Chapter 1

The high-pitched shriek brought me to full consciousness with all the suddenness of a bucket of water to the face. I scrambled backwards before I knew where I was or what was happening, all fours limbs pumping like a terror-stricken crab. Iron nails of pain pounded through my skull, but white fear drove me, gibbering at me to ignore the pain in favor of speed.

Impressions. Cold. Gray. Empty. Ruins in decay. The landscape that met my eyes defied explanation. Movement tickled the corner of my eyes. Freezing in place, my head whirled towards the source, locking upon a ghastly stone statue. Did something move? A trick of the light, a part of me consoled.

My pounding heart didn't buy it.

My breath hitched as the shadow in the folds of the statue's robes…moved. I bit down on my lower lip hard enough to draw blood. Don't scream. Don't scream. My gut tolled like this resounding bell of doom, warning that attracting attention now would be really, really bad.

Instincts honed from a decade with werewolves kicked in. My gaze flew downward. Don't let the whites of the eyes show. Don't run. Slow and easy. I scooted back an inch at a time. No abrupt movements, nothing to draw the attention of a predator. Each move sent agonizing spears of pain through my head, but the terror gonging through me outweighed any consideration of it.

An alcove. The instant I saw it, I fixated upon it.

From the corner of my eye, the shadow seemed to rustle before it melted away. Where…? I stared at the spot it'd vanished, frozen. Minutes ticked by without it reappearing.

Had I imagined it?

Doubts percolated. Confusion roiled through me (what the snot was happening?), yet fear refused to loosen its grip on my throat. This oppressive, ominous thing covered the area like a smothering blanket. This place was wrong. Horribly, awfully wrong.

I inched closer to the alcove, focus never straying from that statue. Picking up a loose chunk of masonry, I tossed it towards the statue and held my breath.

No sign of that shadow. I could have sworn… I chewed on my bottom lip. What was going on?

I went for broke and ran, my poor head killing me with each step. Pebbles and shale spewed across the crumbling path in my wake. I clawed my way inside the depression, nails ripping against rough stone until at last all four-foot-two of me was huddled within its confines.

What the h— I gutted the thought before it could finish. I'd never before taken heed, but my mother had once warned that in Faerie, words could draw attention. Use the wrong word, and you might just find something powerful and evil homing in upon it…and you. A shiver raced up my spine and stole my breath.

Could this be Faerie? Possible, my terror told me. So possible. An aura of danger saturated the very stones of this place.

Forget pride. I stuffed a wad of brown hair into my mouth and gnawed away.

This was not home. I could think of no place in the entire United States of America that even approached it. How had I gotten here? I had no memory of this place, nothing to explain my presence here.

I chafed my arms, thinking furiously. Had I somehow managed to catch the eye of an Old One? I almost never assumed dryad form, so I had a difficult time imagining that to be so. Marcus had been borderline paranoid about that. The last time I'd gone dryad had been before my sixteenth birthday. It had been planned with meticulous detail by Marcus to ensure privacy. For one blissful hour, I'd been able to delve into my dryad nature within a private greenhouse. It was one of my most cherished memories, and the only time Marcus had done something so kind.

Faerie. The idea scared me to babbling proportions. I tried to think through it, but the migraine I sported was like the King Kong of all headaches. I massaged my temples, desperate for some relief, and looked out of my hole.

Around me lay the tumbled ruins of an ancient castle long forgotten in the mists of time, a castle left shrouded with pain and despair. Vast, from what I could see, and lifeless but for that shadow a part of me persisted in believing had been Something. Not a weed dared lift its head from within the dirt-filled cracks of the crumbling roads. Broken walls stretched into the air, their jagged, sharp peaks like misshapen skeletons. Plaster yet lingered in clumps, most of which were riddled with spidery cracks.

One thing was for sure. This wasn't Europe. No medieval castle had ever seen such ornamentation - stone vines and chiseled boughs twisted around columns, their branches splintered and snapped at about ceiling level. Maybe in its heyday, they'd looked organic and beautiful, but now, time had stripped the limbs of their small leaves and left the spindly, blackened husks behind.

