Chasing Faete (Beyond the Veil Book 1) (10 page)

Chapter Nineteen

“Alpha?” Roderick interrupted Gabe from his thoughts as he stared out the window of his office. “Braxas and his people are arriving.”

Gabe had a respectful working relationship with Braxas, the Alpha responsible for all of the cougar shifters in the North West, but it had been ages since he’d actually spent time with him in person. Cougars were quite different animals from wolves. He just hoped that among them all, as well as the bears who were on their way, they could learn to work together. He knew it would take a united front to defeat the Fae and their magic.

There were quite a few of his wolves standing outside when he walked off the porch and out to meet the man getting out of the expensive SUV. Wolves were rather simple creatures by nature. They lived well here, but as long as they had shelter, food, and clothes for everyone, they were pretty happy. But these cats, good lord, it looked like some sort of celebrity entourage as the line of expensive trucks came to a stop in their yard. As they began to file out of their vehicles, Gabe was suddenly very aware of
how
low maintenance most of his wolves were. It was like someone sent out a casting call for blond, muscular, golden models and Braxas’s warriors were the result. Gabe knew from experience, though, that when you riled a cat you’d better be ready to deal with more than a pretty face and an expensive pair of sunglasses. These shifters were some of the stealthiest assassins in the entire shifter world. If you pissed off a wolf, he was most likely going to come right at you, but if you pissed off a cat … well, you’d better watch your ass because most of the time they attacked when you least expected it.

“Gabe,” the golden haired man said as he stepped up and offered his hand. “Nice to see you again. Though I’m sorry it had to be under these types of circumstances.”

“I really appreciate you standing with us for this, Braxas. Booker should be here in an hour or so, and then we’ll have to move quickly to keep the element of surprise.”

When a beautiful woman came to stand next to Braxas and nodded at him, Gabe just assumed that she was his mate. She was a stunning example of feminine strength and grace, with her long blonde hair and dark golden eyes drawing the attention of more than a few of his male pack members.

“Gabe, this is my second, Katrina.” Braxas motioned to the woman standing next to him.

“Alpha,” she purred in a low silky voice, causing Roderick to growl embarrassingly beside him. Gabe had to give the man a quick elbow and a pointed look, commanding him to calm down.

“Roderick, why don’t you take Katrina and get the rest of their people settled while I catch Braxas up on what’s happening with Alefric?”

Gabe led Braxas into his office. “Is it true that Booker is bringing over one hundred bears with him?” Braxas asked as Gabe poured them both a drink. “Where on earth are you going to put that much bear?”

“It’s true,” Gabe laughed, grateful that Braxas joked to break the tension hanging in the air. “This property was originally a hunting lodge when we purchased it. There are a couple of huge bunkhouses out back that we’ve refurbished. I assure you there’s plenty of room, even for them.”

Braxas became serious then. “So, tell me, old friend, who is this Alefric who means to enslave us? What prompted all of this?”

Gabe wasn’t sure where to start with the explanation, after all, Corrine had known this confrontation had been brewing for years now. While she’d hinted to Gabe that he’d have to be ready, it wasn’t until she found out that Erica was still alive that she’d seen the battle looming ahead of them.

“Alefric is the traitor who killed the rightful King and Queen of the Elven court. He waited for their surviving daughter to come of age before he took her by force to solidify his rule, but when she reached her twenty-first birthday, she escaped. A few days ago, two of my Enforcers found her.”

Braxas listened intently, apparently fascinated by what Gabe had been telling him. Shifters had very little information about the Fae, after all.

“The princess turned out to be their fated mate,” Gabe continued to explain, “and that is what has cemented our involvement. Though to be honest, we’re blessed that Erica did happen to stumble into her mates. Alefric has no tolerance for any race save his own, and this war would have been much worse had we not seen it coming.”

“We’re agreed on that part,” Braxas said before standing and going to the window to look out at their people mingling in the yard. “This may be a wake-up call for all shifters. We keep to ourselves for the most part, but we can’t forget that there are other magical beings out there who certainly don’t see us as individual groups. My grandmother used to tell me stories of the Fae when I was a child. She told me that they subjugated shifters and used them as soldiers and slaves thousands of years ago. I always thought she was just crazy in her old age.”

“I had no idea.” Gabe was shocked. He knew that to be Alefric’s plan, but the fact that there had been some deranged lunatic who had actually succeeded, proved daunting to him. Even Corrine hadn’t shared that information with him. But if he knew her, she would have been ashamed that her race had done something so abhorrent.

