Chapter 2

Monday was not off to a great start.

I'd rolled out of bed with good intentions. Having guests in the house meant extra mouths to feed, so I decided to make myself useful and cook breakfast. I'd already finished a stack of French toast and was starting in on some eggs and bacon when my mom sauntered in, carrying a box of donuts.

"Mom!" I said, with some consternation. Though maybe I shouldn't have been surprised. After all, unexpected was my mom's preferred way to visit, since it didn't give my dad a chance to tell her no. But it wasn't like her to drop by first thing on a Monday morning.

"Hey, sweetie." Mom set down the box of donuts and walked over to me, dropping a kiss on my head. "Smells yummy."

"Thanks," I said, trying not to sound too annoyed.

I'm not a huge fan of either my mom's motherly gestures or her compliments on my homemaking skills, since I've been more in the business of taking care of her the last few years than the other way around. But I do my best not to let my irritation show. It hurts her feelings, and only leads to fighting.

Her presence put me on edge, though. It's always awkward to have Mom here, in the house that she designed but no longer lives in. She's always commenting on the changes, and attributing anything she dislikes to Mercy's poor taste. Mom knows as well as anyone that the "redecorating" has a lot more to do with werewolves breaking things than it does with Mercy, but that doesn't stop her from trying to get her digs in. Which I don't appreciate, because A) I like Mercy, and B) if Mom really wanted to stay in this house, she could have.

"Dad's not here," I told her. She could have been here to see me, of course, but I got the feeling that wasn't the case.

I hadn't known Dad was gone when I woke up, but I knew it now. If he or Mercy had been here, they would have heard Mom's car approach, and they would have made an appearance by now.

Although surely the members of the pack left on guard duty were aware of her presence. What happened to protecting our territory? I wondered grumpily. Aren't they supposed to keep unwanted visitors out of the house?

I felt a little guilty for thinking this. But the guilt immediately began to recede when my mom made an irritated noise and said, "Well, where is he? It's Monday morning. Shouldn't he be here?"

"He had pack business," I said, flipping the bacon over. I didn't know this for sure, but with everything that had gone on yesterday, I suspected it was true.

"I see," Mom said, sounding critical. "Did he say when he'd be back?"

"No, Mother," I said, with a little more attitude than was probably necessary. "Believe it or not, Dad doesn't present me with an itemized itinerary of his whereabouts every morning. If you really want to know, you could ask-"

But I didn't get to finish that sentence. Because just then, someone snuck up behind me and grabbed my butt.

"What the-" I whirled around, enraged, to see the mini-X-men fire-tamer. His head head barely came up to my shoulder.

As a rule, I don't hit kids. But I do not allow anyone to grab my butt without permission, either. And despite the mini-X-man's appearance, I was pretty positive that I was not dealing with a child here. So I didn't hesitate before I whacked him across the face with my spatula.

It was extremely satisfying, for about ten seconds. But then Mom planted herself in front of me and started yelling at Kid Gropey-Hands, which left my brain free to process what had just happened. The gross feeling of being violated sank in really quickly.

Mini-X-man is lucky I'm not a werewolf, or I would have thrown him through a wall.

Darryl saved me the trouble by storming into the kitchen and picking Kid Groper up by the throat. Darryl didn't need to ask what had happened; Mom had been yelling loud enough that even if Darryl hadn't been a werewolf, he'd probably have heard the whole thing.

Darryl's presence didn't exactly bring instant resolution, though. Now we had a werewolf and a fire-caster in very close quarters, and nobody was around who could talk either of them down. Which meant that within a matter of seconds, Darryl's hand started to smoke and burn.

So you can imagine my relief when Mercy walked into the room. She paused, assessing the situation - then, in typical Mercy fashion, she strolled casually over to the Spudnuts box my mom had brought and picked out a doughnut.

I stayed pressed against the kitchen counter, well out of groping range, while Mercy diffused the situation. My dad came in at a theatrically appropriate moment and threatened to rip Fire Boy's arms off if he touched me again. Within a matter of minutes the little creepwad (whose name was apparently Aiden) was apologizing to everybody in the room.

He got through my mom, Darryl, Mercy, and my dad, and then he stopped. As though he thought he was done.

So I cleared my throat. Loudly.

