This chapter is dedicated to @chequeredhearts, thank you for the feedback and for reading!

Ember

My plan was simple but complicated: run like hell and don't get caught by the crazy murderous faeries.

Arius was already at the rear of the castle with the doors held open, beyond them what should've been the long hallway we'd passed earlier but what was now the street to my neighborhood. The distance between us and safety was about two blocks, child's play if I made a mad dash for it- even with an unconscious girl in tow. The complications came with our pursuers. Or at least I think it was the fae that kept us running in the same spot no matter how hard we tried to move forward. All in vain. It was like we were intentionally jogging in one place, like our bodies had forgotten the mechanisms of running and had turned to the only broken-down alternative they knew. Feet that moved but got us nowhere.

Meanwhile the fae closed in on us from all sides, everywhere but in front of us, rubbing in the fact that we couldn't move a single step towards our freedom while the ones flying above threw insults down at us. "Look at those flimsy human legs swinging all over the place!"

"And going nowhere for all that legwork!" They cackled. "Do you need a lift, humans?" one of them called. "You'll have to get rid of those ridiculous legs first though- can't have myself crashing into a gargoyle because I was too busy laughing my ass off!"

Ian put a hand on my arm, "Stop, Em. We're caught."

I bit my lip in frustration, but stopped trying to struggle out of whatever was holding us in place.

I surveyed the situation: too many fae and only a smattering of guards in comparison, but that wasn't much comfort since mobs tended to lynch the targets of their aggravation when there wasn't enough law enforcement to keep them in check. There was also the fact that most of them looked a whole lot scarier than the guards who only wore dark reddish armor, deer antlers- that made them look almost identical to each other- and were armed only with swords. On the other side there was the woman with the centipede body who was screaming her head off about not letting any dog-smelling human steal their adorable toy from them, her teeth small and sharp like a shark's, all her numerous legs waving about violently as if she wanted nothing more than to choke us with them.

"I've never teleported anyone else aside from myself," Ian was saying as a guard shoved the centipede lady aside roughly, unsheathing a sword the same glowing orange as the strange forest. "It'll probably work though, more likely if I hold on to you two."

Other guards were forcing their way through, the fae scattering away at the sight of their raised weapons.

"Do it," I told Ian, sweating under the mask even though the weather was cold. "Just get us away from here."

Ian grinned, "Here comes Ian to the rescue again, folks." He reached for me and I breathed a sigh of relief even before his hand gripped my shoulder and we were no longer in the midst of these insanity...except Ian's hands had stopped reaching for me, one of them had fallen to his side, the other curling around thin air. Curling around the arrow that was appearing in his hand-

I dropped the dancing girl.

In my mind I was watching Aster murdering herself all over again, but this time the edge of the blade was the tip of a white arrow.

I lunged forward as Ian stared blankly ahead, hand already bringing death straight to his heart. I caught hold of the end of the arrow, its thorny edges piercing my palm when I tried to jerk it away- and ended up with nothing but a stinging cut for the trouble.

Bad news: my desperate effort didn't move the arrow back a single inch.

Good news: the arrow didn't move forward either.

Some more bad news: although Ian hadn't stabbed himself, he also hadn't lost that vacancy in his gaze.

His gaze was so quiet...as quiet as the fae.

I looked away from Ian, looked at the anxious but quieted mob of faeries who were looking at Arius- no, at the man who stood in front of Arius. The new Autumn Lord who had somehow ended up all the way there, his wide mouth smiling. "The bait has brought in the fish," he said pleasantly, "and now the net has shown it the limits of its existence. Alpha Ember, I think it's best if you come along quietly with this fisherman here."

***

Light took us to an old-fashioned looking study that could've been a film set for The Game of Thrones, his guards staying behind in the hallway. They didn't seem worried about us being a threat to their new boss apparently- which they were right about, there was no way I was going to try to kill the Autumn Lord when he was seated calmly at his desk, Ian standing motionless behind him with that arrow still aimed at his heart.

Light gestured to the two wooden chairs facing the desk, "Have a seat."

I glanced at the leather couch where the dancing girl- still asleep- lay, thankfully unharmed from when I'd dropped her. But still vulnerable.

