Into the Fire (The Unseelie Court Book 4) Gwen Rivers (sneezy the snowman read aloud .TXT) 📖

“Sophie,” I catch her hand impulsively. “You did the right thing.”

She smiles and then shuts the door behind her.

I wash up in the adjoining bathroom, taking a warm shower and wrapping myself in a white satin robe and then head to bed. Outside, the snow begins to fall. What would my life have been like if Garret had come back to Sophie sooner? If I hadn’t been adopted by the Fates?

I fret over the child growing inside me. What will her life be like? And how will mine change? Sophie knew she couldn’t have handled the responsibilities of motherhood, even with a nurturing soul. What chance do I stand?

And how will Aiden react when he finds out? He had been vehement about not wanting a child for centuries. Paranoid that his line is cursed. Worried that he will add soldiers to his father’s army and bring about Ragnarök—the end of the worlds.

Yet in spite of all that I know Aiden will make a phenomenal father. He’s good and true. And I’m…me.

“Aiden,” I breathe his name, wishing the wind will carry it to him. “Hurry.”

Aiden stops abruptly, causing Harmony to slam into his back. He turns and steadies her.

“What’s wrong?” she asks.

“Her scent is gone.” He inhales again. The faint whiff he had of Nic has vanished.

“Do you think she crossed the Veil to find you?” Harmony lowers herself onto a boulder and rubs at her bare feet.

“I don’t know.” Damn it, if she had crossed back into the fey realm, he’d have no choice but to go after her. “Can you see anything about where she is?”

The seer pauses in her foot massage and shuts her eyes. Her brow furrows as she frowns. “I’m not sure. It doesn’t look like Underhill. Too much manmade stuff. She hasn’t made any decisions. But the room she’s in looks different than where I saw her earlier.”

“That’s it? She’s in a room somewhere?” He can’t keep the annoyance out of his tone.

Her purple lids lift and she glares at him. “It’s not like I have a supernatural LoJack. My abilities are based on individual decisions. If she doesn’t make any, I can’t see anything.”

He huffs out a breath. “Thanks for trying.”

One of her jet eyebrows goes up. “So, you trust that I’m telling you the truth? Even though I betrayed you?”

He taps the side of his nose. “I can smell lies. You’re not a fey like I thought, but I’d know if you were telling me a falsehood. And I’m fairly certain you aren’t trying to keep me and Nic apart. You just don’t want me crossing the Veil. And I won’t.”

Not unless he had to in order to retrieve his mate.

She huffs out a breath. “All right. Can we stop for a rest? My feet are killing me.”

Her feet are bare and he can see a fresh crop of blisters. “Can you travel by sparks the way I can?”

She shakes her head. “No. I can barely manage a single flame. If not for my seer gift, I’d be as talented as a fey peasant.”

He scrubs a hand over his face. He can transform them both to sparks for a short distance, but without a direction, he’d drain his magic before they found Nic. Not like he was going to get back to her until he picked up her scent again.

He makes the decision. “We’ll camp here for the night.”

Harmony looks around. “There’s no shelter. And those clouds look like they mean business.”

“Then we’ll build a lean-to.” Aiden bends to the ground and starts picking up dead boughs and placing them diagonally from the boulder where she sits. “Gather up some branches. The fire will be our fourth wall.”

They gather wood for a camp in silence.

Aiden shifts to the wolf to find food.

“I’ll get a fire going,” Harmony says.

He’s a mile off when he hears her scream.

Wolves, his beast recognizes the scent. A pack is on her trail.

Aiden runs as fast as four paws can carry him across the damp ground, kicking up clumps of dirt with each step. How could he have been so stupid? His heart pounds. Harmony is a seer, she’s old and clever. She can take care of herself.

But he refused to let anything happen to his sister.

He breaks through the trees and looks down at the scene below. A pack of wolves, larger than any he’d ever beheld, surrounds Harmony. Both hands are out in front of her, a large branch in each one. She clacks them together and the ends ignite until she is holding flaming torches. Aiden leaps, changing from wolf to sparks and back to wolf at her side.

The pack stands down.

It’s odd, one moment they are snapping at her heels, surrounding her, but the moment he arrives, they freeze. He can scent confusion coming off of them.

The largest, a gray wolf with a white blaze across his chest, begins to shift. It isn’t a seamless transition, not like his own. No, this looks painful, as though the animal is being stretched and misshapen by great, invisible hands.

And then a young man stands before him, naked. He has shaggy dark hair and a long scraggly beard. His eyes are intense as they focus on him, one green and the other blue.

“Who are you?” he asks. It takes Aiden a moment to recognize that the wolf is speaking German. “Who are you that you are not one of our pack?”

Harmony looks to him but she is not his mate and he has no silent communication with her the way he does with Nic. So he shifts, turning back into a man.

“My name is Aiden.”

“Váli,” Harmony corrects.

Aiden scowls at her but then nods in agreement. “Yes.”

The other male steps forward. “Váli? Váli Sigynjarson?”

Did everyone in the nine worlds know his true name? “That’s right? Who are you?”

“My name is Liam.” The wolf dips his head. “Liam Cooper. And I’m your nephew.”

Generations of Pack

“So you’re telling me,” Aiden