Aiden gave me a look of loathing that pretty much summed up how I felt about him. "I'm very sorry you don't appreciate the honor I did you," he said. "I won't make that mistake again."

If I had fangs and claws and my father's temper, he would've been toast.

But since I'm me, the only thing I could do was inform him, in a very non-veiled manner, that I would gladly impale him if he ever tried something like that again.

Then the eggs started to burn.

I tossed the ruined batch, and then everyone mercifully dispersed, Mercy taking Aiden out of the house and into the backyard.

I finished cooking breakfast and fixed myself a plate, trying to calm down while I ate. But it's not exactly easy to bounce back after a scene like that first thing in the morning. A full belly helped a little. But no sooner had I finished eating and put the leftovers away than the doorbell rang.

The visitor was Uncle Mike. Generally speaking, I like Uncle Mike, but his appearance did not exactly lift my spirits. I hadn't seen him since the fae were forced onto the reservations. If I'd needed another clue that something massive was about to go down, this would have confirmed all my suspicions. I let him in and alerted Mercy to his presence, then ran upstairs to get ready for school before I was late.

I tried not to let the morning bother me. But I couldn't help thinking that if I'd just slept in, I could have avoided the whole mess altogether. My mom. Groper Boy. Uncle Mike.

Tomorrow, I decided, I'd skip cooking breakfast.

Warren was my bodyguard at school that day.

The pack members try to act like that's not what they're doing when they drive me to school, but duh, obviously it is. They can't follow me to class, which I'm grateful for, but somehow Dad got them permission to loiter on school grounds all day and listen in.

I do not entirely appreciate this. But I can't resent my dad for it, either. After all, there are some pretty scary creatures out there, and I did get kidnapped that one time.

Anyway, it could be worse. The wolves can't actually hear everything that goes on at school - there's too much overlapping noise. They're mostly just there so I can yell if anything alarming happens. And to make sure no one tries to ambush me on the way to or from school.

Which means school is still a pretty good cover for Izzy and me to talk, even when I have babysitters.

But we didn't get as much talking in that day as I'd hoped, because school was weird.

I've gotten more or less used to my fellow students treating me like a social pariah. Anytime something happens publicly with the werewolves, I have to put on extra mental armor to be able to face my classmates. That morning, I braced myself for the usual round of rude comments and dirty looks. After the pack's violent takedown of the troll yesterday, I half-expected to see parents yanking their kids out of school again.

However, the reaction was not what I expected.

Almost as soon as I walked in, someone made a wolf-howling noise. A few other students joined in. I put my head down and made a beeline for my locker. But as I walked by, one of the guys yelled, "Go Team Werewolf!" And another guy yelled, "Suck it, trolls!" I finally glanced over, mostly to see whether they were mocking me.

"I was at the bridge yesterday. That was sick!" one of them called.

I gave them a vague wave and kept walking.

Huh. They seemed to be...not mocking me.

There have always been people at school fascinated by the idea of werewolves, but I'd never gotten wolf-positive comments from any of those guys before.

And that was just the beginning. I had people coming up to me all day long, wanting to share their enthusiasm over the bridge troll defeat. Even my homeroom teacher, Ms. Pierpont, who'd given me sour looks since the day the werewolf announcement was made, gave me something akin to a smile.

It wasn't unpleasant, but it was a little unnerving. People who'd been treating me like a leper three days ago were now looking at me with genuine admiration in their eyes. Not admiration for me, of course. It was all for the pack. But still. Weird. I wondered how long this would last.

"I give it three days, tops," I said to Izzy at lunch.

"I don't know," Izzy said thoughtfully, licking yogurt off her spoon. "This could be a game changer. I don't think most people have thought about the wolves as public defenders before."

"That's because they've never been public defenders before."

"That's not true. From what I hear, they defend the public all the time - they've just never done it, you know, publicly."

"Well, right now what they seem to be intent on defending is a little creepwad who can't keep his hands to himself. And also who doesn't seem like he needs our protection very much." I'd already filled Izzy in on the incident this morning. In true best friend fashion, she'd offered to bring about Aiden's demise in various creative ways.

Now, though, she squinched her mouth up to the side, looking thoughtful. "Yeah, that's true," she said slowly. "Kid Groper is pretty powerful. He took the fire out of your lava-dog and he almost burned Darryl's hand off."

