“Like we’d listen to you,” one spat.
“I will arrest all three of you boys,” Sheriff Martinez called.
Father Anderson climbed back onto the snowmobile. “We’ll go find that fine wife of yours,” he snarled.
“Yesssss,” Ranger hissed. He sniffed the air. “An’ bairns, too. Tasty.” He ran two fingers of one hand through the blood on his chest, then two fingers of the other.
He jumped up to standing, arms wide and shoulders tense.
Martinez aimed the shotgun. “I need backup out here now!” he yelled into his radio.
Ranger made a kissy face at the Sheriff. Then he turned toward the Andersons. “Lads.” He ran his bloody fingers across his cheekbones, leaving two red stripes on either side of his face. “Shall we?”
Chapter 14
The sun set behind the tress, spreading black lines of shadow over the crispy snow. Birds chirped. In the distance, car engines roared.
Halfway between Wrenn and Sheriff Martinez, Ranger snarled. His pale green eyes shimmered with his dark fae power. And his enthralled minions hyperventilated and frothed at the mouth.
The Sheriff held rock steady with his shotgun pointed at Ranger’s head.
Wrenn didn’t think he’d ever killed a magical before, at least not with a gun, and not in a situation like this. Not when it was such a threat of magical malevolence.
Ranger would kill the man’s wife and daughters. Of this Wrenn had no doubt. If Ranger left the small area between the trees and the parking lot, he’d leave behind a trail of dead women—the Sheriff’s family, the Andersons’ family, any low-powered elf he could find—anyone. Even Wrenn.
Because something had changed. Something about landing in elf territory had made him stronger.
Wrenn stabbed the sword into the engine block of Ranger’s snowmobile. It slid in as if cutting through butter and with only the tiniest of metal-on-metal shrieks.
“Ye think that will stop me?” Ranger bellowed. “I can run faster than that thing can plow through the underbrush.”
But it would keep his mundane mob here. Wrenn sliced the engine block of her snowmobile.
Father Anderson screeched like a toddler. “Those are mine!” he whined.
His boys danced around and threw their helmets at the trees, but all three took up position between Ranger and Wrenn and the remaining snowmobile.
Ranger rubbed his forehead. “Fine, darlin’. We’ll do this th’ hard—”
A bolt of magic hit Ranger dead center on his shoulder joint. A second one hit Wrenn on hers. Both bolts brightened to blinding as they exploded outward from their impact sites like little mushroom clouds.
The one that hit Ranger rose off the fabric of his polo as he twisted to look at the impact point.
That mushroom cap of magic slammed down and spread over his body like a glass cocoon.
Wrenn tried to turn toward the source of the magic. She tried. She got her body twisted enough that she faced the Sheriff before her little mushroom of magic exploded too.
She couldn’t move. She breathed fine, at least for the moment, but the sheen of magic over her entire body held her like a statue.
“I’m law enforcement!” she tried to call, but only a whisper came out.
Never in her life had Wrenn seen such a strong containment spell, and never had she seen one so precise.
The flashlight cut out.
Wrenn blinked against the gloom as the whole clearing dropped into twilight.
Another, softer spell flashed by, presumably headed for the Andersons.
“You boys leave your Cats, got it?” said a new, melodic, beautifully feminine voice. “Go sit at the picnic table over there.” A hand moved through the shadow. “You found your snowmobiles damaged, understand? The thieves got away.”
“Ahh…” said Father Anderson.
The voice spoke again. “You tell the State Troopers you saw nothing.”
“We saw nothing,” the two boys said in unison.
Wrenn squinted, trying to see through the gloom. A wall of magic stood about five feet in front of the Sheriff, between him and Ranger specifically, making it even more difficult to make out details.
Next to Sheriff Martinez, encased in wave after wave of aurora borealis-colored magic, was an elf woman. She wore a puffy pink winter jacket and a floppy-brimmed hat, one meant to hide the tall points of her ears. Her massive black elven ponytail cascaded out from the back of the hat and swayed almost as if it was as alive as the elf. She was slightly shorter than Wrenn, just under six feet tall.
“Sheriff Martinez,” the elf said.
“Benta,” he said. “I appreciate you driving all the way out here.”
She’d glamoured down her radiance, but not a lot. Just enough to fool the idiot mundanes gawking at her from around their snowmobile.
She shimmered like an angel. A real, extraordinarily beautiful angel.
“She’s an elder elf,” Ranger whispered through his containment spell. He sniffed like a dog. “An aspect of frickin’ Freya, for th’ love o’ th’ Four Kings. She’s gonnae kill me an’ feed my horse corpse t’ her cats.” He cooed out a sigh. “An’ I’d happily let her.”
“Better fate than you deserve,” Wrenn said. What had he said? What four kelpie kings? That was not a story she’d heard. “Four Kings, Ranger?”
A low growl made it through his containment spell. “She’s gonnae kill ye too, fer havin’ tha’ pretty hors d’oeuvres picker.”
The elf didn’t appear angry enough to kill anyone. But then again, elves weren’t fae. If this elf determined that Wrenn was as much of a threat as Ranger, she might kill Wrenn in order to save her community any trouble. Or so Robin had told Wrenn many times.
“I apologize for not getting here sooner,” the elf named Benta said. “The roads are a mess, as you know.”
Sheriff Martinez hmphed.
“You Anderson boys move on over to the picnic bench. Go on.” Benta snapped her fingers and pointed.
Behind Wrenn, the Andersons all inhaled and shuffled through the snow toward the bench.
“I believe it might be time for our King to have words with the more problematic of the local mundanes,” Benta said.
Sheriff Martinez snorted.
“They’re busy, Ed.” She looked him up and down. “You should not be out here alone.”
“You think?” He pointed at Ranger.
