Sun Broken (The Wild Hunt #11) - Yasmine Galenorn Page 0,43

cheesecake and handed slices around.

“I hope your afternoon was better than ours,” Herne said.

“Did they hand over Callan?” I asked.

He nodded. “Oh, they handed him over, but the damned fool ran. Viktor and I had to hunt him down and drag him back to Annwn by force, but not before he managed to scare the hell out of a group of elderly women who were out for a picnic in the park. One of them keeled over, so we had to call the medics.”

I stifled a snort. Except for the woman fainting, it sounded like a scene out of Benny Hill or some idiot comedy. “Was she okay?”

“Yeah, she’s fine, but no thanks to Callan. Damned fool ran through the park, waving his sword, screaming at the top of his lungs. We managed to corner him but by then, he had keyed a Bentley parked at the curb with his sword—which the Wild Hunt will have to pay for. He also tripped another woman who was trying to get her kid out of the way and broke her leg. So yet another ambulance.”

“And he managed to give me a tidy gash,” Viktor said, wincing. “Forty-five stitches.”

I groaned. “Callen really didn’t want to go home, did he?”

“Apparently not. We stopped at the urgent care clinic after we shoved Callan’s ass through the portal over to Annwn, where my father’s guards were waiting. They were all for cutting his damned fool head off, but I couldn’t let them do that. Unfortunately. But Callan’s finally back in his own time and my mother used a Forget spell on him. He’ll have no idea of what went on here, so he won’t be able to change the timeline.”

“But what about the time he’s been gone?” Angel asked. “Won’t that play into the past somehow?”

“It already did. There was a period of time in which Callan seems to have vanished, right before he drove the Fomorians back. He came wandering out of the mists, unable to account for where he had been. We figure that was the time he was here. So hopefully nothing will be disrupted.” He sighed, shaking his head. “Fool Fae. Mucking around with time is dangerous. There are so many ways to fuck up the world by doing so. We’ve seen it happen.”

I paused, frowning. “What do you mean, you’ve seen it happen?”

Herne glanced at me, shaking his head. “Let’s just say, there’s another parallel universe in which World War II didn’t happen. Hitler never rose to power thanks to an assassin going back. However, in this realm, somebody killed that assassin before she could do her job, and…well…it was as simple as that.”

I caught my breath. “I didn’t know you dimension-hopped.”

“I try not to. It’s unsettling and even the act itself can disrupt the flow of time. However, on a few occasions, it’s been necessary.” He pressed his lips together, frowning.

“How are you doing?” Talia asked Viktor. “Where are your stitches?”

Viktor carefully shrugged out of his jacket. He had a bandage on his arm, covering up what I assumed were the stitches. “I’ve had better days. At least we took care of him.” He cupped his mug, lifting his coffee to let the aroma waft over his face.

“Well, hold onto your hat. Yutani and I’ve made a discovery.” Together, we told them about Fire & Fang. “I think we need to go undercover there,” I said.

“You have got to be fucking with my head.” Herne lowered his coffee mug, turning to stare at me. “You are not going into Fire & Fang.”

“I don’t think we have much choice,” I said. “We can’t be sure, but it seems like the best place to start. You can’t go. You’d be recognized in an instant. But I thought Yutani, Raven, and I could go. She can suss out magical signatures, especially when it comes to death magic.”

“Have you asked her yet?” Herne rubbed his head, groaning. “Please tell me you haven’t said anything yet.”

“No, of course not. But it seems like our best lead at this point. And the mayor is expecting us to deal with this case now. They dropped the damned thing in our laps, so we’re stuck with it.” I tossed my notes on the table. “Fire & Fang was mentioned in three of the five cases. We can’t overlook that as coincidence.”

Yutani cleared his throat. “Ember can go as my woman. She’ll be better off than if she goes without a man’s governance. It’s not fair, blah blah blah,