Grayson would figure everything out. Who to trust. How to heal the silver poison.
“Did you learn anything else?” I asked.
“I didn’t take the chance. Sentries were questioning everyone.”
Surveillance cameras were part of Anson’s security. They’d been everywhere in his compound. I imagined video feeds like the one from Azul. My image, as I walked through the Farmer’s Market. The witch, and then the scene of an accident. When I walked Hattie home. How easy was it to trace my mad rush through the Dock District? In and out of the Red Moon, along the waterfront. Maybe even jumping into the Claw.
If they found images on that video feed of a river nymph, wandering through town, warnings would have flashed. And if she’d been detained, questioned—Anson’s security team would threaten her with incarceration if they didn’t like her answers.
Annora was like Caerwen and Effa. She wouldn’t shrink, but she would dry out if she didn’t return to her river. She’d end up trapped in her human form.
Detention was an effective threat, and she’d have few reasons to hunt for Caerwen and Effa, ask them to help. The nymphs were from different courts. Caerwen and Effa answered to Aine, the Queen of the Forest, while Annora, being a river nymph, would see Metis—the Lady of the Lake—as the queen of the water clans.
What became clear was the need to get Julien away from here. Hide him in a place no one knew about except Grayson. Where the vampires tracking me would find a dead end.
It gutted me, knowing how I hadn’t wanted to see the truth in what we faced. I’d trusted Brin. Hadn’t seen the traitors, those around Set, reporting every little word back to Barend. Or those loyal to Amal and her drive to reclaim power. I’d wanted the fairytales and believing that being a dread lord and a faille was like some super-powered hero duo in a fantasy book. When every breath, every effort put someone’s life at risk.
“How close are we to the Alpha’s Woods?”
The nymph busied herself with sorting her collection. “It is not far. But why would you go there when he needs to hide?” She tipped her head toward Julien. “If he wished to be found, it would have happened by now.”
Julien would have sent her for help, the way he’d sent her to find me. Instead, he’d languished here, in her over-heated cave, letting the poison eat into his side.
“We can’t stay here.” I kept my tone reasonable. A nymph with enough strength to tow me upstream was also a threat. And if she wanted to protect Julien? To collect him?
“You said it yourself,” I murmured. “Ago might be in hiding, but he’s still hunting, and if that special tracker venom really is in my runes, he’ll eventually show up outside this cave.”
Annora’s black gaze skimmed over Julien. Her mouth turned down.
“I’m not taking him to Westvale,” I breathed. “I know of a passage outside the Alpha’s Woods.” Then a second passage, leading into Sentinel Falls. A third would take us north, toward the house of memories.
“I have a back way out of the cave,” she said, her nymph eyes flickering. “I’ll take you.”
“When he wakes up.”
If, when he woke up, he was able to stand. Able to make the trek through three passages, then up the hill, through snow and in the dead of winter.
CHAPTER 16
Grayson
The central square was scraped free of snow, but the curbs were lined with the dirty stuff, nothing like the clean, white snow we’d made into snow angels—was that only a few days ago? The shops were open and crowded, but as the air changed, as word spread through the various pack bonds, men and women filtered out onto the sidewalks, moving in hesitant streams.
The Alpha of Sentinel Falls… the Dread Lord…
Here…
Death… hunting.
The men from Carmag stood stiff and watchful. The women from Sentinel Falls pushed to the front, came closer. Reached out to touch my arm. Touch Mace. As if making sure we were alive. Their hands pressed against pack marks; chins tipped with respect. Voices raised against the hushed silence. Everyone waiting, waiting… Fallon was there, shoving through the crowd, breaking into a run.
She hit with her full weight, and to hell with protocol between alphas. I wrapped my arms around her, breathed in the familiar scent. Mace stood close to my side, tense and vibrating. We’d both noticed Fallon’s limp when she’d dashed across the square. Her leg hadn’t healed when it should have, after all this time. The pain registering on her face was a brief wince before, stoic, she forced it back.
“Gray,” she said against my chest, then growled my name again, her fingers clenching around my arms. “You gods-damned scared the shit out of me.”
Because I hadn’t answered her summons, the desperate messages on my cell. I’d been out of range for both the cell and our mental link.
“I’m here.” All I could manage. My arms spasmed around her; Fallon rarely trembled.
