Page 13 of Owned By the Fae
‘Ah. Grey. Good.’ He stands and beckons me. ‘We have need of a shifter’s nose. Vern took an iron cudgel to the knee, andwon’t be healed in time. When I sent you to find the Harbinger, you’d never shifted …’ His eyes glint, watching me very closely. ‘Is that still true?’
‘Aye, sir, but my nose works as well as a true shifter’s,’ I lie with ease.
Varrik nods at Grith. ‘Take him with you. Remember, he’s been in the Wilds for a while, so he might be a little out of practice. Keep a close eye on him.’
His voice is almost jovial, but I know that telling Grith to watch me isn’t to keep me safe. I glance at the other three who are coming with us. They regard me with barely concealed hostility. Of the party, I only know what Rikoth’s skill is; something to do with tricking the senses and making those around him do his bidding. I’ll need to watch my back when I take my moment and it’s going to need to look like an accident with all these suspicious eyes.
Grith nods, and I hear the whine of the Gate just before it begins to open.
I’m not given a weapon, I notice, and I smirk. As if I need one.
‘Where are we going?’ I ask the back of Grith’s head.
Grith ignores me, and I suppress a sneer as I follow him and the three elites through the Breach.
We arrive almost instantly in a world of dark, rumbling clouds and torrents of horizontal rain. I’m glad I was still wearing my cloak when Grith came to get me.
I glance around, shocked that we don’t seem to have passed through a Gate on this side. I thought there always had to be a ring to tether the Breach.
Grith’s eyes cut to me. ‘We’re looking for a Gate box.’
‘Up there!’ one of them shouts over the sounds of the storm and I see a broken ring on top of a cliff as lightning makes the sky glow for a fleeting moment.
Grith turns to me. ‘Do you smell anything?’
‘Rain,’ I yell.
He looks perturbed. ‘Anything like bodies decomposing?’
I inhale slowly through my nose, taking in the hundreds of scents I can smell. The prevailing ones are of wet grass and the other fae who are with me, but there’s also an underlying scent of decay that I can’t place, but it seems to be stronger in one direction. It’s not a smell I recognize, but there are several Dark Realm creatures that it could be from. None of them are ones I’d care to meet, even with a weapon in my hands.
I point behind us, and the elites draw their swords warily.
‘Come on!’ Grith orders with a roll of his eyes. ‘Let’s get this done before we catch our deaths. Rikoth, make it so we can’t be seen by anyone other than each other. Just in case.’
In case of what?
But Rikoth nods as if this is commonplace, and we all start climbing the slippery slope up to the dead Gate on the hill.
‘Where are we?’ I ask.
The only female in the group looks at me, her eyes moving over me and clearly finding me lacking. ‘Not your concern, Dreg.’
I snort, ignoring the insult given to those with low-level skills though I’d love to snap her neck for it.
‘It is if whatever’s making that stench comes for us,’ I retort. ‘Canyousmell danger coming?’
Her eyes narrow. ‘Not my skill.’
Then she looks behind us, towards where I’d pointed earlier, and I see a hint of uncertainty in her expression for a moment. ‘Just let us know if the scent gets stronger. We’ll do the rest, boy.’
Boy? I’m probably older than she is.
I give her a look that she ignores. As she pushes past me, I slip in the mud and lament the fact that I won’t be able to shift and that I don’t even have a fucking sword.
We get to the summit, and I gape. The rest of the landscape beyond is charred and dead as far as the eye can see all along the horizon.
‘What is this place?’