The cloaked statue that had harbored whatever-it-was proved not to be the only one of its ilk. The brooding, ominous stone mannequins were in evidence on more than one disintegrating terrace. Their pock-marked, blank visages faced forward, their empty eyes somehow not as hollow and lifeless as they should be. Eerie.

The more I saw, the more I realized just how far the ruins extended. No mere castle, this, but a vast fortress. On and on it went, a graveyard of old structures that had once been a mighty complex. To the center - or what I assumed to be central as it was the highest vantage point - stood the gnarled finger of a tower, its topmost reaches shattered.

Looking in each direction, I could see no end. Mercy, I breathed, hoping that was safe enough to utter to myself. Rubbing at my throbbing temples, almost in tears from the pain, my eyes returned to the cloaked statue and spotted something I'd overlooked before: an incongruous splash of bright blue and green. The cheerful colors were truly jarring against the drained, gray backdrop of the world around me.

My canvas tote bag.

Disbelief rooted me, but as if it was the impetus needed, images began to fill in the empty gaps in my memory. Marcus racing through the house, thrusting the bag into my arms. Words edged in panic. Aleks's tanned face bleached white, his slightly almond leaf-green eyes hard and determined. Strands of his coppery brown hair had escaped his ponytail, hanging into his face.

That same face twisted in pain? My heart rate accelerated. Aleks.

A flash of Nancy beside me in the SUV, Marcus behind the wheel. Streets blurring by as Marcus broke speed limits and ignored stop signs. I remembered the way fear had filled the vehicle like a perfume. We'd all reeked of it.

Then a woman. Eyes like oceans.

She sent us here. How or why, I couldn't recall. Sent US here. My heart spasmed. Aleks was supposed to be with me. How I knew, I couldn't say, but he should be here. A new horror eeled its way around my torso and constricted like a boa. Don't let him be dead. Could something have gotten him before I'd roused?

My eyes flew from shadow to shadow, seeking for any indication of my brother's presence, but sunlight didn't penetrate this place and the dark recesses proved too many and too deep. It was as if the gloom that haunted these ruins repelled any sunlight daring to approach these walls.

Aleks's name died on my lips. Calling for him felt utterly, foolishly dangerous. The hair on the back of my neck lifted. Something prowled these streets. Outwardly, the ruins appeared empty, the very air ringing hollowly. Nothing told me that hungry, malevolent eyes swept by, but the sensation persisted, prickling along my skin like little insect legs.

I scrunched further into my cubbyhole. Aleks couldn't be dead. Even considering it… How to describe what welled up within me? My twin, yet also the source of years of poisonous hatred. Grief hit me. Of course it did. Denial, a refusal to believe he could be gone.

Relief. Shame swamped me. Aleks had a just reason for despising me. That was a fact. How could I feel relief to believe…?

Guilt.

And then, a deeper, colder fear. Alone.

Poking my head out the tiniest bit further, I scoped out the area, my focus turning again and again to that tote bag. I did not want to leave my hiding place, but I needed that bag. Marcus was the ultimate outdoorsman. You know those rough, ripped guys you could dump in the wilderness with a pocketknife and a tarp and they'd waltz out a week later proclaiming they'd had a ball? That was Marcus. If he'd packed it, that bag would be chock-full of things that could save my life.

I bet Aleks's has a rifle in it. Not that I could use the weapon if I found it. I didn't fancy second- or third-degree burns. Metal and dryads did not mix.

The sun rolled its way towards the horizon while I debated the wisdom of leaving my hiding spot. It was stupid. I hadn't seen anything that led me to believe I was in any peril, yet that terrifying dread refused to budge. The sense of roaming eyes never abated.

Move. Stop debating. Just move.

Powdery stone fell like a tiny waterfall from the lip of my alcove as I slid a leg free. My heartbeat sounded loud to my ears, a backdrop percussion more successful at freaking me out than Hollywood's best suspense track. Inch by inch, I eased the rest of the way out, coming to a squat next to the alcove.

