Descent

by Rylee Winters

  Something is wrong. Something in Kaslni’s eyes was dark, drowning out the glitter of security to reveal the primal instinct to protect one’s self. Her smooth palms lifted, lips curling into a feral snarl, and the blood drained from my face as the wild magic around her shivered and gorged on itself.

  “Kaslni! Stop!” Rushing at my former master without thought, my scream pierced the air and redirected her blast. Folding my wings around myself protectively, I threw my arm out in a futile effort to wall her off.

  But the shadows at this time of day were weak, and my wings snapped at Kaslni’s powerful spell as it blew through me. Thrown back like a doll, my pained shrieking filled the air as my body burned, and my feathers disintegrated even as Derek’s furious snarl sliced through the dense atmosphere. Writhing, face down, the skin on my face peeled from the heat of the concrete, and fire replaced the blood in my veins.

  “Linne – oh my Goddess – oh, fuck – fuck – ” Yanking me off the boiling sidewalk, Alpha Jackson struggled to keep his grip on me as my wings twitched and spasmed. “Shit – shit – shit…what do I do?”

  Seizing as the magic in my body suddenly died, my eyes rolled in their sockets as Alpha Jackson set me on soft grass. My heart beat was all I could hear beyond the searing pain of my brain, and I choked on my own saliva. There was nothing else – nothing but the pain of losing my magic – nothing but the knowing of losing my magic.

  This was why Kaslni was so dangerous. This was why Bareiijnr struggled so intently to force her out. She didn’t need to steal the wings of Seelie and Unseelie.

  She could turn them to dust, leaving their wearer a shallow husk.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Derek

  ‘What have you done!’ Muss’ enraged, booming voice drowned out my own thoughts as I stared at the Unseelie I had heard so much about.

  Kaslni’s face was drenched with guilt and panic, and she craned her long neck to peek around my stiff body planted between her and Linne. Her lips moved, but the sounds emerging from her mouth were foreign to me, curling my ears back as they gyrated against my drums.

  My tail swished in threat, muscles washed with adrenaline, while Kaslni and Muss had their private conversation about my mate. The poor bird looked ready to gouge her eyes out, and he circled over her head like a vulture that spied a dying squirrel.

  Shadows weaved in and out, forming a huge oval around the five of us – the darkness so thick that no human could see through it.

  Blinking quick and hard, I beat back the urge to take my eyes off the woman that had so badly ruined my mate.

  Alpha Jackson’s muttering tickled my ears above the beating of my blood, and the urgency had started to die in his voice.

  Which was good… I hope.

  “Derek – we need to get out of here. The humans were never in danger – Kaslni fixated on you because of your unfamiliar power signature. She won’t hurt anyone else. We need to get Linne to the doctor.” Strong, steady, Jackson’s rationalization slithered into my brain, and I narrowed my pupils on Kalsni as her head snapped up.

  “We need to go now.”

  ‘You clan doctor cannot help her this time, Derek the Lion. Linne’s feathers have been obliterated, but her wings are largely intact. She just needs time to grow them back. Her shifter healing will help, but there is nothing more that can be done.’

  Obviously, whatever Muss had learned had eased his worry, and my pointed gaze flickered to him as he drew closer. His talons tangled in my thick, coarse mane, and my lips curled into a snarl as he pecked at the corner of my mouth.

  ‘Kaslni has assured me she will regain her wings and her magic with time. Even in our realm, there is no cure but time. You must bring her home. Her wings are vulnerable to this heat and sun.’

  “The fuck would I believe her for? This is her fucking fault anyway.” Training my snarl on the Unseelie standing before me, I tensed as the almost overwhelming urge to pounce on her hit me smack in the chest.

  The shadows surrounding us shivered, the beasts inside them solidifying with nasty, silent growls that reverberated under the burning pads of my paws.

  Kaslni stiffened, fingers twitching at her sides in a way that only caused the fur on my body to stand up straighter and prickle across my skin all the way to my tail.

  ‘She is at fault, Derek the Lion – but she did not mean for this to happen. Going through the Veil is traumatic, but do not forget…she was attacking you, not Linne. Listen to Alpha Jackson. We must go now.’

