Misty walked into the kitchen and stopped. Ben sat at the kitchen table, a bottle of beer in front of him, Kyle and Matt sitting on either side. Both cubs were in human form, dressed in sweats and T-shirts, and shoveling down ice cream. They were even using spoons.
Ben looked up at her and grinned. Kyle said, with his mouth full, “Hi, Aunt Misty.” Matt continued to eat, as though he’d never get enough.
“What . . . ?” Misty came into the room, moving faster with every step until she leaned down and buried the startled Matt in a big hug. “You’re all right.” Tears wet her cheeks.
“He was knocked around and bruised up,” Ben said. “No permanent damage. I took them to Andrea. She did her mojo.”
Misty released Matt, who grinned at her, and collapsed onto an empty kitchen chair. “Andrea’s still here?”
“Her, Sean, and their cub. But safely hidden away. Andrea was glad to help heal the cubs, though she said Matt wasn’t too badly hurt.”
“Thank God,” Misty said, heartfelt. “And the Goddess too, I guess. Do you know Andrea?”
“You should ask—did she know me? Answer, no. Not until I introduced myself. But I know who she is. I keep tabs on Shifters.”
“Do you really?” Misty looked him over. Ben, as before, had an innocuous look, despite his ex-con appearance. If he really was an ex-con. “You’ve been to prison, have you?”
“Oh, yeah. I just didn’t say whose prison it was.”
“And that means . . . what?”
Ben looked thoughtful. “The Fae put me in prison for a while. They talked about horrible ways to execute me, then they decided banishment would be even better.”
“Really? If Oison is typical, I can’t believe they thought letting you go was satisfying.”
“Well.” Ben folded his hands around the bottle of beer on the table. “They didn’t just banish me from Faerie. They banished my entire race. Walked us out into the harsh human wilderness, locked the gates and made sure they never opened for us again. Half of us died the first year. How do you think I feel, knowing that?” Something dark flashed in his eyes, endless pain that Misty guessed never went away.
“What did you do? To get put in prison, I mean?”
Ben shrugged, masking the anguished look. “I killed one of their emperors. I killed him because he was running a war that was slaughtering my people, whole clans at a time. I snuck into the emperor’s tent, pretending I was a pathetic sex addict who wanted the joy of an emperor doing me. The emperor’s ego loved that. He got all his guards to leave us alone, and then . . .” Ben sliced his finger across his throat. “I knew I’d never get away, and I was captured, but I didn’t care. Worth it. When an emperor dies, the High Fae clans fight each other to the last man to see who controls the next one, but in a rare case of Fae agreement, all the clans decided to banish me and my people.”
And half had died in the first year. Misty’s heart squeezed. “Ben, I’m so sorry.”
Ben shrugged, the flash of pain there and gone again. “Even so, more of us survived because that emperor was dead, and the Fae couldn’t use us anymore. We never thrived again, but we’re still around. We’ve been helping humans and Shifters survive encounters with the Fae for nine hundred years now.”
“And what are you?” Misty asked. “If you’re not Fae.”
“Human mythology calls us goblins, hobgoblins, or gnomes. We were pretty ugly in Faerie.” He grinned. “Or beautiful, depending on your point of view. We learned how to look like humans since we came out of Faerie, changing our appearance every so often so we blend in with whatever fashion of whatever century.”
“Gnomes,” Misty mused. “Like the little plastic men with pointy hats people put in their front yards?”
Ben laughed uproariously. Then his laughter died in an instant, and he said, “No.”
“I was joking. I’ve barely gotten used to Shifters—it will take me a while to process this.”
“Take your time. I’ll be around.”
Misty folded her arms on the table. “So, why don’t you look like a successful businessman or a rich man of leisure? If you can look like what you want?”
“I can almost resemble any kind of human I want. But I look like what I truly am—a man who did a crime and paid for it. I’m never going to pretend it didn’t happen. I sacrificed a lot of people with my stunt, and it wasn’t their choice.”
Misty went silent a moment. The twins were listening, in spite of continuing to scoop globs of ice cream into their mouths.
“What do I do now?” she asked after a time. “How do I find Graham? Is he even alive?”
Ben drained the beer bottle and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. “You still have your book?”
Misty touched it in her back pocket. “Yes.”
“Look in that.” Ben stood up, carried the empty beer bottle to the recycle bin and tossed it in. “And take those two with you when you go. You’ll need them.”
“Why?” Misty got to her feet. “Safer to leave them here with Eric or Xav, isn’t it? Or whoever isn’t being hassled by the Shifter Bureau.”
Ben shook his head. “You’ll need the cubs. They’re very special Shifters. Take care of them.” He started for the back door.
“Where are you going?” Misty asked in panic. “Stay and help me.”