Fae of the South (Court of Crown and Compass Book 3)

by E Hall

  Fae of the South

  Court of Crown and Compass

  Book III

  by

  E. Hall

  Fae of the South

  Copyright© 2020 E. Hall

  All Rights Reserved

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any informational storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the author/publisher except where permitted by law.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Cover art and design by Mihaela Voicu

  Website: http://www.ehallauthor.com

  Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ehallauthor

  Newsletter: http://bit.ly/EhallNL

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Let’s Connect

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by E. Hall

  Demons shadow thieve,

  while the fae court grieve.

  Four sisters to find.

  One compass to bind.

  Four crowns to take.

  One curse to break.

  Before twelve moons turn,

  else the realm will burn.

  Chapter 1

  Leajka

  Cameras flash and the roar of the crowd fades as Lucas slips his arm around my shoulders. I tingle at the press of his palm against my back. Still sweaty from the basketball game, heat pours off of him. From nearby, my friends cheer me on, winking, smiling, and wearing expressions that say see, told you so.

  Teammates knock him on the shoulder, offering congratulations for winning the game and a date to senior prom.

  Lucas bites his lip in that irresistible way and leans into my ear. “Someone else already asked me. I’m sorry, Lea.”

  Saundra Perkins aka Miss Popularity, wearing a high ponytail and a tight version of our team’s basketball jersey, marches over. “Sorry, weirdo. I asked Lucas first. He’s mine.” Her smile is less sympathetic friend and more mean girl.

  My smile falls. My stomach swoops. The last few minutes when I gummed up the courage to walk onto the court with my sign that says Let’s Have a Ball at Prom, with a giant basketball painted on it, and asked him to be my date swarms me with the sting of embarrassment.

  The silly poster that all of my friends insisted I make, goading me on, assuring me that he’d say yes, feels like it’ll slip from my fingers and I’ll go with it. Splat. Right onto the court.

  I’m not the kind of girl to put myself on the line. But I’ve been sidelined.

  I’m also not the kind of girl who wishes to disappear. I do now.

  I’m not the kind of girl who does things like ask a boy to prom. This rejection proves that.

  I’m not the kind of girl who takes risks when emotions are involved. Never again.

  Right then, sadness over the good girl I’m trying to be and fury over the reject that I am rises up inside and go to war.

  As Lucas’s mom pumps the air and takes photos of us, the good girl inside tells me to smile. The warmth of a blush colors my cheeks. The bad girl inside urges me to scowl.

  What are the odds, that the boy I’ve been flirting with for months in the three classes we share, had said yes to someone between final period and now? Less than three hours have elapsed.

  He’d been date-less. We talked about what we’d do before and after prom, where we’d go to eat dinner, we even invented our own prom theme based on our favorite show during lunch. We pretend to do homework during study period when really we just pass notes back and forth. We’d seek each other out at school. We’d laughed. He’d nudged me with his arm. He’d played with the edge of my notebook and our fingers brushed. They’d remained there.

  Had he led me on? Did he flirt like that with all of the girls?

  If I’d been asked by some popular guy to the prom before solidifying plans with Lucas what would I have said?

  Confusion meets the sadness and anger, tearing me up inside.

  I look everywhere but at Lucas as though the post-game chaos will provide answers. I’d just recently split with my bad girl ways. I revamped my reputation. I’d brought my grades up, attended classes, and started hanging out with my girlfriends more. Tyrren doesn’t count because we’ve just always vibed. I wish he was here now. He’s practically family. I’d finally come out of a dark period and now here I am, being thrust back there.

  My friends rush over, singing their congratulations. The sound is muted, my vision dull. Yet, there is no mistaking the look Lucas gives me. Pity.

  He cranes his head, leaning in again, as though to offer another apology.

  No. No way.

  This is why I hate high school. It’s all fake—the friends, the drama, the pomp. All of it. Why did I bother to try?

  Saundra links her arm through his and then pulls away because he’s sweaty. Realization dawns on my friends’ faces. Of course, they didn’t hear the whispered rejection.

  I shove past them to the door of the gymnasium and outside. The nighttime air is Brooklyn-electric—an energy all its own. I won’t be having a pity party. No, I’m out of here.

  First, I stop at the forge where Tyrren apprentices as a blacksmith. It’s in a warehouse on Franklin and Kent. After I close the corrugated steel door, I hear the clink, clink of metal striking metal. As I pass shelves piled with materials, the air gets warmer and already fills me with the comfort only Tyrren can bring.

  Huxley, the master blacksmith, doesn’t look up when I linger in the doorway. Tyrren isn’t by the fire or the work table. The hammer doesn’t go quiet in Huxley’s hand when he says, “Tyrren is at work.”

  That’s all I need to know.

  The rules I promised to follow get thrown out the window when I meet Tyrren at the garage six blocks away. The owner is a member of the Brooklyn Vampire Club.

