Free The Red Wolf (The Wolf Fey #2) by Kailin Gow

They're like worker-bees – they do what they're told.”
    “I don't understand.”
    “I mean,” Kian said, “that they never look up. They'll take a sideways look at our armor and not think the more of it. The glamour will get us into the castle – the next step will be getting to Breena. I know where the dungeon is,” he added, with a tone of voice that made it clear I should refrain from asking precisely how Kian had learned the dungeon's location. His hand went unconsciously to a scar – barely perceptible now, but still lingering – on his neck.
    “Fine,” I said. “Whatever you can manage.”
    “Stand still,” said Kian. “I'm going to glamour you now.”
    He fixed his eyes on me, and immediately I felt dizzy as I looked into his great, blue eyes, their piercing force shimmering through me. His magic was taking over, his eyes – like the hypnotic eyes of a snake – seemed to grow in size, until the whole world was as blue as those ice-colored eyes. I stood fascinated, half-dazed, feeling his magic course through my veins.
    “There!”
    That broke the spell. Kian had returned to his normal size, and the blue shimmer had vanished. “There what?”
    “You've just been glamoured.” Kian held up his sword, turning the flat end towards me. I stepped back in revulsion as I caught sight of my own reflection. I looked just like a pixie – pointed ears, grim smile, jagged teeth, and all. I made a face. “Did you have to make me that ugly?” I asked.
    “It's an improvement on your normal state of affairs,” said Kian without a smile.
    I looked at the Prince's wry face with surprise. Could it be that the normally reserved, arrogant Prince Kian had dared to make a joke?
    He glamoured himself next, transforming into (to my chagrin) a slightly less aesthetically challenged pixie.
    “Still the pretty boy, even when in pixie form,” I muttered.
    “I heard that!” he glared at me.
    We waited until the next round of sentries – two diminutive pixies – came by.
    “Halt!” Kian cried out. “Soldier, we've been locked outside the castle gates.” He strode up to them. “Won't you let us in with you?”
    The sentries eyed us suspiciously.
    “It's long past curfew, soldier,” they said in unison. “We need to check with the...”
    Whom it was the pixies needed to check with remained forever unanswered. Kian and I, exchanging a glance of understanding, leaped upon them, knocking their two heads together until they collapsed, unconscious.
    “Here's something I never thought I'd do,” said Kian as we struggled to remove their armor. “Stripping a pixie.”
    “There's a first time for everything,” I said as we forced the armor onto our own bodies.
    Getting into the castle was easy enough. We replaced the two sentries on our return, and as Kian had predicted, were not noticed. Two sentries had gone out, the guard reasoned; two sentries had come back in. He never even bothered to look up at our faces.
    “We're in,” Kian breathed a sigh of relief as we entered the large, austere great Hall. Hundreds of pixies were gathered in various small clusters around the room. Some were eating; some were sleeping; some were standing guard. Nobody noticed us. Indeed, they all seemed – I noted – to be in some sort of semi somnolent state, practically sleepwalking through the dreariness and the misery of their evening.
    “Follow me,” hissed Kian as we made our way down a flight of stairs to the back. He held a forbidding finger to his lips as we scrambled down the staircase. The stone and jade of the hall gave way to a dank, dark corridor that stank of urine and old fish. Was this where my Breena was being held?
    We crept down the corridor. Another guard stood at the entryway. He looked up at us with surprise. “What are you doing down....?”
    But I was too quick for him. Before he could finish his sentence, I'd given him a reeling blow on the head with the handle of my sword; he collapsed like a sack of