Storm Crossed (The Grim Series Book 4) Read online

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  PRAISE FOR DANI HARPER “Kept my interest from beginning to end . . . Really looking forward to reading more in Ms. Harper’s Grim world, and I definitely recommend Storm Warned if you’re in the mood for some Fae.” —Literary Addiction “Wonder touches Spokane Valley, Wash., and the life of veterinarian Morgan Edwards in Harper’s beautifully narrated foray into Celtic myth and legend . . . Harper provides excellent texture and depth with a touch of sincere empathy for animals, rounding out an already excellent novel.” —Publishers Weekly “Harper skillfully builds characters and situations that evoke empathy for the good citizens of both the human and shapeshifter species . . . ” —RT Book Reviews “Storm Warned is captivating! The characters are great and the world the author has built is strongly reminiscent of the original dark faery tales.” —Bibliophilic “A delicious and elegant read, filled with humor, beauty, friendship, hotness, and a little horror (as things with the fae often are). I

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  ALSO BY DANI HARPER The Grim Series Novels Storm Warrior Storm Bound Storm Warned Storm Crossed The Changeling Shapeshifter Series Changeling Moon Changeling Dream Changeling Dawn A Dark Wolf Novel First Bite The Haunted Holiday Series The Holiday Spirit (All She Wants for Christmas Is a Ghost)

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. Text copyright © 2018 by Dani Harper All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher. Published by Montlake Romance, Seattle www.apub.com Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Montlake Romance are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates. ISBN-13: 9781503948945 ISBN-10: 1503948943 Cover design by Jason Blackburn

  In memory of Dianne MacDonald. Thanks for being a loving mom to my daughter when I couldn’t be there. Thanks for raising such a wonderful young woman to be my daughter’s best friend, too! And thanks for being my friend. I always appreciated your smile, your ready laugh, and your encouragement. No writer could ask for a truer or kinder fan. I hope you’re reading this book over my shoulder!

  CONTENTS START READING PROLOGUE ONE TWO THREE FOUR FIVE SIX SEVEN EIGHT NINE TEN ELEVEN TWELVE THIRTEEN FOURTEEN FIFTEEN SIXTEEN SEVENTEEN EIGHTEEN NINETEEN TWENTY TWENTY-ONE TWENTY-TWO TWENTY-THREE TWENTY-FOUR TWENTY-FIVE TWENTY-SIX TWENTY-SEVEN TWENTY-EIGHT TWENTY-NINE THIRTY THIRTY-ONE THIRTY-TWO THIRTY-THREE THIRTY-FOUR THIRTY-FIVE ACKNOWLEDGMENTS AUTHOR’S NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  When the student is ready, the teacher appears. —Unknown

  PROLOGUE Darkness held no terrors for the boy. Shadows were soft, colors veiled, sounds muted. A relief from the overbright and noisome day that jangled his senses and hurt his head. And when the moon rode the indigo sky, everything was brushed with silver: his rock collection, his coloring markers in their lumpy clay cup, his bookshelves, and even the rows of crazy copper-wire creatures on his desk had paled to a gentle pearl gray. The moon’s light created a magical and comfortable world just for him. Tonight, the moon was round and fat. The boy lay on his side in bed, where he could watch through the tall window. Once, his teacher had read a story about a man who lived in the moon. But although the boy always looked, he didn’t see the man. The moon was his friend, though. And sometimes, the moon’s light showed him things: hazy images of new places or new people. The boy understood that it was sort of like a television show—they weren’t really in his room with him. But he knew they wo

  ONE Royal Court, Palace of Queen Gwenhidw Heart of the Fae Realms, Wales A Thousand Mortal Years Ago . . . There is no such thing as love!” Trahern shoved at his twin. “Your foolish ideas will get you banished, and for what? Nothing in the Nine Realms will change. Nothing! Eirianwen will rule the House of Oak for yet another millennium, while you live out your days in exile. What will you have proven?” Braith shoved back and followed it with a punch of magic that sent Trahern sailing backward across the royal garden until he slammed high into the trunk of a tree in a flurry of golden leaves. It was as if they were children again, testing each other like young stags. But that was centuries ago, and this was no game. The palace loomed large over them as they argued in its sprawling gardens. Braith had been called to appear before the Royal Court. “I will have Saffir, and her alone. I will not bend to Eirianwen’s wishes. I will not consent to this pairing with Idelle.” Trahern landed ligh

