“What the hell does that mean?”
“That’s what he said to me,” Cassidy said. “In the cave. He said his people were the dokk alfar. He called the Fae the… something that sounded German.”
“Hoch alfar,” Jace said, breaking in. “It’s of Scandinavian derivation. It means, literally, high elf. Dokk alfar can be translated as dark elf.”
“There’s elves now?” Xavier asked. “What is this—Lord of the Rings? Pointy ears, long hair, bows and arrows?”
“Goddess, you’re ignorant,” Reid sneered.
Cassidy scented it, Reid’s body heating into the flare that built right before he vanished. “Diego.”
Diego dug the rifle into Reid’s stomach. “I can tranq you before you can fire up. Just stay here and answer, or you’re going to have one hell of a hangover.”
Jace came to them, still interested in Reid’s revelation. “Where do you think Tolkien got his ideas for his elves? From the legends of the Fae—from Celtic, Norse, and Anglo-Saxon stories. I’ve never seen a dark Fae, never knew they existed.”
“They exist,” Reid said. “I exist.”
“So, you’re not half Fae,” Eric said.
“No.” He shot Cassidy a derisive look. “I am pure.”
Cassidy had had enough. She advanced on him, ready to shift, ready to gut him.
“Why Donovan? Why him?” The last word robbed her of breath. Grief, rage, sorrow, confusion took hold of her. “And don’t you dare say he was only Shifter.”
To her amazement, Reid looked ashamed. “He wasn’t supposed to die,” he said. “I’m sorry. Those hunters killed him before I could stop them.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Cassidy advanced again, unable to stop herself, the bare floor cool on her feet. “What are you talking about? You told me you needed his blood. And my blood. Nothing personal, you said.”
“Shifter blood, yes.” Reid’s face was pasty, his breathing shallow. “I was going to take an un-Collared Shifter. These hunters had bagged un-Collareds before, and I paid them to do so again. I told them to keep the Shifter alive. But when I got there… when I got there…” A shudder went through him. “They’d shot him and pulled off his Collar. Stupid. Stupid. And then, when I knew that I’d have used his blood anyway, if the police hadn’t come too soon… I knew then… what I’d become. What they’d made me become…”
Anguish flooded his voice as much as it flooded Cassidy’s. The man moaned, his head dropping back to the floor.
Cassidy could scent his fear, his despair, and over that, his vast shame. It wrenched at her heart; at the same time, she could find no forgiveness. Donovan was dead. That was all.
Eric and Jace twitched with the heightened emotion in the room, but Diego was coolness itself. He stuck to essentials.
“What who had made you become?” Diego asked.
“The hoch alfar,” Reid said. “The f**king hoch alfar, who do you think? They took me because I was a danger to them. They killed my family and put me in this place. This human place.”
Diego prodded Reid with the rifle. “A little bit more. If you’re one of these dark elves, how did you join the police force? How do you have a name, a home, a social security number?”
“I’ve been here a long time. So long. Fifty human years. They exiled me. And for what? So that my dokk alfar, who lived in the land the hoch alfar warrior wanted, wouldn’t get in his way. I fought him. I’m very strong, a damn better warrior than any of them. I led my people against them. But in the end, there were too many. They killed my family and friends most loyal to me. They took me—the one who dared rise against them—and they shoved me here. To die, they thought. Stupid hoch alfar, think dokk alfar can’t take iron. Hell, we invented iron.”
“So you found yourself here,” Diego said, still calm. “What did you do then?”
Reid shrugged, as much as he could while bound hand and foot. “The humans didn’t notice any difference in me from themselves. They don’t believe anything until it’s shoved under their noses. I blended in. I became Stuart Reid. Paperwork was easier to fake fifty years ago. I’ve been Stuart Reid for a long time, moving before people caught on that I age more slowly than humans do.”
“And you tried to go back?” Diego asked.
“I tried, I tried, and I couldn’t. It doesn’t work for me to go to the weak places on the ley lines—the stone circles and whatever—which is how the hoch alfar cross. It doesn’t always work for the dokk alfar. The magic is different. So I searched for humans who knew Fae lore, as I told you. The ritual I found in that grimoire used the blood of a Shifter, in a spell performed at the spring equinox. It’s supposed to open the gate.”
“Great,” Jace said softly.
“I’d already been a police officer for a while,” Reid said. “I was good at it. In my world, I was a warrior and an enforcer. I easily passed the tests to get into the police. Once I found the spell that used Shifters, I got myself transferred into Shifter Division. I figured it was just a matter of time before I found an un-Collared Shifter that I could use. When the hunting law changed, I saw a way to speed up the process. I found some hunters experienced in tracking down un-Collared Shifters and paid them to help me. Except, they were hot to kill any Shifter, Collared or otherwise. They shot Donovan Grady before I could stop them, then pulled off his Collar to try to fool the cops…”
The speech, delivered rapid-fire, faded.
In the silence that followed, Cassidy could hear Nell talking to Shane and Brody outside. Warm, family conversation, so different from the anger and fear in this room.
“Are you telling me you would have let Donovan live once they’d captured him?” Cassidy asked. “As desperate as you were?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why did you try to kill me? Not just any Shifter, but me in particular?”
Reid met her gaze with eyes like the black of space. “I knew you were his mate. I learned all about you and your family. I became an expert on you. I know that Shifters perform a ritual on the one-year anniversary of a death, and I knew you’d come out there again, right at the equinox. I told myself that you were so unhappy that it wouldn’t matter if the spell killed you. I justified it like that. But when I shot at you, I missed, and you ran. I chased you, so obsessed about doing the damn spell that I didn’t care about anything else. I realized, right then, that the hoch alfar had broken me. They’d made me become a dakhlar who’d sacrifice an innocent being for my own benefit. I’d grab you, use the spell, and deal with my guilt later.”