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Everyone’s first response when I opened the door was to stare at each other. They scanned me as intently as I did them. Ten human years ago, they had been boyish. They were handsome then, but seeing them now stole all the air from my lungs. They were breathtaking. Age did them well. They were harder now, in a way that could make a person feel safe being near them.
They had filled out. Foster was the biggest, muscles straining against his clothes. Jason was fit, but his suit told me his profession had nothing to do with physical strength. Waylon was lean, years of running morphing his body into someone who could not only outrun me, but held a hidden strength not meant to be overlooked.
All three of them looked good. Healthy.
But tired.
Lines of exhaustion deepened the wrinkles in their faces. Darkness mottled the skin underneath their eyes, making them look duller.
I had a feeling I looked similar. Or would have if I were human. I definitely felt as tired as they did.
“Let us in,” Jason said.
I mutely stepped back, unable to find a response. My lips had decided to remain pressed together as I tried to work past the disbelief and fear that swirled inside me.
Never did I ever think I’d see them again, and yet there they were, standing before me. So many emotions crashed into me, and it took all my effort to work through them. Still, I couldn’t begin to explain how I felt.
It was an odd combination of mortification and elation. Of guilt and desire. My love for them had been dulled through the decades, but it was like it was only in hibernation, and now that they were in front of me, it all woke up and slammed into me as a strong force that threatened to scatter me into a million directions.
The silence stretched as we moved into the living room. Their gazes flickered as they took in the room, but there was nothing readable from them and they were strangers now. I couldn’t easily understand them as I did all those years ago.
There were nuances to them that were different, and it hammered in the fact that we couldn’t go back to how things used to be—even if I weren’t in the position that I was in.
“Josie,” Foster whispered.
He came closer, reaching for me. I jumped back, out of reach. His expression fell; any hint of joy in his face disappeared. My heart ached as he fought to hide his pain. There was nothing more I wanted than to feel their touch, but if they did, I’d break.
Jason snorted. “What, too good for us now?”
“That...”
Careful, Berry warned.
I sighed. “What are you doing here?”
Jason flinched, his jaw tightening as his anger rose.
“I think we should ask you that. What are you doing here? Why? What do you want?”
I blinked as his fury slammed into me.
“I...” My shoulders slumped. I didn’t know where to start, what to say. What to tell them. I didn’t prepare for seeing them. I had refused to even think it was a possibility that I’d see them.
“You what?” Jason asked in a dark voice.
“Okay, enough.” Foster stepped between us, creating a barrier of safety. The moment he did that, I felt like I could breathe again. “Jason, we talked about this.”
Jason cursed and glared out the window.
“Josie...” Foster began before stopping himself. He looked like he wanted to reach out for me, but after his first attempt, knew better not to.
“Are you guys hungry?” I blurted out, needing to break some of the tension. “I ordered too much food.”
I motioned at the cart.
Waylon still hadn’t said anything, but he did get up and pour himself some coffee. He grabbed some slices of bacon before sitting down. His eyes stayed on mine, challenging me to something. I wasn’t sure what that was though.
Tell me when and I will bite all of them.
I reached for Berry, drawing comfort from him. It helped. Not a lot, but it helped.
“What is he?” Foster asked, eyeing the dog.
“He’s mine.”
“That’s not an answer.” Foster was pushing for something.
I tilted my head as I tried to figure out what he was trying to find. “What does he look like to you?”
“A fucked-up dog,” Jason muttered. Berry growled a warning.
Foster sighed. “Since this isn’t going to go anywhere unless we dive into it, I’m going to lay it out there. It’s been ten years, we deserve answers.”
They do not deserve anything.
I tightened my grip in Berry’s fur as a reprimand. He got the message and huffed his irritation.
If Foster noticed anything between Berry and me, he didn’t say anything.
“Tell me, what is he?” Foster nodded toward my familiar.
I kept my mouth shut.
“Say it. Say he’s your dog.”
I grunted, my mouth refusing to even attempt to say the words. It’d be a flat out lie.
“Say it’s a wolf then.”
Berry got to his feet and growled, showing off his canines. His eyes glowed, reflecting his anger.
I will eat him.
My shoulders slumped. “You can’t eat him,” I said out loud.
Foster’s eyes widened a fraction as Berry huffed, nose curling in disgust.
I bet he does not taste good anyway. Too much lean meat.
My mouth curled up as I bit back a laugh.
“Josie?” Foster asked cautiously, eyeing Berry, recognizing the threat he had antagonized.
“Meet Berriar.” I rolled the r’s out in a fae accent. Shaking my head, I smiled. “He’s mine. He keeps me safe.” At least that was the truth.
Foster eyed Berry. “That’s good,” he whispered. His gaze mine again, the challenge hardening his face. “Is your name Joslyn Naevana?”
