For a fraction of a second the huge handsome kelpie, the one who was clearly stronger than the other two, jutted out his lip like a toddler. Then the rage hit. Red demon fire blazed from the sides of his eyes. He grabbed her jacket and swung her into the display case with the fake elven arm ring.
The hit felt as if she’d bounced off concrete. The case didn’t crack.
It moved, though.
“Ranger!” The kelpie yelled. He picked her up to swing her against the case again.
Wrenn lifted both her feet off the ground. She tightened her back. And all that pent-up energy from her flashback released as a two-footed kick. One heel hit his lower abdomen. The other, his crotch.
His breath billowed out of his mouth as a high-pitched wail. He dropped her against the shifted case.
Wrenn rolled into the shadows between the case and the wall of blades behind it.
The kelpie bellowed. One of his mates, somewhere deep in the Gallery, responded with a chorus of brays.
At least one had changed back into his stallion form. If this one changed, his next stomp would do real damage.
She needed a weapon.
Every blade in the Gallery glowed with fae magical fire so bright she had a difficult time discerning where the blades ended and the grips and pommels began, but under all those fae concealment and illusion spells she picked out the truth: All the blades on this section of wall had been forged by the elves from elven silver and steel. All carried Norse runes and elven enchantments. And every single sword and dagger looked strong enough to cut a kelpie in half.
One sword glowed less than the others and she could make out its true size and shape. It was the biggest Viking sword she’d ever seen, bigger than most claymores, and with tightly woven emerald-green magic over its leather-covered grip. And it looked sharp enough to split a tree in two.
Wrenn jumped to a crouch and grabbed the sword’s hilt.
The emerald magic puffed out in much the same dough-like way the barricade enchantment between the henge and the castle had, but instead of forcing her to drop the sword, it glommed onto her hand as if the sword had tied itself to her with silk.
“Heh,” she said. “I think you like me.” Maybe she really was a witch of elven descent.
The big kelpie bellowed, and in a blink of an eye, went from big man to thoroughbred-sized horse.
Wrenn held the sword between her and the stallion. “What do the Scandinavians call your kind? Bäckahäst, correct?” She twirled the sword. “Elves do not like dark fae.”
Deep in the Gallery, another kelpie whinnied. Mr. Big raised his head and whinnied back. Then he snorted at Wrenn and ran toward his companions.
One of them found what they were looking for, she thought, and bolted after the kelpie stallions—until Ranger, still in human form, barreled into her from the side.
They both flew into a rack of staves. Rods and poles, most with metal caps, clanked and clattered to the floor. Ranger stomped his foot down onto her wrist holding the sword, trying to force her to let go, and grabbed her by the hair.
Thank goodness she didn’t get a view up his kilt. She did, though, get whopped in the jaw by one of the kilt’s armored plates.
“Get off me!” she roared. Damned disgusting kelpies. Why did the Queen keep an entire stable full of them? They were as shallow and evil as vampires.
A blast of magic hit Ranger’s head. He yipped and fell to the side, panting and mumbling as if the spell had scrambled his mind.
Wrenn kicked him in the gut and rolled to a crouch.
Robin stood a few paces away, framed in the glow of the gap in the wall and leaning against one of the undamaged display cases. “Put that back.” He didn’t move, or point, or indicate in any way that he meant the sword.
She held it up. “This?”
He looked up just as one of the kelpies galloped right into him and the display.
The case smashed to the floor. Robin somehow danced out of the way. And behind them, the third kelpie dashed through the gap and back into the castle.
He ran headfirst into a new concealment enchantment meant to close off the Gallery from the rest of the castle. And standing out there in the hallway, at least five members of Oberon’s personal Royal Guard held up their hands to cast a new enchantment at the Gallery of Artifacts.
“They’re going to vent the Gallery,” Robin said.
“What?” They weren’t in a spaceship. Though in some ways they were, because of how the spells manipulated space, but this place was magic, not science.
Robin moved his hands. A spell formed. “You need to go,” he said.
“What about you?” she asked.
He looked back at the Royal Guard. “I’ll be fine.”
He wouldn’t. “You’re hurt.”
Robin’s eyes flashed from the handsome blue of his glamour to a starscape of black. The horn nubs on his head brightened, and suddenly he carried a full set of massive curved goat horns. He grew in height. His goat legs elongated and grew thicker, darker fur.
His uniform changed from the midnight blue militaristic jacket and boot-like foot coverings to something black and coiling as if he wore a coat of living night.
A portal opened to her side.
When she looked back, he’d reverted to his young glamour. “Go!” he said.
“Rob—”
Ranger tackled her into the portal.
Chapter 10
Alfheim County, Minnesota, the mundane world…
Eduardo Martinez leaned against his cruiser and watched the golds, pinks, and purples of the post-blizzard sunset spread over the remaining clouds. The sun had burst out from behind the gray clouds early mid-morning and had started the normal freeze-thaw cycle that always happened after a big storm this time of year. What had been snow on the roads turned to mush, which was now turning into a slick layer of ice.
He’d already handled more accidents today than he