  Guilt clawed at my throat as Muss’ talons bit into the thick hide of my neck, and I glared at Kaslni for a long, tense moment before tearing my gaze from her.

  “Her house is closest. Take them – I’ll inform the clan and the humans about what’s happening. They only have orders to keep everyone inside, so it shouldn’t be too crazy.”

  Jackson’s assurances fell on deaf ears, as I caught my first sight of my mate, and watched helplessly as Linne spasmed and whimpered in pain. She hadn’t passed out, and I ambled slowly over to her only to find her eyes wandering and darting as if she was suddenly blind.

  Face pale, a bubble of foam seeping from between her crackled lips, Linne inhaled harsh breaths through flared nostrils crusted with mucus.

  Licking her face roughly, my tongue tingled sharply, and my heart squeezed when she went into a seized fit. Carefully, oh, so carefully, Jackson picked Linne up, and Muss climbed up to perch between my shoulders and oversee my mate’s anchoring to my back.

  My shadows piled up on top of her, wrapping around her mutilated, bare wings stripped of feathers, engulfing her in a deep black the sun couldn’t penetrate.

  One lioness stayed back, butt up against my flank, to growl and snap at Kaslni and keep her away. I didn’t have much of a handle on this power, but the pride in myself just to do this much beat back the uncertainty and fear of this development.

  ‘Kaslni did not know about you, Derek the Lion… This is not only your fault, or her fault. I did not think she would attack you… I did not consider Linne would try to stop her considering how well she knows Kaslni’s power.’

  Snorting roughly at the regret in Muss’ deep tone, I crushed the swell of surprise that surged in my chest. At least the stupid bird could take responsibility for his own blind sidedness. Even so, I jerked my head in a nod before taking my first step towards Linne’s house.

  “Make sure she doesn’t fall off, you damn bird.”

  My mind slowed, suspiciously empty on the long journey the three blocks to Linne’s home. Thoughts raced, but they lacked substance or longevity, and they disappeared as soon as they’d appeared – as if they’d never been.

  I needed to contact Chad.

  I should ask Melinda if she can do anything to help.

  Maybe the doc could put Linne into a coma – again.

  My mate was in the hospital far too often; she was hurt far too often.

  “…What else can Kaslni do?” Within the confines of my skull, my own inner voice bounced around painfully to beat against the backs of my eyes. I could see Linne’s house, but it seemed tantalizingly out of reach. Shuffling against my shoulder blades, Muss dug his claws into my hide, but I only felt the pressure, not the pain.

  ‘Many things. She has much more accessibility to magic now that she has her Court House wings, and collection of Reliquaries. They are not just used to keep me unharmed in this realm, Derek the Lion. They are incredibly old and dangerous, and even she hesitates to use them – it is why she brought them with her.’

  Glancing over my shoulder at Kaslni, I frowned internally as she eyeballed the shadow wearily. No doubt at all existed in my mind that she could make my shadow creature disappear with a flick of her wrist, but she didn’t. She chose not to take away my sense of security.

  My own feelings about her bubbled up to the surface; Kaslni had enslaved my mate, sure, but she didn’t seem like a bad person. Her bright, ethereal, green eyes swam with guilt underneath a thick sheen of tears. Gaunt,
pale cheeks portrayed just how much she was hurting over what she’d done to her former slave.

  But Linne was the only one that could even come close to being what she would call ‘a friend’ in this realm, and I knew that at least some of what Kaslni was feeling was because of that potential loss.

  Muss expertly opened the front door to Linne’s house, and I stepped inside the air-conditioned space before shifting. My hands and feet burned, body dripping sweat, but I ignored it all to keep my crouch so she didn’t fall.

  Carefully maneuvering my mate to lay flat on the carpet covering the living room, I shuffled around as she grasped weakly at the floor. Her spasms had died down to twitches, and I clasped my palm over my mouth as I took in her ruined wings.