  TWO Viewed from the very bottom, the cave was long and narrow, as sinuous as a dragon, until it faded into distant darkness. Countless stone chambers lined one wall, carved into the rock itself. Glittering things hung on the opposite wall. At Trahern’s approach, they coalesced into countless woven silver collars and thick chest plates that resembled heavy chain-mail. His sorcerer’s sight revealed the green aura of binding magic around them. No magic was needed to sense the aura of misery and despair here. He was close to despairing himself. Nine suns and twelve moons had passed since Eirianwen ordered what was left of his brother to be taken away to the kennels. Nine suns and twelve moons that Trahern had counted breath by painful breath, before the smug matriarch finally tired of her prolonged games at Court and left, taking her camarilla with her. Nine suns and twelve moons before he was finally free to search for his twin. To the kennels. He’d assumed she meant where the Wild Hunt h

  THREE No sooner had he brushed Cyflym’s side with his heel than both horses erupted from the cave entrance like bats escaping into the night. For a brief, frantic moment, Trahern wished he’d glued his own body to his mount with magic. A few rapid heartbeats later, he adjusted to the frenzied rhythm. These were like no animals he’d ever ridden. Their speed was incredible—and deathly silent, save for the wind rushing by his ears. No hooves touched the ground as they dashed beyond the marsh and into the deep forest beyond. Veering as one, the horses left the main trail almost at once and galloped single file along a narrow stag path. Trahern ducked over the horse’s neck to avoid the branches and saplings that slapped at him, glad that Braith was already as low as possible on his own steed. Leaping over riverbeds of amethyst water, dodging impossibly tall trees that sported monstrous glowing shelves of fungus, the fleet horses didn’t slow for an instant. Trahern had traveled much, yet this

  FOUR Walla Walla, Eastern Washington, USA Present Day The ear-piercing screams would have done a pterodactyl proud as nine-year-old Fox entered total meltdown mode in the produce department of Naturally Yours Organics. As usual, the din won either disapproving glares or pained expressions of sympathy from other shoppers. Today the glares were in the majority. In a last-ditch effort to defuse the situation, Lissy sat down on the hardwood floor next to her son’s flailing body. “Just breathe, bud. Breathe in and out.” She kept her voice calm and matter-of-fact, even as she slid his beloved Squishy Bear close to him. Sometimes the soft toy was a life preserver in a storm of stimulation that he couldn’t process fast enough. Not today. “It’s okay, we’re going now.” She got to her feet and hefted Fox, all fifty-one struggling pounds of him, onto her hip. He was small for his age—what on earth would she do when he got bigger? Either rent a hand truck or get a hip replacement. Especially when h

  FIVE The morning star glittered near the sinking moon, and the Wild Hunt wheeled as one. Trahern didn’t have to order the dozen riders to return to Tir Hardd. The night had belonged to the fae since the beginning of the world, but the overbright day was usually abandoned to mortals. If he closed his eyes now, he w
ould feel the pull of the faery realm as surely as metal was drawn to a lodestone. The lathered horses felt it. All of them, including Trahern’s own horned mount, Cyflym, sprang into a gallop with renewed energy. Hard on the horses’ heels, a pack of grinning white hounds, the tireless Cŵn Annwn of legend, lengthened their pace as well. He glanced down. As always, a much larger and more powerfully built dog ran effortlessly beside him, broad head level with Trahern’s silver stirrup and large leonine paws striking the ground in eerie silence. With his enormous jaws, he could easily have dismembered any or all of the white hounds. Instead, while Braith didn’t deign to run with th

  SIX The stranger’s unnerving gaze lingered for only a moment before apparently dismissing her. “What are you doing here?” he asked again, and Lissy realized he spoke to the enormous canine behind her. “Wait a sec. This is your dog? Yours?” All the shock and fear of the past few minutes transmuted into anger. She’d been prepared to die defending her child, and this man, this being, was responsible! It was as if a switch inside had been thrown, and she stepped into his line of sight. “What the hell were you thinking, letting this animal run around loose like that?” she demanded. He merely looked around her, as if she were a tree or a bush or a goddamn rock, and that just ramped up her fury. “You! I’m talking to you!” Without thought but backed by a considerable amount of adrenaline, she shoved him with all her strength. The element of surprise gave her an extra advantage, and the tall man stumbled back a step. Now she had his full attention. Most nature documentaries she’d watched advise

