As I did, the moment I had been wanting and dreading arrived with a loud pop. Except the traveler exiting the portal wasn’t Meribah.
It was Doug.
He stepped forward, blinking in the waning light, one hand on the back of Harper’s neck and one hand gripping Thatcher’s upper arm. Harper looked ill, Thatch was unreadable, and Doug was bruised.
“Calliope!” Doug roared my name from a battered throat. Every hair on my body rose, and my scalp prickled.
Harper’s knees gave out, bringing both him and Doug to their knees. Free of his father, Thatch darted behind Doug, wrapped his arms around his brother’s upper torso, and struggled to put distance between the two of them and their father.
I had to press both hands over my mouth to keep from screaming. I went to the ground, panting like the wolf at my side.
My fingers sought the soil, sending an urgent message into the forest, calling on every vine and thorny plant to be ready to heed my call for help should I issue one. As I rose to stand, Jack’s hindquarters trembled with anticipation, Bear straightened with me, and the three of us crashed through the bushes between where we’d hidden and the edge of the field.
“What the hell do you want?” I yelled. Sun-baked blades of dried grass poked at my feet, and I relished how every sensation kept me anchored.
“You left me. You betrayed our vows. You turned our sons against me, their own father.” Doug pounded his knuckles into his chest like he was driving a wedge into a log he wanted to split. The front of his shirt was marked with blood, and the buttons weren’t lined up.
“No.” If I yelled loud enough, I could draw his attention off the boys and redirect his anger. “You don’t get to accuse me when it was you controlling me.”
“We got those tattoos because that is what I was told to do. You were supposed to give us daughters, Calliope. Two girls who could carry the Flechette legacy, my legacy, forward. Two girls who could… who could…” Doug—by now oblivious to Harper and Thatcher—dropped forward, fisted his hands, and beat at the ground.
Thatch dragged Harper sideways, a single hard-won step at a time, putting distance between them and Doug.
I saw nothing physically attaching my ex to my sons. I tramped toward the boys, the big wolf at my side, and wrapped an arm around Harper’s waist. “Let me help you,” I said to Thatcher. “If we can get Harp to the burial mound, Kaz can get you both home through a different portal.”
If Kaz hadn’t found the other portal, he could hide my sons in the mound and make the door disappear. A low growl vibrated from the wolf. “Jack, stay here.” I patted his head. “Don’t let Doug follow us.”
“Calliope.”
I shot a glance over my shoulder. Doug had gotten his feet back under him and spun, arms flailing. Jack was following my request, creeping toward Doug, a low rumble in the beast’s throat.
“Hurry,” I hissed. “We’re almost there.”
“You cannot hide, Calliope. She will find you and she will kill you and she will take our sons.” Doug screamed and fell to his knees again. “And then she’ll kill me.”
Kaz had the door to the mound open and hurried toward us.
“Fucking drama queen,” Thatch muttered. “Not Kaz,” he added. “Dad.”
I nearly choked on a completely inappropriate and totally necessary laugh. Thatcher had a way with knowing exactly when and how to dissipate tension. I ruffled his hair and picked up the pace.
“Mom.” Thatcher let Kaz replace him at Harper’s side and ducked beside me. We were almost to the sod-covered door, and Doug’s histrionics weren’t letting up. you need to know Dad is completely off his rocker. “And he did something to Harper to make his wings grow.”
I’d thought Harper’s lower back felt odd. Intent as I was on getting him to a safe place, I had dismissed the bumps. “What did he do?”
Thatcher shook his head and lifted Harper by the ankles. We made it inside the mound. Kaz indicated where he wanted Harper, and we lowered him to the ground right away. Thatch helped roll Harper onto his side, facing the interior wall. Holding Harp’s other shoulder, he tugged on his brother’s T-shirt. “Kaz, I need your knife. Mom’s got to see this.”
The druid pulled out his knife, flicked it open, and handed it over. Thatcher pulled Harper’s T-shirt away from his brother’s back and sliced the fabric from the neck down.
“Oh, no, baby. No,” I whispered. Raw, gaping cuts on either side of Harper’s spine exposed a translucent network of milky white cartilage, folded tight, exactly like the bones of bird wings. Blood pulsed through veins and arteries.
Kaz pressed fingertips to the edge of the peeled and broken skin and hissed through his teeth. “We have to get him to Christoph right now.”
I grabbed Thatch’s arm. “Did Doug do anything to you?”
“He was only interested in Harper, once the feather follicles started to pop out. I think it was the stress,” he said. I nodded in agreement. “Dad just kept babbling about his mother, how if she could see what Harper could do, she’d accept him.” Thatch shrugged, his gaze unwavering from his brother. “I don’t think he was talking about Grandmother accepting Harper. Dad wanted her to accept him.”
One hand resting lightly on Harper’s hip, I rubbed Thatch’s back with the other. We all had to hang on a little longer. Kaz could get the boys to the house, and I felt sure that with the help of the LaFleur Fae, we could deal with Doug. “Kaz, any luck locating another portal?”
“Yes.”
“Is there a problem?”
“The other portal is located in the underland. And traveling through the underland is never easy.”
“Then what do we do?” I
