The Faerie Plague (Dark World: The Faerie Games Book 5)

by Michelle Madow

  THE FAERIE PLAGUE

  DARK WORLD: THE FAERIE GAMES 5

  MICHELLE MADOW

  DREAMSCAPE PUBLISHING

  CHARACTER LIST

  Selena Pearce: Chosen champion of Jupiter, the king of the gods. Lightning magic. Half fae, half witch. Adopted daughter of Queen Annika Pearce (the Earth Angel), and Prince Jacen Pearce (vampire.) Biological daughter of Prince Devyn Kavanagh (fae gifted with omniscient sight) and Camelia Conrad (powerful witch.) Soulmate of Julian Kane. Lives in Avalon, but has been kidnapped to the Otherworld.

  Julian Kane: Chosen champion of Mars, the god of war. Combat magic, and the ability to pull weapons from the ether. Half-blood fae, with unbound fae magic. Soulmate of Selena Pearce. Lives in the Otherworld.

  Torrence Devereux: Powerful witch. Daughter of Amber Devereux (powerful light magic witch) and an unnamed father. Best friend of Selena Pearce. Lives in Avalon during the weekdays, and at the Devereux mansion in Beverly Hills on the weekends.

  Reed Holloway: Mage. Younger brother of the triplet mages that helped found Avalon—Iris, Dahlia, and Violet Holloway. Has lived in the mage realm of Mystica for most of his life, and moved to Avalon a few weeks ago. He’s betrothed to a princess in Mystica.

  Thomas Bettencourt: Half vampire, half wolf shifter. Gifted with magic over technology. Leader of the Bettencourt vampire coven, which is based in a luxury hotel in Chicago. Mated with Sage Montgomery. Lives in Avalon.

  Sage Montgomery: Half wolf shifter, half vampire. Alpha of the Montgomery wolf pack, which is based in Hollywood Hills, LA. Mated with Thomas Bettencourt. Lives part time in Avalon, and part time with the Montgomery pack.

  Empress Sorcha: Empress of the Otherworld. Has a magical gift she calls bliss—the ability to mute magic and/or dull the mind.

  Lavinia Foster: Powerful dark magic witch, with demon ancestors. Lilith (a greater demon) sent Lavinia to the Otherworld with Lilith’s daughter, Fallon, so Lavinia and Fallon can exterminate the fae. Lavinia created a plague using Fallon’s demon blood to do the dirty work for them.

  Queen Gloriana: The First Queen of the Otherworld. She lives in Elysium and meets the chosen champions at the dock as they arrive, to ease them into the afterlife.

  Bridget: Chosen champion of Minerva, the goddess of war strategy. Future sight magic. Killed in the second week of the Faerie Games, by Selena. After seeing Selena in Elysium, she chose to be reborn.

  Cassia: Chosen champion of Ceres, the goddess of agriculture. Earth magic. Killed in the fourth week of the Faerie Games by Pierce, after an intense torture session by Octavia. Selena last saw Cassia in Elysium, where Cassia was unsure if she wanted to be reborn or not.

  WHERE WE LAST LEFT EVERYONE:

  Selena and Julian brought the Holy Wand back to the citadel, but refused to hand it over to Empress Sorcha. Prince Devyn revealed that the half-bloods who win the Faerie Games aren’t free to return to Earth—he’d tricked Selena earlier with his words.

  Fueled with anger, Selena tried using the Holy Wand to create her own portal back to Earth. But before she could finish, Julian threw knives through her palms to stop her, and she blacked out.

  Torrence, Reed, Sage, and Thomas finally arrived in the Otherworld. They were immediately surrounded by zombies, and they used their holy weapons to turn the zombies into ash. They met with their contact in the Otherworld—Princess Ryanne—and the princess learned that the group disintegrated the zombies. No one has yet to be able to stop the zombies, so Princess Ryanne sent the group to the citadel so they can tell the Empress what they can do.

  Will Torrence finally reunite with Selena? And most importantly, why did Julian turn on Selena when she was seconds away from creating an escape portal to Earth?

  Turn the page to find out…

  SELENA

  I FLOATED between that moment of being awake and asleep, not wanting to wake up. Because in my dreams, Julian was there. He held me in his arms and gazed down at me with his familiar ice-blue eyes, looking at me like I was the most important person in his world.

  I love you, he said, his voice calm and soothing.

  But then his eyes hardened. His expression twisted into anger, pain, and grief. He pulled away, like touching me disgusted him.

  Pain shot through the centers of my palms and seared up my arms.

  I woke with a gasp.

  Sweat dampened the mattress and feather pillow beneath me. My muscles felt like molasses, and my mouth was paper dry, like I’d been walking in a desert for days.

