18. Chapter Eighteen
~Felix~
When Alpha Marcus returned, I filled him in on what I’d managed to figure out so far: namely, that their thief was an invisible fae prince.
He stared at me for a long moment before his eyes moved to Vaughan, who sat on my left with his arm resting on the back of Calista’s chair. “Is this some kind of joke?”
“Do you have another explanation?” The calm authority in Vaughan’s voice gave no indication that he’d doubted the fae realm’s existence less than twenty-four hours ago. “Your men confirmed nothing had been taken from your weapons store, no one else was seen going in despite the guards posted at the door, and now, additional items are missing. What else could it be?”
Since the Alpha had no answer for that, he bent his head in concession. “How do we stop him from coming back, then?”
Calista fielded that one. “We can disable the portal between the two realms.”
Panic spiked in my chest and I leaned forward, my mouth already open, but she held up her hand to stop me.
“ After we take care of some other business. There are plenty of passages between the two realms; this is only one of them, but if we disable it, at least they won’t have direct access onto your land.”
“What business?” Alpha Marcus pressed.
Calista’s eyes flicked to me. “Felix followed the prince to the fae realm last night and they temporarily held him there. We need to find out what impact his presence might have had.”
She didn’t say anything about Evalina, and I kept my mouth shut too, understanding that she must have her reasons for skirting the truth. However, I did have another request. “I also need some silver, as much as you can spare. We’ll replace it.”
The Alpha’s brow furrowed but when he looked at Vaughan, my Alpha nodded his consent, and Alpha Marcus relented. “I have a few bars in storage that we haven’t used yet.”
“Perfect, thank you.”
When the meeting ended, Vaughan ordered me to get some sleep. “We’ll rest too since we got up early to get here and we’ll want to be alert tonight, just in case.”
“You’re coming with me?”
His elbow nudged against my side, playfully jabbing me. “I need to meet your mate, don’t I?”
He might be my Alpha, but he was also my best friend, and I appreciated his support more than I could say. “Thanks, Vaughan. I can’t promise you’ll be able to see her, but thanks.”
With a roll of his eyes, he pushed me towards my temporary room and I gratefully fell into bed.
Eight hours later, as the sun started to go down, the four of us walked through the forest back to the location of the portal. The trip would have been faster in our wolf forms, but I didn’t want to be naked when Evalina arrived and scare her off. Along the way, Vaughan asked Calista for more information about the connection points between our two worlds.
“How many of these portals are there? How do we know if there’s one on our territory?”
“You wouldn’t know, and it might not ever be a problem if there is one. Since you have to travel through it with someone from the other realm, nobody’s likely to accidentally go through, and for the number of fae there are, they don’t often come over here either. Usually, it’s only the ones who want something that make the trek, like this prince. Do you have any idea why he wanted the silver, Felix?”
Everyone turned to me but I could only shrug. “Not a clue. I feel like if he wanted it for the same reason Evalina does, for healing, he would have sent someone else to get it rather than putting himself in danger. My gut says he didn’t want other people to know about it.”
After what Evalina said, I had no intention of giving Tarron the benefit of the doubt, and the way he captured and imprisoned me didn’t exactly scream innocence either. He was up to something, and the idea of Evalina being in his orbit created an itch of discomfort in my chest, like ticks burrowing their way into my skin. Hopefully, when she showed up that night, I could find out more about the whole situation.
We found the spot easily enough, following my scent in the bushes. Calista’s nose crinkled at the smell while Vaughan rubbed a hand across his face. “Seriously?”
“It worked, didn’t it?”
Calista and Darius tried not to smile while Vaughan glared at me, but it didn’t last. All three of us broke into wide grins, and eventually, Vaughan cracked too.
Even if we hadn’t been able to follow the scent, I would have found it eventually, because as soon as we stepped into the glade, the shimmering outline of the portal hung in the air, fractals of light glinting in the forest’s darkness.
“Do you see it too?” I asked Darius.
“Yeah.” His wide eyes and hushed tone told me he found it just as impressive as I did. “It didn’t look like that yesterday.”
“What do you see?” Vaughan asked, his eyes scanning the area and brushing right over the spot that had our attention.
“They can see the portal because they’ve been through it,” Calista ventured. “And they can go back through it now too, on their own. Once you’ve seen the other side, it all becomes visible.”
That made it easy to know where to look as we waited for Evalina to appear, but an hour went by, and another one, without any sign of her.
“Something’s not right,” I muttered, my arms crossed tight over my chest. “She really wanted that silver. She should be here.”
A dozen worst-case scenarios popped into my head that might explain her absence, everything from her mother dying to Tarron discovering the part she played in freeing me to her being in a relationship I knew nothing about. I hadn’t even asked if she was single, and it would have been a very weird question to ask her anyway. Did fairies wear wedding rings?
“I’m going in to find her.”
I didn’t plan for the words to come out of my mouth. They were an instinctive reaction I couldn’t control but I meant them completely.
Thankfully, nobody tried to argue with me. “What are the risks?” Vaughan asked Calista instead.
“We don’t know anything about their weapons, what they wanted the silver for or what they wanted Felix for. If he’s recaptured and they force-feed him, he’d be stuck there forever.”
“So, it’s not a holiday,” I acknowledged with a shrug. “I’ll stay out of sight. Evalina thought it was strange I could smell the portal and I managed to travel through their forest without attracting attention, so I’m pretty sure their sense of smell isn’t as developed as ours. I’ll be careful.”
“Do you even know where to start looking for her?” Darius asked.
“Not exactly,” I admitted. “But I’ve always had a good sense of direction. I’m pretty sure I could get back to the prison and go from there.”
My friends all exchanged looks, and their concern for me genuinely touched me. It wouldn’t stop me from going, though.
“Alright,” Vaughan finally agreed. “We stick together as much as possible. If we need to separate for safety, I’ll give the orders through our mind-link. If I say to abort, we all come back without question or argument. Understood?”
It took me a second to catch up. “You’re coming too? All of you?”
Three solemn heads nodded in confirmation before Vaughan added gruffly, “We’re family, if not by blood then through the pack. And family doesn’t let one of their own walk into danger alone.”
To punctuate his point, Calista lifted the leg of her jeans to reveal a small pistol strapped to her calf. “Just in case. And what the hell, I’ve always been curious about the fae realm too.”
I grinned back at her. Having seen her aim first-hand, having Calista for backup gave me a lot more confidence. “You can take the girl away from the hunters, but you can’t take the hunter out of the girl.”
“I’d prefer to know more about them before we charge in again,” Darius admitted, always looking at things from a security angle. “But I understand why you need to. I’m with you.”
“Don’t get all sappy now, you’ll make me cry.”
My teasing managed to draw a smile from all of them and I faced the portal with renewed confidence. Although I didn’t want to put any of my friends in danger, four of us would be more effective than one, especially if Evalina really had run into trouble.
Whatever kept her from coming to meet me, I wasn’t going to let her go that easily.
“Alright, then, let’s see what we can find. Follow me.”