Peyton let out a delighted cry. "My cards—you found my tarot deck!"
Lannan chuckled. "I've seen gamblers less thrilled to see a deck of cards. Yes, I found your deck and thought you might be able to use it." For a brief second, he sounded almost pleasant.
"We also have a bag full of herbs, along with some of the charms I made. I managed to grab a big bag of cat food, too, by the way. So somebody should go feed the cats. They'll be glad for something other than the tuna we've been giving them." Kaylin had laid in a large store of tuna, and out of deference to me, he'd moved it into the room we set up for the cats. I was willing to scoop the litter boxes, but I wasn't about to take over feeding duties with fish on hand.
"Don't bet on it," Luna said. She rolled her eyes. "But that means…well…there's tuna for those of us who can eat it. But we'll save it for a last resort and I'll warn you well in advance," she added, turning to me. "I'll make certain we keep your food away from anything that might have fish in it."
That wasn't terribly reassuring, given our circumstances, but I knew that if push came to shove, they'd need to eat whatever they could find.
"Let's hope it doesn't come to that." I glanced through the rest of the bags. "Good, somebody brought The Rise of the Indigo Court and The History of the Vampire Nation." The words popped out before I realized that Lannan was standing right there. I jerked up my head. He was standing, arms crossed, head cocked to the side, one booted foot propped up on a chair. His leather pants shimmered in the dim light hanging over the table.
"So…you have a copy of our history. You know, not a terribly wise idea of you to advertise so in front of me." He slowly lowered his foot to the ground and slid his hands in his pockets and sauntered toward me.
"I wouldn't have, if I'd thought about it first." My mouth had gotten me in trouble more than once.
Lannan backed me up to the wall, lifting the book out of my hands. He flipped through it, occasionally glancing at me. I had no idea how vampires read, considering their eyes were jet with no white, no gleam other than the sparkle that made them look like obsidian orbs. But read they did. And Lannan Altos was actually a professor at the New Forest Conservatory. I had the feeling he'd abused his authority far more than once.
Grieve let out a low growl and shifted into a wolf, shoving himself between the vampire and me. Peyton and Luna gasped. Wrath stiffened as Kaylin stepped forward. Lannan just stared at the beast with unblinking eyes.
I caught my breath. Grieve was really pissed. Anger wasn't the only reason he took wolf form, but Lannan had pushed his buttons—his territorial instincts had been invaded. He stood his ground, forcing Lannan away from me, his gaze never leaving the vampire. I poised, ready to throw myself between the two. But then Wrath came to my rescue.
"Altos, put down the book. Leave it for now. Grieve—back away. The vampire will not hurt our Cicely tonight." It was a command, not a question.
Lannan turned to my father, locking his gaze. After a moment, he shrugged and deliberately dropped the book on the floor at my feet. "No matter if you have it. We are not terribly vulnerable to your kind, so feel free to read it. If nothing else, perhaps you'll learn why you should pay proper respect."
He sauntered past Grieve, refusing to acknowledge him. Grieve shifted back, but I could feel my wolf tattoo still snuffling. Chatter reached out, touched Grieve on the arm and gave him a warning shake of the head. Grieve glowered and shook him off but did nothing.
Cambyra Fae were known as the shifting Fae. My father—Wrath—was an owl shifter, as was I, even though I was only a half-breed. Grieve could shift into wolf form, and Chatter could turn into a pillar of flame, I'd found out.
From the very beginning, when Krystal had dragged me away from the Veil House, I'd dreamed of a wolf following me, watching over me. When I was fourteen, I began to see him in the shadows, watching me, and I thought he might be a guardian of some sort. I still hadn't known at that time that Grieve could take wolf form. A year later, Dane—my mother's boyfriend of the month—and I got high one night while she was out turning tricks, and he tattooed my vision onto my stomach.
Dane had already given me three other tattoos. On my left breast, a feral Fae girl peeked through the leaves of a deadly nightshade plant. Both upper arms were banded with identical blackwork tats—a pair of owls flying over a silver moon, with a dagger piercing through it. And then he tattooed my wolf for me.
An ivy vine wove its way across my left thigh. Dappled with silver roses, it crossed my lower abs, extending to my ribs under my left arm. Interspersed among the roses was a trail of violet skulls, and right at my naval, a grayish silver wolf stared out at the world, his eyes emerald and glowing.
After that, I would feel the wolf shift and growl when danger was present. At times, when I was lonely, I talked to the tattoo, and it felt like the wolf was actually listening. And then, when I returned home for a brief visit a few months after getting my wolf tattoo, Grieve had met me out in the woods, and I realized that instead of trusting him like I had when I was a child, my heart had shifted, and at seventeen, I had grown up and was falling in love with the Fae Prince.
The Golden Wood was in full glory, trees thick with leaves, and the brambles were growing full with hard little berries that would burst with their rich black juice in August. The woodland smelled of sunlight and dust and lazy afternoons, and my feet were silent against the path leading through the clustered undergrowth that lined both sides of the trail.
Rhiannon opted to stay back at the house—she'd become reclusive, and I knew something had happened but she wouldn't talk about it. All Heather would tell me was that there'd been an accident a couple of years back and Rhiannon wasn't the same girl she had been. I wanted to ask my cousin about it—we'd always told each other everything—but whatever had happened this time seemed sacrosanct.
So one afternoon, late into the week Krystal had allowed me to visit, I wandered out to the wood where Rhiannon and I'd played as children. As I set foot on the path, the glimmer of sunlight swept me into a world far from the dirty streets of San Francisco, of L.A., of whatever city through which Krystal and I were currently prowling. They were all just names by now—one blurred into the next, and the one we'd just left was as indistinct as the one we were heading toward.
I stretched my arms wide, inhaling deeply. I'd been home the year before—my first time since Krystal dragged me off—and I'd cried when I'd had to leave. Rhiannon had been silent then, too, but I'd thought that she was just sulking over some argument with her mother.
It was during that visit that Grieve stepped out from behind a tree and I remembered all those long days of childhood, when he and Chatter had taught us magic, never straying out of decorum, never being anything but a safety net for us as I learned to speak with the wind and Rhiannon learned to harness the flames.
Letting my mind step onto the slipstream, I blew a low whistle, and whispered, Grieve, are you here? I'm home again. Come to me!
And a few moments later, the Fae Prince stepped out from behind a tall cedar. He was dressed in camouflage cargo pants, with no shirt, but I knew that his clothes were illusion. His platinum hair streamed down his shoulders, and his eyes glittered blue against the olive skin of his body. He was built, lean and muscled, and so alien he was exotic. Yet…alien as he was, Grieve was familiar to me.
"Cicely…I've been waiting for you." His voice was strained. He wouldn't stop staring at me and I began to feel exposed, raw. And then I noticed a box in his hand, wrapped with a ribbon.
"What's that?" I pointed to the box.
Grieve stared at it for another moment, then silently handed me the box.
I stared at it. "A present?"