Page 102 of Faerie Hunted

I shook my head. I wished I had the words to explain it to Elfwaite. Hopefully those would come. Hopefully everything was going to work out and we’d find the journal, but what kind of hope could I really cling to? Nothing beyond Livvy’s supposition that it had to be here.

Did Iwantto find the spell? Was that why I wouldn’t even look for it?

Elfwaite helped me search the room, and like I assumed, we turned up nothing.

I kept my footsteps as light as possible, so different from my thudding pulse, on the stairs and rounded the banister to find Laina coming out of the living room. Her lips twisted in a pout of disappointment.

None of us found what we needed to find. Livvy emerged from the kitchen this time with her hair disheveled and her normally pale face colored by exertion. With time ticking down, we checked the rest of the house and came up empty.

“It’s not here.” I stated the obvious. “Where do we go next?”

“I’m not sure. Ithasto be here. I know he has the journal.” Livvy crossed her arms over her chest and shivered. “There must be something we’re missing.”

Something tugged at me. “Look, we don’t want to stick around.”

“We shouldn’t leave until we’ve found it,” she insisted.

Leave? We weren’t getting out of here. Not when the door opened and a soft chuckle rang in my ears. I turned, already knowing what I would see, my stomach sinking through the floor.

Uncle Will stood in the doorway, silhouetted by moonlight, with three big pack members flanking him, their fangs and claws ready to strike.

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Will was ready for battle in his suit, a familiar charcoal-gray double-breasted ensemble I’d seen him wear before.

He rarely changed before heading to the bar with his buddies.

With his familiar expensive scent, I remembered him, and in a flash I remembered my father. The wintergreen and moss and dark forest. The big shoulders.

I remembered both their boisterous laughs, but Will wasn’t laughing now.

Not even close.

His gaze skipped between the four of us and landed on me, the lines around his eyes softening slightly. “Tavi.”

Oh god, my throat was going to close up. Already, it was hard to breathe. Somehow I forced my tongue into action and my lips to form the words. “Hi, Uncle Will.”

The others knew me. I caught the flash of recognition across their faces but they never let on.

I swallowed over the sharp lump in my throat as my eyes took in every familiar line of my uncle's face.

“If I’d known you were going to return for a visit, I would have stayed home.” His jaw tightened and on his right, his beta’s hand curled into a fist.

“You could have done without the company.” I gestured toward the other three. Two betas, one delta.

My fingers twitched, my hands stiff from clenching them at my side. A bead of sweat trailed along my spine and seemed to freeze just above my tailbone.

Uncle Will lifted his chin. “You took off on me. You lied to me, and you bolted. You have no idea what kind of mess you left behind. The Grimaldi pack has done unspeakable things to us in your absence. Now I find you here, unharmed, and surrounded by Faerie pigs.”

His delta hissed at the name-calling.

Will’s commanding presence filled the foyer in a physical cloud. It was one of the things that made him effective as an alpha and caused the others to fall in line. He was one of the only alphas of the last hundred years who never had any challengers step up. His dominance was so completely established they didn’t even try.

A feared opponent in the courtroom, too.

“You shouldn’t have forced me into a match with Kendrick Grimaldi.” I stiffened, craning to see past him as if saying the name out loud would conjure the devil.

I was scared.

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