Red and Her Wolf (Kingdom, #3)

Snarling, Ewan plowed through the image, huffing as he inhaled the brimstone fumes.

Eyes, independent of one another, bounced inside Jinni’s chest. Blinking, opening wide, and then narrowing into slits.

Jinni rolled his own eyes, but apart from that, gave no other indication of annoyance.

“Hmmm…” Cheshire’s ghostly voice returned.

The floating eyes turned its glance on Ewan--who was now coated in sweat, pulse hammering wildly as he tried to reach the edge of the woods with his sanity intact.

A branch rushed out, latching onto Jinni’s ephemeral ankle. But Jinni phased through it, the tree shuddered and shook a wooden fist at him.

Just a little further.

Ewan sailed clear of a tree root lifting up from the ground.

“I could tell you where she’s at,Wolf.” The cat smiled its ghostly smile up at him with pointed teeth sharper than his own.

Blood rushed through Ewan’s ears, his heart thumped hard against his ribcage. The cat lied. He always lied. He was a trickster, a deceiver, better to tune him out.

But what if he knew?

Blinking furiously, panting even harder, Ewan shook his head. How could the cat know? Not even Danika knew? T’was impossible, the cat toyed with him again.

Pain ripped through his sides as he ran harder, using every ounce of energy left to exit the woods quickly. Ahead he saw the glimmering wave of twilight, the edge of Hatter’s forest. Warmth seeped from his padded feet, he’d cut himself somewhere. Almost as if the thought conjured them, gnats descended in a black haze, attracted to the scent of his sweat and blood, they nipped at him.

“Don’t you want to know?” Cheshire floated fully in front of him, relaxed and licking one paw. “Aren’t you even the slightest bit curious?”

“Go away, cat,” Jinni said sharply, his vaporous hand streaked through the tabby, who only laughed as if he’d been tickled.

Squeezing his eyes shut for a brief moment, Ewan tried to recall where he’d heard her cries. Yesterday hunting along the border of the woods, he’d heard her faint call. She’d whispered ‘wolf’ and his heart had clenched. For the first time ever he felt hope, hope that his ordeal would soon be over.

He looked around him, at the still black night, at the trees that were now returning to normal. Somewhere a raven cawed. He licked his teeth. Malvena had spies everywhere.

Miriam had been right all those years ago. Malvena no longer cared whether Ewan lived or died, but that did not mean she’d left him in peace. It’d been years since he’d worked for her, but Ewan knew her mind, knew the mystery of that night ate her alive. No doubt, Patrick the Red had been killed. He might have felt a flicker of remorse, but Patrick had tried to end his mate’s life, sadness was simply not in him. If Malvena hadn’t done it, caution be damned, Ewan would have. He’d have found a way to slink back to his clan just so that he could rip Patrick’s still beating heart from his chest for daring to lay one claw on her.

The cat floated at the edge of sanity and reason, a creature of madness and lunacy unable to go further for fear of losing himself beyond the safety of his magic forest.

Ahead the land rolled like the soft swell of a rolling sea. Stopping, Ewan panted, catching his breath, waiting for his heartbeat to return to its normal rhythm. Jinni floated by his side, gazing up at the bejeweled sky with profound longing painted on his face.

“The fairy has lied to you, wolf.” Cheshire lifted a brow, the perpetual grin curving higher like twin sickles. Cat’s voice was low, filled with hubris. “The girl is not here. She never was. She’s on Earth. A place called, A-Laska.”

His chuckle grated on Ewan’s nerves.

Popping his eyeballs out, Cheshire juggled them in the palms of his fuzzy hands. “Ask me how I know, dog.”

“The cat lies, Ewan,” Jinni hissed. “Do not listen to his madness.”

“Do I? I did not think that I did.” He tossed the eyes higher into the air with each pass, until finally he threw them so hard, they blazed a white streak through the night.

A memory floated to the very edge of his consciousness, so brief it’d almost slipped by unnoticed. Ewan latched onto the image. Danika had mentioned something at the table the night she’d promised Hatter his mate; their mates were from Earth.

His nostrils fluttered. He’d dismissed her words as unimportant, all knew Red was his, and hidden somewhere within Kingdom. Danika had been talking to the others, not to him.

But what if she hadn’t been? What if she’d slipped and he’d been too stupid to realize it? Was Red on Earth? And if so, why had Danika sent him on chases all through Kingdom for years with ‘sightings’. Surely not. His godmother wouldn’t lie to him? Not like that.

But what if…

Calling the unbecoming, Ewan ignored the sharp sizzle of snapping, sliding bones, and strutted to the gloating cat.