“Yes.”
His eyebrows rose. “Are you still Joslyn Evans?”
I hesitated, went to form the word ‘no’ and realized it didn’t work. I couldn’t say no. Elation flooded through me as I grinned and said, “Yes.” It was the truth. Unbelievably the truth. I didn’t believe I was anymore, even as I replied, but it was still the truth.
I was still Joslyn Evans.
That meant the world to me. More than anything. I wanted to jump around screaming, voicing my excitement at that fact.
I was still me. Despite it all, I was still Joslyn Evans.
“How?” Jason interjected, cutting through my revelation. “How is this even...?” He shook his head.
“Jason,” Waylon warned, finally speaking. “Behave yourself.” His voice was exactly how I remembered it. Smooth as honey, rich as chocolate, dark as sin.
Jason’s mouth clicked shut, and he clenched his hands.
Foster leaned forward, inching closer to me. He was so close, and I desperately wanted to reach out and touch him. But I couldn’t do that. Not if I wanted to keep my sanity. I’d die for them. I’d remain here and die for them. I knew that as well as I knew any other truth about myself.
“You know,” I finally said.
Foster didn’t move for the longest time before finally nodding. I grimaced and glanced at the other two with an unspoken question. Foster picked up on it and answered. “They don’t know like how I know. But they do now. I explained after last night.”
“How are you aware?”
His smile was feral. “The military. Take enough dangerous missions and you start to notice shit.”
I clenched my teeth and glared at the coffee table, unable to look at them. My throat tightened, and I tried to swallow past the screaming fear that was building. They knew I wasn’t human.
That scared the shit out of me. Any shred of hope I had at explaining away what had happened last night fluttered away, not that I had an explanation ready to use anyway.
“You’re one of them,” Foster said.
I flinched.
“You’re fae.”
“Yes.”
The silence in the room pounded against me. No one moved. No one so much as twitched. I ducked my head, letting my hair fall over my face, wishing it were a blanket I could wrap around myself to hide.
“Josie,” Foster said in a heartbroken voice. “Look at me.”
“No.”
“Josie.”
Whether he cared about my reaction or not, he still reached out for me. Still touched me. One hand moved my hair out of my face, the other grabbed my chin and steadied me as he forced me to face him.
His touch was electrifying. It burned. His warmth dug into my skin and scorched my soul.
“Don’t,” I warned, trying to move away from him. I couldn’t handle it. I was cracking.
“Josie.” Foster tried again. He wrapped his arm around my shoulder, pulling me into him. His body was hard, firm. Steady. Foster had always been a steady rock. Decades. Decades of missing his touch, missing all of their touches, and suddenly it was there again. Still the same. His scent, his gentleness. None of it changed. His presence seeped into me, tore me open.
Fear slammed into me. “No!” I shoved him away, hard. Magic followed, forcing him away, using its strength to make up for what my body lacked. It did what I wanted. It forced Foster away from me. “Do not touch me.” I bared my teeth at him.
“Shit.” Jason was on his feet, moving to the other side of the room, closer to the door, his eyes round with fear. Waylon didn’t move, his stillness eating at me.
Foster. He was the opposite. He refused my request.
“No.” He gritted his teeth and grabbed me. Before I could fight back, he had me locked against his body, his arms steel bands around me. “No, Joslyn. I don’t care. I don’t care about any of that shit. I’m not letting you go. Not again.”
“Let me go,” I whispered, my voice cracking. My body wanted to melt into him, to take what he had to offer.
Berry growled, and I could practically feel him readying himself to pounce.
“Don’t, Berry,” I whispered. It was low enough for only Foster and Berry to hear. “Don’t.”
He needs to release you right now.
“Don’t,” I whispered. I reached up and gripped Foster’s shirt. “Don’t hurt him.” I turned my head pressing into him. “Never them.”
Berry didn’t reply.
Foster’s grip around me tightened as he buried his face into my neck, his hot breath trailing along my skin, making it pebble in awareness. I had always been sensitive to the guys’ touches. That hadn’t changed at all.
Foster pulled away, a little redness in his eyes as he fought his emotions. He cleared his throat and asked, “What’s going on, Josie? What happened to you?”
I stepped back, my heart feeling heavy as I sat down in the closest seat. I didn’t glance at Jason, who hadn’t moved. If the fear were still in his expression, it’d destroy me. I didn’t look at Waylon either, since I couldn’t read what he was feeling or thinking. That left all my attention for Foster, and it seemed he understood—to a degree—what was going on with me.
“Um, I don’t know how to start.”
Foster smiled, briefly looked at Waylon. Some kind of joke passed between them. I knew that much. Foster chuckled, but it wasn’t with humor. “The facts. Start with the facts. What happened ten years ago?”
