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“What the—” she breathed. Gwen watched, mesmerized, as the splinters spread. Like it was magick. She could almost feel the door vibrating with energy. The moment the crack reached the knob, it turned a bright, glowing orange. Barith grumbled a few words in that unknown language. Then he flung open the door, revealing a faintly lit—garden?
Her breath hitched. It wasn’t possible. But she could smell the cool, damp air and the scent of grass wafting in. The building shook, and Gwen gasped. Barith jumped through the door, and before she could say or think anything else, the shadow man had snatched her by the arm and yanked her through as well.
Chapter Four
“Not bad,” Barith huffed once he’d slammed the door shut behind them. “For a minute I wasn’t sure it was going to work.”
Gwen’s ears crackled. Her skin was electric. With a gasp, she released the breath she’d been holding and sucked in a lungful of frigid, damp air. Air laced with his spice. Her stomach seized. Oh no.
She managed to shove herself away from him just before she doubled over to retch.
“Alright, there?” Barith asked.
Gwen replied with a gag and a fit of coughs.
Slowly, her senses began to refocus. The vibrations she felt all over started to ease. Her running nose was struck by the overwhelming scent of flowers and damp earth.
When she raised her head, she took in the overgrown, tangled mess of a large garden. There were several unpruned trees, wild, gangly bushes, and rows of old and new flowers. Remnants of an old stone path disappeared into a thicket. A vine- and moss-covered birdbath sat next to its entrance. On the other side were several ancient, rusted metal arbors waning under the weight of a wild bramble of pink roses. A tall, redbrick wall nearly covered in ivy enclosed the wild space.
The door they’d come through belonged to a small brick outbuilding covered in vines. Gwen turned, and her stomach jolted. A regal, or once regal, matching redbrick two-story townhouse sat opposite the garden wall. Several windows were broken, and more unruly ivy stretched over the walls and part of the wide, half-circle stone terrace that led up to a set of tall glass doors at the back. A pair of Grecian statues were nestled at the top of the balustrade on either side of the stairs, their demure, pretty female forms coated in bits of moss and plant. A little yellow-bellied bird flitted out of the sky and perched atop one of their heads.
Gwen shook her head and tried to refocus her eyes. The house was still there. And the garden. And the little bird.
Realization began to settle over her—slam into her, more like. Nothing made sense. This couldn’t be happening. It just couldn’t. There were hundreds of questions swirling around in her brain like a violent tornado, but the first one she managed was, “Where are we?”
“London,” Barith replied boastfully, coming to tower next to her. Gwen’s heart lurched into her throat. “Can’t say Ember Hall is much to look at these days, but I promise the inside is in a much better state.”
London? “That’s…that’s not possible,” she stammered, running her hands over her matted hair. She’d never been anywhere—not even Canada. She couldn’t be in London!
“It’s just a bit of magick,” Barith told her, trying to make it sound entirely benign. Her eye twitched.
Gwen spun around, her breaths coming fast and shallow. Her ears were ringing again. This couldn’t be happening. It just—couldn’t.
She’d lived her entire life planted in the steely, firm soil of reality. Mostly because she’d been served a very harsh dose of it at such a young age. During those first years after the accident, frightened and only a child, Gwen hadn’t truly grasped that her mother was never coming back. But reality had settled over her slowly, each new day a dose of bitter medicine. Over the years, with each new foster home, each year her father didn’t come to claim her, each family who didn’t want to adopt her, the little bit of fantasy she’d held onto had been whittled away. Until she’d stopped believing in fantasy at all.
No one was ever going to suddenly appear and claim her. No one was going to protect her. Save her. She was on her own. She’d been on her own since the day of the accident. That was the truth. That was her reality.
A car horn blared somewhere behind the wall, and she jerked back, the sounds of the city beginning to seep in through her shock. Gwen wiped the cold sweat from her face with the sleeve of her jacket. Both of the men were watching her intently.
Gwen became entirely lost in the depths of those frost-blue eyes. He was real. She couldn’t believe it. She couldn’t believe any of it. It had to be a dream. It just had to be. Didn’t it?
Only it didn’t feel like a dream. It felt all too real. Real enough that she wanted to heave in the bushes again.
She shook her head, running her hands over her face. “What—” she muttered. Her throat constricted. She tried again. “What is going on?” she demanded, her voice cracking as fantasy and reality waged war inside her.
Barith glanced at Sirus, whose frosty, stoic expression didn’t shift an inch. “Well,” Barith began, delicately clearing his throat and looking back at Gwen. He lifted his auburn brows. “If you want to know the truth of it, you’re being hunted.”
Gwen blinked, not sure she’d heard him right. “Hunted?” she repeated.
“Aye,” the dragon replied, crossing his arms over his sprawling chest, his demeanor casual and light. Barith had to be the largest person she’d ever met in her life. Toweringly tall and as broad as a bus. For as intimidating as he was in size, there was a casual nature to him that was oddly disarming. Warm, even. It was strange to look at both of the men side by side. Barith with his tousled auburn hair and beard that radiated like the sun, whereas her shadow man might as well have been carved from a block of ice.
“Hunted by who?” Gwen pressed, still not following.
“Zephyrs, we call ‘em,” Barith went on. “That one with the wings back at your place was one of their lot. They’re descendants of old fae, but I’m getting ahead of myself. We came to New York to find what they were after, and it turned out to be—” He ran his hand over his beard and smirked. “You, it seems like.”
“Me?” Gwen repeated hoarsely.
Barith nodded, his smile widening. “Aye. You,” he confirmed.