  It’s an underground society—yes, consisting of vampires.

  No, I’m not one. Neither is Tyrren. They just hooked him up with the cushy parking attendant job, babysitting fancy cars.

  My uncle is the president of the club and vowed if any of them tried to turn me, he’d do worse than destroy them. Pays to know people in high places.

  The Brooklyn Vamp Club mostly does good—they help old ladies cross the street, keep threats off those same streets, and live fast, die never.

  Tyrren doesn’t ask questions when I march up, wearing a sneer and staring daggers. He dangles a set of keys in the air, knowing exactly why I’m here.

  I get behind the wheel and we go.

  I put distance between myself and the gymnasium along with the stupid, failed attem
pt at being a normal girl. I should’ve known better. There’s nothing normal about me or my life.

  Glancing at the Lamborghini’s speedometer in the dashboard’s muted glow, I remember the day sophomore year when I wanted nothing more than to drive away from this life. After the registry of motor vehicles failed my road test, it didn’t look like I was going anywhere anyway. They argued that I drove too fast, recklessly even. Story of my life.

  Fortunately, Tyrren remedied my problem with private lessons in cars belonging to wealthy people who don’t know about our joy rides. He’s the boy next door and probably the last remaining good boy on earth. However, due to my influence, he takes no issue with enabling my penchant for driving fast...or stopping me from running away a few years ago.

  The upholstery in the charcoal Lamborghini smells of new money. It isn’t that Ivan, my uncle, doesn’t have luxury cars of his own. Rather, for me, it’s the thrill of doing something bad and getting away with it. As I’ve just learned, when I try to do good things, I fail.

  “You’re quiet,” Tyrren says.

  For once, I let speed do the talking, shifting through the streets of Brooklyn, hitting the green traffic lights strung up like Christmas bulbs. I bring the car up to sixty, then seventy, and take a corner at eighty-five and we spin.

  “Who-hoo.” Tyrren whoops with his arm out the window.

  By a ramen restaurant, we rocket past two girls and two guys who holler after us to slow down.

  Never.

  The engine purrs and the wind tangles my long dark hair into a web.

  I throttle the car toward an abandoned area by the bridge, snaking around crater-sized potholes, not because I want to avoid them, but because I want to see what I can make the car do. It handles like a hot knife as I drop my right foot heavily. I turn the wheel sharply to the left and we spin again, sending a rooster tail of dirt and rocks into the air as I brake.

  The song playing from the stereo makes me think about all of the things I’ve done wrong and replaces the roar in my ears while I drove away from reality.

  Yellow light pours from the streetlamp illuminating fresh graffiti slicing through the concrete, a cleft as sure as the one driven between who I tried to be and who I am. It’s also a reminder of a night I’d rather forget. I shiver as though suddenly frozen here, stuck in neutral, staring in a detached kind of way at my surroundings. My mind can sometimes disconnect, but my body doesn’t forget the attempted attack and how I defended myself.

  “Lea, we better head back,” Tyrren says over the music as though recognizing that my thoughts went to a dark place.

  He’s always the voice of reason. I don’t want him to get in trouble or lose his job. Nonetheless, I turn up the volume on the stereo, release the clutch, and speed past wooden pallets, rusty machines, and toward the waterfront.

  The steady vibration of guitars and bass, rubber on the road, and the possibility that it could all end in one final breath, at any moment, at a purposeful jerk of the wheel, or a vampire’s bite to the neck fuels me.

  Life on the edge.

  The moonlight reflects off the choppy water like ebony-white jewels. I make a decision. I’m leaving. Now and later. Sirens wail in the distance. Time to get out of here.

  The windows are down and for a moment I dream that it’s a sunny day, Tyrren and I are on the open road, traveling somewhere in the south. A scream from nearby shatters that reality.

  I hadn’t yet locked away the memories of the night I was attacked. Without thinking I get out of the car. I can’t run away from someone’s plea for help.

  Boiling tar, rotten eggs, and decay waft through the air. This part of the city hasn’t yet seen gentrification and there’s everything from trash to construction materials under tarps, in bins, and bags.

  The scream comes again, closer now. I spot four silhouettes beneath an underpass. One has bowed shoulders. The others tower over her.

  Crackling energy lights up my veins. Because of my uncle’s position as the president of a covert vampire empire, and the many risks it involves, I learned to fight young, if only to defend myself. From experience, sometimes when vulnerable, instinct goes out the window. Other times, it flies through windows, doors, and faces. My fists tighten by my sides.

  The stink intensifies. I resist gagging.

  The three guys corner the girl, backing her against a chain-link fence.

  “Hey, leave her alone,” I shout.

  They all spin to face me.

  One laughs dryly.

  Another smirks.

  The third has yellow eyes.

  The hairs on the back of my neck lift. “I said let her go.”

  One steps closer. The other two remain beside the girl.

