damn, it’s handy.”
Peigi growled warningly at him. Graham needed to leave Stuart alone—he could be hurt, dying, damaged by whatever spell held him, who knew?
Graham subsided. Even he didn’t want to mess with Peigi when she became protective of Stuart.
They walked another five or so minutes, but Peigi couldn’t spy the outline of Kurt’s basement door, only thicker mists.
“Shit,” Graham muttered. “I don’t want to be stuck in Faerie. Been there, done that, burned the fucking T-shirt.”
Peigi didn’t want to be stuck in Faerie either. A Shifter bear and a dominant wolf would be great prizes to a Fae warrior, who’d either try to enslave them or make them into hearth rugs. Graham was a good fighter, and Peigi as bear was strong, but the two of them and an inert dokk alfar against a multitude of Fae?
The high Fae would tear Stuart apart. Probably torture him for a long time before he died. She refused to let that happen.
“I think we’re screwed,” Graham said after another ten minutes. “We have to wake him up, Peigi. I bet he’s the only one who can—”
“Uncle Graham!”
Two small boys hurtled out of the dark mist and slammed straight into Graham’s legs. They began shifting as soon as they smacked into him, becoming wolf cubs with huge feet and long ears. High-pitched yipping pierced the air.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Graham roared. “Why aren’t you with Misty?”
One of the cubs, Kyle, or maybe Matt—they were twins—shifted back to his seven-year-old boy form. “We came to get you out. Follow us. Follow us. Follow us!”
He shifted again to wolf, and the cubs started running in a sideways lope, tails going ninety miles an hour.
Graham started after them, keeping up a diatribe about cubs who needed to learn to do what they were told. Peigi, with Stuart, quickly followed.
As the cubs dashed through the mists, the fog began to thin. Cooler air surrounded Peigi, and in a few more minutes, she saw the artificial yellow light filling the square of Kurt’s basement door.
The cubs charged through, Graham on their heels. Peigi increased her speed and burst through the door after them, heaving a sigh of relief as she hit the tile floor.
Kurt, who’d been waiting, his eyes wild, quickly shut the door and padlocked it. “He all right?” he asked anxiously.
Peigi lowered herself to her belly, and Graham and Kurt helped slide Stuart gently to the floor. Stuart didn’t wake. He lay limply, eyes closed, his black hair damp from the mists.
Peigi nuzzled him. Wake up. Please. I can’t do this without you.
The cubs came tearing back to them. Graham leaned against the wall, his breath ragged. “Will you two settle down?”
At his roar, Matt and Kyle stopped running. Instead of cowering before Graham, they trotted to Stuart and began busily licking his face.
Peigi remained bear, not wanting to shift back in front of Kurt, with Graham holding her clothes in his balled fists. He was wrinkling the hell out of her shirt.
The cubs continued to lick, tails waving, and under their ministrations, Stuart jerked. The cubs kept at it as Stuart blinked, eyes opening in confusion.
Peigi saw awareness returning to his black-dark eyes, and then the realization that a pair of wolf cubs were smearing their tongues all over his face.
“I’m awake, guys. You can stop.” Stuart pressed the wriggling little bodies away from him with gentleness, then he sat up and wiped his cheeks. “Anyone have a towel?”
Reid decided to prove to Graham he was functioning normally by teleporting Matt and Kyle home. He landed on Graham’s front porch and handed the cubs to Misty, who’d jerked open the door when he appeared.
“You all right?” Misty asked worriedly. She was a sweet human woman who’d managed to turn Graham from belligerent asshole to a more reasonable Shifter who took care of his new cub, his nephew, and Matt and Kyle with surprising compassion.
“I think so.” Reid wasn’t certain how he’d become stuck in the patch of mist, or how Peigi had come in to get him out, but he was alive and breathing, which for him was enough. “Thanks to your paramedics.”
Both cubs, still wolves, hung in Misty’s arms, tails waving. Matt began licking her chin.
“I sent them to find you,” Misty said. “I remembered they were called Guards, or at least descended from them. When Dougal came and told me he was scared Graham was stuck in Faerie, I told him to take the cubs over and see if they