Celestial Bones (Forged in Blood 3)

by Evans, Holly

  I entwined my fingers in his and pushed my fire magic into the disk. It warmed between my fingers, and I felt a pulse move out from it. I watched the room and didn’t see any differences, but I took Alasdair’s word for it.

  “Dad gave me some fresh glamours to put on. We were seen coming in here with these,” Gray said.

  I removed the awful Seth glamour and took the new one from Gray along with the new IDs.

  I was called Adam this time, and I was a plain dark-haired guy with grey eyes and a forgettable everything. Alasdair became an equally forgettable Fred, and Gray was a Tom.

  We went out through the back and had to abandon the car, as that had been seen at the site too. Someone had called the enforcers. They swarmed the church as we made our getaway down the road on foot. After a block, we walked casually as though we were just taking a walk down into town. Nothing to see here.

  Gray melted the old glamours, and we threw them into the ocean. It was time to spend our last night in the flat we’d come to call home. It was a risk returning there, but we wanted to pick up our belongings if possible. Alasdair had some very old charms and such that could be useful and would be difficult to replace.

  No one was hanging around or watching the building, so we headed inside. To my relief, both flats were clear of hexes, alchemical explosions, or anything else that might cause us trouble. Gray packed up everything he wanted from his flat quickly and came to crash on our couch. We didn’t want to be split up, not with the number of enemies we’d managed to build up over the past week.

  I couldn’t believe what had happened in such a short period. I’d gone from a guardian to the priestess-slaying wanted apostate of a rogue goddess.

  Alasdair spoke to Lysander on the phone and confirmed we were going to meet with Adam tomorrow. The wildling balancer person had made contact and arranged a meeting place in England. Another flight. Alasdair complained about how useless Dante and Wren had been. I didn’t catch what Lysander said, but I heard the growling tone. They’d been expecting far more from them. Suspicions were growing about their real allegiance.

  “Apparently, Dante has been seen to be involved in a small rebellion within the infernal realm. People are saying he wants the veil torn down as part of this rebellion,” Alasdair said.

  I curled my lip. I wished I could have been surprised, but after the days we’d had I didn’t think I was capable of it any more.

  “Wait, is he the one trying to rearrange how the infernal plane works? Something to do with getting a better reputation and freeing hounds?” Gray asked.

  “Possibly,” Alasdair said.

  “He talks a good talk. I’m not surprised he has followers.”

  Alasdair’s expression soured, but he said nothing.

  We cooked a huge meal, not wanting to waste more food than we had to. No one wanted to talk about what was going to happen next, or what had happened. We watched a familiar action movie and let it wash over us while we lounged on the couch. Gray talked to his sister, and that brightened his spirits some.

  I slipped away to pack up my meagre belongings and grab a nice scalding-hot shower. Alasdair was standing outside the bathroom when I emerged in just my towel. The wicked smile on his face formed butterflies and incredibly detailed fantasies in my mind.

  “Why don’t we head to bed?” he said with a soft growl.

  I stepped closer to him and ran my hands down over his stomach. I was ready for this. I needed this.

  He took me by the hand and led me to the bedroom, where he put on music and gently pushed me back onto the bed. I lay flat on my back, feeling entirely exposed, and for the first time I was entirely ok with that.

  Alasdair took his time peeling off his t-shirt and jeans. I looked at him, really looked at him. I admired the strong, clearly defined muscles and the grooves that ran down into the top of his low-slung boxers. He got onto the bed next to me and brushed his lips over my earlobe, sending a shiver through me. My eyes fluttered closed. He kissed down my neck, taking his time, forming goosebumps. My breathing was becoming shorter as his teasing encouraged my need. No one had taken the time to tease me before.

  He took my bottom lip between his teeth and slowly bit down until I squirmed with pleasure.

  “Do you want this?” he asked huskily.

  “Gods, yes,” I said back.

