Cold Mercy (Northern Wolves) (18 page)

***

Eden yawned, swatting at her nightstand in hopes of beating her alarm into silence. She’d been up half the night looking for Bay, but all she’d seen were the flicker of yellow eyes glowing back and forth between the trees. The other wolves no doubt, but not a single one of them had stepped past the threshold of the trees and into her yard.

Her dogs had still spent most of the night in hiding. Not that she could blame them. The thought of the troll coming back had her queasy too. She doubted a shotgun would have stopped that thing. Only Bay had really stood a chance and it’d been a rough fight, nearly killing them both. It could have been so much worse.

“Shut up already,” Eden said and lunged out of bed towards the nightstand, driving away the depressing thoughts in favor of attacking her alarm clock. Hammering down on it, the stupid thing went silent and Eden plopped back onto bed. Her phone rang then.

“Bless it,” she muttered under her breath. It was five-thirty in the morning, who was awake at that time? Besides her. Damn. But the dogs needed feeding. Dragging her butt out of bed, she snatched up her phone and headed down the hall, drawn immediately in the direction of the coffee maker. “Hello?”

“We still on for breakfast?”

“You are so lucky I’m awake.” But she found herself smiling anyways at Rowan’s voice, already dreaming of breakfast. “And you bet your ass. I’m starving already.”

“Good. I already called Dee, she’s still on, but needs to stop into the clinic first. They’re having hell right now. Not even just with the sick animals. Apparently dogs and cats, they’re all going missing lately. Yours all still home?”

Eden perked up instantly and headed for her back door, her strides a flurry of movement. She flung open the door and peeked outside. One whistle and the dogs all emerged from their houses. Everyone was there. Tension drained out of her in a rush. “Yup. All accounted for. Your cats?”

“Snowy’s vanished, but that’s not abnormal for him.”

Snowy referenced the feral cat that lingered around Rowan’s home. She’d been trying to tame him for years, even resorting to trying to trap him and bring him inside. That had worked once. The first time she’d opened the door to leave the house, he’d fled back outside again and had never fallen for another trap. The rest of Ro’s cats were house kitties, kept safely away from the dangers of the outside world.

“I’m not too worried yet. It’s only been a few days. He can be gone for up to a week before toddling back. And in this weather, I’m sure he’ll be back for food soon.”

“I hope so. I’ll send positive thoughts your way. See you at breakfast?”

Rowan let out a nervous laugh. “Yeah.”

She hung up before Eden could ask say anything else, but she remembered Rowan saying she’d be bringing something ‘freaky’ to breakfast. She eyed the clock, eight suddenly seemed to be so far away. A cup of coffee later and she bundled up to feed the dogs. Bay’s truck was gone, so he had been there, even if she hadn’t seen him.

She stared at the empty space for a moment, picturing all those wolves drifting in and out of the shadows last night, the only sign that they were there at all was the glint of their yellow eyes in the moon. Like headlights they flashed in and out of the darkness. And he’d stood between them, the trolls, everything, and her.

Then the dogs started barking and Eden shoved away the odd feeling building inside her, the needling thought that he’d become more than just a man who’d fixed her sled. More than just a friend, even.

By the time the dogs were done it was a little after seven, just enough time to get to the Fairy Cat Café on time. Kennedy was already there when she arrived, sitting in their normal booth, her head in her hands. Eden made a soft noise full of sympathy as she slid in next to her friend and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “That bad?”

“A six-year-old boy’s dog died of hypothermia. We tried, but he passed away in the night. I don’t want to make the call to his parents. I don’t understand either. He was a house dog and despite the snowfall, the temperatures haven’t been that low.”

“I don’t know.” Eden leaned into her, offering her friend what little comfort she could.

“I might have an idea,” Rowan said and they both looked up as she slid into the booth across from them, an old, tattered book in her hands. “And it’s going to sound crazy as all get out.”

“Isn’t that...” Eden trailed off as she squinted at the book, trying to read the title.

Rowan slid it across the table, turning it, so it was right-side up for the pair of them.
Stories of the Fae
. “My grandmother’s story book. Yeah.”