“I don’t know about you, but I would rather die fighting for our freedom than become the slave to any Fae,” Braxas spat out in rage.

“I agree with you, cat,” a low booming voice chimed in. “When do we start?”

Gabe and Braxas both looked up in surprise to see the mountain of a man standing in the doorway to his office. The bear Alpha had arrived.

“Booker, you’re early!” Gabe walked over and shook the ridiculously huge man’s hand.

“We were motivated to get here quickly, and for some strange reason, other passengers decided that they would rather wait for the next ferry than ride with a hundred bear-sized men in flannel,” he answered with a cheeky smile. “I can’t imagine why.”

“Indeed, nor can I.” Braxas laughed, greeting the new Alpha. “Sweet mother, you are
huge
, man!”

Braxas and Gabe were both well above average in size, but this giant almost made Gabe feel like a child standing next to him.

“We’re bears,” Booker said with a shrug in answer to the cat’s statement.

“I assume you sent your second off with Roderick to settle your people in?” Gabe asked as he gestured for the large man to have a seat.

“Yes, Daton and Connor are coordinating with him as we speak. My bears are ready to go at your word. This Alefric bastard will regret not minding his own business on this side of the Veil.”

“That’s the plan, my friend. That’s the plan.” Gabe looked at the two shifters in front of him. They would cross the Veil and bring this fight straight to the bastard who tried to intimidate his people. Shifters may have once been enslaved, but that was a long time ago and they would never be again.

Chapter Twenty

Erica paced the eight steps that took her from one rock wall of her cell to the other, cursing Kheelan for being an ass. He had wanted to punish her for the comments she had made in the forest so rather than taking her directly to Alefric, he’d put her here in the dungeons. She fucking hated this place. It was dark, eerie and—
Sweet gods what in the hell is that stench?

Realizing that she was freaking herself out, she took herself to her happy place. Closing her eyes, she calmed herself by thinking about her mates. As painful as it was to bring their handsome faces to mind, it definitely helped calm her. By now they would have come out of the sleeping death spell she had invoked within them, and she would bet money they would be tearing the earth realm apart looking for a way to get to her.

“Donovan had better get my message to my mates,” Erica muttered to herself, rolling her shoulders in an attempt to relax.

“Donovan?” a trembling female voice asked, and Erica’s eyes snapped open. “Do you mean Donovan Olson?”

Erica stepped to the front of her cell, staring into the darkened one in front of her. “I’m not sure what his last name is, but if I said the word
Beta
, what would that mean to you?”

Erica heard a distinctly feminine gasp followed by shuffling movements before a female appeared at the front of the darkened cell. She was slightly taller than Erica, with long, red hair that fell in a bedraggled mess down her shoulders, but her green eyes shone with excitement. “That is my Donovan’s rank. His Alpha is a wolf by the name of Gabe Errikson.”

Erica smiled at the woman. “That’s him. He’s your mate?”

“Yes, he is, one of them, and we haven’t, um, well, you know.” A beguiling shade of red swept up her cheeks.

Erica laughed softly. “You haven’t claimed each other. But that’s okay. I knew my men were meant for me before we
you knowed
,
too.” The woman smiled back at her. “What is your name, and how in the hell did you end up down here?”

“My name is April, and Jason and I were taken from the earth realm and brought here. They have been torturing J-Jason.” April’s voice caught on her mate’s name, and Erica’s heart ached for her. “But they aren’t even asking him any questions. Who the hell does that? Interrogates a man without actually asking any questions?”

Jason was a wolf shifter. Alefric and Kheelan saw them as less than Fae. Hell, they probably saw them as being less than any other being, and as Jason was a shifter, they weren’t interrogating him. They were simply enjoying beating the shit out of him.

The bastards!

“Is he here with you?” Erica peered into the darkness behind the young woman.

“No, they have him on the other side of the wall.” April’s voice shook even more, and Erica got the impression she was desperately trying not to cry. “I hear him shouting and growling, but they won’t let me see him.”

Thinking about how that must feel, Erica held her hand out toward April, waiting until she reached out and they were able to clasp hands. When their hands finally touched, Erica saw a spark of blue light arc between their palms. The sensation was not exactly unpleasant, but definitely strange, and they both pulled their hands back with a gasp. The two women looked up at each other with wide eyes.

“You are a healer?” Erica whispered in shock.

April frowned in confusion, surprise clear on her face as she stared at her own palm. “I don’t kn—”

Whatever April had been about to say was interrupted by the door at the end of the hall slamming open.

“Get back,” Erica ordered quietly and watched as April immediately faded into the darkest corner of her cell. Erica leaned her arms out of the bars and tried her best to appear bored and disinterested.