  A chandelier with vines and flowers wrapped around the glittering crystal hung overhead. Fae decor.

  I was still in the Otherworld.

  But the portal I’d created… I should have been home. In Avalon.

  Julian’s hard, distant eyes flashed through my mind again. The centers of my palms throbbed with stabbing pain.

  He’d thrown daggers through them. He’d snuffed out my magic.

  He’d stopped me from bringing us home.

  Devastation hit so hard that it hurt to breathe.

  My own soulmate had betrayed me.

  Why?

  Forcing past the heaviness in my body, I pushed myself up to sit in the bed. My breaths quickened from the effort. I collapsed back into the mound of pillows and rested my arms on top of the comforter covering my legs.

  I stilled at what I saw.

  Light brown henna tattoos swirled from my hands to my elbows. The skin around the lines was puffy and red. It tingled, like it had been scrubbed raw.

  I traced a finger along them. They were raised, and sensitive to the touch.

  It wasn’t ink that had seeped into my skin.

  These were scars.

  Burning electricity searing up my arms.

  I stared down at the lines in disbelief. It shouldn’t have been possible… but my own magic had scarred me.

  I raised my eyes and scanned the room. It was large, plush, and decorated in whimsical fae furniture. The windows looked out to fields and palaces that reminded me of Elysium.

  Illusions. Or maybe not.

  Panic pounded in my chest.

  Am I dead?

  The Holy Wand wasn’t there. Julian wasn’t there. The room was so silent that my ears rang from the lack of noise.

  I needed to get out of there.

  I tried to move my legs, but they wouldn’t budge.

  I knew this feeling. This sluggishness. It was like when Sorcha had touched me in the arena, when Octavia and Emmet had been murdering Molly, and she’d infused me with her magic to calm me down.

  Arms wrapping around my waist. Calmness rushing through me, relaxing me so much that I couldn’t stay conscious.

  After Julian had snuffed out my magic, Sorcha must have used her gift on me. She’d drugged me.

  She and Julian were working together. This plush room was some sort of prison.

  But they couldn’t trap me. I wouldn’t let them.

  So I called on my magic for protection. Dim light glowed from the scars wrapping around my arms, but my magic slipped past my fingers.

  I was helpless.

  No, I thought. I’m one of the most powerful people in the Otherworld. Sorcha’s magic is strong, but mine is stronger.

  I pushed the comforter off my body. Someone had dressed me in a white, silk nightgown fit for royalty.

  I gathered as much strength as I could and swung my legs off the bed, pushing off with my hands to land on my bare feet.

  My legs crumpled under me, and I collapsed to the floor with a resounding thump. The side of my head slammed against the hardwood. I cried out as pain ricocheted through my br
ain, and black dots danced across my vision.

  The door creaked open, and crystal shoes that resembled Cinderella’s glass slippers stepped inside.

  I blinked the dots away and rolled my head slightly back to look up.

  Empress Sorcha stared down at me with creepy blue eyes that were so light they were nearly white. She wore a fluffy white ballgown and a tiara that must have been a foot high. Its diamonds matched the color of her wings. She held a breakfast platter with a tower of pastries in one hand, and the Holy Wand in the other.

  My wand.

  I opened my hand and pictured the wand flying out of her grip and landing in my palm.

  Nothing happened.

  She turned around and handed the wand to a half-blood guarding my room. “Return this to where I’ve been keeping it,” she instructed, and just like that, the wand was gone.

  She closed the door behind her and released sparkling diamond magic from her palm. It flowed into the doorknob, which clicked as it locked shut.

  I dug deeper and called on my magic again. The twisting lines on my arms glowed dimly, but my magic still refused to answer my call.

  I grunted in frustration, rolled onto my back, and pushed myself up so I leaned against the side of the bed. A few beads of sweat rolled down the sides of my face from the effort.

  Sorcha walked over to the coffee table in front of the fireplace and set the breakfast tray down on it. “You’ve been asleep for nearly three days,” she said, and alarm rushed through me at how much time had passed. No wonder I was so weak. “You must be hungry.”

  The sugary scent of warm pastries wafted through the air, and my stomach growled.

  I tried to swallow, but my throat was so dry it hurt. “You drugged me with your magic,” I said, although my tongue was so stiff that the words came out in a slurred mess.

  She picked up a glass of cloudy white juice—lychee juice—and walked over to me. She kneeled down and sat, her dress mushrooming out in a perfect circle around her, and held the glass up to my lips. “Here,” she said. “Drink.”

  I glared at her and pressed my lips together.

  She pulled the glass back toward her. “It’s just lychee juice,” she said. “It’s not drugged. All it will do is hydrate you.”

  If fae could lie, I wouldn’t believe her. But fae couldn’t lie. And I was dying of thirst.