Now for the tricky part - convincing my scared limbs to move closer to that statue.

By the time I'd reached my tote, slung it over one shoulder, and crept back to my hiding spot, I was shaking worse than if I'd been chucked bare-bum naked into a snowdrift. My teeth chattered and every inch of my skin was pebbled. I'd no idea it was possible to experience this much fear, and trust me, having endured years of nightmares revolving around the deaths of my parents, I've been plenty petrified in my day. This was worse. Much worse.

The sun vanished beneath the horizon. I'd barely made it in time. I hugged the tote to me and scrunched into a ball, trying to breathe through the terror.

The night that followed was the longest of my life. Sleep was impossible. The ghostly complex was bathed in darkness, the sliver of a moon unable to break through the impenetrable black that had descended. The oppressive thing that permeated the air had only intensified as what warmth the sun had provided leeched away. A frigid coldness turned my every exhale into white vapor.

A part of me whispered that now was the time to try and slip from this maze of ruins unnoticed, if they indeed ended. That if I couldn't see whatever lurked here, it wouldn't see me. A load of bunk, probably, but leaving during daylight meant being completely exposed.

Yet, I felt more endangered now than I had upon clapping eyes upon that shadowy figure, no matter that it had probably been the product of an overactive imagination.

New sounds filled the night. At first, it was distant and muffled. I dismissed it as the wind.

I was wrong.

OoOoOo

Pain. Head-splitting, earth-shaking pain.

Aleks clamped a hand to his head and groaned. Remind me not to touch the Southern Comfort again. He'd thought he'd learned his lesson after the last time. Guess not.

Bah. Marcus was going to kill him for hitting the booze again. His lips twisted. Like I care. He'd stopped listening to his foster father years ago.

Man, it must have been a doozy of a night. He couldn't recall raiding the liquor cabinet, much less the actual drinking. The headache, however, seemed indictment enough.

Wait a sec. He frowned. A fleeting memory sparked. A niggling sensation warned all was not well. Something…something had happened. He probed the edges of his raw brain.

Something. That's helpful, he mocked to himself. Not.

Okay, start from the beginning. He remembered picking her up at the library. Go from there. Did he remember getting home? Yes, yes he did. He mentally placed a check-mark on his mental list. He'd slammed the car door and made tracks to his room, the only place he could be completely free of her. Dinner? No… He frowned. What happened to dinner? He wouldn't have left the house for the night without eating something.

Marcus. The name made his neurons itch. The knowledge was there, right there, but it refused to be dredged up. I remember Marcus…

What about Marcus? He could have screamed but for his pounding headache.

His eyes cracked open. Piercing sunlight seared his brain, catapulting his pain level through the roof. Every heart beat echoed within his skull, a cacophony that drowned out his low moan. Aleks swallowed a whimper. Bad. He'd never felt anything so bad. Both hands clasped his aching head as if the pressure alone could contain the pulsating throb threatening to crack his head in two.

His body writhed out of his control, and a weight pressed against his hip, a weight he how realized had been there all along, unrecognized. With slit eyes, he blearily identified the object as his duffle. Memory flashed: Marcus, tossing the bag to him, growling at him to hurry. Remembered fear returned. Danger was coming. Danger… No, the government. Door-to-door searches. Mandatory DNA samples. Anyone discovered without pure-human blood would be collared.

Had they gotten him? His fingers fumbled across the…ground? He was outside? Yeah, he was, he surmised as he cataloged the dampness of his clothes, the honest freshness of the air. Nothing in a bottle matched it.

His fingers gained a better grip on the smooth nylon. He tugged at the bag, careful not to jostle his head yet still wincing as even the smallest movement caused pain. No help for it. He needed what was inside. Steady pressure dragged the bag across the ground and onto his chest. Aleks panted, then tackled the zipper. It glided open with blessed ease. There'd be painkillers inside. Marcus wouldn't overlook something so basic to Noob's Survival 101.

