Iron Master – Jennifer Ashley Page 0,52
interrupt. By the way, I’ve come to rescue you.”
“To what?” Peigi glared down at him. “It’s not that simple.”
“You’re telling me it’s not simple? Me, in Faerie after a thousand years isn’t simple.” Ben surveyed Cian’s house visible between the trees, and the buildings beyond the garden wall. “Man, this place has changed.”
“Ben!” Peigi growled.
“So many people have been saying my name, lately. At least the short version, which I guess gets the point across. They all come to the house, where I’m trying to eat my lunch, and suddenly there’s doors, and Tuil Erdannan, and magic talismans.”
“Tuil Erdannan?” Reid asked sharply. “Who? Lady Aisling? Where is she?”
“Not here. She drags me kicking and screaming—I mean, seriously kicking and screaming—through a door, dumps me at the edge of town, shoves a talisman at me, and tells me where Cian lives. I figured I’d park in the garden and blend in, and it would be only a matter of time until you showed up. Which you have.”
Reid felt a modicum of relief. “I’m glad. Another powerful being is what we need.” With Ben, they might be able to finish the mission faster. Ben was good at moving around without anyone seeing him, he didn’t have an aversion to iron, and—
Reid never got to complete the thought. Ben dug into his pocket, and then a deep blue light filled his hand, along with the flash of metal.
“Goddess, I hate this part,” Ben groaned, and the garden, houses, trees, and sky ran like watercolors in the rain and were gone.
Gray space filled in where Faerie had been, and then Reid found himself face down on solid, scraping stone. Peigi, still half bear, half human, landed on top him, and Ben’s weight completed the pile.
It was dark, stuffy, and cold, and Reid heard thumping, like boots against a door.
“I wish you all would stay the hell out of my basement.” The Lupine who’d let Peigi and Graham into his cellar when Stuart had first disappeared waited impatiently outside the door he’d wrestled open. “Graham needs to pay me compensation.”
“No worries,” Ben said. “This should be the last you see of us.”
Ben looked awful, his face wan, his dark eyes haunted. Stuart slid out from the bottom of the pile and pulled Ben off Peigi, his movements silent and tense.
Peigi was shaky and sick to her stomach as she dressed in the clothes Stuart had been carrying when Ben transported them. She had to agree with Ben that traveling through the ley line took some getting used to.
Kurt held the door, his planted feet telling her he wanted them out. He slid his gaze to Stuart, probably again thinking of him as that creepy Fae shit.
“Thank you for your hospitality,” Stuart told Kurt as he exited. “I’m sure Graham will be happy to help you out.”
Kurt’s eyes flickered. Asking Graham for anything, even the time, was not for the faint of heart. “Just go.”
Ben thanked Kurt then ushered Stuart and Peigi out through the basement and up the stairs, bringing up the rear. Covering them, Peigi surmised, in case Kurt decided he’d keep two beings of Faerie and a bear Shifter from his cellar in the most permanent way he could.
Once they were out of the house, striding past Kurt’s interested mate and his open-mouthed cubs, Peigi shivered. Her jacket had been good in New Orleans and even Faerie, but the cold of the desert evening was sharp.
“Before anyone yells at anyone else, let’s go home and get warm,” she said. “We’ll have coffee and a meal. I’m starving.”
“Yeah, come to think of it, I’m peckish,” Ben said. “Dinner would be nice.”
“Only if you help,” Peigi told him. “I’m not doing all the cooking while you lounge.”
“Did I say that?” Ben gave her innocent eyes. “I’d never dream of it, Pegs.”
Stuart did not speak at all. Whether he was glad or sorry to be back in the human world or in the Las Vegas Shiftertown, Peigi couldn’t tell. He walked beside her, mouth closed, taking in everything, including staring Shifters. They always watched Stuart, and Peigi also. They were oddities together.
Peigi’s steps quickened as she approached her house, her joy and eagerness growing with every stride. She wasn’t the biological mother of any of the cubs inside the house, but that didn’t matter in her heart.
She was running by the time she crossed the yard and darted in through the front door. Plenty of noise led her to the large kitchen and dining room in