Eden started to shake her head, her logical side kicking into overdrive. Magic didn’t exist. Except, that it kind of did. Her jaw snapped shut. After all, she’d witnessed Bay just yesterday as he’d flowed back into his wolf.

And as if she knew what Eden was thinking, Rowan flipped open the book to somewhere in the middle. There, drawn in beautiful detail, vibrant colors painting the scene, were a pack of huge wolves in a winter forest. Wolves the size of bears. All white save one. The largest standing off to the side of the back, alongside a tall, willowy woman, was solid black. A man lay in the snow, red around him, and a wolf stood to his side. The heading at the top read,
The Winter Wolves
.

“They look like Bay.” Eden glanced up at Rowan, only for her to turn back a page and draw Eden’s attention down to the book once more.

On this page, a woman sat on a throne of ice, dressed in a pale white gown. Her eyes were as black as the wolves’ and her lips, they were red with blood. Droplets shimmered on her chin and down the front of her gown.
The Winter Fae
. And under the image of the woman,
The Winter Fae’s queen, Morrigan
.

Holy shit
. Eden felt her throat go dry. Kennedy made a soft choking sound next to her.

“I always thought Nana couldn’t say ‘fairy’ remember?” Rowan drew in a long, shaky breath. “I always figured they were just fairy tales, kid’s stories. Like the kind the Grimm’s brothers used to write.”

They all had. After all, things like this just weren’t possible. Eden reached forward and touched the book, flipping the page back to stare at the wolves. Her arm hummed with the touch, the tips of her fingers going numb for a second and she jerked her hand away. It felt...powerful. “Do you feel that?”

Rowan nodded. “Nana used to tell me it was magic. I believed her as a kid, laughed at her as I got older. Thought she’d rigged it somehow. Now, I think she’s right. It’s magic.”

Eden started flipping through the book. She found the page focused on trolls and felt her heart give a queasy flip-flop. “That’s what attacked us,” she said, even as she skimmed the writing describing them. They ate small creatures, particularly enjoyed pets and children. Innocence-eaters they were often called.

More and more monsters filled the section on the Winter Fae. Some stole little kids and swapped them for glamoured chunks of wood, so that by the time the parents noticed their child was gone it would be too late. Rowan pointed to a section on banshees, soulless ghosts that howled through frozen nights and slipped into houses, freezing young children and small animals. They’d come back and back, until finally one morning, their victims wouldn’t wake from the cold. Kennedy’s hypothermia cases.

“How many are there?” Kennedy whispered, her voice full of horror as she stared at the thick book.

A ragged sigh sounded from next to them and all three girls jumped at the noise. Rowan’s grandma stood beside the table and Dorie looked older now, as if the last time she’d run into them had worn on her. “It’s started then,” she said and sank into the booth next to her granddaughter, her eyes sad.

Her once black hair was now white and Doreen Bast had never been one to dye it. She’d been curly and white for as long as Eden had known her. “You okay?” she asked softly and Dorie smiled, reaching out to cup Eden’s hand in hers.

“Oh, darling, with the things that are coming, no one will be safe. So, no.” She gave her head a slight shake. “I’m not okay.”

“So it’s all real then?” Kennedy asked the question that Eden had been thinking but unable to voice. She’d
seen
Bay change, but looking at this book, reading these tales, it didn’t seem possible. In her whole life, up until just recently, none of it had been.

Or well, not to her knowledge. Hell. Eden slumped back into the chair. That was just it. It’d all been possible, she just hadn’t known. Dorie gave Kennedy a smile. It seemed forced around the edges and made the wrinkles around her lips deepen.

“It’s real,” she said, her voice solemn.

Rowan looked at her grandmother, her eyebrows slanted over her eyes, confusion and amazement written all over her face. “How did you know about this?”

Dorie closed her eyes, such pain on her face it tore at Eden’s heart. Dorie had always been like a grandmother to her, both of hers having died when she was really little. To see the agony tear at a woman she’d loved her whole life ate at her. “Rowan.” Dorie looked at the book. “Let me start from the beginning.”

