Luke & Rena, page 3
part #1 of Book Three Series
Without a word, he undid his sword sheath and shifted, his wounds healing as he changed from fae to wolf.
Bracing himself on his hind legs, he focused with a growl, then leaped forward.
He heard his dad yell “no,” and then pain exploded through him as he made it through the spell.
The entire protection spell crackled around him, the magic dispersing as he rolled to the ground with a groan, his fur singed and pain surging through him.
His friends and family cheered.
Guards poured from the castle.
“Go get your mate,” his father yelled, unsheathing his sword.
As his friends and family shouted war cries and raced to meet the guards, Luke took off toward Rena.
After two days of searching, he’d finally found her.
He just hoped he wasn’t too late.
Perhaps the stupidest thing Rena had ever done in her life was leap through the second-floor window.
But she’d panicked and was backed into a corner.
Two sets of guards, intent on taking her back to the room with her parents and binding her with iron again, were on her heels and she’d been out of options.
Glass window and potential fall to severe injury, maybe death...or going back into iron bands and becoming an unwilling wife to a whackadoodle bent on revenge?
In the end, crashing through the window had been the best choice.
Then she’d actually done it. Thrown herself at the window and crossed her fingers that she didn’t die on impact.
Because if she died, she couldn’t get her parents free and she couldn’t see Luke again.
The freefall had lasted seconds and then the most unimaginable pain she’d ever experienced in her life had made every bone in her body jolt and every nerve ending light up with white-hot pain.
She honestly thought she died for a second.
Maybe a few seconds.
She couldn’t do anything but lay prone on the ground as her brain rattled in her skull and her body tried to figure out if anything was seriously injured.
Something crackled loudly, like a thousand panes of glass falling apart, and she felt warm air cascade over her.
What the hell was going on?
A shadow loomed over her, and she blinked rapidly and tried to move, but her body wasn’t on board with that.
Damn it, she was a sitting duck.
She couldn’t even get her brain on track to utter a protection spell.
Was that...snuffling?
Something furry touched her arm where the iron band had been, and she knew it was Luke.
The big, white wulfen moved around her and stretched out with a whine, touching her nose with his.
She cried.
Great. Of all the parts of her body that she wanted to work right now, her leaking eyeballs were not at the top of the list.
Slowly her body started to come back to her, feeling returning to her fingers and toes, her head aching sharply, but her natural healing abilities set into work. “Shit, that hurt,” she whispered. “You’re here. You came for me.”
Luke made a grumbling, angry sound and she laughed and then groaned at the pain in her side. “Sorry, I know you’re pissed.”
Sitting up gingerly, she waited for the world to stop spinning and then she looked at the castle. A fight was happening on the lawn, Berolith’s guards against fae she didn’t recognize, but figured them for Luke’s friends.
Luke rose onto his paws and snuffled at her.
“I’m going to be fine. But we have to find my parents. They’re in my old room and they’re going to die if we don’t get to them.”
Luke snarled and looked at the castle, then at her.
“The guards are distracted. We can slip in and get them to safety.”
Leaning on him, she pushed herself to her feet and then hugged him around his furry neck. “Thank you for coming for me. But what took you so long?”
Luke snorted and she giggled.
Casting a quick healing spell on herself, she breathed out a sigh of relief as she felt herself return to normal. She stretched out her wings and rolled her neck.
A young male with white feathered wings joined them.
“I’m Kash, from the Tressel Pack. Are you okay?”
“I am now. But I need to get my parents free, they’re on the third floor.”
“I’ll help.”
She nodded and looked at Luke. “Ready to kick some ass?”
He grunted in agreement, his hackles rising.
“There’s a side entrance. Let’s go,” she said.
Luke was elated and pissed at the same time. Thankful Rena was alive and safe, but pissed she wanted to go back into the castle instead of leaving the realm and going home with him. He understood she wanted to save her parents, and he wasn’t about to leave her side.
Kash used his power as a lockinfae to unlock the door. Luke went through first, his senses on alert, his beast ready to tear some fae to pieces for taking his female from him and holding her captive.
“My parents brought me here first and locked me in my room. There was iron on the bars so I couldn’t open the portal and leave. They wanted me to mate this male from another fae clan. We were arranged to be mated when we were babies. Then Berolith came here a few hours after I did, killed him and my parents’ guards, and imprisoned all of us in my room with iron bands.”
“Holy shit,” Kash said. “If it weren’t for your sirenfae powers, you probably wouldn’t have been able to get free.”
“Yeah,” she said. She touched Luke’s back and he paused before they reached a juncture.
“Go right,” she said, tapping his right flank.
He peeked around the corner and there was no one in the hallway. They hurried down the hall to the stairwell and traveled up two flights.
On the third floor, the hall was empty, and only one door was closed.
“Something’s wrong,” she whispered.
Luke growled in agreement.
“Yeah,” Kash said. “I feel it too. It’s evil. Stand back.”
Kash gripped his sword tightly and pushed open the bedroom door.