"I won't touch her," Light told me. "As I've stated before, she was just bait. I have no more use for her now that I've caught you."

There it was again, the disturbing talk about how he was targeting me all along. It was like suddenly getting a love confession from a psychopathic killer: shockingly unexpected and entirely unwelcome.

"About that," I began cautiously, "I'm not exactly the alpha female yet so if this is about pack business, I'm afraid you chose the wrong person."

Light tilted his head, his mask fully covering his entire face once more although his voice wasn't muffled at all when he spoke. "Showing weakness to your opponents isn't a very wise thing for a leader to do."

I flinched.

Yet he was right, whether or not Kane announced me as his alpha female or not- which he technically already did with his constant proposals- didn't matter. There was no need for a fancy ceremony or reassurances, the title was mine. That meant I had better start taking the job seriously, starting with finding out what this dangerous fae wanted from the pack- as well as not letting him see just how deep my insecurities ran. Alphas were the face of the pack, and if the alpha looked weak, so did the pack. That wasn't a wise impression to give an enemy.

I straightened my back, glared at him. "Screw you."

I winced internally. Maybe too much?

Light folded his hands. "I should throw you into the dungeons for that."

"Why haven't you thrown us in there already?" Arius asked.

"The previous Autumn Lord didn't believe in interrogations or shoving those who had wronged him in a locked space to reflect over their actions, he killed them right away and dumped their bodies in the forest behind the castle," Light replied emotionlessly.

I shuddered. So much for the forest not being creepy.

Light tapped a set of grubby fingernails on the desk. "Stop standing there shuddering over dead bodies and sit down. Or else you'll be joining the rotting corpses outside."

If it was just me he was threatening I would have ignored him, but I had Ian, the sleeping girl and Arius to think of as well. Light didn't seem above harming or killing any of them to show me he was the one in charge here. Better to follow his orders then. For now.

I took a seat and Arius followed suit, his robotic calm comforting this time. There was power in numbers. "What do you want?" I asked Light.

"Not what I want, what I'm going to get," he corrected. "As you can see, your lives are entirely within the palm of my dirty hands..."

He was saying something else but I couldn't hear it, couldn't hear or see a thing aside from the thing crawling across the very tip of his huge antlers. Something the size of a weasel but nothing like the animal at all. It took me a moment to get past my shock, to identify it as an abhorrently weasel-sized, hissing cockroach. A cockroach I hadn't seen anywhere near him the entire time we'd followed him from outside and into the study.

Maybe it had been hiding inside his robes, I thought, goose bumps breaking out over my flesh at the size of it. It hissed loudly, jerking forward and landing on the table.

I had to bite my lip to keep from crying out in alarm, hands gripping the armrests of my chair. I glanced at Light, whose mask had receded to reveal a grinning mouth. That's right, get up and scurry off. Run away from my huge insect pet so I can laugh at you, that grin said.

I forced my hands to relax. Gave him a look that didn't hide how much I'd like to let loose the beast waiting beneath a thin layer of human skin and watch happily as it mauled him to tiny, tiny pieces.

He stopped smiling. When I glanced back down at the desk the cockroach was gone.

Looks like I won this round.

Arius' chair crashed to the floor.

I tensed, watched as he backed away from the desk, never taking his eyes off it, lips pressed firmly together. He didn't stop until his back hit the wall at the other side of the room, a path of upturned tables, broken vases and fallen books left in his wake.

I raised my brows. Large cockroaches weren't his thing I guess.

Still, I didn't like the look on his face, it wasn't suppressed revulsion he was showing but suppressed horror. He didn't look like he was coming anywhere near us again either, not even with a ten-foot pole.

Light was grinning again.

I ground my teeth. This fae had gotten to all three of the people I wanted to protect, had unarmed and turned them inside out until they were on the very edge of breaking. I had to get them away from him, fast.

"What do you want?" I growled, patience a dead thing at Arius' shaking feet.

Light licked his purple lips with a very long, blue tongue. "What I want is a meeting with your husband."

TMI: I mix up Ian and Darius' names sometimes.