She grabbed the book and flipped it back to the beginning. One wrinkled fingertip tapped the first page. Two women stood back to back, one in a dress of white, her black hair and red-red lips instantly recognizable. Morrigan, the Queen of the Winter Fae. The second wore green, her long golden hair and brilliant blue eyes every bit as warm and endearing as Morrigan was cold and brutal.

“There are two courts. The Winter Fae, those of Morrigan, and the Summer Fae, those of Syndaria. The seasons between are times of neutral power, but when the first snow falls, or the first blooms of spring linger into summer, then the magic linked to whatever queen in charge begins to wake. Or so it used to. A long time ago, Morrigan was banished. Sealed away. Her magic is always dark, bloody.”

“Nana...” Rowan started, but Dorie shook her head.

“Hear me out. The Bast family is descended from those of the Summer Fae. Not many of us still have magic in our blood, but we try to pass the legends down. Some of us know them as only bedtime stories. Others, like me, know them as the truth.”

“You can do magic?” Eden couldn’t blame the skepticism that lingered in Rowan’s voice. Despite everything she’d seen, thinking that Dorie could do magic was almost too much.

“Not now, not with snow on the ground and the plants all dead.” She gave Rowan half smile. “It’s a story for another day and another time. This,” she said, and flipped the pages back to Morrigan and her people, “is a story for now. Somehow, she’s awake again. I feared as much when I saw the picture of the winter wolf, but I’d hoped...”

She didn’t have to say what she’d hoped. They all knew.

Kennedy rubbed her face and Eden knew her friend was thinking off all those sick and dying pets. “What’s it all mean?”

“That a lot of people are going to die. While the Summer Fae get their strength from the sun, the flowers, the earth, the Winter Fae get it from blood and darkness.”

“Which is why she’s stronger at night.” Everyone turned and looked at Eden, but it was the unspoken curiosity, the silent urge for more information on Dorie’s face that made Eden blush. “I kind of know one of the wolves.”

Dorie frowned and so Eden explained about Bay, his transformations, what he’d told her. When she was done Dorie sank back into her booth. “I’ve never heard of one of Morrigan’s wolves refusing her. I knew she took people and changed them. Her wolves were the kernel of truth behind the myths of werewolves, but I’ve never known a wolf of hers to be able to control himself. Be careful, she could be playing you.”

They returned to the page on the wolves and Dorie pointed to the two in the center, one white and smaller than the rest and one black. “These are her ultimate companions. Bali, the black one, is the alpha of her pack. He alone, outside of Morrigan, can control the others. Is this your Bay?”

“No. He looks like the wolves, but not the little one. He’s as big as a damned grizzly when he shifts. That little one looks like nothing more than a pup and he’d have been smashed by the troll that attacked us.”

Dorie huffed. “You’re going to give an old lady a heart attack. The trolls are awake?”

“Yeah,” Kennedy whispered. “The trolls, and from my reading here, the banshees.”

“Damn.” That one word came out a broken, hushed sound of defeat. Rowan wrapped an arm around her nana’s shoulders and pulled her close.

“Nana? It’s okay,” she whispered but Dorie buried her head in her hands.

“No it’s not. She’s already brought back to life so many of the vile things we’d locked away. Her black wolf is one of the worst, but if the trolls are up then she is close to waking her last wolf.” She looked up, tears shimmering in her eyes and she gave Eden a sad smile as she pointed to the little wolf standing beside Bali. Whereas Morrgan’s hand rested in the black wolf’s fur, the little wolf stood half behind her, peeking out around the larger wolf. “And while Fahlow might be little, he is far more powerful than any of the others. He was one of ours.”

“Ours?” Rowan asked, but Dorie ignored her.

“He was cherished in the Summer Fae. A healer. Not physically, but mentally. He can take away a person’s emotional pain. But when she took him, it was to keep her pack calm, to give them focus. They’re monstrous beasts, driven by an unending hunger for blood. Fahlow calms them. He’s as old as Bali, one of our Ancients.”