biology, I wanted to be a vet for crying out loud, but even this was too much for me. Bile rose in my throat as I scanned the entire scene. There was a sticky dark substance that didn’t look like blood matted over the Elder Fae’s hair and extremities.
What the heck was that? Brayden had his nose to the ground, sniffing every inch of the house, going back in the room looking for the killer no doubt. I touched my nose to the fae’s leg and my stomach tightened with guilt when I realized his body was still warm. This was recent. Leaning down, I sniffed the sticky stuff and reeled back.
Maple syrup?Did we have a Canadian murderer on our hands?
Brayden came back out to the fae’s body and walked right up to the sticky stuff. He bent down and inhaled deeply, his entire body going rigid. I watched as the fur stood up along his entire back and my stomach dropped. He instantly started to shift back into his human form, bones cracking and rearranging. Within seconds, he stood fully naked on two legs and walked over to me, scooping me up into his arms like a puppy dog. His gaze flicked to the table we all had tea on and there was a single white piece of paper with no writing on it. His brow furrowed and he grabbed the paper before walking over to Leah.
“We need to leave.Now,” he growled, and she turned, looking at him with a face that was whiter than a sheet. She nodded and Brayden stepped outside, my wolf form still tucked into his body as he crossed the lawn, eyes roaming left and right as if waiting for an enemy to pounce.
Leah held her gun out, arms stiff and ready to fire as Brayden set me down by the pile of my clothes. I was dying to ask him questions, but I couldn’t in this form and I sensed we shouldn’t talk around the trees.
As Brayden dressed, I started to shift back when Leah said, “So, who killed the old dude?”