  “There’s nothing at all Kaslni can do to reverse this? To help at all?” Without looking away from Linne’s skinned axillar, I tossed my question at Muss as he nestled close to her face opposite me. His worried head bobs and clicks seemed to do something to help, and I swiped my jaw roughly as Linne’s featherless wing wrists shivered and bubbled with pustule wounds.

  ‘She cannot. Linne does not have access to her magic – she is fully human, at least for right now. Anything Kaslni does will put Linne at risk. Such powerful magic is not meant to be used on humans. They are so fragile.’

  Despair filled Muss’ baritone voice, and I grunted in acknowledgment before pushing myself up to stand straight. Glancing around the living room, I rubbed my hands together as Linne’s workshop table came into view. The top was just long enough for her body, and not so wide that her wings couldn’t hang naturally off the sides. As if sensing where my thoughts were going, Muss flapped his wings to lift himself off the floor and soar easily down the hall to Linne’s bedroom.

  “I am sorry.” Rasping, soft, the unfamiliar voice caused the hairs on the back of my neck to stand up straight as it rolled down my spine. Whirling around, I clenched my hands into tight fists while Kaslni cleared her throat roughly. “I did not mean to.”

  Hers was such a childish statement for this situation, and for how old I knew she could’ve been, that I laughed. The harsh bark drowned out her heavy accent, and Kaslni crossed her arms over her chest as guilt swamped her features. For the first time, I realized how young and beautiful she was – as if she wasn’t older than twenty-five in this realm. Corkscrew curls lined her face, making her seem ghostly in her current state, and her delicate, slender shoulders shivered – like she wanted to cry.

  This wasn’t the person I expected, but I wasn’t stupid. Linne was probably vastly different from the rest of the Unseelie realm. Not that it really mattered in this moment, but Kaslni had literally lost everything and injured someone she was close to; she had every right to cry.

  “It’s not just your fault – just like Muss said. We’re all to blame. How long until she gets better?” I wasn’t sure if Kaslni could understand human language too well; there was all the possibility that Muss had coached her at her behest. Even so, I posed my question, but she only shot me a confused furrow of her slender brows.

  Shaking my head roughly, I turned my gaze back to Linne to find her staring into space through wide, blank eyes, and she didn’t even blink in the few seconds it took Muss to get back with a blanket.

  ‘It is different for all, Derek the Lion. We are lucky that Kaslni realized what she did before she destroyed Linne’s wings completely. We can only wait. Linne will come out of her shock eventually. She will need you – she is not accustomed to being human. She uses magic without even realizing it.’

  “After the past week, I’d rather kill us both than leave her again.” Snatching the blanket, I grimaced at Muss as his size came into my scope of comprehension. “Did you grow or something in the past hour?”

  ‘This is my true size. Traveling through the Veil reduced me to habitable size for this realm.’ For some reason, the notion that Muss was three times the size he had been even an hour ago was startling.

  Pursing my lips together, I shook my head wildly before shaking out and unraveling the blanket, and he settled next to Linne once again. ‘I will contact the human Chad. He will be able to help Kaslni communicate.’

  “That stupid fucking human knows Unseelie language, too?” Chad was just turning out to be a huge ass bundle of fucking surprises, and Muss ducked his head sharply with merriment in his eyes.

  ‘How do you think Linne learned the human language English? Thus, the human Chad also learned Unseelie.’

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Linne

  “I don’t know what you want from me, Derek – I can’t fix this, and even if I could, I wouldn’t. It’s a bad idea to mess with healing magic – it can screw with humans really bad. Without her magic, Linne is basically the same as Chad…no offence.”

  Melinda’s familiar voice tickled my ears, and I blinked hard as reality snapped back together violently.

  “Healing magic isn’t something you should ever consider an option…even in life or death situations. Besides, even if I wanted to perform healing magic on Linne, I can’t. It’s forbidden by the Witch’s Council. If they found out, I’d be killed.”

  “Besides, the last time Melinda got involved with Linne, she fucked up your mate bond really bad. I doubt Linne wants to become more shifter than she already is. Using healing magic would probably send her shifter healing into overdrive – as good as the idea sounds, Derek, it’s actually really fucking terrible. Why can’t you just accept that this has to happen on its own? You can’t speed it up.”

