Rowan Wood Legends
Rowan Wood Legends
The Lost Clan, book 2
Olivia Wildenstein
Contents
TITLE PAGE
CHEAT SHEET
GOTTWA GLOSSARY
FAELI GLOSSARY
Prologue
1. Holly
2. The Blame
3. The Vanishing Body
4. The Silent Treatment
5. The Medical Examiner
6. Daughters And Mothers
7. The Arrows
8. The Darts
9. The Rose Liana
10. The Wind Chime
11. The Club
12. The Magnet
13. The Punishment
14. The Contamination
15. The Imprint
16. The Note
17. The Cave
18. First Flight
19. The Wave
20. The Black Out
21. After the Storm
22. The Treasure Hunt
23. The Bond
24. The Changelings
25. Dark Magic
26. The Dinner Bargain
27. The Non-Date
28. Hate And Love
29. The Pack
30. The Gathering
31. The Greenhouse
32. The Letter
33. The Attack
34. Hunter Blood
35. Death
36. The Reflection
37. The New Tattoo
Epilogue
Afterword
Also by Olivia Wildenstein
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Book 2 of The Lost Clan series
by
OLIVIA WILDENSTEIN
CHEAT SHEET
CHARACTERS
Adette: Taeewa’s mate; the bazash’s daughter
Ace Wood: Linus’s son; Maximus’s grandson
Aylen: Nova’s sister; Cat’s aunt
Astra Sakar: half-fae; owns Astra’s Bakery
Bee: Beatrice; owns Bee’s Place; Blake’s grandmother
Blake: Bee’s grandson; Cat’s friend
Borgo Lief: Ishtu’s lover; Cruz’s “adoptive” father
Cass: Cat’s best friend in Rowan; Etta’s daughter
Catori Price: main character
Chatwa: Iya’s mother; twin sister to Holly’s mother, Ley; hunter
Cometta: known as Etta; part fae; daughter of Astra; sister to Stella
Cruz: fae; faux medical examiner; friends with the Woods family; Lily’s fiancé; Lyoh & Jacobiah’s son
Derek Price: Cat’s father; Nova’s husband
Elika: Negongwa’s mate; Gwenelda’s mother
Faith Sakar: Stella’s daughter; bad blood between her and Cat
Gregor: current fae wariff; soulless narcissist
Gwenelda: huntress; first to awaken; absorbed Nova’s soul
Holly: Ley’s daughter; fae; Iya’s cousin; Cat’s great-great-aunt
Ishtu: Kajika’s mate; looked like Cat
Iya: Chatwa’s daughter; Cat’s great-grandmother
Jacobiah Vega: fae; former wariff; Cruz’s father; killed by Lyoh Vega
Jimmy: Cass’s brother; Etta’s son
Kajika: Ishtu’s ex-husband; Gwenelda’s brother-in-law
Ley: Chatwa’s twin sister; fae
Lily Wood: fae; mute; Ace’s sister; Linus’s daughter; Cruz’s fiancée
Linus Wood: fae; wealthy
Lyoh Vega: Jacobiah’s wife; Cruz’s mother; killed her husband; killed Ishtu
Maximus Wood: Linus’s father; ruthless, lawless, bloodthirsty leader
Menawa: Gwenelda’s mate; Kajika’s brother
Negongwa: revered leader of Gottwa Indians
Nova Price: Catori’s mother; Derek’s beloved wife
Satyana: Aylen’s daughter; Shiloh’s twin sister
Shiloh: Aylen’s daughter; Cat’s young cousin; Satyana’s twin sister; has the sight
Stella Sakar: part fae; daughter of Astra; sister to Cometta (Etta)
Taeewa: Gwenelda’s youngest brother; the 13th hunter
Tony: Aylen’s husband
Woni: Iya’s daughter; Nova’s mother; Cat’s grandmother
GOTTWA GLOSSARY
aabiti: mate
abiwoojin: darling
adsookin: legend
baseetogan: fae world; Neverra; Isle of Woods
bazash: half-fae, half-human
chatwa: darkness
debwe: truth
gajeekwe: the king’s advisor, like a minister
gatizogin: I’m sorry
Gejaiwe: the Great Spirit
gassen: faerie dust
gingawi: part hunter, part fae
golwinim: Woods’s guards, fireflies
gwe: woman
ishtu: sweetness
kwenim: memory
ley: light
ma kwenim: my memory
maahin: come forth
Makudewa Geezhi: Dark Day
manazi: book
mashka: tough
mawa: mine
meegwe: give me
meekwa: blood
naagangwe: stop her
tokwa: favor
FAELI GLOSSARY
alinum: rowan wood
astium: portal, door
calidum: lesser fae; bazash
caligo: mist
caligosubi: one who lives below the mist, aka marsh-dweller
caligosupra: one who lives above the mist aka mist-dweller
calimbor: sky-trees
captis: magnetize
clave: portal locksmith
draca: first guard; wariff’s protector (dragon-form)
enefkum: eunuch
fae: sky-dwellers; SEELIE fae
forma: underground-dwellers; the UNSEELIE fae
gajoï: favor
hareni: grotto
kalini: fire
lucionaga: faerie guards
mallow: an edible plant, faerie weed; doesn’t affect humans the same way it affects faeries, and hunters are immune
Massin: Your Highness
Neverra: baseetogan; Isle of Woods
sedes: dweller
vade: go
valo: bye
volitors: floating trees
veram: truth
ventor: hunter
wariff: equal to a gajeekwe
wita: dust
Prologue
Dinner was lively and lovely. Exactly what my exhausted self needed. Dad, Aunt Aylen, and I sat down around our little kitchen table and ate delicious chicken satay and pea-flecked fried rice. Aylen had spent the afternoon whipping up both dishes and explained exhaustively how to fold the eggs gently into the rice so you didn’t end up with an omelet.