Kheelan strode up to her cell, moving to stand directly in front of her with a smug ass look on his face. “Our King will speak with you now.”

Erica stepped back from the bars. “Well as it happens, I’m just as anxious to talk with him.” Kheelan opened the door, and Erica strode out. When she reached him, he held out a set of restraints. “If you think I am going to allow you to shackle me, you are crazier than I ever gave you credit for.” She knew all too well that those would not be any ordinary shackles—they’d block her powers.

Kheelan’s eyes narrowed. “This is standard when a prisoner is brought before our King.”

“I am unarmed and outnumbered. Surely I am no threat to you or
your
King.” Erica’s spat the last word out with distaste. She was trying to be polite and seem as harmless as possible, but she just wasn’t that good of an actress. “I will walk quietly and calmly to the throne room and speak civilly with Alefric. You have my word, but if you try to get me into those shackles, I will show you the true definition of pissed off, and you will not take me to Alefric with all the limbs you currently have attached.”

Kheelan’s eyes glittered red, a sign that he was losing his cool demeanor, but in all fairness, Erica didn’t give a shit. She watched as Kheelan fought an internal battle, no doubt weighing up the damage that would be done if they had to fight over the shackles.

“No shackles,” Kheelan grunted, then pushed her roughly in the direction of the door. Erica stumbled slightly and she heard a slight growl from the darkness to her left. Catching herself before she fell completely, she winked in April’s direction. Erica put her shoulders back, held her head high and walked out the door, turning left without being told where to go, and headed for the throne room.

This was her home. She didn’t need anyone telling her how to find places within these walls. As she walked the halls then began climbing the stairs that would take her directly to where Alefric was no doubt sitting on her father’s throne, waiting for her to come to him, an odd calmness fell over her. Erica had thought that she might have been filled with tension or nerves in this moment. But she felt nothing but calm and determination.

With no hesitation, she followed Kheelan into the throne room and walked the long length of the room toward Alefric. The fucker sat in her father’s chair, but she still remained calm and collected. When they reached the stairs that led to where Alefric was sitting, Kheelan stopped. Erica refused to stand behind the man, so she moved so that she stood half a foot in front of him, ignoring his indignant growl, and his hand gripped her upper arm.

She flung Kheelan’s hand from her arm and turned to glare at him. “Touch me again, and you will pull back a bloody stump. If you think I am kidding, try me.”

Kheelan bared his teeth at her and moved his hand as if to backhand her, but Erica refused to drop her gaze or raise a hand to defend herself.

“Kheelan, is that any way to welcome a guest to my home?” Alefric’s asked in a voice filled with arrogance that had Erica’s skin crawling. “Step back and let me talk with Eyrica.”

Erica remained staring at Kheelan until he stepped back, and only then did she turn her gaze to Alefric, the False King. “I find it amusing that you and Kheelan both suffer from the same delusion. He thinks that just by saying something belongs to him that it makes it true, and it would appear you think the same.
I
am the true heir to this throne and this realm, and you are nothing.”

Alefric’s eyes narrowed at her. “And yet I am the one sitting on the throne with the kingdom before me, the entire proud nation of the Fae looking to me as their King.”

Erica folded her arms across her chest. “Kheelan, his guards, and a few bigoted Fae stuck in the past do not make the entire Fae nation. I think you will find that there are many who see you for what you really are.”

Alefric sat back on the throne, his hands gripping the armrests tightly. “And dare I ask what that might be?”

Erica sneered at the man, letting all the hatred she had for him show on her face. “A murdering egotistical asshole with delusions of grandeur. You are a prejudiced son of a bitch who thinks he has the right to slam his thoughts and beliefs down the throats of every Fae in this or any other realm. You, Alefric, are the False King. I know that if you continue to remain the False King,
my
people, the ones who have not bowed to your insanity and still hold true to their beliefs and the beliefs of their true royal family, will stand against you. They will fight with everything within them until you and every one of your fucked up followers are dead.”

Alefric moved to lean forward in his chair, an insane rage shining in his eyes. “If I remain?
If
? Look around you,
Princess
. This palace is surrounded by my guards, this room is filled with the men who follow me and would die to protect their King. Their
true
King. Me! What in the hell can get to me through all of that?”

Erica reached for every fiber of strength within her, sending her love to her mates, praying that she would be able to hold them in her arms again, and know once again what it felt like to stand pressed between them, completely surrounded by their love.

Erica took one final deep breath. “Me.”

Then she released her powers.