Hunting Ground

“Like my little troll, eh?” the stranger said to Charles, his voice rough like that of a man who’d smoked a pack a day for years. He didn’t smell like cigarettes, though. His scent, rising through the air to A

“Was it a real one?” A

The stranger looked up at her and laughed, exposing ragged, blackened teeth as sharp as he smelled. “Well, now. It might be that the artist saw somp’n. Somp’n he out ter not have seen, wolf-kin.” He patted the cement arm she stood on, and she took a wary step back. “Happen though, he built me a friend, so we’re all happy. Even the Gray Lord, there, she thought it were fu

The fae could hide what they were. Could look just like anyone else. But the hunger that shone in his eyes when he looked at her was as immortal as she was and a lot older.

Her wolf didn’t like him, and A

He laughed again and slapped one thigh with a hand covered in a worn fingerless glove. “If’n I forgot meself so bad as to take a bite”-he snapped his teeth together and in the darkness under the bridge she saw the spark when they struck-“she’d chew me up and feed me to them great octopuses that live ’round here, she would.” The thought seemed to amuse him. “Though a good meaty bit of wolf-flesh might be worth it.”

“Troll,” said Charles.

He had been having so much fun with A

Charles took out one of the plain gold studs he wore in his ears and tossed it at the fae, who caught it with inhu manly quick hands.

“Take your toll and go, Old One,” Charles said.

“Hey, Jer,” came a worried and thin voice from above them. “You don’t go bothering them, or the police’ll have us outta here. You know they will.”

The troll in human guise held the bit of gold up to his nose and smelled. His face twitched, and his eyes swirled with an eerie blue light before they settled down and became just eyes again. “Toll,” he said. “Toll.”

“Jerry?”

“No troubles, Bill,” he called up to his… what… friends? His roommates, his bridgemates, who were more human than he. “Jest saying good afternoon.”

He looked at Charles, and for a moment an oddly noble expression crossed his face, his back straightened, shoulders thrown back. In a clear, accentless voice he said, “Word of advice for your payment. Don’t trust the fae.” He laughed again, devolving into the man who’d greeted them in the first place, and scrambled up the hill and under the bridge.

Charles didn’t say anything, but A

“Are trolls really as big as that statue?” she asked, belting herself in.

“I don’t know,” Charles answered. And smiled at the startled look she gave him. “I don’t know everything. I’ve never seen a troll in its true form.”

She started the car. “A toll is supposed to be for crossing his bridge. We didn’t cross the bridge.”

“But we were trespassing. It seemed appropriate.”

“What about the advice he gave?”

He smiled again, his face lit with amusement. “You know what they say, ‘Don’t trust the fae.’ ”

“Okay.” It was a common piece of advice. The first thing people said and the main point of most stories about them. “Especially when they tell us not to, I suppose. Where to now?”

“Back down the Troll road. See those docks down there? Dana lives on a houseboat at the foot of the troll.”

HE’d only visited Dana at her home once before, but Charles had no trouble finding it again: it didn’t exactly blend in.

There were four docks; three of them had a number of boats of various kinds secured to them. The fourth had only one. A houseboat two stories tall, it looked like a miniature Victorian mansion, complete with gingerbread trim in every color of an ocean sunset: blue and orange, yellow and red.

Dana brought hiding in plain sight to a new level. None of her neighbors, except the fae themselves, knew what she was. She was powerful enough that she had been allowed to choose to expose herself or not-and she’d chosen to continue hiding.

Charles was powerful, too. But he had no choice.

“This is it?” A

“Wait until you see the inside,” he told her.

For nearly two centuries he had been trekking along happily… or at least contentedly, down a straight path. His life had always been about serving his Alpha, who was both his father and the Marrok, in whatever capacity he was needed.

When his father had told him what he intended, had told him he needed wolves to give a public face to the werewolf, wolves Bran could trust not to screw up in public, Charles had agreed to be one of them. Not that it would have mattered if he’d refused; in the end a wolf obeyed his Alpha or he killed him. And Charles knew with an absolute certainty that left him content that he would never be able to take on his father.

But that had been before A

This week, he couldn’t let so much as a breath out that might express his true feelings on this. It was necessary for the wolves to come out. He knew that.

But now there was A

“Should we go see if she’s here?” asked A

Dana, no doubt, already knew that they were there-he’d felt magic brush over his skin as they walked down to her dock, but she’d wait until they approached her properly.

Dana, La Belle Dame Sans Merci, had conducted this kind of business for his father before. She was being very well paid, but with a fae it was always a good policy to bring an extra gift in lieu of a “thank-you.” Saying those words could be dangerous, as some fae took them to be an admission of obligation. The Marrok wasn’t the only one bringing her a gift, but his must be greater than the rest combined. Still, Charles could have presented it to her at the first meeting rather than making a special trip.

His da had suggested that Dana might appreciate a visit from him before business-and that A

She gave him a happy look as he followed her out on the water-soaked wooden walk. “This could be fun,” she said, then turned, took a ru

“What?” she asked, a little breathless from her gymnastics. She brushed her wavy hair out of her face and gave him a serious look. “Is there something wrong?”

He could hardly tell her that he was afraid because he didn’t know what he’d do if something happened to her. That his sudden, unexpected reaction had brought Brother Wolf to the fore. She threw his balance off; his control-which had become almost effortless over the years-was erratic at best. Sternly, he tried to bring his wolf brother to heel, to bring his own control back.

A