The Red Wolf (The Wolf Fey #2) Read Online Free PDF

seemed, more than a little bit nauseous. The sky seemed to be shaking and moving above me; the landscape was blurred and unsteady.
    My eyes opened a little wider, and then I gasped in shock. I was no longer in the Winter lands – that much was clear. Around me I saw not snow banks and barren trees but miles of brilliant flame-colored leaves, both on and off the trees. The ground was covered with the first crunchy layer of fallen foliage, but the trees too still kept their red and orange leaves, brilliant against the crisp blue sky. The air smelled of nutmeg and cinnamon spice, and the chilling cold had been replaced by a brisk wind far less painful to the bared skin of my face. I was in the Autumn lands.
    And I was moving. What I had taken to be nausea was actually the slow, plodding movement of a cart.
    I sat up straight. Where was I? And what was I doing on the back of a cart, covered in hay? I sprang to my feet, only for my limbs to collapse beneath me, sending me reeling back into the hay. Apparently, it seemed that the drug's effects would last a while longer.
    I turned onto my front to face the man driving the cart. An old man, wearing a tattered hat, he was whistling a simple folk tune I knew well, stopping every now and then to tickle a beleaguered-looking donkey with a piece of wheat. He didn't look much like a kidnapper.
    “Hey!” I called, and the driver turned back cheerily at me and smiled.
    “Hey, yourself, sleepy stranger,” he said. “I see you're up at last. Quite a bender you were on. But don't you worry, my lad. You'll be home soon. Your poor mother won't have to worry about a thing.”
    “My mother?” I gaped at the man.
    “Don't you worry, lad. I did much worse when I was your age. But don't you fret another second – we've all been there.”
    “Been... where ?”
    “Your friend the satyr told me all about it! Got a bit too much brandy juice into your system, didn't you? But he told me that, brandy juice or no brandy juice, you had to get back here in time for your sister's wedding. Gave me twice the normal fare I charge for such a journey and told me to let you wake up natural. He's a good pal, that one.”
    “ Pal ?” I was horrified. So Pan had put me on the back of this cart and sent me packing to the Autumn lands. Awfully clever for a drunkard, I thought bitterly. I should have known Pan's seeming surrender was all an act.
    “How long have we been traveling?” I asked, my heart sinking faster and faster.
    “Three days now,” said the man. “But we're almost there now. We've just reached Autumn Springs, so it's only a few hours more to Leaf Village.”
    “Three days! ” I exclaimed. This wasn't good. If it was three days' journey back to the mountain pass, that meant another three days before I could make it back to Breena – in addition to the three days we'd lost already. Poor Breena, I thought, imagining her lovely, rosy-cheeked face frozen with fear – spending six days in captivity. My heart beat faster. Was she safe, I wondered? Had Kian dared...?
    No, I told myself. I wouldn't allow myself to think the worst, not yet. I had to force myself to stay strong, to convince myself that she was fine. Or else I'd lose it completely, and right now Breena needed me to keep it together for her. I had to find some way back to the mountain pass that didn't take a full seventy-two hours. I cursed inwardly my lack of wings. If I was a fairy, I sighed, I'd be able to make that journey by air in no time...
    But I couldn't do it alone, that was for sure. I racked my brain, trying to think of whom I knew in the Autumn lands. Only one name came to mind. “Wait,” I said to the driver. “Did you say Autumn Springs?” I knew that my grandfather had done mercenary service for the Duke of Autumn Springs, and had once saved his life. Not a bad calling card, I thought. Perhaps it was my chance to ask the Duke to return the favor. “Can you let me off here?”
    “But your mother?” the man