  He grinned at me and kissed me slowly, deeply. His tongue explored my mouth as his hand slowly moved down over my chest and stomach. I wanted more, but he stopped at my lower abs and pulled away to begin kissing along my collar bone. The gods knew I needed him. Right that second.

  I tried to push him over so I could take control, but he planted his hand in the middle of my chest.

  “We are going to take our time and make sure you’re ready to thoroughly enjoy our first time together,” he said.

  I lay back and gave in to the fact that I was going to have to enjoy this delicious torture a bit longer.

  His lips, teeth, and hands explored every inch of me. My breath was coming in short gasps when he looked into my eyes and said, “Are you sure you’re ready?”

  “Gods, just fuck me senseless already!” I growled.

  And by the gods, he did. He was soft and gentle at first, but I was thoroughly claimed and entirely sated by the time we finished many hours later. I’d never felt so relaxed or contented before as I curled up with my head on his chest and a smile on my face. He was mine and I was his.

  29

  “That’s a really good John Wayne impression,” Gray said to me with a smirk.

  I felt my cheeks heat as I made my way into the kitchen.

  “I don’t do things by halves,” Alasdair said with more than a little pride.

  I started the coffee, extra strong. It felt like one of those days. Everything was too good. It never lasted.

  We finished up the last of the food in the flat and made sure we’d packed everything. It felt weird leaving the flat behind. We hadn’t been there that long, but it had come to feel like home. Alasdair put his arm around my waist and kissed my cheek.

  “We’ll make wherever we end up home.”

  The sound of a lot of cars pulling up outside caught my attention. We got into the lift, and my ears remained pricked. The building wasn’t that big, and it was far too early to be having a party. We stepped out in the lobby area to find eight or more sidhe enforcers. Each of them pulled a weapon and stared us down.

  “Come quietly,” the closest one said.

  His blond hair had been cut short, and his hands were steady as he held up a pair of daggers.

  “What are we being charged with?” Alasdair asked calmly.

  They shouldn’t have recognised us, not with the glamours on. They were new. No one had been given a chance to tie them back to us.

  “Ex-Guardian Kerrigan and ex-Guardian Connall, you are charged with the brutal murder of four priestesses, the destruction of a moon church, and the opening of a large tear in the veil,” the leader said, edging closer.

  “Does anyone else think it’s a bit weird that they’re all sidhe?”

  “And they don’t look like typical enforcer weapons,” Gray said.

  The Fear Dorcha stepped into the lobby behind the sidhe.

  “Back for another ass-kicking?” I said.

  He gave me a cold predatory smile.

  “You’ve brought a lot of friends, given you’re supposed to be unbeatable,” I taunted.

  He tucked his hands in the pockets of his pitch-black suit, and the sidhe rushed us. I knew it was going to be one of those mornings.

  “If my queen can’t have you as her pet, then you will be destroyed,” the Fear Dorcha said.

  “Someone needs to teach her how to play with others,” I said as I ducked under a knife that was thrown at my head.

  They knew what I was, so there was no need to hold back. My fire magic bubbled up within me, but it felt constricted. A sidhe almost sank her blade into my stomach while I was shaking my hands trying to get the
fire out. It was locked in by something. I kicked her in the ribs, giving myself a little room while the others tried to get behind me.

  I reached into my pocket and removed the glamour. My fire burst forth and set the first sidhe on fire with a startled cry. Something sharp sliced the back of my thigh. I spun around, teeth bared in a snarl. The pair of young male sidhe grinned at me before they moved in closer. They moved as a pair. I tilted my head a little and saw the rhythm in their steps as they slowly circled. My wolf hearing caught the person trying to tiptoe up behind me. I performed a beautiful spinning kick which landed my heel against the older female sidhe’s jaw, knocking her sideways. I pushed my fire magic against her skin, and she writhed as she died.

  The original pair were more cautious now. Gray was setting their friends on fire, and it sounded like Alasdair was ripping the others’ heads off.

  “No one screws with my partner,” Alasdair roared.

