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Cambyra Fae were known as the shifting Fae. My father—Wrath—was an owl shifter, as was I, even though I was only a half-breed. Grieve could shift into wolf form, and Chatter could turn into a pillar of flame, I’d found out.
From the very beginning, when Krystal had dragged me away from the Veil House, I’d dreamed of a wolf following me, watching over me. When I was fourteen, I began to see him in the shadows, watching me, and I thought he might be a guardian of some sort. I still hadn’t known at that time that Grieve could take wolf form. A year later, Dane—my mother’s boyfriend of the month—and I got high one night while she was out turning tricks, and he tattooed my vision onto my stomach.
Dane had already given me three other tattoos. On my left breast, a feral Fae girl peeked through the leaves of a deadly nightshade plant. Both upper arms were banded with identical blackwork tats—a pair of owls flying over a silver moon, with a dagger piercing through it. And then he tattooed my wolf for me.
An ivy vine wove its way across my left thigh. Dappled with silver roses, it crossed my lower abs, extending to my ribs under my left arm. Interspersed among the roses was a trail of violet skulls, and right at my naval, a grayish silver wolf stared out at the world, his eyes emerald and glowing.
After that, I would feel the wolf shift and growl when danger was present. At times, when I was lonely, I talked to the tattoo, and it felt like the wolf was actually listening. And then, when I returned home for a brief visit a few months after getting my wolf tattoo, Grieve had met me out in the woods, and I realized that instead of trusting him like I had when I was a child, my heart had shifted, and at seventeen, I had grown up and was falling in love with the Fae Prince.
The Golden Wood was in full glory, trees thick with leaves, and the brambles were growing full with hard little berries that would burst with their rich black juice in August. The woodland smelled of sunlight and dust and lazy afternoons, and my feet were silent against the path leading through the clustered undergrowth that lined both sides of the trail.
Rhiannon opted to stay back at the house—she’d become reclusive, and I knew something had happened but she wouldn’t talk about it. All Heather would tell me was that there’d been an accident a couple of years back and Rhiannon wasn’t the same girl she had been. I wanted to ask my cousin about it—we’d always told each other everything—but whatever had happened this time seemed sacrosanct.
So one afternoon, late into the week Krystal had allowed me to visit, I wandered out to the wood where Rhiannon and I’d played as children. As I set foot on the path, the glimmer of sunlight swept me into a world far from the dirty streets of San Francisco, of L.A., of whatever city through which Krystal and I were currently prowling. They were all just names by now—one blurred into the next, and the one we’d just left was as indistinct as the one we were heading toward.
I stretched my arms wide, inhaling deeply. I’d been home the year before—my first time since Krystal dragged me off—and I’d cried when I’d had to leave. Rhiannon had been silent then, too, but I’d thought that she was just sulking over some argument with her mother.
It was during that visit that Grieve stepped out from behind a tree and I remembered all those long days of childhood, when he and Chatter had taught us magic, never straying out of decorum, never being anything but a safety net for us as I learned to speak with the wind and Rhiannon learned to harness the flames.
Letting my mind step onto the slipstream, I blew a low whistle, and whispered, Grieve, are you here? I’m home again. Come to me!
And a few moments later, the Fae Prince stepped out from behind a tall cedar. He was dressed in camouflage cargo pants, with no shirt, but I knew that his clothes were illusion. His platinum hair streamed down his shoulders, and his eyes glittered blue against the olive skin of his body. He was built, lean and muscled, and so alien he was exotic. Yet…alien as he was, Grieve was familiar to me.
“Cicely…I’ve been waiting for you.” His voice was strained. He wouldn’t stop staring at me and I began to feel exposed, raw. And then I noticed a box in his hand, wrapped with a ribbon.
“What’s that?” I pointed to the box.
Grieve stared at it for another moment, then silently handed me the box.
I stared at it. “A present?”
He leaned against a nearby tree, sliding his hands into his pockets. “I found this…I would have given it to you last time, but I misplaced it. You left it when…”
I opened it, pulling on the silk ribbon. The box was shaped like a wooden heart and my pulse began to race as I flipped open the hinged lid. Inside was a sparkling pendant. It was small—child-sized. A crystal butterfly that my aunt had given me on my fifth birthday. It was the only pretty thing I’d ever owned as a child, and when I realized I’d lost it, I’d been heartbroken.
I caught my breath. “I lost this—the day that my mother took me away from here. I thought it had disappeared forever.”
“I found it after you left and kept it safe. I knew you’d come home someday. Last year, it was hidden among my things and I couldn’t find it in time before you left again. But when it surfaced, I put it where I could grab it any time you called to me. I know how much you loved that necklace when you were little. I just wanted you to have it again. To have something to hold on to from your childhood.”
As I cradled the pendant next to my heart, I realized that I was also holding my breath. And in the next moment, I heard myself thinking, I love him. I’m in love with Grieve.
My wolf stirred, and it felt as if it were stretching, luxuriously, enjoying the sun as much as I was.
Grieve glanced at my stomach—I was wearing a crop-top—and a slow smile stole across his face. “You’re wearing my symbol. Cicely, you’re all grown up now. Since last year, you’ve become a woman.” His voice played across my heart as surely as if his fingers had stolen across my skin.
I shivered. “I had to grow up. I wanted to grow up.”
“Are you still with your mother?” His eyes flashed. I knew how he felt about Krystal, but he seldom said more about her than to ask if I was still in her care.
I nodded.
“No matter, then. Come, let us walk in the wood and you can tell me what you’ve been doing the past year.”
As he reached for my hand, I knew that if I gave it to him, I’d be lost. His voice set me spinning, and his scent was that of oat straw and apples and long grass after a cool rain. He watched me carefully and right then, I knew that he knew. He knew how I felt, and he was offering me more than his hand. He was offering me a chance at love, a chance for a life, a chance to belong to someone. He was offering me his heart.
I bit my lip, staring at his hand. The long thin fingers were delicate, and yet they could probably twist the head off an enemy. I knew that Grieve was volatile, but he’d always been just. And he played no games.
Do I dare? Do I dare take a chance on loving him? On letting him into my life? Can I ever have a life free of Krystal, free of the constant running? Do I dare choose love?