"That's a slight exaggeration."

"Plus, he ruined your mom's tile. What exactly is the little pyro on the run from that he, Tad, and Zee can't take down on their own? It has to be the Gray Lords, right?"

"What else could it be?" But even as I said it, I got the nagging feeling that there was something else. My dad and Mercy had dealt with the Gray Lords before. If the Gray Lords were really as powerful as all that, why would they be intimidated by my dad's pack? Werewolves had pack magic, but they couldn't spontaneously set things on fire. For example.

"You think it's something else," Izzy said, reading my expression correctly.

"I don't know. I feel like I don't have enough information to make an educated guess."

Izzy was about to respond when someone said, "Hey, um, Jesse?"

I turned to see a random freshman girl and her friends standing by our table.

"Hi," I said.

"Um, I..." - the girl got poked in the back by one of her friends - "I mean, we just wanted to tell you we thought that what the wolves did on the bridge yesterday was cool. Like, really cool. It's awesome that they're defending the city. Well, the Tri-Cities. Anyway, we just wanted to say, um, thanks. To your dad and everyone."

"Thanks," I told them. "I'll tell my dad that. He'll appreciate it."

"Really? Cool!" The freshman girl went a bit red in the face, and she and her friends hurried off.

Izzy looked pleased. "What did I tell you? You already have a fan club."

"My dad has a fan club."

"Po-tay-to, po-tah-to," Izzy said."Back to the point. You have more information on the supernatural than anybody else around here. So...what's out there that's more powerful than the Gray Lords?"

"Erm," I said. My first thought was the witches, but there really weren't very many of them anymore. Not enough to challenge the fae, anyway. Plus, the appearance of both Uncle Mike today and the troll yesterday suggested that whatever was going down, it was 100% fae related. "Underhill," I said suddenly. "The fae are in our world in the first place because Underhill kicked them out."

"But isn't Underhill, like...a place?"

"Yeah. But it's not a place like the Tri-Cities are a place. Or even like the fae reservation is a place. It's magical. It has a mind of its own. It has to, or why else would it have gotten feisty and kicked all the fae out?"

"That is a good point," Izzy said. "Also: creepy."

"Yeah," I agreed. "Underhill is the only thing I can think of that's more powerful than the Gray Lords."

"Hey, Jesse!" This time, we were interrupted by a group of underclassmen guys I didn't recognize. For some reason, they felt the need to reenact the events of yesterday for me. The narration included such choice descriptions as: "The wolves were all like GRAWWR, get off our bridge! But the troll was all like, RAHHH, the bridge is mine!"

Izzy finally shooed them away. But we lost a good chunk of our discussion time.

"Right," Izzy huffed. "Where were we? Oh, right, Underhill. Okay, so you think Sir-Gropes-A-Lot got tangled up with Underhill somehow?"

"Maybe," I said. "Probably." It was frustrating to know so much and yet have so little actual information. Mercy usually told me things if I asked, but it was trickier now, since she was all pack-bonded to my dad. Also, there hadn't been time to grill her yet.

"So what about Tad?"

"Huh?"

"Tad? You know, college guy currently sleeping down the hall from you? Likes to hide his ability to create gigantic javelin spears out of tiny pieces of metal?"

"What about him?"

Izzy rolled her eyes. "Don't be dense on purpose."

"I'm not being dense on purpose," I said. "You need to specify what you want me to comment on regarding Tad."

"Okay, multiple questions. First: how long have you known he could do the metal bendy stuff? Second: how long has been all Flirty McFlirting with you? Third: Do you think he and Zee are on the run from the same thing as Kid Groper? Fourth: why did they team up with Kid Groper in the first place? Fifth-"

"I think four is enough to start with," I said, mostly because I could tell that fifth was going to be something I didn't like.

"Fifth: have you run into Tad wearing nothing but his boxer shorts yet?"

I groaned. "Izzy, why would Tad be walking around my house wearing nothing but his boxers, and also why would you ask about that?"

"I refer you to question two."

I rolled my eyes. "Okay, I will answer your questions in sequence if you promise not to ask about Tad in his boxers again."

"I promise nothing."

I glared at her, but she was unimpressed.