Aleks's hands dove into the crammed interior, rooting through odds and ends until he felt something rectangular and plastic. Bingo. Shoving the bag aside, he tabbed open the container, forcing his eyes to focus. Band-Aids. Gauze. Hydrogen Peroxide. He finally spotted the series of vials rubber-banded together in one corner. Her work, but for once, he'd take what she'd made and be glad for it. Aspirin, Advil, they couldn't touch this headache, and hate her as he might, he could acknowledge that a female naiad would produce better medicinals than the richest pharmaceutical laboratory. Where male naiads were linked to the animal world, the women were all about the plants. Two sides of the same gift, and he'd be a fool to turn his nose up on its bounty now.

He located the correct, white-tipped vial and thumbed off the rubber stopper, shaking out a green and brown pellet into his palm. Gah, it was bitter going down. His entire mouth puckered at the sharp taste. Out came a water bottle. Aleks chugged half of its contents to dull the aftertaste.

Minutes passed like cold honey through a straw. Two. Three. By his reckoning, a good seven minutes had passed before the pain finally yielded. He sagged in relief. Muscles he hadn't realized had been clenched tight unlocked in tentative stages. Aleks took his first easy breath.

He waited only until he could move without a resurgence of pain before he collected himself, returning the first-aid kit into the bag and sealing it up. Each movement was gingerly executed as he tested for pain triggers.

Satisfied, he looked around.

He whistled low, his eyes widening as he climbed to his feet using a tree trunk for support. There was no sign of civilization in any direction. Trees surrounded him like silent sentinels, the very air feeling empty in its quietness. Oh, a few birds chirruped away overhead, but the forest felt untouched. No hiking trails, no dirt roads for park personnel, no indication of abandoned camp sites. It was as if he'd stumbled back in time a few hundred years.

Right, Hunt, he jeered to himself. 'Cuz that happens in real life.

The air was perfumed with heady botanicals - the green of ripe grass, the occasional hint of gardenia. Eucalyptus? For once, she would have been handy to have along, he admitted, but he dismissed her from his mind. The trees were tall, stately, with the full plumage of spring. A lush, patchy blanket of grass stretched as far as he could see, interspersed with irregular splotches of rich brown dirt.

He sniffed and mentally interpreted what he detected. Deer had been in the area, probably only hours before. Wolves, too, likely trailing their food source. A quick scan assured him that the energy signature he associated with wolves was no longer present. A relief. He was in no shape to tangle with a pack of wolves.

A small smirk hitched up the right side of his mouth. Marcus had always resented how Aleks was able to locate animals with a single look while the alpha and his werewolves were reduced to snuffling at the ground. Naiads saw energy signatures - satyrs the animal and human signatures, dryads those of plant matter. Marcus called it a cheat, especially when hunting, but Aleks never budged from his own position of, "Whatever, dude." How improved sight constituted cheating while an enhanced nose didn't, he had yet to figure out.

But he had that, too. Something he'd neglected to let Marcus know. Tsk, tsk. How neglectful of him.

Small energy signatures lit up the trees in blues and yellows. Squirrels and birds. Nice to know should he decide to lay some traps. Squirrels were small and gamey, but food was food. Ah, even better. A family of rabbits hid under a massive shrub not far off, invisible to the naked eye. Coney stew. Not bad. Not bad at all.

In the distance, a canine silhouette outlined in silvery white loped between the trees, drawing his attention. He focused his attention on the animal, and his belly echoed with the mutt's hunger cramps. Not feral, but approaching desperate. A dog was easy - he could befriend it with a bite of food and the barest use of power.

Creeping closer, he watched the mutt sneeze when it got a nose-full of a skunk's hind end. Aleks chuckled into one hand. Bet that didn't smell so good, huh buddy? The dog - he looked to be a collie mix of some sort - backed away from the odorous animal in question, his entire expression one of, "Oh, foul!" Priceless. Maybe he would befriend the pup. He'd wanted a dog for a long time, but dogs and werewolves did not cohabitate. Not taking no for an answer this time, he abruptly decided. Wherever Marcus might be, he wasn't here, so he had no say this time. Besides, Aleks was done waiting. If he looked harder, he was sure he could find an apartment within his price range and move out.

