Page 25 of Her Wolf Protector

Arwen slid out of the car, her bare feet touching the earth. The grass leaned in, like it wanted to touch her. "This is Hea Sanctuary. My father told me about this place. The one place supernatural people could all be ourselves. Where is the power station? He said it would be amazing. His most brilliant creation."

"It hasn't been built yet. Eirwen Engineering has the contract to supply the batteries for it, but no one seems to know where they are. I don't suppose you might?"

Arwen hung her head. "I'm sorry, Tate, I don't. I wasn't supposed to work in Father's business until after I graduated. He had a whole branch built for me, but it was to be a surprise. A graduation gift. Only...I left school before the term ended, so I never got to graduate. After my father died, I guess I inherited it anyway. I'll dig into the company records and find them for you. Someone will know where your batteries are. This place is too important not to be built. And for that, the water must be pure. Like that fae waterfall."

She marched down to the lake, and dipped her foot in the water. A silvery ripple started, gaining both height and width as it arced away from her. A wave that disobeyed the laws of physics. But it answered to the magic of his mate, so he supposed that would have to do instead.

Waves crashed on the other side of the lake, before reflecting back, little more than ripples once more, as they returned to kiss Arwen's toes with a cloud of bubbles. She laughed and wiped her wet foot on the grass.

"Purification is complete. Your lake, and all the water sources leading into it, have been cleansed of that hateful taint. Your sanctuary will live up to its name once more, now the water is safe to drink."

Now it was Tate's turn for his mouth to hang open. "You remediated an entire water system? That's...well, I'd say impossible, but that's without magic, and you do seem to have a fair bit of that. Fae magic. What's next?"

If it was up to him, he'd take her straight to Ylva, who could confirm the pregnancy and check Arwen's health. Arwen said her heart had healed, but a second opinion wouldn't hurt.

"Now, we go after the mushroom thief. Someone stole that fae ring, and I want it back."

TWENTY-FIVE

Tate drove, but Arwen told him where to go. Just as she'd followed her heart into the woods and found Tarn Cottage, now she was following the bad magic to its sole remaining source – wherever the stolen mushrooms had been taken.

As they neared the outskirts of Glasgow, Arwen's heart sank. She wanted to be wrong, but she knew she wasn't. As the Eirwen Labs research facility came into view, she almost cried. Her father couldn't have taken the mushrooms. He'd died before the theft. Someone in the company had betrayed them. Someone Da had trusted.

Arwen had never fired anyone in her life, but she suspected she'd enjoy doing that to this particular employee. Stealing the gate to the fae realm from her and her father...this thief deserved their fate.

All of Da's facilities had bio locks, and he'd given her access to them all. The parking lot stood empty, like all the staff had gone home, including the mushroom thief. But their stolen good were here. She could feel them.

When she placed her hand on the scanner, a message popped up:

Welcome to the Chrysalis, Arwen!

May all your dreams come true.

Love, Da.

A tear dripped down her cheek.

"What's wrong?" Tate asked.

"You know how I said Da wanted to give me a graduation gift? Well, this is it. A whole research facility, just for me. Floors of labs to configure however I want, for whatever research I want to conduct. The cure for cancer. Ways to end world hunger. How to extract microplastics from glaciers. Anything and everything I could ever dream of, but he's not here. And he should be." Oh, he should be. If only his heart had beat for just a little longer.

"But why would your mushrooms be here, if it's a brand new, unused research facility?"

"Because someone's stolen Da's gift to me, too," Arwen gritted out. Power roiled in her, an ocean of the stuff, ready to erupt like a thousand volcanoes. If she'd had a handful of acorns, she could have grown an ancient oak forest in a moment, and still had power to spare.

Probably a good thing the mushroom thief wasn't here. If Arwen saw them now, she'd probably atomise them with a glance. Like the opposite of Medusa, instead of turning them to stone, they'd be nothing but bloody mist.

"First, we find the mushrooms. When they're safe, we can go after the thief," Arwen said, marching toward the nearest lab. The doors hissed open.

"Fuck."

The room looked like it was supposed to be a lab, but it had been converted into a giant grow house for mushrooms, just like the ones in the dell.

"Are they all poison apple mushrooms?" Tate asked.

They looked the same as the one in the dell, but they lacked the malevolence of the wild ones growing in the woods. They might still be poisonous, but there was no magic here. Just a whole lot of power being used to grow mushrooms on every possibly surface, stacked high in the humid air.

They tried the next floor, and the next. Every room was the same – a plague of fungus, all growing everywhere. But no sign of the fae circle, or the magic from the woods.