Page 14 of The Chosen Fae

Then Stone hurried out of the building and grabbed the first car he saw, a little red hatchback. Before he could turn the key in the ignition and take off, Rune jumped into the passenger seat and slammed the door shut as a couple of other fae ran toward the car.

"Go!" Rune said.

Stone laughed. "Who said I was taking you with me?"

"I did. Just go!"

He saw another car driving to catch up to them.

Then Rune said, "Wait, how do you know how to drive a real car?"

"I don't. I'm learning as I go."

Rune glanced back at the Buick. "Are you trying to let them get there first?"

Stone started the car. He sped down the road while Rune entered the house address into the GPS.

“That’s magic,” Stone said.

“I agree.”

Even though he had no plan to turn the baby into a changeling, he might as well get there first, mainly because, though he wanted to deny it, he didn't want Rune to believe he couldn't reach the place first.

As soon as they saw the two-story, blue house, with flowers in flowerbeds all along the front porch, he parked curbside. It was dark, and no lights were on inside. It appeared everyone had gone to bed.

He raced across the front lawn and tried the front door, but it was locked. Rune was trying to open the windows, but there was no entry that way either.

He went around to the side of the house, and she followed, amusing him. Didn't she have a plan of her own?

He headed around to the back of the house and saw a wrought-iron trellis fixed to the side of the home, a yellow climbing rose growing on it and reaching a second-story window. The breeze was blowing the curtains around the open window.

Why did people think they would be safe if they left a second-floor window open, particularly when they had the perfect ornamental ladder that would take would-be thieves straight up to the window?

He reached the top of the ladder, getting pricked several times by the thorny yellow roses. He peeked in and heard Rune right behind him. Perfect. It was the baby's room. He climbed into the room and then assumed Rune would change the baby into a changeling, win the challenge, and be stuck with the changeling forever.

Rune peered in at the sleeping baby in the white crib, dressed in an infant sleeper featuring blue baby elephants. They heard someone else coming up the trellis. Didn't anyone else have their own plans to accomplish this?

He sat down on the rocking chair near the crib and rocked it.

But as soon as Fang poked his head in through the window, Rune shifted into her wolf, surprising Stone. He thought she would just grab the baby and turn him.

Though he didn't really know how that was done.

Fang's canines looked like a vampire's wicked fangs, which gave him the name. There was something magnetic about the way Fang carried himself—dark-haired and sharp-jawed, his cobalt eyes scanning every room with a predator's instinct.

But for now, he advanced on the crib, ignoring Rune, but she was all hackles and fur raised, her tail straight out, her teeth exposed in a vicious snarl. When Fang didn’t heed the warning, she bit his arm. He yelped, jumped back, and scowled at her.

Now this wasn’t what Stone had expected at all.

The baby was still sound asleep, and another fae appeared at the window. “What the hell? Why hasn’t someone already turned the baby?” Maeve rushed forth as if she thought she could get to the baby when Fang couldn’t.

“Be my guest. Rune already bit me,” Fang said.

“She’s an idiot.” Maeve nearly reached the crib, but Rune attacked her, biting her in the leg.

“Ohmigod, you wretch!”

The baby woke up and began to cry.