Page 3 of Beyond the Winter Kingdom
My forearm pressed into his throat and then angled upward, lifting him a few inches off the floor while he started to cough and grab onto my arm in the hopes I wouldn’t crush his windpipe. “You’re the one who hired her to kidnap my nephew.”
Meera didn’t confirm or deny, but I didn’t need her to. I knew her contract prevented her from revealing who hired her, even in our current situation. Apparently, inadvertently saying she’d never take a job from him again was a workaround to the magic that bound her to silence.
“Tell me where he is,” I growled, my jaw muscles tensing.
“I don’t know?—”
“Who paid you for him?”
Lou shook his head slightly. “Can’t.” He tried to take a breath but struggled. “Contract.”
I pulled a dagger from my belt, aiming the blade at his gut. “You’d better figure out what you can say, and you’d better do it quick.”
“You really don’t wanna do this,” the leprechaun wheezed through gritted teeth and a slowly shrinking windpipe. Despite the position of power I held over him, he didn’t seem afraid, only wary.
“Oh, I very much do,” I ground out. “Give me one reason why I shouldn’t.”
“Because we have dibs on killing the fucker first,” an unfamiliar female voice said, cutting in.
Lou closed his eyes and groaned. Meera and I turned to see a group of crazed redheads that had entered through the front door of the inn, but that wasn’t what caught me off guard.
Meera’s mouth fell open in shock. “Mom?”
Chapter 2
Meera
My parents and four brothers burst through the door, looking ready to fight their way out of hell. My mother held Babe, her trusty metal baseball bat, propped against her shoulder. While my brothers often did the shakedowns when people attempted to screw my family over, they had to learn from somewhere—and it wasn’t our father.
In all of the nine realms, Molly Wylde was one of the greatest forces to be reckoned with. As if we didn’t even exist, she ignored me and Vareck entirely when she stormed over and shoved the end of the bat under Lou’s chin in a violent threat.
“I’m gonna beat you within an inch of your life, you manipulative, lying twat!” Her blood-red hair was frizzy and disheveled. She had a murderous, crazed look in her eyes right until she glanced over at me and her face brightened. “Oh, hello dear. I’m so glad you’re safe,” she said softly, cupping my face with her free hand before she returned her ire on Lou. Her tone increased again to a rage-driven decibel. “You have fucked with my family for the last time, leprechaun. After I bleed you dry, I’m going to bathe in what’s left of you.” The way she oscillated is what made her all the more intimidating. The men in my family were predictable. Mostly. The women, not so much.
“I think that’s a bit dramatic,” Lou whispered, despite Vareck’s hold on him.
My eldest brother, Atlas, elbowed our dad in a friendly way, and a small grin curled up one side of his mouth. “I told you if we followed this shady fuck we’d find her.”
Fearghal and Darroch fist-bumped each other and then recrossed their arms, standing like ominous bodyguards.
Cadoc, the second eldest, stood next to my mom, twirling a knife in his palm. Copper bracers circled his wrists. His vicious gaze was focused on Lou. If he was surprised or even happy to see me alive, you couldn’t tell.
I stood there in shock. “You’re all here,” I said slowly, looking between each of them. “In Faerie.”
“Bloody realms!” Farris yelled, coming out of the kitchen. He dropped the broom pan he’d retrieved, letting it clatter on the floor as he pressed his palms against his face. “There’s more of ya! Get out before ya break everythin’!”
The poor innkeeper was ignored, even by me.
“Why are you here?” I asked, finally regaining my ability to string my thoughts together in a coherent sentence.
“Saving you,” Darroch said with a huff, as though it were obvious. “What’s it look like?”
My father knocked him upside the head with an open palm. “Don’t be a knob.”
I tossed my arms out. “Hello! Can I please get a real answer? It’s not that I’m not happy to see you, but I’m confused about how you showed up here, of all places. At a tavern. In Warwick.”
“Of course, darling,” my mother said with a smile. She jammed the end of the bat into Lou’s jaw. I cringed when his teeth clanked loudly. “You’ve been gone for over ten days, and none of us had heard a thing. Sadie went missing while she was trying to find you, so we hired this dolt to find her.”
“Of all people, you hired Lou?” I said, jutting my thumb at my broker. “After all the shit you gave me for taking jobs from him?”