"If you don't answer, I will be forced to speculate."

"Fine," I said. One of the benefits of being an Alpha werewolf's daughter, as opposed to an actual Alpha werewolf, is that it doesn't matter if I occasionally lose a staring contest. "Okay, first: I never saw Tad in action until yesterday, but I guessed about his magic a long time ago." I dropped my voice, even though in the noisy cafeteria I doubted anyone could overhear us. "And the Gray Lords know what he can do now, too. Which means they're interested in him. Which...isn't good, to say the least.

"Second: We've always flirted, but it doesn't mean anything.

"Third: I have no idea what's going on with Tad and Zee. I haven't heard anything about them in weeks. I didn't even know they were back until yesterday. They-"

"What do you mean, you didn't know they were back?"

Crap.

Izzy, like everyone else, had assumed Tad was away at college until yesterday.

I really wasn't supposed to be sharing so much with her, but I hated keeping my best friend in the dark - in the same way I hated when my dad and Mercy kept me in the dark. The more public everything got with the wolves and the fae, the less I was convinced it mattered to keep things close to the vest. At least when it came to Izzy.

So I lowered my voice again and said, "You know how Mercy's workshop was destroyed a couple months ago? Well, Tad was there. He helped fight off the lava monster that eventually became Joel, and in the process he showed what he could do for the first time. That was when the Gray Lords got interested in him. He's been gone since then. In Fairyland."

Izzy threw up her hands. "You see why I have to interrogate you? Always with the secret keeping."

"Sorry, Iz. I wanted to tell you, but it's Tad's business. I didn't think I had a right to-"

"Yeah, yeah," Izzy said, waving this away. She gets why I have to keep things hidden. But also, she just rarely gets mad about things. Which I appreciate after growing up in a house full of short-tempered werewolves. "Okay, so: four?" Izzy prompted.

I tried to remember what question four was. "Oh, right," I said. "Kid Groper. Um...I'm not sure how he ended up with Tad and Zee. But they seem to feel like they owe him. Which is unusual for Zee, to say the least."

"Hmm," Izzy said. She looked like she was about to start another line of speculation, but we were interrupted by the bell. "Damn. Okay, you should definitely ask Tad about all this tonight. We need more intel."

I shook my head as we gathered up our stuff. "Izzy, I can't just ask Tad what he and his father are on the run from. Whatever happened...it can't be good." And I didn't mean that in a general sense. I meant it in the specific sense of I know what it's like to be taken somewhere against your will and held captive, and I am the last person in the world who's going to interrogate somebody about that.

Izzy caught the tone in my voice, and gave me a sympathetic look. She knew exactly what I was talking about. "Maybe you really should ask him, then," she said thoughtfully. "What if he needs to talk about it?"

"Then I'm sure he can pick his own person to confide in."

"Humph," Izzy said as we filed out of the cafeteria. We stopped by our lockers to swap our lunch bags for books. "I still think you should try, Jess. There are no other young people in your dad's house - and if you ask me, Tad looked like he needed a friend."

"Tad has his dad. And Mercy."

"That's not the same."

"Maybe not, but Tad's an adult. I'm-"

"Also an adult," Izzy pointed out. This was true; I'd recently turned eighteen.

"I was going to say still in high school. That makes a difference."

"I think it makes way more of a difference that you know the whole truth about him. How many of Tad's college friends can say that? More to the point, how many of his college friends are here?"

Izzy made some good points. But I think she was overestimating how well I really knew Tad. It was one thing to goof off and flirt with him. But it was another thing to go prying into his emotions. There were whole parts of Tad I got the sense he didn't want anybody to touch. "I'll see if an opportunity comes up," I said, to appease Izzy.

The minute bell rang, and Izzy and I split ways. I was halfway down the hall when Izzy turned around and yelled, "FIVE?"

"NO!" I yelled back.

People stared, but I was used to that.

When Warren dropped me off after school, Dad and Mercy were gone. So was my mom. Warren had explained on the way home that my mom was off to the Bahamas - for safety reasons, apparently - and Dad was off for a clandestine meeting with Mercy. Neither piece of information told me anything except that whatever sort of trouble was brewing had already begun to spill over.

I needed to think about all this. I grabbed an apple and sliced myself some cheese in the kitchen for brain food, then retreated to my room.