In the center of the room was a male with what his mom would call “crazy eyes,” his wings twitching like he was a crackhead in need of a fix. Her parents, who Luke had seen when she’d been taken from him the first time, were in a pile on the floor, iron poisoning turning their skin gray and sapping their strength and power. A portal was open behind him, but it was dark in the portal so he couldn’t tell where he’d opened a portal to.
“Let my parents go,” Rena said.
“Just because you’re back to full strength doesn’t mean you have any power here, female.”
“I’ll kill you,” she said, her voice seething with rage.
“You can try.” He made a motion over her parents, and they disappeared.
Rena shouted in alarm, and if Luke hadn’t been standing with his body blocking hers in protection, she might’ve run at the male.
“If you want your parents back alive, you will bring the dragonfae female to the outskirts of Tamsin Glen. You have twenty-four hours. More than that, and your parents will surely be too far gone with the poison to be saved. The choice is yours–your parents or the dragonfae.”
He stepped backward through the portal, and it shut immediately with a booming sound.
Rena fell to her knees with a gasp and clutched at Luke. “Where did he take them?”
Luke sat on his haunches and let out a sympathetic murmur. He had no fucking idea, but Berolith was a seriously powerful male.
“We need to get back to the battle,” Kash said. “You guys in?”
“Yeah,” Rena said, pushing to her feet and swiping angrily at the tears on her cheeks. “I want them all dead.”
Luke, maybe kinda, fell in love with her a little bit right then.
Vengeful, protective female.
The trio hurried down to the battle, where his family and friends were soundly beating guards who’d come out against them. Kash disappeared to help his parents, and Luke and Rena stayed side by side and fought together. She wielded spells like weapons, throwing balls of blue flame at the feathered wings of the guards, sending them to the ground in agony as their wings disintegrated. Luke leaped onto a male and tore a wing free while Rena let out a whoop and sent a ball of fire toward a male who was going after Crimson.
One by one the fae guards fell until there was only one left.
“This one is Phin, one of his loyal males,” she said, tossing a ball of fire into the air and catching it like it was a baseball. “What’s in Tamsin?”
“You’ll get nothing from me, bitch,” Phin said, spitting on the ground.
Luke lunged at him, grabbing his arm between his powerful jaws and biting down, shattering his bones.
The male shrieked and pounded at Luke with his free hand. Luke released him and growled a warning. Phin sobbed and grabbed at his useless arm.
“It’s the glen that rightfully belongs to him. He and his family were ousted from power with the help of the governor and the military.”
“And the dragonfae?”
“He’s going to cast a restoration spell and he needs the blood, scales, and claws of a fully grown dragonfae.”
Luke looked at Rena. The dragonfae female under the protection of the pack was a child, not fully grown.
Crimson shook his head as he joined them. “She’s a kid.”
“He can force her to shift.”
“She’d die from that kind of spell,” Jenna said, wiping someone else’s blood from her hand with a cloth.
“She doesn’t have to be alive to be useful,” the male said with a one-armed shrug.
“So all of this...destruction, all the torture of that poor female and her sisters, and it’s over a territory dispute?” Rena asked.
“He wants what is rightfully his.”
“You’re an ass,” she said. Then she looked at Luke and nodded.
He understood.
Lunging again, he took the male’s head between his jaws and twisted, breaking his neck.
Crimson looked at the body and then nodded at Luke. “We need to get home.”
“I have to find my parents,” Rena said. “Berolith has them.”
“We’ll help you,” Crimson said. “But we need a plan.”
Riyad clapped Crimson on the shoulder. “We’re here for you.”
“One hundred percent,” Merik said.
“Thank you,” Crimson said. “Let’s go home.”
“How can going to the human realm help plan to save my parents?”
“Our home here in the Fae Realm,” he added.
“Oh.” She shook her head. “Sorry, I think I’m still rattled from the jump from the window.”
After a check-in with her sirenfae clan, who offered to help in any way they could and promised to meet up with them in a few hours, Rena turned to face Luke’s friends and family.
“How long does Luke have to stay in his shift?” Rena asked.
“A couple more hours,” Crimson said. “I’m his father, by the way. Crimson Ta’Rek.”
They shook hands and everyone introduced themselves to her.
“Thank you all for coming to my aid.”
“It’s what we do for pack members and their mates,” Jenna said, smiling from her mate Logan’s embrace.
Rena looked at Luke, her eyes shining with curiosity.
“Once we get out of this town, we can open a portal to our home,” Crimson said. “We’ll rest up and plan and be ready to get your parents back as soon as possible.”
She nodded and sighed. “I hope they can hold on until we get there.”
Luke bumped her shoulder, and she patted his head.
They set off for the edge of town, away from the sirenfae clan. Once they were at the edge of town and able to open a portal, Luke led the way. He wanted to shift back to human to talk to Rena and spend time with her, but he was trapped for now and all he could do was offer her a furry shoulder to lean on.
It would have to be enough for now. But as soon as he was able, he was going to shift and then he and his female were going to have a good long talk.