I never thought discussing food would be so therapeutic. Between cooking pointers and filling my hollow stomach with sustenance, I began to feel better…more human.
Spending the afternoon with Kajika in the tree house had probably helped too. The hunter was a new comforting presence in the strange world that had become mine when Mom passed away. Dad still believed she’d had a heart attack, but I knew she’d died because of a spell that brought a two-hundred-year-old ancestor back to life, an ancestor named Gwenelda who acted as though this were still the 1800s and faeries were the most horrid beasts walking the Earth.
Kajika shared her belief. I did not. Perhaps it was because I hadn’t lived through the massacre, the Dark Day—Makudewa Gheezhi. Or perhaps it was because I was gingawi—mixed—half hunter, half faerie. An atrocity to both species.
Back at the tree house, just a few hours before, Kajika had confessed to liking me. A lot. So maybe I was no longer an abomination in his eyes. Or maybe my resemblance to his great love Ishtu an
d the fact that he possessed my best friend’s memories clouded his opinion of me.
I balanced my fork on my index finger as I thought of Blake, another casualty of the faerie hunter war. Hot tears blurred the prongs of the fork. I blinked.
The fork teetered like a seesaw until I found its center of gravity somewhere close to its neck. Would I ever find a balance between my two sides? I imagined the tines were my faerie side, and the butt of the fork was my hunter side. For a while, both remained aligned, but it was a fork, and I wasn’t a utensil.
The doorbell rang.
The fork wobbled and fell prong-side against my plate with a startlingly loud ding.
“Are you expecting company, Cat?” Dad asked.
“I…didn’t invite anyone.” But when had that ever stopped people from bursting into my home and my life?
I placed my napkin next to my empty plate and walked to the front door. A teeny, tiny part of me hoped Kajika was standing behind it.
I swung the door wide and gaped at our visitor.
It wasn’t Kajika.
1
Holly
My best friend’s brother was wringing his trooper cap between his fingers as though it was waterlogged, but it was as dry as my throat.
“Hi, Cat. Um…is your dad here?” Jimmy asked.
“M-My dad?” I repeated clumsily.
“I’m right here,” Dad said, walking toward us.
Jimmy’s large forehead was pasty and slick with sweat. It was cold out. No one sweated in this weather. I peeked behind him. His squad car was parked alongside the hearse.
“Sorry to disturb you so late, Derek, but we got a body for you.”
Panic shot up my spine. “A body?”
“Whose body?” Dad and I asked at the same time.
Jimmy wiped his forehead with the back of his hand, then set his cap back on top of his head.
“Who died now?” Aylen asked, joining us by the front door.
“Holly.”
“Holly?” I whispered. “Holly died?” My breaths surged up fast, too fast. They made my head spin and quickened my heartbeat. Black dots flickered on the edge of my eyesight, fragmenting Jimmy’s face. I zipped my hand out to grab ahold of something before I keeled over like my fork. That something was Dad’s sleeve. My body swayed, and the next thing I knew, Dad had one arm around my waist and was steering me toward the couch. He settled me down while Aylen dashed to the kitchen and returned with a glass of water, which she slipped into my shaky fingers.
“How?” I croaked. “How?”
“Her great-nephew dropped by the station to report her passing. Now, we’re pretty sure it was a natural death, even though she had—” He stopped short.
“What did she have?” I asked.
“I think she might have contracted chicken pox or something.”
She was a faerie. Didn’t faeries heal from human diseases?
“Sheriff Jones would like your father to validate the cause of death.”
“That’s not…not really my area of expertise,” Dad said.
“I know, but maybe you could give us your thoughts. Could we bring her here?”
“Of course, but—”
Jimmy was already on his phone, so Dad stopped talking.
“The EMTs are on their way,” Jimmy said after disconnecting.
“Where’s her great-nephew?” Dad asked.
“I don’t know. He seemed distraught. Which I suppose is normal considering the circumstances. He said he would meet us at the farmhouse, but he never did.”
Dad stole a disquieting glance at me. “Did you have time to question him at the station?”
“Like I said, he was distraught. And then, when we asked him for his alibi, he said he’d been with Catori all afternoon.”
My cheeks smoldered, the only warm spot on my chilled body.