The picture grew in his mind. He and the dog and no…

Daphne isn't here.

He stopped cold. The expected jubilation flared, but it was overcome by dread. For some reason, he was sure she was supposed to be here. And while he would leave her – And I will, he promised himself – she'd never do the same. The chit was determined that they would be best buds again no matter what he did or said. The chit, needless to say, was crazy. Even if the past could be erased, how could anyone buddy up to that plastic face of hers? Aleks couldn't imagine.

He pursed his lips. Why is she supposed to be here? The gut feeling provided no answers, no matter its unwavering belief. We were running. His foster parents had packed them up. They must have fled the house. As he scanned the area, the big question became, what had happened? How had they been separated?

Duh. He could have hit himself upside the head as his brain finally decided to, you know, work. He sank down onto his knees and again rifled through his duffle.

Dude, where's the cell phone?

Dried food. Water bottles. Clothes. Extra shoes. A compact rifle and ammo. A hunting knife. Even his old mp3 player loaded with his favorite tunes and a worn copy of the Stephen King novel, It.

Aleks grew more desperate, upending the bag and turning pockets inside out. "Where did you put the phone, Marcus?" he hissed.

She took it and ran.

The thought jolted him. Could she have? There was little love lost between them. And while he thought she'd never abandon him, maybe she'd given up, decided to maximize her own chances for survival.

Then she would have stolen the bag, you dope.

His fingers found his father's silver pocket watch, safe in its home in his pants pocket. The smooth silver calmed him, helped him to think. He almost called out for her, but no, if he was free of her, good riddance. No more reminders, no more pain.

Okay. So no cell phone. He'd have to borrow someone's. That meant a trip into town. If he could find one. His gaze zoomed upwards. No telephone lines. That couldn't be right. Maybe if he climbed a tree?

Or maybe not. He was on his feet, but that didn't mean he was steady. Climbing would have to wait should it become necessary. For now, a quick circuit through the area would work.

First, though, the collie awaited. Some chicken jerky should help him win the creature over. Arming himself with knife and rifle as a precaution, he whistled low to draw the mutt's attention as he made his way closer.

Everything felt doable. Positive. He was in his element. Surviving on his own? Piece of cake.

Then he heard people. Wariness flared as his head whipped around to find the source. Abandoning the dog, Aleks jogged in the direction of the voices. Risk calling out? Sourly, he decided he had to. Stumbling around with no idea where he was didn't sound like the brightest of ideas if the government was hunting him.

"Hey, anybody there?" Energy signatures appeared as he rounded a small hill. Horses? No. Too short. Ponies. The boisterous sounds of laughter disappeared at his holler. "Anyone?" He loped past the last tree separating them from view.

And felt his jaw drop.

His gaze swept over the party, cataloguing, in escalating disbelief. An old man in gray robes with a pointed hat and long beard. A short man with curly hair and big, hairy feet snuffling into a ragged bit of cloth. And thirteen more men with proper foot attire and broad shoulders, all shorter than Aleks, hairy men with full, braided beards.

"Well now," the old man said, head tilted to the side as if inspecting him.

The others were not so reserved. Swords, axes, and one iron ladle appeared in hands as thirteen suspicious eyes beamed his way.

Swords.

Axes.

Attire ranging from a nice if outdated suit on the bare-footed guy to the scruffy stuff the majority of them wore: furs and leathers, homespun tunics with wide leather belts. If not for the utter absence of additional energy signatures, he'd have sworn he'd stumbled upon a prank in progress or a movie shoot. The scene didn't make sense without a hidden party ready to jump out of a bush and proclaim, "You're on candid camera!" Barring that explanation, there was only one other logical conclusion to draw. They were RP nuts.

Daphne would have fit right in. She must have read the Lord of the Rings trilogy a thousand times. This type of role-playing was right up her alley.

Adults reduced to make-believe. It was pathetic.

"So which of you is supposed to be King Arthur?"