Through the Ether (Force of Nature Book 5) - Amber Lynn Natusch Page 0,39
annoyed expression turned to me. “And where’s his body?”
“He didn’t say. Faerie, I imagine.”
“How long has he been without it?”
I shrugged. “He wasn’t super forthcoming about the details while he was testing us to see if we were worth releasing. All I know is that he wants his body back, period. But we plan to offer him the fey king’s instead.”
She inhaled sharply, then let the air out in a dramatic exhale. “The fey are such drama queens.”
“Just your type,” Knox shot back.
Heat replaced her irritation in a heartbeat, and she gave the alpha a lazy smile. “You never used to complain about that…”
“Yeah, well, times change.”
Her smile fell as she looked at me. “I guess they do.”
“Could we possibly stay on task for a moment?” Reinhardt said, breaking the tension in the room. “The fey wants a form he can use to rule—”
“Which we can’t actually let happen,” I interrupted. My father shot me a pointed look, and I shut my mouth.
“—but the plan, as I’ve gathered, is to not actually have to give him form at all. Which is why we have need for the talisman.”
“So you want to make an empty promise to a fey?” she asked, her tone incredulous.
“Basically, yes.”
“Then you’re either dumber than you look, or you’ve got balls the size of Texas.”
“Can you do it?” I asked, my irritation plain.
“Yeah, yeah, I can do it, but I sure as hell don’t want to be around when he realizes he’s been duped.”
“With any luck, you won’t be.” I shot her a nasty look, then turned to leave. I could hear my father talking to her as I stepped into the hall with Knox and Merc behind me. We made our way back to the others, who were waiting expectantly in the living room.
“So now what?” Foust asked, stepping toward us.
“Now,” Merc answered, “we go home and wait.”
Foust’s gaze turned from the vampire king to his alpha. The two shared a knowing look, and Knox scrubbed his face with his hand as he exhaled.
“We’ll need them,” his second said. Confusion set in as I tried to figure out the context of his remark.
“I guess we can’t put it off any longer,” Knox replied. Foust and the others nodded, but they didn’t look happy.
“Put what off?” I asked, my gaze darting back and forth between them.
Knox forced a smile meant to set me at ease, but the lack of warmth in it had the exact opposite effect.
“We have to deal with the New York pack.”
“’Deal with’?”
“It’s hard to explain,” Foust said, “but we have to do it if we want them behind us in this war.”
“I’m not sure I do,” I muttered to myself. The two of them huffed a laugh, my comment apparently funny, though I hadn’t meant it to be. But when I looked at Kat to see if she’d found it humorous, too, it was plain that she hadn’t. Her body was so stiff and tight that I actually looked behind me to see if the fey royals were standing there with a sword to my neck.
“Kat?”
“You should go with Merc,” she said, her words clipped and tight.
“But—”
“Piper, I need you to listen to me. Go home with Merc. Wait for us to come back.”
“You’re freaking me out, Kat—”
“Good. That means I’m making my point.”
“What are you going to do?” I asked, turning back to Knox.
He took a deep breath. “What needs to be done.”
“Piper,” Merc said gently as he stepped to my side, “we should go—”
“No. There’s no way I’m going anywhere until I know what the hell ‘what needs to be done’ means.”
“Great. You can explain it to me on the way there.”
“You’re not pack,” Foust pointed out, though it looked like it pained him to do so.
“Neither is Kat.”
His expression soured at the truth in my words.
“But I am a wolf,” she countered.
“Is that a prerequisite for going on this clearly misguided adventure? Or can anyone join in? Because this is the kind of shit I excel at.”
Knox raised his hand to cut short whatever argument was coming in rebuttal. “You can come, Piper,” he said, turning to head for the car, “but only if you agree to do whatever Foust or Brunton tells you to without argument. Whatever they tell you.”
“Why would I need to—”
“It’s either that or go home.”
I stared at him for a moment, the pain in his expression hard to bear, and realized that having to spell it out for me