  SEVEN Although there’d been some talk of driving home last night after the unexpected visit from the fae and his canine companion, it was short-lived. Brooke had phoned Aidan and Rhys at their camp down the road, and the guys had come on the run. Both were big, heavily muscled men who looked like they could tear a fae in two like a phone book. They’d be glad to do it, too. Furious that their wives and friends had been frightened, they volunteered to keep watch for the rest of the night. In the end, everyone, even Lissy, felt solid about staying. As for Fox, he wasn’t frightened at all. Instead, he’d fallen asleep in his pup tent with his little fingers crossed that the giant dog would come back. Lissy wished she could fit in there to cuddle him for the rest of the night, but he never seemed to enjoy sleeping with her. You know I have to sleep straight. You take up too much room, and then I have to curl up like a snail, he’d once told her. “I’ll be sitting right outside the boy’s door t

  EIGHT The stiffly manicured grounds and unimaginative landscaping offered little cover, but a minor enchantment easily camouflaged Trahern and his horse. He stood leaning against Cyflym as he studied the upstairs windows of the strange little row houses. Truth be told, he was disappointed that the woman and her son lived in such a place. The idea of dwelling so close to others repelled him. It was like a pysky colony, only these buildings were unnaturally angular and lacking in any adornment whatsoever. Beauty was an essential ingredient in every structure in the fae realms. Did these humans lack an appreciation of it? Other humans, he corrected himself. Because while most of the covered entrances were bare or cluttered with dull furniture, there was a definite acknowledgment of nature by the woman’s door: many vibrant flowers growing in colorful pots; a clever copper wind chime that struck pleasing notes in the breeze; a tray of seeds on the railing to attract birds; and along the fro

  NINE Unlike the rooms upstairs, the woman’s kitchen was of a reasonable size—if you were a coblyn, that is. He approved of the pleasant wall color, though—green again, a vivid shade reminiscent of budding leaves. Open shelves displayed bright plates and bowls, and the windowsill boasted an assortment of colored glass bottles that would capture positive energies—even spirits—when daylight shone through them. Clear jars of spices and herbs marched along the back of the counter, like ingredients in an alchemist’s study. An upright metal cabinet—no. He corrected himself. The cabinet was a human machine, a cold box for storing foods, and its bland surface was nearly covered with layers of her son’s paper artwork—and one of the uppermost drawings boasted a gray dog with golden eyes very much like Braith. The dog in the picture was smiling. Smiling! Trahern resisted the impulse to scowl. Meanwhile, the woman motioned him to a rather plain chair. At least it is made of wood, not metal. Tracing

  TEN Trahern was taken aback as the ellyll spat on the floor at his feet. “Why insult me, good sir, when it pleases me to see you?” “Don’t be good sirrin’ me. And it would please me ta be callin’ down lightnin’ where ya stand.” He pointed a long twiggy finger that glowed like a white-hot ember. Energy sprang instantly to Trahern’s palms, but not before a thunderous roar shook the glass in the windows. The great gray grim leapt in front of him, showing every one of his long teeth at the ellyll— And abruptly vanished. “What have you done with my brother?” shouted Trahern, holding aloft an apple-size sphere of crackling green light. If Braith were injured in any way . . . The ellyll adjusted his strange blue cap, jamming it down on his long braided hair until a handful of leaves went whirling to the floor. “I sent your great calf of a pet to Tir Hardd.” He put up his little knobby fists in front of him and bounced from side to side on his woody toes. “Yer lucky I didn’t send him clear to t

  ELEVEN Lissy eased herself into a kitchen chair as Ranyon apologized for the third time, complete with tears that squirted out of the corners of his bright-blue eyes. She handed him the dish towel from the nearby oven handle and tried not to flinch as he loudly blew his ample nose on it. I feel so bad for lecturing him. What happened to his family was horrific, and he had every right to be upset—but what was I supposed to do? Her son’s well-being had to come first, and right now Fox alternated between shrieking and crying in the other room. She supposed she’d have to haul him up to his room like a newly roped steer and let him sort himself out on his own. Right now, though, it felt like her son’s bedroom was ten flights up instead of only one. Was this weird-ass day ever going to end? Brooke appeared in the kitchen. “Are you guys all right?” “Nay, I’ve been naught but a proper dihiryn and given dreadful offense to a dear friend.” Ranyon sniffed as fresh tears spurted. Lissy ordered her

