Chapter 6
Chapter Six
For a moment, I thought it would work. The king stared at me. My students, sitting in their seats, blinked, frowning, shaking their heads as though suddenly coming back to themselves.
Then the king smiled, and I remembered why I had inserted myself between him and Bastian. There was something terrible in his smile, a cool confidence, an amusement, as though watching me struggle, watching me attempt this, was amusing to him.
He had sharp teeth and nearly invisible lips.
His eyes were the pale color of leaves when all the green had faded from them.
His cheekbones seemed to grow as I watched, going from movie star sharp to distorting his face, stretching it in a way that was totally foreign and not at all human.
His ears grew long and sharper, giving the effect of a predator.
I wanted to quake; I wanted to shake and shiver and yield.
But I was a wolf.
“You can't have them. They're mine.” I pulled my lips back from my teeth in a snarl. He wasn't the only one who had sharp fangs.
“You are mistaken, wolf. They have voluntarily entered my kingdom. They have voluntarily eaten my food and taken gifts from me.” He reached over, and next to him, Monica didn't flinch away from his touch when he pulled her hair back from her neck, revealing a necklace dripping with rubies.
“They owe me an obligation. They will pay it with their lives.”
Behind me, Bastian inhaled sharply, and I felt the growl build in my throat. There was a phrase we had among wolves for an older wolf who would hurt pups. Blood traitor.
I snarled and felt myself begin to shift. I wasn't sure what I could do against the fae. I'd never tried to fight one. I didn't even like fighting other wolves, and that was part of my nature.
But the other option was turning around and letting this man hurt students who had been entrusted into my care, and that was untenable.
“King Hawthorne,” Rowan said from beside me. The room stilled. He reached up, freeing the mask from his face.
“Rowan.” I hated the way the king said his name, purring it with amusement, each sound dripping from his tongue with desire. “Is this your pet?”
Rowan looked at me, and I felt something in my stomach drop, some uncertainty coalescing as I realized the truth: he wasn't afraid because he had once been one of the children up on the stage.
He was afraid because he had once been one of the fae surrounding us, dangerous and strange and ready to consume the lives of human children just like every fairy tale said.
“He is not,” Rowan said. “But he also speaks true. You can smell it on the children even from here. They do not belong with us.”
“With us?” King Hawthorne challenged. His eyes crinkled, his nose lengthening, his skin warping until it was patterned like carved wood. “With us? Have you come back to me, Rowan? Will you yield to me again?”
Beside me, Rowan stood rooted, his expression terribly blank.
And I had thought he was blank when he refused my gift of cookies, when he refused to give me his name, but he might as well have been a library of information back then.
Now he was solid stone, and I couldn't read anything in his expression.
“They are not yours to take,” Rowan said softly, his voice folding in on itself, and I was sure I wasn't the only one that heard fear in it.
“Would you barter for them? Would you barter for the obligations they have given me?” King Hawthorne asked. “I would take you back. I would accept you back by my side in exchange for twelve human lives.”
Rowan hesitated, and I felt something pit in my stomach. I’d brought him back here. I had taken him from whatever freedom he'd found and brought him back here, and now he was thinking about going back to whatever situationship he had with the fae king just for me.
No, that was ridiculous. He wasn't thinking about doing it for me. He was thinking about doing it for the children, my students. Which he'd only known about because of me.
“Don't,” I whispered. “Don't do it.”
Even though I only breathed the words, I knew they were a mistake when Rowan turned his panicked gaze to me and King Hawthorne fixed me with his full attention. It felt like a weight, like a burning, searing pain, and I swallowed over and over again trying to get moisture in my throat.
“The children are not yours,” King Hawthorne said slowly. “Rowan is not yours. You are nothing, and you have no one. You have freely entered my domain, freely entered my lands, and I will not give you leave to part from them.”
I hadn't studied three semesters of medieval literature to not understand I was entering very bad territory. The laws of hospitality didn't apply; I hadn't been invited. But I also hadn't taken anything from the fae king, meaning he also had no right to hold me.
There had to be some delicate way out of this, some tap dance or verbal acrobatics that would let me free with the kids and Rowan.
What I ended up doing instead was saying, “He's not yours either.”
King Hawthorne hissed, literally hissed and drew back, his growl building in his throat as he said, “You would seek to claim him when he is mine? You think a human would ever have any claim to him?” Then, suddenly, he was out of his seat and right next to me, whispering in my ear, “Do you think he would ever deign to submit to a dog?”
And that was it. They might be fae, but they were threatening pups and a guy that, well, I had to admit, I didn't have any claim on, but I did like a whole lot.
So I did something I hadn't done in way too long. I shifted.
My bones cracked and reshaped, my skin stretched and grew fur, my pelt sprouting into existence as my eyes sharpened and teeth turned fully into fangs. Suddenly the world exploded for me, my nose smelling everything, my eyes so sharp I could see Rowan's pupils as they dilated.
Rowan glowed in my eyes, and his expression was wide-open surprise, but not shock, not terror, not horror. I could smell him too. I could smell his interest and the claim he made on me. We’d barely done more than touch, and yet I could smell myself on him, as though I’d marked him as my mate.
I howled, throwing back my head and singing the song that was for calling a pack together, for circling the pups when there was danger nearby.
In their chairs, I could see my students turning to look at each other, frowning, something in their glazed expressions fading as they looked around. Bastian darted out from behind me, grabbing hold of Grant’s hand and pulling him up from the chair.
It was like he broke a spell. As soon as Grant moved, the rest of them were up and out of their chairs, clustering together, looking around and reaching for each other.
Beside me, Rowan said, “The spell has already been broken. You may have them under an obligation, but to steal this many children would attract the attention of the Winter Court.”