Rena thought Luke was amazing. Not only was he the sexiest guy she’d ever laid eyes on but in his wulfen form, he was the size of a horse covered with snow-white fur. He was the first wulfen she’d ever seen. She’d always thought they were a myth, and she’d also thought that dragonfae were myths too, but there was one under the protection of Luke’s pack.
Crimson opened a portal to his home and she followed Luke through.
“Where are we?” she asked.
“The Homelna Glen,” Crimson said. He opened the front door and Luke escorted her inside, his big body occasionally bumping hers as they moved. “I was in the military until I retired after I met Lindy.”
“Do you want a change of clothes?” Ruby asked.
“Sure, that would be really nice, thanks.”
She followed Ruby into her bedroom. “I know you healed yourself, but how are you doing?”
Rena sat on the edge of the bed and watched as Ruby opened her closet and moved the hangers around as she looked through the clothes. “Okay, I guess. Stressed. Worried. Exhausted.”
“I’m sorry you had to deal with all this,” Ruby said. “I’m thankful my parents didn’t want to arrange a mating for me. I mean, I love my parents and everything but there’s no way they would know what sort of male is right for me. Hell, I don’t even know myself.”
“Our people do it because they feel it’s safer to mate off the females as soon as possible and have as many fae oathed to protect. It’s been done for so many generations that no one questions whether it’s a good idea or not. I always wanted to make my own romantic choices, but my parents wouldn’t allow it.” She’d thought she was making the right choice by disappearing into the human realm, but she’d missed her family a great deal and felt so lonely. Zoey was her best friend, but she’d still felt alone because she hadn’t been able to share the truth of what she was with her.
“You’re so powerful, I don’t think you’d have any trouble keeping yourself and your family safe. Honestly, you put my powers to shame.”
“Wulfen are powerful in their own way. Plus you can shift.”
“True. I do love that. What I don’t love is that I’m bigger than all the wolves in the pack except for my dad and brother. Guys can feel really emasculated when a female is bigger than them.”
“Only idiots,” Rena said.
“My pack’s full of them. None of them are my truemate, though, so it’s okay. I will probably spell for him at some point, but I’m not in a hurry.”
She handed Rena some clothes and pointed to an adjoining bathroom. “Help yourself to whatever you need, towels are in the cabinet. Jenna and her daughter London make all the soaps and stuff I use, they’re really talented.”
“Thanks.”
“You bet. You might not be mated to my brother yet, but you’re family and we take care of each other in the Ta’Rek family.”
Rena’s eyes stung at the sweet sentiment. She nodded and hurried into the bathroom with the clothes. She cleaned up, using a liquid soap that smelled like strawberries and sweet cream, and then ran a brush through her hair. She stared at herself in the mirror over the sink. It had been such a long time since she’d seen her true self because of the spell that had covered her when she was in the other realm. She’d always loved her icy-blue eyes and white-blonde hair; it had been so weird to see dark hair and eyes.
But that was behind her. She didn’t have to hide from her parents anymore. Not only was the guy she was supposed to mate dead, but her parents had realized that their behavior wasn’t going to fly with her anymore. While she hated every second of her captivity and the terror she’d been subjected to, she was glad she’d had time to talk things out with her mom and dad.
At least something good had come from such terrible circumstances.
With a sigh, she turned from the mirror and left the bedroom, and nearly ran face-first into Luke who was seated on his furry haunches in front of the bathroom door.
“Hey,” she said. “I know you want to talk, but it would be pretty one-sided right now. Just know two things: I know you’re my truemate and I’m really sorry for everything that happened.”
She kissed his nose. “And thank you for coming for me.”
He licked her cheek with a gruff sound.
In the family room, she found all the fae gathered around a coffee table. A map was spread out and several of the males were leaning over and pointing.
Crimson waved them over. He pointed to a place on the map. “This is Tamsin Glen. I had Raynir check the register, and what Berolith’s male told you is accurate–he and his family had been in power for generations and were known to be cruel and terrible. Another family went to the governor of the province for help and showed them evidence of the crimes committed against the fae and they were kicked out.”
“Apparently he was already nuts before this happened,” Raynir said, leaning back in a chair. “He used slavers to abduct fae with particular powers and experiment on them. We portal-called the military group stationed in the glen. If Berolith is hiding out there somewhere, they aren’t aware of it, but they’re going to search for him.”
Rena frowned. “He might’ve cloaked where he’s staying which is why he wasn’t worried about telling me the name of the town.”
“We’ll open a portal in a dense area of woods near the town,” Crimson said. “That will give us the advantage of scouting the area before we engage. The best scenario would be if we could get in and grab your parents and get out without him knowing, but judging by how many males he had working for him at your family’s home, I’m betting it won’t be easy.”
She nodded. “When do we leave?”
“You can go rest for a few hours. We want to take advantage of the darkness, but we all need a little time to recuperate.”
Rena looked at Luke who made a motion with his head toward the bedrooms. She followed him, opening a door on the right across from Ruby’s. When they were inside the room, she shut the door and stifled a yawn.