The more I thought about it, the more brilliant I felt to have come up with the notion of Underhill at the lunch table. But I wasn't really sure how much I could extrapolate from there. I decided to start with the facts I actually knew. To help organize my thoughts, I jotted down the following list while I munched on my apple:

1. Tad & Z taken by Gray Lords b/c of Tad's power - now on run.

2. Kid Groper also on run - allied w/Tad & Z

3. Troll bridge attack (how/why?)

4. Uncle Mike cameo = more fae involved than Tad, Z & Gray Lds.

5. Mercy's sanctuary deal = pack in danger. My mom, et al = potential targets

I stopped at #5 and considered the implications.

Mercy had made her declaration on the bridge yesterday, and today my dad was packing my mom off to the Bahamas because of a threatening note she'd gotten from the fae.

I had expected trouble, but this was escalating pretty quickly. It occurred to me that unless Mercy and my dad could diffuse this situation as quickly as they'd diffused the situation in the kitchen this morning, we were probably in for another direct attack on the house at some point.

It wouldn't be the first time. But the first time it had happened, I'd been kidnapped. I wasn't about to let that happen again.

I paused and took a mental inventory of all the weapons in the house that I knew how to use. Mercy had showed me how to fire one of her guns not too long ago. In case diplomacy failed, I decided I'd better make sure it was still stored where I thought it was. Now seemed as good a time as any.

I kept my mind on the list as I walked down the hall. How did Tad, Zee, and Groper McGee get to be such good friends? I wondered. Zee didn't have any friends besides Mercy, as far as I could tell. And he and Tad had been locked away for the last few weeks. They must have all met while they were under the influence of the Gray Lords.

I supposed that made sense. Bonding in captivity was as good a reason to befriend someone as any.

But then why had Kid Groper been snatched by the Gray Lords? For his magic? That was why they'd taken Tad, after all. Was the little creepwad half-human, too? Or was there just something about his fire magic the Gray Lords wanted?

I didn't know enough about the nature of fae magic to know whether fire wielding was as rare as metal magic. Probably not, I guessed, since metal made most fae sick, and as far as I knew there was no such thing as a fire allergy. Unless you counted being flammable as a fire allergy.

Anyway.

There had to be something unique about Aiden, or the Gray Lords wouldn't have bothered with him.

I reached the room where Mercy's gun was usually stored, and was relieved to find that both the gun and the ammunition were where I thought they'd be. Well, that was one less thing to worry about if shit hit the fan, anyway.

I went back to my room and flopped on my bed, pondering the problem of Kid Groper. Maybe Underhill and Kid Groper were connected in some way, though I didn't understand how.

I'd been sprawled on my bed for about a minute when there was a knock on the door. "Come in," I said, because I didn't feel like getting up.

It was Tad. I sat up. "Hey!" I said, running a hand through my hair. It probably couldn't have gotten too messed up in sixty seconds, but you never knew.

"Hey. Can I talk to you for a sec?"

"Sure."

Tad shut the door and grabbed my desk chair, flipping it around and sitting down on it backwards. I crossed my legs, reflecting on how lame it was to live in a house where most of the other occupants could hear what you were saying, no matter where you were. It really took the thrill out of being alone with a guy in your room. Even if the guy was just Tad.

"So," Tad said, drumming on the back of the chair. "I heard about what happened this morning with Aiden."

"Oh, you mean Kid Gropes-A-Lot? Yeah, that was fun for the whole family."

Tad got a look that suggested he didn't exactly appreciate this description, but that he couldn't really argue with it, either. "Aiden's...not exactly from this time."

"Yeah, I gathered that from the way he told my dad he thought I was 'but a servant.' Although personally, I don't think being born way in the past excuses you from being a decent person. Because I'm pretty sure there were decent men in all time periods who didn't go around randomly grabbing women's butts to prove a point. And the fact that Fire Boy groped me because he thought I was lower class, or whatever, just makes it worse. Like-what, first you make the servants do all the work and then you violate them for their trouble? Just so you can prove you're dominant or virile or whatever? Right, because that's sooooo impressive. Look at you, going for the weak ones who can't fight back! That shows you're a real stud."