King Hawthorne drew himself up, his wooden skin extending until he was twice as tall, the hair on his head becoming branches and leaves. Rowan raised his chin to stare at the king.
“And yet, they are still mine. Come. Come back to me, and I will release them.” His words were a whisper of wind through leaves.
And I could hear the lie in them. Hear the gaping hole. He would release them, but they were fish on the line, and they would come back.
I snarled, darting forward and tearing at some of the lower branches on his trunk. He turned on me, raising one of his wooden arms and batting me to the side. I flew through the air, landing hard on the ground and skidding. I bounded forward again, but there were fae in front of me.
A wolf was never supposed to fight alone. We hunted in packs, we fought in packs, and I had no desire to fight all of the fae under King Hawthorne. I bounced between them, nipping and tearing at their clothes but being careful of their skin.
It was too ingrained in me to keep my teeth from breaking skin, to keep myself above reproach.
I had no idea if I could turn a fae; I had no idea if it would even work, but I couldn't risk it.
So I moved between them, darting between legs, leaping over, pushing aside and tearing at clothes and hair.
It left me at a disadvantage, because they had no problem drawing blood, wielding blades and sharp claws of their own.
The missing pack at my side was like an open wound, leaving me vulnerable. Still, the longer I had their attention on me, the more chance there was of escape for the kids. Bastian had freed them, now all they needed to do was find their way out.
Then, all of a sudden, I wasn't alone.
At my side, Rowan held two blades made from dark, polished wood, the edges so sharp that he sliced off the fingers of a fae reaching toward me, claws extended. Rowan was a spinning vortex of danger, and for the first time in years, it let me free, let me settle into my wolf.
As a wolf, things were clearer, the world was comprehensible. There were enemies, there were the children I needed to protect, and there was my pack, Rowan, who stood at my side even when danger threatened us both.
We fought together, Rowan stabbing up, slicing across someone's shoulder as I barreled into them from below, taking out their legs.
And then the crowd parted, and King Hawthorne stood in front of us, terrible and powerful.
In my wolf form, I could see the magic around him, layers of it.
He smelled different, the scent of him inhuman and strange.
Smelling it now, I recognized that what I had always taken for Rowan's body wash or cologne was actually this: the scent of fae magic.
I leapt up, tearing loose another branch, but King Hawthorne grabbed me, thick wood growing around me, then he slammed me into the ground, his fingers turning to roots, sinking deep and dragging me with it into the dirt.
Rowan screamed, incoherently angry, and sliced his blade at King Hawthorne's wrist, but he didn't release me.
“Would you submit again for him? For this dog?” King Hawthorne asked.
His words echoed in the wood, vibrating my whole body, and they were terrible and unfair and also filled with frustration and yearning.
“I—” Rowan hesitated.
I struggled again, raising my back feet and clawing, feeling bone and skin tear as I dug myself free, pulling out and limping to his side. I howled again, and Rowan's jaw set.
“I am free of you, and you cannot trap me with an obligation again. Your gifts are venomous, and I will not take fruit from this poison tree.” Rowan dropped his swords to his sides. “Let me go. Let them go.”
King Hawthorne shrank, losing his size but retaining the strange wooden appearance of his skin. “Living among them has changed you.”
The way he said it meant that Rowan had not been changed for the better.
“And it does not change the fact that they are here and they are mine. This one has trespassed on my territory, and for that, his life is forfeit.”
Branches grew around me, binding me tightly, and when I’d freed myself, I had broken something inside. Now Hawthorne squeezed, cracking the bones of my rib cage.
Well, at least if I was going to die, I did it living courageously. I was glad that my last few moments had been trying to protect someone. I had been so long without a pack that I'd forgotten what it felt like to live for someone else, to fight for someone else.
Rowan was talking, but my heartbeat was echoing in my ears, blood pulsing under my skin, and I could taste it in my mouth. Just as I was sure it was the end, a cold, winter wind blew through.
The branches stopped squeezing.
“King Hawthorne of the Autumn Court. You have challenged my liege and attempted to usurp his authority. As a representative of the Winter Court, I declare you in violation of the treaties that prevent us from war.”
I managed to open my eyes, blinking to clear my vision, and saw the man who had been in my hallway, asking about Rowan.
Now, he wore armor of gleaming silver, a white frost covering it, and a long fur cloak flowing behind him.
Both of his hands rested on the hilt of a broadsword, its tip touching the earth.
Circles of white surrounded the blade where it rested on the ground.
“On authority of the King of the Winter Court, I declare war on the Autumn Court.” The man looked around, his cool blue gaze taking in everything at once.
“Balsam thinks to challenge me in my own territory? We are not in the human realm, where he holds sway. We are in the Autumn Court. And he thinks to challenge me?” Hawthorne's voice rose to a roar.
“These children are not of the Autumn Court. You wooed them from the human realm during the ascendancy of the Winter Court. You violated the treaty,” Rowan said.
He blinked, looking down at me. “And as it regards the treaty between the four courts, it should be brought before the Windrose with witnesses. I will provide witness, and so will August.”
The winter fae in his frozen armor frowned at Rowan, then looked down at me before returning his gaze to Hawthorne. “Well, King of the Autumn Court? Will it be war, or will you submit to judgment at the hand of the Windrose?”
Hawthorne glared at him, then sneered at me, and I felt the branches pull away from me. Desperate for relief from the pain, I shifted back into my human form, letting the change wash away all of my injuries.
Rowan dropped down next to me, taking off his jacket and draping it over me. I blinked, and suddenly, we were no longer in the Far Realm, with its trees made of gemstones and a court of glittering fae.
We were in an enormous room with stained glass windows depicting the four seasons. Beside me, Rowan trembled, and I could hear his uneven breaths. He swallowed.
We might have averted a war, but clearly he thought whatever was coming next was even more terrifying.