I played with my fingers, hardening myself to tell them what I could without telling them too much. “I was taken.”
“By the fae, right? To, uh, Faerie?” Foster said.
I took in a sharp breath. How much did he know? I hated not knowing.
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“How long what?” I asked.
“How long have you been in Faerie? In Faerie time.”
I narrowed my eyes. He knew far too much for a human. Either he saw way too much while serving or he had a connection.
“I know time runs differently, so how long?”
I clenched my teeth.
“Joslyn.” Ice slipped into Foster’s voice. Berry hated the tone and growled, stepping closer. He only stopped when I shook my head at him.
My shoulders slumped and I blew out a breath. “Roughly a hundred years.”
“You have got to be fucking kidding me,” Jason mumbled, earning a glare from both Foster and Waylon. His jaw tightened as he clenched his teeth, looking away from me. Could he even look at me anymore?
“And what?” Foster asked. “Going to Faerie made you one of them? You haven’t aged.”
My hand automatically went to my necklace and Foster followed the movement. He went to reach for it, but I leaned away from him.
“Yes, I became one of them.”
“Is that why you didn’t age coming back over here?” Waylon asked.
I blinked at him. He was still not giving anything away, and I hated not knowing what he was thinking. There had been a time all I had to do was glance at him and I’d know what he was thinking or feeling. I’d know if he had a shit day or if something good had happened. I got nothing from him now.
“Partly because of that.” I squeezed my necklace. “Partly because of a spell. If I don’t return by the allotted time, I get to learn what I looked like as an old woman.”
“Allotted time?” Foster’s eyebrows furrowed. “Why are you here?”
I grimaced. “I’m hunting someone. Others haven’t been able to bring him back to Faerie and he’s doing something really bad. I need to stop him.”
“You?” Waylon asked. “Why?”
I blanked out my expression, refusing to give anything away. “I’d rather not say.”
Jason snorted at my response, earning another glare from Foster.
“So when you have him, you go back?” Foster asked. He looked at my necklace. “And you have a time limit until you have to go back?”
“I have to. Faerie won’t let me stay.” I moved my hand so they could get a better look at the chain. Frankly, it was more like a collar. “If I’m not back when the time limit is up, I die.”
“What kind of bullshit is that?” Foster asked. “We just got you. You just came back. You can’t disappear again.”
“I’m sorry.” If I had said that to any fae, I would have owed them a debt. I felt the magic try to shift, to create a debt between us, but it fell flat, unable to connect with the humans. That also meant they didn’t understand the importance of what I’d just done. If they had enough magic in them to accept the debt, this would have been a completely different conversation.
Jason snorted. “Because saying sorry is enough.”
“It isn’t. Trust me, I know.”
“Do you?” Jason sneered. “You left. You were gone and we had no fucking idea what happened to you. Your sister refused to say shit.”
“Addie? How is she?”
“You don’t know? You’re back and you didn’t bother trying to reach out to them?” The disgust was clear in Jason’s tone. “Oh. I see. You thought you could slip in, do your little job, and then slip back out. Did we even cross your mind or is the idea of living a fucking fantasy so amazing that you never gave us a second thought?”
“It isn’t that easy.”
“It is!”
“Enough,” Foster stepped in. “Now isn’t the time.”
“Apparently, now is the only time we have.”
“You aren’t being fair.”
Jason jerked back, away from us. He crossed his arms over his chest and glared hard. “Fair can kiss my ass.”
The silence was deafening after that. No one could break the tension, and I didn’t know what to say that wouldn’t be a lie. I couldn’t say I was fine, that it was all fine, because that was a fucking lie. I refused to tell them what had fully happened because I knew them—they’d hate themselves for not being able to help me.
Foster finally got things moving, saying, “I’m going to help you.”
I blinked in surprise. “You are?”
“If it means more time with you, then yes.”
“It’s dangerous.”
His smile was dangerous as a dark glint entered his eyes. Foster knew cruelty. He was familiar with it and had no qualms about embracing it. What had he gone through since I disappeared? “Good.”
“Fuck this shit. I’m not sticking around to watch you try to get yourself killed again.” Jason grabbed his coat and slammed the door when he went out.
I stared after the door, the pain deep enough to crack my soul. My soul was held together with duct tape at the moment, but seeing the three of them and knowing there was no happy ending was unraveling all that tape.
I glanced at Waylon. He hadn’t said much and sat there like stone. He met my gaze. “If Foster stays, I stay.”
That felt more like a slap in the face. He wasn’t there for me but for Foster.
“Fair enough,” I replied.
“So, what’s going on?” Foster asked. “Fill me in.”
And so I did. I told him as much as I could without betraying Faerie and all its secrets.
My heart ached the entire time and I wondered how I was going to survive working with the people I loved the most and knew I couldn’t have.
