Page 57 of Resurgence of the Pack

A half-sigh slipped out. ‘What do you need?’

‘I need to get to the Staffordshire Pack. Pronto.’

He looked amused. ‘Nothing in this time is pronto, Lucy.’

‘I thought of that and I allowed a day for travel.’

Ali snorted. ‘It’ll take you four days of carriage travel to get there.’ As I started to swear loudly, he relented. ‘That’s some vocabulary. So a carriage is out, but you could use the trains.’

I brightened. ‘Brilliant!’

‘Not really. There will be reduced service for New Year. You’ll need a night’s stopover in Birmingham.’

‘Okay, that’s not so bad. I kind of like the accent there.’

‘The accent isn’t the problem, it’s the gangs you’ll have to contend with. The Peaky Blinders, the CheapsideSloggers, the Gun Quarter, Garrisons Lane, Ten Arches and Bishop Ryders. The Sloggers are your biggest concern. They’re run by Timmy Krieg. He’s Other, and so is his little crew.’

‘What are they?’ Greg asked, looking grim.

‘Besides lawless hoodlums? They’re all types of Other folk under the sun. Krieg is happy to use you, as long as you’re a deadly immoral prick, and there are wolves, vamps, dwarfs, dryads and ogres. It’s a melting pot of the Other and none of them give a shit about the law, Other or otherwise.’

‘So we avoid them,’ I said simply.

Ali shook his head. ‘Not possible. They’ve got eyes on the station. When you roll in with the triangles on your forehead, they’ll be all over you demanding a protection fee.’

Greg grimaced. ‘So we pay them and then we move out.’

‘If you can. If Timmy gets curious about you, you’ll be taken to him regardless of your wishes.’

‘How do you know so much about it?’ I asked nosily.

‘A fire elemental came to us from there. He’s still pretty scarred from his time with the Sloggers. We had to pay Krieg a ransom to get him to “forget” about Torrance. It was worth it because Torrance is a good kid, and Krieg is anything but. Torr ran away from a life of privilege and hestill hasn’t found his way back – his teenage rebellion lasted a shade too long with dangerous results. He’s still working up the courage to rejoin his family, but he doesn’t want to bring scandal to their door.’

‘Telling my story for me, Ali?’ a very familiar posh male voice asked. Chills ran down my spine as I turned to face the newcomer.

It’s you,I whispered to the crown on my head.

One and the same, Your Majesty,Terrance agreed, his tone oddly regretful.

How?

My parents created me the usual way, I assume.He sounded calm, unruffled.

Huh,Esme said.I assumed he’d been in the crown for a very long time, given that it has been called the crown of Torr for hundreds of years.

Yeah, me too. Assumptions,I muttered.

Make us asses,Esme noted.

I realised I was still gaping at Torrance’s human form. Torrance Hargreave was handsome, brown haired, with a dash of freckles and a devil-may-care smile that was looking a little strained as I continued to stare. Oops. ‘Hello,’ I finally managed. ‘I’m Lucy.’

‘Hello, Lucy.’ He bowed and touched a hand to his heart. ‘It is my honour to meet you.’

It was odd to hear my name from his lips because Terrance called me ‘my Queen’ or ‘Your Majesty’. He’d only once spoken my name and, now that I thought of it, it had been with some reverence. I’d assumed that was respect for my position, but now I wasn’t so sure.

‘My fiancé,’ I said faintly. ‘Greg Manners.’

‘My honour to meet you, Torrance.’ Greg was looking at me weirdly; he knew that I was freaking out but not why. I hadn’t told him that Terrance had been renamed by Nina and that his original name had been Torrance. Neither could Greg recognise the stiff speech pattern of the crown since Terrance spoke directly into my head.

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