“I got a picture of King Odinsson.” She looked at me, eyes still wide, and paler than she should be. “After Magnus… changed.” She looked back at me. “I’ve seen glamours shift like that before. In Tokyo with the kami. Fae, too. Spirits when I was in Australia. It’s like subtle body language. I think they can’t always keep their emotions from manifesting in their magic.” She inhaled. “Even elder elves like the King and his Second. I figured something might show on a photo. Something in the future that I can see. So I took a picture.”
She couldn’t see Arne’s Odin aspect the way I did, but she clearly felt it. “He went All-Father,” I said.
“Yeah.” She fiddled with the camera and carefully tucked it into the backpack. “Yeah, he did.” She looked up. “You left Sal with the elves?”
I started the truck. “Yes.” I’d explain about Sal later. Ellie needed to know what Magnus said. “You were right. They know about you.” I put Bloodyhood into drive and rolled toward the road. “Or at least about your concealment enchantments.”
“Yeah.” She ran her fingers over her camera without saying what we both knew was true: At least one Royal Fae Court had taken notice of Alfheim, and it was likely our fault. My fault, for being elf-adjacent and breaking through her concealment enchantments.
This was worse than Brother and the vampires. Worse than that sniveling little Renfield of a worm St. Martin coming around to hurt Axlam and the town. This was as chaotic and terrifying as the night I woke on my father’s lab table: I had no clue what was happening, or why forces had descended to cause so much pain, or what to do to make it to stop.
My father had not wanted me. He’d abandoned me to the storms, and I’d panicked.
Not this time. I was no longer alone. Like Sal said, I had family to consider and a girlfriend the elves clearly did not see as a bonus to Alfheim.
“I…” I inhaled. How to tell her about my fears without sounding overbearing? “I don’t think the elves are happy.”
Ellie frowned.
“Magnus is itching for a fight.” Was I? No. I’d had enough violence to last me my two-and-a-half mundane lifetimes. “Arne seemed more…” I wasn’t quite sure. Resigned, perhaps. Tired, for sure.
“Weary of the battle to come,” Ellie said.
A battle that made Ellie a target.
I’m not some kid who’s fallen in love for the first time, I thought. I needed to stay calm but threat was wedging between my lungs and my ribcage. Keeping my muscles from tensing was taking considerable effort. And those damned lights were dancing around in the cabin now.
Because it wasn’t a sense of threat I felt. Or even a panic I could name and thus control like the demon it was. No, this was a holistic threat as if the buzzing and squirming of my internal organs was itself a thing. A presence. A real, deeper-than-my-body, all the way to my soul connection.
As if I felt all threats to Ellie in my bones because…
The lights in my peripheral vision weren’t just my overwhelmed brain. They were magic.
I didn’t look at her. I made sure she couldn’t see my lack-of-poker-face.
The threat triggered something that was probably in the process of triggering anyway. Because I was all-in. Because…
Because the elves’ animosity to her concealment enchantments was a threat to my mate.
Why was this happening? I wasn’t a werewolf. We hadn’t been together twenty-four hours yet. We were in the phase of newness where my corpse-cold mornings were still a novelty and Ellie hadn’t yet formed an informed opinion about just how much she could tolerate. What she’d accept. From me. From the elves and the town and her own family. From the cottage. From the entire magical world. And here I was dusting her with mate magic because I feel way too easily.
And now elven—and fae—disapproval threatened my mate.
My mate. I drove toward Alfheim with eyes on the icy road but the magic sparking around my hands was obvious.
“You okay?” Ellie asked.
I felt both the hell-yes okay and hell-no intolerable swirling in an ever-tightening whirlwind in my gut.
She dug in the pack again. “I’m going to take a picture of you.” She pulled out her camera. “To make sure nothing happened while you were with the elves.”
“No,” I said. Don’t frighten Ellie, I thought.
She stopped with her hand over the zipper. “Why?”
I needed an excuse. “How many plates did you bring?”
She sat back. “I have two more in my portfolio and six more at home.” She stared at my hands. “The cottage will make more tonight.”
“What if it doesn’t?” Fill out that excuse. “Maybe I drained its reserves with the sunroom.”
Her lips pulled into a tight line. “I can make more myself. I have a box of blanks in the library and the chemicals I need in the darkroom.”
Excuses, excuses. “How long does it take you to make and polish a plate?”
She sighed and looked away. “Fine,” she said.
She’d figure it out sooner or later. Hopefully after a nice calm meal and a nice calm evening discussing deep life-melding issues like whose mugs go in which cabinet.
I’m too old for this, I thought. Too old to be this frazzled and too old to be this overwhelmed. I’d been in relationships before. None of this was new to me.
Except the mate magic. I thought only the wolves had this fated-mate insta-romance chaos.
I did not like chaos. Chaos reminded me too much of my pre-Alfheim life. Of the abuses of my father, and the near-universal horrified reactions to my presence exhibited by every single mundane I came across. The dramatic screaming. The running away. The inability to consider and ask questions. To not judge.
Sort of like the elves and Ellie’s concealments.
“Frank,” she said. “I don’t think you’re okay.”
My knuckles had turned bright white. The steering wheel creaked.
I let go. We drove along the road with my jittery hands hovering over the wheel. “I’m sorry,” I
