Brayden looked at me seriously. “I must warn both of you now to never lie to a Fae Lord if you ever meet them. Evade and dodge questions, fake a heart attack, butneverlie. They can sense it.”
Leah’s eyes widened; my stomach dropped. “Okay. Noted,” I told him.
“And saving your brothers and our sisters from the Fae Lords’ imprisonment…?” Leah asked.
Brayden sighed, looking out at the lake. “Will have to wait. Everything must line up perfectly for me to take back my kingdom. I’m of no use to my brothers dead.”
Maddy’s phone alarm beeped and she looked down at it. “It’s been almost an hour,” she said.
A somber mood fell over our little pack. It felt like we had insurmountable odds against us and a laundry list of things to do, but I took comfort in knowing I wasn’t alone.
After picking up the potion, Leah chugged it down in front of Morgana and made a retching noise. Morgana grinned. “The stinging nettle can be a bit bitter, but it was probably the powdered bat brains.”
Leah dry heaved again and Brayden cut Morgana a glare. “Don’t mess with her.”
But he looked uncertain if there maybe had been some powdered bat brains in there or not.
Brayden paid her in one strand of hair and then we headed back to Sandpoint in silence. I looked at my best friend in sympathy for a large part of the drive. Leah still hadn’t shifted and we were trying to keep it that way. We had no idea if she would survive the shift and that was terrifying. I told myself that she was a Greywolf, so she should be fine, but I just didn’t know if that was true.
When we got back to the cabin, I shuffled inside, suddenly exhausted. I needed food and sleep. The dead Elder Fae, my best friend being my reincarnated sister—who was now a wolf—it was all too much.
I told the others I was going to lie down, and two seconds after my head hit the pillow I was out.
I dreamed of Brayden. Kissing him, touching him, losing him. It was vivid and it felt so real that when I woke there was an aching in my chest. This whole situation was starting to mess with my mind and my emotions. If I wasn’t Lena, if I was really Wren, that meant that according to Brayden I was married to one of his brothers. How awful was I going to feel if I found out I was Wren and fantasizing about my husband’s brother?
Kill me now.
There was a knock on the door and I sat up, getting off my bed.
Leah was there, her hands held nervously before her as her eyes lined with tears.
“Oh no, what happened?” I rushed towards her looking for injuries or some sign of trauma.
Had she shifted?
She shook her head and put her hands out to stop me. “I’m just… it’s all catching up to me now and… I’m scared.”
“Oh, Lee Lee.” I used my rare nickname for her, only to be brought out in the worst of times to give maximum comfort, and pulled her into a hug.
She burst into sobs right there in the doorway and I held her as she cried. I had been worried she’d been taking all of this way too well. Now I felt some relief to know she was processing it.
She sobbed into my neck for a full minute, and when she finally quieted I pulled back, looking at the streaks of mascara down her face and her grimacing cry face.
“You are the ugliest crier,” I said, and she burst into laughter, reaching out to sock me in the arm.
I grinned, glad that she was doing better. Pulling her into the room, I closed the door and patted my twin bed. This house had four bedrooms; Brayden’s was the only one with a single large bed. All of the others had twin beds for pack type sleeping. Maddy had decided to sleep in one of them with Leah last night as a comfort and protection. Leah sat next to me and wiped at the bottom of her eyes.
“This is so messed up. Are we supposed to fight over him? Am I supposed to be with one of his brothers? What if his brother isn’t even cute? And now I might die in like ten months? I don’t want to die and I don’t want you to either.” She rambled and my gut clenched at the mention of fighting over Brayden.
“I don’t want to fight over Brayden,” I told her truthfully. “And all of his brothers are hot,” I added with a wink that made her smile. I’d seen them in my memory visions and they were all impressively good looking.
“Imprisonedbrothers. My mom would kill me if I brought a felon werewolf home as my husband,” she deadpanned, and we both burst into laughter.
“You like him. Brayden,” she finally said and the big old elephant entered the room.
I nodded.
She let out a long-suffering sigh. “I won’t do anything until we know who he belongs to,” she said finally, and although it was probably meant to bring me comfort, it also said that if Leah realized she was Lena, she would take him from me. It told me she liked him too and I hated that. But we were talking about soulmates here, weren’t we? A couple that defied the odds eight times and found each other in every incarnation.