  TWELVE Though he could barely see over the tops of the tables, Fychan the tavern keeper wended his way through the boisterous crowd effortlessly, delivering yet another large silver tankard of coblyn ale to Trahern’s table without spilling a drop. He gathered up the empties but refused to accept a proffered coin. “Thee knows the auld proverb: naught for a Hunter, naught from a Hunter.” Of course, Trahern knew the superstitious saying. Everyone did. If you didn’t charge a Hunter for your services, you’d never find yourself judged by a Hunter. At least, that’s what many in the Nine Realms liked to believe. He’d never taken advantage of that belief before. In fact, he didn’t know of any rider who would. “My coin has fit in your hand rather well on other nights.” “Thee hast never drunk this much on other nights. I figure thee for sorrow. Ne’er a good practice to profit from sorrow. Brings poor luck. May thy luck change, and if ale won’t help it along, I’ll bring thee something stronger.” F

  THIRTEEN In Trahern’s former life, his finely honed talent for negotiation made him both highly respected and successful in trade. Now he had to negotiate some sort of leave from the Wild Hunt. Was such a thing even possible? He had no idea how his petition would be received—not only was a human involved, but Braith had already acted on his own and left the Hunt. Did that negate Lurien’s protection? The dark fae was truly a law unto himself, and no one, not even Eirianwen, dared cross him. Retribution was swift and terrible and certain. But Trahern also knew that Lurien held himself to a strict code of honor. He treated his Hunters well and, unlike many of the Tylwyth Teg, was both approachable and reasonable. Most of the time . . . There must be a way to convince him. With the queen still in residence in Tir Hardd, the Lord of the Wild Hunt could only be at the old capital, as far away from the monarch as possible. Eventually, Trahern found his leader on a broad knoll in the Black Mar


  FOURTEEN The coffee can was empty. It took two cups of strong black tea and part of a third before her head finally cleared. Lissy had checked on Fox before coming downstairs, but he was still sprawled with an arm around Squishy Bear and softly snoring. And yup, Braith was still there, too, awake and alert, though he remained beside Fox’s bed. He thumped his tail and appeared to grin as he recognized Lissy, just as any family dog would do. If any family dog was a great gray grim . . . She had no idea what Braith would do if someone tried to mess with her son, but surely just becoming visible to them would be deterrent enough. After draining her cup, she rooted around in the freezer for an organic breakfast burrito to heat up. Tea was really not her drink, and so much of it on an empty stomach was never a good idea, but last night’s erotic dreams (not to mention this morning’s shower-powered orgasm) seemed to have shorted out most of her brain cells. And when a few finally revived, they

  FIFTEEN The pharmacy was five blocks over and two blocks down. Lissy decided to walk, hoping it would give her time to think of an approach. Should she go up to the dispensing counter with a question of some kind for the pharmacist . . . and then act surprised that the pharmacist was Vincente? Not really my style. Maybe she could just browse, then look over and catch his eye. Better, but what if he doesn’t look up? She crossed the last street and stood in front of the shop windows, pretending to be interested in a display of orthopedic sandals. Finally, she straightened her blouse, adjusted her cross-body handbag, and headed inside. Pharmacies always seemed to have a certain aroma to them, like sniffing a bottle of aspirin. This one seemed to have a fruity potpourri mixed in. There were the businesslike aisles of cold and stomach remedies, vitamins and ointments, diapers and tissues, plus an entire section of feminine-hygiene products. Definitely not going to browse there. Glass shelve

  SIXTEEN I have to get to Fox! The noise was not only deafening but dizzying, driving her to her knees with vertigo. Nevertheless, Lissy fought her way inside the building, crawling along the smooth black-and-white tiles. If anything, the sound was even louder in here. There was no sign of anyone in the main shop, no one hiding behind any of the counters or under the table of a booth. The storeroom. The last time she was here, Aidan had helped Fox build a fort out of boxes . . . Lissy clamped her jaws shut against the nausea that roiled her stomach, as her fear for her child drove her onward. She’d nearly reached the black paneled door marked STAFF ONLY when Ranyon appeared at her elbow. Quickly, the ellyll placed his strange twiggy hands over her ears and muttered something she had no hope of hearing over the din— And then suddenly she could hear. The wailing seemed no louder than a teakettle whistle—aggravating but not debilitating—as if the little elemental had dialed down the volume