39. Chapter Thirty-Nine
~Evalina~
Though Felix didn’t say a word, I felt the shift in him immediately. His eyes went unfocused and his breathing quickened, and I reached out to place my hand on his strong, solid arm. “What’s wrong? What happened?”
His voice, usually so steady, had a tight edge to it. “Someone’s on our land. Might have come through the portal.”
My chest tightened again, just as it had in Vaughan’s office when I realized I might have inadvertently exposed these people to danger. “The elves? Tarron?”
Even saying the prince’s name made me shudder. The more time I spent with Felix, the more repulsive Tarron became.
Felix strode to the door so quickly, I almost had to run to keep up with his longer legs. Fear fuelled each of my steps. “I’m not sure. No one has seen anything yet.”
Because they couldn’t see anything; he didn’t need to say it for me to understand what he meant.
Wordlessly, I followed him down the stairs and back to Vaughan’s office where the Alpha already had a small group of men assembled. They stood in groups of two or three, chatting with each other while keeping an eye on Vaughan’s movements, a buzz of anticipation filling the air. Darius gave me a curt nod but the others didn’t glance my way, not seeing anyone in the space next to Felix.
“We need to get out there since we’re the only ones who can see anything,” Vaughan told Felix as soon as we arrived. “We’ll divide the house guard into three and you, me and Darius will each lead one of the groups.”
“What about me?” I interjected. “I can see them too.”
Felix grimaced, his hand sliding into mine and squeezing it gently. “It’s too dangerous. You’ll stay here where it’s safe.”
The other men in the room exchanged confused glances, unsure who he was talking to or why his hand gripped the empty air.
“You’ll cover more space with four sets of eyes than three,” I argued back. “If I have your men with me, why wouldn’t I be safe?”
“Because it’s you they want, and because none of our men can see or hear you. It doesn’t make sense to send you out there when you wouldn’t be able to tell them even if you spotted something and they wouldn’t know if you were taken.”
My brow furrowed with frustration and Vaughan winced, probably hearing how the dismissal in Felix’s words sounded to me. Still, he backed up his Beta. “He’s right, Evalina. Until we know for sure who it is and what they’re looking for, it’s not worth the risk to send you out there. The house has the best protection in the territory and Calista will stay here with you.”
Accepting the word of his Alpha as final, Felix released my hand and strode over to the desk where Vaughan already had a map of the territory laid out. “We’ll move out in circles, crossing over at the edges to make sure we don’t miss anything. I’ll take my group towards the portal we went through earlier.”
The men spoke amongst themselves in a shorthand language that suggested they’d done this kind of thing before while I slowly backed away towards the door. If I could get away with them all distracted, maybe I could…
I didn’t even get to finish that thought before I bumped into a solid form behind me. Spinning around, I found the Luna blocking the doorway.
“He means well,” Calista promised, obviously having overheard the exchange and choosing to ignore the fact that I’d been attempting to sneak away. She leaned towards me with a smile that felt both sympathetic and conspiratorial. “Werewolves have a protective instinct towards their mate that makes them act a little crazy sometimes.”
I glanced back at Felix and Vaughan, both completely focused on their task. “It doesn’t bother you?”
“I choose my battles, and this isn’t one of the ones to waste your energy on. They won’t let you go and I need your help anyway.”
I’d been ready to argue but her final words stopped me. “Help with what?” I asked instead.
“Understanding the fae world. Would you mind?”
She gestured down the hall behind her and I threw another glance over my shoulder at Felix. He looked up, catching my eye, and when he saw Calista standing behind me, he gave us both a grateful nod.
My heart softened at his show of appreciation. Perhaps I shouldn’t take his refusal to let me help too personally. After all, everything else he’d done to that point suggested he valued my input, but safety came first. We still had a lot to learn about each other and I could extend him the benefit of the doubt, at least for now.
“Let’s go,” I agreed, and Calista led me to the room next door, a room similar to Vaughan’s office but with a decidedly less masculine air. The walls were painted in a light grey colour rather than dark, with furniture to match. “Is this room yours?”
“It’s my office, yes. I’m still getting settled, but as Luna, I have responsibilities within the pack.” She stepped around to the seat behind the desk, gesturing for me to take the chair in front of it.
My elbows perched on the edge of her desk, scattered with papers just as her mate’s was. “Are there responsibilities for the Beta’s mate too?”
“Not officially,” Calista replied, her blue eyes scanning me curiously. “But I’m sure Felix would help you find a use for your talents. Have you decided to stay?”
“I haven’t decided anything yet. I was just curious.”
I couldn’t tell her about the things that happened up in his room or the feelings our intimacy had stirred up. I’d never talked about those kinds of things with anyone, and we had more immediate problems anyway.
“What do you want my help with?”
From the pile of documents, Calista pulled out several pieces of paper that formed a kind of puzzle. When she pieced them together, I found myself staring at a map of my own world, or so I had to assume based on the ‘Etta’ written in large letters in one of the small pieces of land. I’d never seen a full map of the whole world before and my fingers ran tentatively over the lines on the page as if it might feel like home.
My eyes raised to hers again, both confused and impressed. “Where did you get this?”
“A hunter friend of mine bought it off a collector. He wasn’t sure if it was real, but I think it might be based on the things you said. Look, here’s Etta, and there’s a deep canyon separating it from elvish territory, just like the elf told you. The portal on our land must lead into this space here.”
Her fingers skimmed over the lines of the map as I tried to take it all in.
“Do you know anything about these other neighbouring territories?”
I read the names of the lands, but though some of them were familiar from talk among the kitchen staff, I had very few useful details to share. Still, I dug into my memory for any tidbits I could find. “The craftsmen in Pylcher make the most beautiful musical instruments. We had a travelling band come through last summer. Nithika has fruits late into the winter, we trade for them with our canned berries. Adowar is Etta’s chief rival, we’re warned not to wander too close to the border with them.”
A frustrated sigh blew through my lips.
“I’m sorry, I wish I knew something more useful.”
“That is useful,” Calista assured me. “The fact that you recognize these names as real places suggests the map is accurate. That’s good for us to know.”
Encouraged by her words, I searched my memory once more for anything else that might be of use. “My father had a rough map with some of the portals marked on it, but I didn’t bring it with me. I wish I’d known it would be useful. I don’t think there’s any way to go back and get it.”
“Not an easy way,” Calista agreed. “Do you remember any of it?”
Closing my eyes, I tried to conjure the image as I’d seen it. “I found the portal that I went through, and there was another one in Etta, on the opposite side of the territory. That would be over here.”
I pointed at the spot on the map, and Calista quickly marked it with an X. “Since the elvish territory is west of Etta in your world but we’re east of the Vermillion pack in ours, that suggests things are opposite. We might be able to find that portal west of the Vermillion pack in our world if we need it.”
We continued to pore over the map together as the minutes ticked by, no sounds in the room but the rustling of paper and our quiet conversation while we did our best to distract ourselves from the threat lurking outside the pack house walls and the danger it might pose to our mates who had gone out to find it.