We exited the airport from Terminal 2, heading for the arrivals and departures area. Rans scanned the line of cars as we walked. My gaze followed his, and my feet stumbled to a halt so abruptly that the lady behind me nearly ran into my back. A black Mercedes sat next to the curb, sleek and threatening.
Rans noticed my stumble and looked back, pausing to wait for me as I unglued my feet from the pavement. “Not who you’re thinking of, luv. Sorry—I should have warned you. That’ll be our ride.”
“That’s your contact?” I asked warily.
He made an affirmative noise and continued toward the Merc. “Yes. He’s Fae, but try not to hold it against him.”
Tension gathered in my shoulders. I tried to rationalize it—who better to find out what the damned faeries were up to than one of their own number? And if I started pre-judging people based on what species they belonged to, what would that make me? No group was made up of all good people or all bad people. That kind of thinking was how wars and other horrific things got started.
A graceful figure emerged from the driver’s side of the car. His golden hair hung loose, the long strands teased by the wind coming off Lake Michigan. His face boasted the same preternaturally attractive features as the other Fae I’d seen, but at least his taste in suits was better. Rather than wearing a stupid, ugly tie, he’d unbuttoned the top couple of buttons on his dress shirt. Black ink was visible on the exposed triangle of skin, tattoos winding up to the base of his neck like questing tree roots in reverse.
I felt the same unpleasant crawling sensation that I’d felt in the presence of Caspian Werther and his two guards, even though this Fae didn’t give me more than a cursory glance. With luck, that meant that he wasn’t the same kind of skeevy creeper the others had been. A girl could hope, anyway.
As he circled the car’s hood to approach us, Rans tensed. An instant later, I saw a half-dozen police officers exiting from unmarked vehicles parked behind the Merc.
“You two are in my custody,” said the Fae, gesturing the police to surround us. “Don’t resist, or things will take a decidedly unfortunate turn for both of you.”
My heart thundered in sudden panic, and I looked wildly toward Rans. He was unarmed, and even though he had managed to overcome three men in the parking lot behind the bus station in St. Louis, there were more than twice that number here.
The police were all conspicuously armed with handguns. True, a shotgun blast had failed to kill Rans, but it had sure as hell put him down for the count before he recovered. And a gunshot would put me in the ground as surely as one had put my mother there, some twenty years ago.
Rans stared hard at the Fae. For an interminable moment, I felt him poised to act—but... act how? Would I be expected to fight? To run? To drop to the ground and try to stay the hell out of his way?
The Fae merely returned Rans’ fiery blue gaze, no hint of expression on his beautiful face. I stood frozen, trembling, unsure of what was coming next. And then, Rans subsided, silently leashing that barely restrained promise of violence under a stony facade of calm.
“It’s all right, luv,” he told me. “Don’t resist them.”
“All right?” I asked in disbelief, looking at the circle of cops around us. How in the hell was this all right?
“Making a scene right now wouldn’t be good,” he said in a low voice.
His blue eyes flashed at me, and I felt a brush of something against my mind like a breath of calm. I shook my head, fighting it off.
“Don’t you ever try to do that to me,” I growled.
He continued to stare, but the sense of someone else trying to influence my mind slipped away. The cops moved forward, dragging Rans’ arms behind his back and cuffing his wrists.
“Trust me, JoAnne,” he said, emphasizing the fake name that he and Guthrie had acquired for me. “This is not the time or place to attract attention.”
“Enough chatter,” said the Fae asshole. “Get them in the car.”
A policeman cuffed my wrists as well, and I had to fight not to succumb to the same panic that those words had engendered the last time I’d heard them. You’re not alone this time. You’re not alone... you’re not alone...
I repeated the words like a mantra, feeling my heart thud against my ribs.
“Wait,” said our captor, and gestured to Rans with his chin. “Hold that one still for a moment.”
Rans narrowed his eyes as the Fae lifted one hand, his fingers moving through the air as though reaching for something invisible.
“Seriously?” Rans asked, his expression looking like he’d tasted something sour.
The Fae only raised a sharp eyebrow. A diaphanous halo of light surrounded his hand, and for a moment, the slide of shadows made it look as though the tattoos at his throat were moving. Shifting restlessly across his skin. I looked around us, thinking other people must surely be able to see what was happening.
The passersby around us walked past without giving us a second glance—as though seeing uniformed cops handcuffing people while Legolas from Lord of the fucking Rings stood there with his hand glowing was a regular occurrence for them. I gritted my teeth to keep from calling out for help. It hadn’t worked in St. Louis, and probably wouldn’t work any better now.
Rans was still glaring as Legolas murmured a rapid-fire series of words I couldn’t understand. He flicked his long fingers, and the glow surrounding his hand like fireflies streamed toward Rans and wound