  The two sidhe in front of me visibly paled. Gray came around from my left, Alasdair on the right. Both covered in blood. To their credit, the sidhe stood still and lowered into a defensive stance. Alasdair gutted the one on the right. Gray moved far faster than I thought he should have been able to, and slices of fire burnt through the other sidhe as he slumped down to the ground. The distinct smell of cooking flesh vanished when the fae all turned into the black goo that happened when fae died on the earth plane.

  The Fear Dorcha sighed and pushed himself off from the doorway.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll bring warriors next time.”

  He vanished into a small shimmer in the air.

  “We need to leave. Now,” Alasdair said as the real enforcers came racing down the road.

  We grabbed our bags and ran out to the closest unlocked car. Gray got it started, and we peeled out onto the road and drove into the countryside at a breakneck speed. It took a good twenty minutes and some terrifying two-wheeled corners to lose our tails, but we managed it.

  30

  Adam got word to Alasdair about a private plane he’d chartered for us. We were out of glamours, and it would have been suicide to risk the main airport. Word had been put out that we were traitors who had killed priestesses - one of the highest crimes. If the enforcers caught us, we’d be sent into a deep dark pit where we begged for death. I couldn’t speak for Gray and Alasdair, but I was pretty attached to the whole ‘continuing to live and see daylight’ thing.

  We bought fresh clothes at a small clothing store down a narrow lane. The hoodies were slightly too big, but they helped hide us. I kept my head down and my hands tucked in the pockets of my new jeans. The new boots rubbed my heels, and I had to laugh at myself. That was such a stupid little concern given the nature of the situation we were in. Gray and Alasdair laughed with me as we crossed the private air field. The large expanse of flat grey concrete felt desolate and exposed. A breeze made the wire fencing around the perimeter rattle. I kept my ears pricked and listened for anything that might have been an ambush.

  The building we were meeting our pilot in looked as though it had been ready to fall down five years ago. It leaned to the left, and the wind whipped through it with ferocious force.

  “You Adam’s men?” a gruff man with a thick accent asked.

  “Yes,” Alasdair simply said.

  The man with a developing paunch and a week’s worth of stubble nodded towards the small plane.

  “Get in, then.”

  I didn’t hear anyone else in the area, and my instincts were quiet. We approached the plane and got on it without any trouble. Alasdair texted Adam, and he confirmed the plane ID and pilot description. Finally, something was going the right way.

  To my dismay, Adam was wearing a nicely tailored slate-grey suit when he walked across the runway to the plane. I was really hoping to put the whole suit-wearing thing behind me. He was a tall, powerfully built man with bright blue-green eyes that sparkled in the pale sunlight. His thick black hair was cut fashionably at a length just long enough to run your fingers through. Everything about his movements screamed ‘predator.’ They were too fluid and precise to be anything but.

  “Alasdair, it’s good to see you again,” he greeted Alasdair, with a friendly hug.

  “You must be Grayson. It’s good to meet the infamous Evelyn’s son.” He shook Gray’s hand.

  “And that makes you Nikolai, the first of the made and the man that finally made Alasdair happy,” he offered me his hand.

  I shook it and tried to get a read on him.

  His smile was genuine enough, and Alasdair trusted him. We followed him to an expensive dark-blue saloon, the sort of thing a CEO would drive.

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t be more help. I was limited by the magic as to how much I could do. Now that you’re here, you fall under my protection, which makes things much easier.” He had a slight French accent.

  He drove us out of the private air field through the grey-purple heather-covered hills of the Yorkshire Dales.

  “I don’t suppose you’ve seen Tabitha?”

  “I’m afraid not. She’s very difficult to track down when she doesn’t want to be found.” Alasdair turned to me.

  Adam sighed.

  “I’ve heard whispers that she’s split from her soulmate. To lose your literal other half is a difficult situation,” Adam said softly.

  “Tabs is tough. I’m sure she’ll survive,” Alasdair said.

  I wondered if he knew everyone. I supposed that, having lived as long as he had, it made sense that he knew a lot of people.