  The human Chad’s image blossomed in my mind’s eye, and I blinked a few more times before the feeling in my limbs entered my scope of comprehension. Nothing hurt, but my chest ached slightly, and my heart pumped icicles through my veins that pierced my shoulders and abdomen before melting.

  Sluggishly pulling my hands underneath me, I carefully pushed myself up on unsteady arms, and my fingers dug into the soft, thin blanket beneath me.

  “There is something I can do…” The heavy accent tickled my ears as they twitched, and I glanced back to catch sight of Kaslni out of the corner of my eye. Seeing her, here – in this realm – brought tears to flood my eyelids, and my throat closed as I twisted sharper. “I can remove her wings – they will heal faster.”

  “Unseelie die when you remove their wings – that’s not happening.” Derek’s strong, angry voice filled the room, and goosebumps washed down my arms and across my chest.

  “She is not Unseelie anymore. She does not have magic – she will be fine.” Kaslni’s dismissal of his concerns earned her a sharp growl, but she only waved that off with a flick of her wrist. Watching her, the barrage of emotion that hit my chest was suffocating and intense, and I pursed my lips together as my heart raged against my ribs.

  “Trust me.”

  “I think that’s our best option right now. It’s sound, Derek. Linne has been becoming more human since she came through the Veil. If she was in her realm, it’d kill her because every part of her depended on magic. Here, she doesn’t. Plus, Kaslni has a point – Linne’s magic is totally cut off. From what I know of her wings, it’ll take longer for them to heal because it’s trying to restore that connection at the same time. It’s like two organs being healed at once – it takes twice as long. Besides, it’s not like they can’t be put back on.”

  The human Chad’s advice weighed so heavily on Derek that he was silent, glaring, and the human male shuffled slightly with his back to me. “It’s got merit, and it’s probably your best option…who knows when Bareiijnr will show up.”

  “…What do you think, Muss?” For the first time, my slow mind processed that these people I loved – that I couldn’t live without – were talking about me.

  Furrowing my brows deeply, I tore my eyes off Kaslni to train my gaze on my outstretched wing, bare of all feathers and blistering. Thick, green puss leaked from fist-sized boils on my vinculum, and the stench of it sent wooziness deep into the crevices of my brain.

  Crackling, bu
rned spots where my feathers anchored to my wing bubbled white-ish green liquid, and my hand flew to my mouth to keep my stomach contents from spewing from between my teeth.

  ‘I do not think we have a choice either way…’ Muss’ low, ominous voice slithered into my ears, and the weight of a dozen eyes landed on my back. Derek was instantly by my side, and I buried my face in his arm to heave in his scent. Just barely enough to mask the smell of my maimed wings, his odor soothed my ravaged senses and calmed my roiling stomach.

  “Fine – take them out,” Derek’s growled. Nodding jerkily to show my agreement, I gasped as several pairs of hands gripped my arms and shoulders. There was no pain from my wings, but I couldn’t stand the smell; if Kaslni was right, I would be fine without them. Even if she was unable to give my wings back, at least I wouldn’t be dead.

  If I was human – fully human – I wouldn’t be able to go through the Veil, and there would be no reason for Bareiijnr to come after me.

  “Hold her tightly. This will hurt.” Kaslni’s thick, heavy demand sent a certain calmness to wash over and relax my muscles, and I grasped at Derek’s wrists as her soft, familiar hands roamed my back. “Stay still.”

  Kaslni’s magic caused the fine hairs on my back to stand up, and I sucked in a sharp breath as her long, slender fingers wrapped around my axillar. Squeezing my eyes shut, fat tears streamed down my cheeks, and she flexed her fingers in warning.

  There was no nice way to extract an Unseelie’s wings, and Kaslni ripped the joint from its socket with a harsh grunt. My shriek drowned out her noise of effort, and I arched sharply as burning pain shot down my spine. Kicking my legs out on reflex, I couldn’t even get past the first, intense bout of pain before my second wing was torn from my flesh. In all, the event must’ve lasted only several seconds, but numbness spread through my legs and down to my toes.