Tad's lips pressed into a thin line. For a moment, he looked very grave and a little disapproving. I was about to keep ranting when I realized his lips were twitching.

I stared at him. "Excuse me. Are you laughing?"

Tad shook his head. But I could tell from the way he was holding his mouth that he'd only shaken his head because he couldn't speak.

"This is not funny!" I said, and threw a pillow at him.

Tad couldn't hold it in anymore; he burst out laughing. "I'm sorry," he said, catching the pillow. He was still laughing helplessly. "I know it's not funny. It's just...you."

"What do you mean, me?" I said, crossing my arms.

He shook his head. "I don't...I can't explain it. You're just so...you, Jesse."

I rolled my eyes. "Well, that clears things up."

He tossed the pillow back. "I told you I couldn't explain it."

"Fine. What did you come here to explain, then? Don't tell me you just came here to defend Kid Groper."

"No. Well, not entirely," he said, sobering up a little. Then he rubbed his eyes, looking suddenly old and tired again. "I can't defend what he did, Jesse. But I do think there are a few things you ought to know about him."

"All right," I said. I wasn't especially interested in hearing more about Aiden. But if Mercy and my dad had determined he was worth continuing to protect, I figured there must be something worth listening to.

Also, Izzy would kill me if I said no.

"Okay," Tad said. Whatever knowledge he had of Aiden must be weighing on him, because the dark look on his face now made me almost sorry I'd told him to stop laughing. "Aiden's been trapped in Underhill since the ninth century," he began. "He was only human, at first. But Underhill gave him fire magic. There were others, too - humans Underhill granted elemental powers to. But every one of them is dead now except for Aiden. And he hasn't been in our world for two millennia."

I felt briefly like a genius for having figured out that there was some connection between Underhill and Aiden, despite nobody telling me a damn thing. Then I asked: "How did you meet him, then?"

"When Aiden escaped Underhill, he was taken by the Gray Lords," Tad said, his expression growing darker. He sighed, rubbing the heel of his hand against his forehead. Evidently, he'd had too many conversations like this one today. "Aiden helped me and Dad escape. We had help from others, too - but there was a moment when we almost got caught again. Aiden could have gone on and saved himself, but he didn't. He came back for us."

"So now you owe him."

"Yes. But it's not just that. He...Underhill's not a safe place, Jesse. Whatever I went through at the hands of the Gray Lords is nothing compared to what he's been through. And now he's two thousand years old, trapped in the body of a ten-year-old, and he doesn't understand anything about the modern world. And the Gray Lords are hunting him."

I nodded. "I see," I said slowly. "I get why you're all helping him. I do." Underhill and the Gray Lords had been screwing with people's lives - and particularly when it came to what they'd done to Tad and Zee, I thought it was high time that they all go screw themselves instead. "But funnily enough, that doesn't make me feel less violated."

Tad looked pained. "I'm sorry. I wish I'd been there. I could have stopped it all before it started. I-"

"He's not your responsibility, Tad," I said quietly. "He's two thousand years old. He can answer for his own actions."

"Yeah," Tad said, rubbing his eyes again. "Well, anyway...I just thought you ought to know. He screwed up with you, but he does have some redeeming qualities."

"I'll keep that in mind," I said.

Tad nodded and got up, flipping my desk chair around to put it back in his place.

"Wait," I said. Tad was looking all weary again. I didn't like the thought of him leaving looking so exhausted. Maybe I could at least make him laugh again. Unfortunately, I didn't have any jokes in mind.

Actually, I didn't have anything in mind.

But now Tad was standing there looking at me expectantly. "You said you didn't entirely come to defend Kid Grope-Hands. Did you come for any other reason?" I said, feeling lame.

"Oh." Tad scratched his head. "Um...just to make sure you were all right, I guess. Considering everything that's going on."

I nodded. "Yeah I'm as all right as I can be, considering. What about you?"

"About the same," he said. But there was so little truth behind the smile he gave me that I refused to accept this answer. I had to do something.

I hopped off the bed and walked over to my desk, rummaging through one of the drawers. "Well, I think there's one thing we can definitely prove upon, considering the circumstances."

"What's that?" he said, his eyebrows disappearing behind his overlong hair.

I shut the drawer, and held up the scissors I'd retrieved. "We can do something about your hair."