  “You’ll be safe and comfortable with me. I have already made moves to remove the threat the sidhe queen and her Fear Dorcha present,” Adam said glancing at me in the rearview mirror.

  “My uncle Kadrix would love to meet you,” Gray said.

  Adam snorted. “He’s an alchemist, is he not?”

  “Yea, one of the first elf alchemists.”

  “I’m sure he’d love to take parts of me for his experiments and profits.”

  Gray laughed. “He means well, but his eye is firmly on his profit line.”

  The rises and drops of the Dales passed us by. Clouds filled the sky overhead, blocking out what faint sunshine we had and adding a greyness to the heather covering the space around us. There was a desolate beauty to the Dales, in my opinion. When the sun struck it just right, there was nothing else quite like it.

  31

  “Welcome to your new home,” Adam said as we pulled up in front of a large cottage.

  A set of neat flowerbeds sat alongside the wide driveway, and a pretty red-leaved vine grew up around the small porch. Mature trees crowded around the boundaries, blocking the view of the garden and hiding it from view of the road. There was a comfort there, a sense of relaxation and safety. Alasdair squeezed my hand.

  “We’re a pack,” Alasdair said softly.

  I smiled back at him. I could feel it. Adam was easy to like, quick to smile and friendly.

  “I’m a black jaguar shifter,” he said to me over his shoulder.

  I looked between him and Alasdair. No one had told me jaguar shifters were a thing.

  “Where do you think the jaguar temple guardian myths came from?” Alasdair asked with a smile.

  “I didn’t know those myths existed…”

  Alasdair laughed and put his arm around my waist. “We have much to teach you.”

  “But first, we have to heal the veil, stop a number of civil wars, and save the world,” Adam said with a broad smile as he opened the door.

  “No pressure,” I said.

  We took our shoes off just inside the first door and walked through the second door into a wide hallway with a number of white doors off it.

  “On the left is an office I never use; the right, there, is a dining room I also never use; here,” he gestured at the next door on the right, “is the living room, and ahead is the kitchen. Upstairs you’ll find your rooms. You’ll be sharing a bathroom, I assume that isn’t a problem?”

  “Of course not,
thank you,” Alasdair said.

  “Have a shower, relax, I’ll have lunch ready when you’re done,” he said.

  We went up the stairs with the pale gold painted wall and the oak banister and emerged onto a brightly lit hallway with a picture window at the far end. A stained-glass portrait of a wolf howling at the moon covered the top half, and I felt much better. Three doors were wide open. The two on the left and the one at the end of the bathroom.

  “We’ll take the one closest to the stairs,” Alasdair said.

  “Good with me,” Gray said.

  A soft white rug covered the bare oak floorboards and felt good beneath my feet. I followed Alasdair into our new room and was surprised at the size of it. A king-sized bed sat in the middle of the far wall with a window on either side of it. Paintings of forests bathed in moonlight and packs of wolves were spaced out around the walls. I sat on the bed and found it to be soft but not painfully so. The blankets and duvets were of the best quality.

  “He’s spoiling us,” Alasdair said with a smile.

  I could definitely get used to it.

  “Joining me for a shower?” Alasdair said with a wicked grin.

  How could I possibly turn that down after the morning we’d had?

  I felt better than I had done in months as I headed down into the kitchen. Adam had set out an assortment of sandwiches and some small pies.

  “Now, Niko,” Adam started.

  I narrowed my eyes, I didn’t like where this was heading.

  “You’re a shifter, you need to find balance with your wolf side.”

  Alasdair smirked at me. “I’ve been trying. He’s stubborn.”

  “Hey, I’m not stubborn!”

  I sat down at the rustic farmhouse style table and picked up a couple of chicken sandwiches.

  “What would you call it then?”

  Alasdair claimed a pair of pies.

  “I’m made,” I grumbled.

  Alasdair and Adam shared one of those knowing looks, the type where they were about to gang up on me.