"My apologies, Alpha," he said.
"My guests are entitled to an evening of safety, and someone broke hospitality to bespell your wolves.
Will you let us repair the damage if we can?" He waved at Mary Jo.
Adam's face changed from grim to intent in about half a breath.
He stood up and took Mary Jo from the wolf who held her.
"Paul," he said, when the man wouldn't let go.
Paul stirred and took his friend's hands, pulling them away.
The man ...
Stan, I thought, though it might have been Sean, jerked once, then collapsed against Paul.
In the meantime, the woman was protesting in a rapid flow of Russian.
I couldn't understand the words, but I heard her refusal clearly in her face and body language.
"Who are they going to tell?" Uncle Mike snapped.
"They're werewolves.
If they go to the press and reveal that there's a fae who can heal mortal wounds, we can go to the press and tell the interested humans just how much of the horrors of the werewolf have been carefully hidden from them." She turned to look at the wolves, a snarl on her face--and then she just stopped when she saw me.
Her pupils dilated until the whole of her eyes were black.
"You," she said.
Then she laughed, a cackling sound that made the skin on the back of my neck crawl.
"Of course it would be you." For some reason the sight of me seemed to stop her protests.
She walked to Mary Jo, who hung limply from Adam's curled arms.
Like the snow elf had before her, the fae shed her glamour, but hers dripped from her head and down to her feet, where it puddled for a moment, as if it were made of liquid instead of magic.
She was tall, taller than Adam, taller than Uncle Mike, but her arms were reed-thin, and the fingers that touched Mary Jo were odd.
It took me a moment to see that each one had an extra joint and a small pad on the underside, like a gecko's.
Her face ...
was ugly.
As the glamour faded, her eyes shrank and her nose grew and hung over her narrow-lipped mouth like the gnarled limb of an old oak.
From her body, as the glamour cleared away, a soft violet light gathered and flowed upward from her feet to her shoulders, then down her arms to her hands.
Her padded fingers turned Mary Jo's head and touched her under the chin where someone (probably Paul's repentant friend) had ripped out her throat.
The light never touched me ...
but I felt it anyway.
Like the first light of the morning, or the spray of the salt sea on my face, it delighted my skin.