  He opens his mouth and the foul stench causes me to stagger back. A slender hand grips my arm and I tug it away. Then he launches himself at me and clutches my neck. This time, I do gag, but lash at his eyes with my fingers, using my remaining breath to scream. Over his shoulder, the other two leer. The girl’s eyes, a vibrant shade of lavender, fill with tears.

  Just then, headlights beam toward us, blinding the other two and providing a distraction. I knee the guy in the stomach and he lets go.

  “Run,” I tell the girl. “Run.”

  I don’t move fast enough and the other two pounce on me, knocking me to the ground. The ding, ding of a car with keys left in the ignition pierces my awareness. Tyrren lands a few punches to the attackers as I buck to my feet. Then they have him pinned.

  “Trunk,” he yells. “Front trunk.”

  Confused, I open the trunk of the car. A shining sword lies there like a treasure inside a chest.

  Chapter 2

  Tyrren

  I can’t blame my best friend for wanting to help someone in a tight spot. But right now, I’m the one in need of help. I’d never endorse violence or car theft or most of the things Lea does with her spare time. But I’m also not one to judge. I haven’t been through her trials, never walked in her shoes. I’m here to keep her safe.

  And I’m doing a terrible job of that right now. However, my father was a ninth degree red belt open weight champion practitioner of Brazilian jiu-jitsu. He went on to open academies all over the world. He taught legions of people, including my brothers and me. I’ve learned sometimes being able to fight back isn’t enough.

  However, right now, isn’t one of those times. I made a promise to myself to never, ever let anything happen to Lea again. I’ll protect her from the world’s monsters no matter what.

  I pop to my feet, clinch the guy nearest me in an armlock, and then drive my knee into his gut. For one strange moment, he seems less muscle and bone and more like flubber, goo, something not quite solid. I land a solid punch across his nose. I blink a few times because the light pooling from overhead is dim, but he seems to flicker. I glance at Lea who shoves another one of the guys off her. The girl is long gone. Good thing too.

  Lea socks the guy in the groin. Instead of wincing and howling in pain as I’d expect, he too flickers. Then all at once shrinks into a brownish-gray creature with leathery skin, horns along the jaw, and eyes the color of phlegm.

  “Demons?” I ask aghast.

  “Aye, Captain Obvious,” Lea says.

  “But they were human a moment ago.” My knowledge of the world and reality as I witnessed it just collided and then exploded. Boom.

  “I didn’t know they could change from a regular demon to human-looking though,” Lea mutters as she dodges one with pale green flesh and milky eyes.

  I grew up knowing about the existence of demons and the work the police do along with vigilantes like Ivan and the Brooklyn Vampire Club to rid them from our world, but I’ve never seen one in real life. Neither has Lea to my knowledge.

  The other two guys morph into demons and launch themselves at her. She rolls and pops up by the trunk of the car where I’d stashed the sword earlier. “Once a boy scout, always a boy scout. Is this your version of a Swiss Army Knife?” she asks.

/>   “Trust me, it was unintentional. Someone was supposed to pick the sword up at the garage tonight. Huxley was weird about it. Didn’t want it at the forge or something.” With both hands, I grapple with the demon and thrust my elbow into its side. There’s an unsatisfying crunch and then a weird give. This whole thing is making me feel slightly ill. At least, there’s no blood—that I couldn’t deal with. Just goo, ooze, and slime. Gross.

  “I’m not authorized to do this, but it’s been a tough night and I’m not going to let these nasty creatures roam free.” With that, Lea lifts the sword.

  The sharp edge gleams in the light like a strand of silver thread. I was surprised when Huxley let me forge the entire sword myself—he said I was ready. After I lost my parents, hammering away on hot metal and subsequently hammering away my thoughts became more than a new hobby.

  In a swift motion, Lea swipes at Demon Number One. It hisses but doesn’t move away from the blade fast enough. Good riddance.

  She spins and then angles the sword at ninety degrees and rids the world of Demon Number Two. A spray of black tar hits the car, which I probably need to get back to the garage. I hope I still have a job.

  Demon Number Three is a bit wilier and teases her toward the shadows. I take the opportunity to get behind the wheel of the Lamborghini, rev the engine, and drive directly at the demon. It jumps onto the hood of the car, blocking my view so I swerve, narrowly hitting a pallet topped with construction materials.

  I push on the gas as it clings to the hood. Before I hit a cement pylon, I stop short. Adrenaline surges. The demon slams into the structure and then hits the ground. Its gaze is fuzzy and a rash of red bumps and bits of gravel cover its skin.

  Lea rushes over with the sword aloft then slays Demon Number Three. Like the others, it evaporates into the air with a hiss.

  We both stand silently in front of the Lamborghini, catching our breath. The headlights shine from behind us, casting our shadows onto the start of a construction project.

  I let out a long exhale and turn to Lea. “You were good with that sword.” I named it Fire Eater but don’t share this dorky info.