“Her car broke down a couple miles away, so they had to get it back from the towing company,” Dad explained. He peered beyond Jimmy, squinting into the darkness. “Actually, where is your car, Cat?”
“I, uh…it wasn’t ready,” I lied, pulse hammering. I hated lying to my father, and yet, ever since Mom had died, ever since I’d found out about faeries and faehunters, I’d been feeding him lies almost every day. I called it shielding him from the truth.
Still, lies.
“I thought you ran out of gas,” he said.
“There’s actually a problem with the fuel gauge.” Liar. Liar. Liar. When Ace had called to tell us Aylen and Dad were digging up a hunter grave, I had mere minutes to reach the cemetery. Cars didn’t go that fast. But hunters did. So I’d abandoned the car on the side of the road and allowed Kajika to run me home.
Dad’s eyebrows peaked.
“They said it would be ready tomorrow,” I added.
Tires crunched the gravel, taking the focus off my missing Honda. A whirling red light ignited the night. Even our living room turned red and maroon from the powerful strobes.
“Did you spend the afternoon with Kajika, Cat?” Jimmy asked.
I swallowed. “Yes.”
“You ain’t covering up for him, are you?” he continued.
I sprang up from the couch. “Absolutely not. Kajika wouldn’t murder Holly.”
Dad placed a gentle hand on my shoulder. “No one said anything about murder, honey.”
Neither his hand nor his words soothed me, and when they wheeled Holly in, the emotional rollercoaster I’d ridden all day took yet another treacherous turn. I approached the stretcher. They’d forgone the body bag. Instead, they’d wrapped her in the thick comforter Gwen had kept tucked around Holly’s deteriorating body.
A vicious rash covered her exposed skin, including her scalp. Pink bumps meshed with her sparse white hair.
I bit back a gasp.
“Honey?” Dad lifted my chin with his finger. “Why don’t you help Aylen make tea?”
I was pretty sure Aylen could handle boiling water on her own.
Spearheading the small cortege, he opened the door that led down to the morgue. I didn’t follow them. I also didn’t make tea. I took my phone out of my sweater pocket to dial Kajika but realized he didn’t have a phone. My hands shook. My heart shook. The timeliness of Holly’s death irked me. Yes, she was ninety-nine years old and ill, but how convenient that she’d died the day Stella Sakar had stolen The Wytchen Tree—the book that held all of her secrets…all of mine.
The brand Cruz Vega had burned on the top of my left hand flared, a trail of fire shaped like a V. I hated the mark. It was nothing more than a magical leash that kept me connected to a faerie I despised, allowing him to track my mood and moves. The previous night, he’d tortured me to find out where I kept the book, tortured me because of a faerie bargain I’d unintentionally struck. And he’d weaseled it out of me because the pain of a claimed gajoï was the worst physical pain that existed, akin to being all at once quartered and compressed.
My brand grew warmer, brighter at the abhorrent memory.
I wasn’t sure whom I hated more at that moment—Cruz or Stella. Where Cruz had never been a friend, Stella had been almost family. Where Cruz and I had spent a handful of hours of together, Stella and I had spent nineteen years together. Where I’d never loved Cruz, I’d loved Stella.
I did know whom I hated more.
Stella.
As cupboards opened and closed and water steamed in the kitchen, I strode out my front door. Anger and tension filled me with hot-white rage. I didn’t think fresh air would cool me down, but it beat sitting in the living room, replaying Stella’s duplicity over and over.
I kicked the beam holding up our porch, but that did little to flush the tension from my body.
“What did that poor piece of wood do to you, Kitty Cat?”
I whirled around, heart vaulting into my throat.
Ace was leaning against the railing, arms folded in front of his chest, skin glowing like the moon.
2
The Blame
The
left side of Ace’s face was splashed red from the strobe light atop the EMT van. Although the responders were all in the morgue downstairs, they’d left the light on.
His eyes blazed like faceted blue topaz. “You okay?”
“Peachy.”
His gaze ran over my face. “You sure?”
“Holly just died,” I blurted out.
“I know.” His lips barely shifted as he spoke.
“You know?”
“That’s one of the reasons why I’m here. I came to collect her.”
Goose bumps scattered over my arms. “Collect her?”
“Faeries disintegrate.”
“What?” I gasped but then added, “Shh,” as I remembered Aylen was in the kitchen, mere feet away. My aunt had no knowledge of faeries and hunters.
“Cat, unless you want to end up with a pile of gray ash in your basement, I need to take her away.”
“How come she hasn’t transformed already?”
He unfolded his arms and edged toward me. Probably to get past me. I pressed my palm against his torso to stop him. “There are tons of people downstairs.”
He looked down at my splayed hand, then looked back up, and I could’ve sworn his Technicolor irises pulsed. “There must still be some fire in her veins. But it will burn out soon.”
Blushing—the Great Spirit only knew why—I yanked my hand away. What was I doing touching Ace Wood? My fingers tingled with my frenzied pulse, which lit up my stupid brand. Ugh. “How did you even know she was dead?” I asked, looking at the fiery V.