  She must have sensed my desperation, because she continued, “Would I have given you such comfortable accommodations if I wanted to hurt you?”

  I bristled, since the villa where the chosen champions lived during the Faerie Games was fit for royalty, and they were sending all but one of us to our deaths.

  “Just drink,” she said. “I can’t talk with you if you’re so dehydrated that you can’t speak.”

  We sat there in silence and stared each other down.

  But it wasn’t doing me any good to sit there powerless and thirsty. So I sighed and reached for the glass.

  She moved it away from my hand. “You’re too weak,” she said. “You’ll spill it. Let me.” She held the rim of the glass to my lips, and the tantalizing scent of the juice teased me until I opened up and gulped it down.

  It was sweet and delicious, and gone far too soon.

  “That’s better.” She nodded, raised herself back up to her knees, and held out her other hand. “Come. Let me help you over to a chair.”

  I recoiled and snarled. “Don’t touch me.”

  The sides of her lips curved up into a small smile. “There’s the spirited little minx I remember. I knew she was still in there.”

  I reached for my magic again, but it was just as far away as it had been before. “You should know,” I said. “Since you’re the one who did this to me.”

  She placed the empty glass down next to me and lowered her hands into her lap. “I saved you from yourself,” she said. “You should be grateful.”

  “You took away my magic.”

  “I temporarily muted your magic. All three types of it.”

  Crap.

  I glanced over my shoulder to look at my wings. They were blue, silver, and violet. The glamour I’d been using to keep up the illusion that they were still only blue must have stopped working when Sorcha had muted my magic.

  I needed an explanation—quickly. One that wouldn’t reveal that I knew half-bloods had the same amount of magic as full fae when our magic wasn’t bound.

  “The wand unbound my magic the moment I touched it,” I said. “It seems that since I’m half-fae and half-witch, my magic is stronger than a regular half-blood.”

  She eyed me curiously. “Much, much stronger,” she said. “Once we’ve settled things between us, I look forward to seeing what else you’re able to do with the wand.”

  I perked up instantly. “You’re going to give it back to me?”

  It was too good to be true. There had to be a catch.

  “Perhaps.” She smiled in that unnerving, calm way of hers. “The Holy Wand is no good in my hands, since it only answers to you.”

  What?

  I froze, since I hadn’t expected that.

  “At least, it answers to you for now,” she continued, seemingly oblivious to my surprise. “Since its previous owner was dead and no one has risen to claim it, it became yours the moment you touched it. Now, you can choose to bequeath the wand to someone else, in which case, they’d be able to use it instead.”

  “No chance,” I said.

  “I thought as much,” she said. “Unfortunately, there’s only one other way to pass on the power. And that’s if someone kills you and claims the wand for themselves.”

  SELENA

  I SUCKED IN A SHARP BREATH, dizzy from more than just hunger.

  She was going to kill me.

  Or was she?

  “I was unconscious for three days. You could easily have killed me and claimed the wand for yourself,” I said, trying to remain as calm as possible. Sorcha was always calm, and I had a feeling she respected calmness from others, too. “So why am I still alive?”

  “I value your father’s guidance,” she said simply. “It would hardly benefit me to kill his daughter. Plus, I might be able to use your help.”

  “So you want to make a deal with me.”

  “That would be my preference, yes,” she said.

  “Like how you made a deal with Julian?” My chest panged when I said his name.

  “Julian would do anything for you,” she said. “He loves you dearly.”

  No, he doesn’t.

  The cold way he’d looked at me before I’d lost consciousness flashed through my mind, and it felt like a piece of my soul had been ripped from my body.

  She raised an eyebrow. “You doubt his love?”

  “Never,” I lied, and she sat back and frowned.

  A second later, she was back to her normal serene self. But it didn’t matter. I’d caught her by surprise, and it felt good.

  Let her wonder if Julian was deceiving her instead of me. She deserved it.

  “He’s here, in my house, in a guest room similar to this one,” she said, and my heart jumped at the realization that he could be on the other side of one of these walls. “He’s been asking to see you.”

  “Bring me to him.” Fear about what he might say clawed at my chest, but I pushed it down. I needed him to explain why he’d done what he’d done—even if that explanation broke my heart.

  “First, come with me onto the balcony.” She stood and straightened her skirts. “I need to show you something.”

  “You won’t harm me out there?” I needed to make sure she didn’t intend to throw me over the rail. “And you’ll bring me to Julian right afterward?”

  “I promise.”

  I tried to push myself up on my feet, but my muscles were jelly. They refused to listen to me.

  The Empress’s diamond wings sparkled as she observed my failed attempts.

  Hatred surged through me. If I could access my magic, the entire floor would have combusted by no
w.

  But Sorcha was a diplomat—not a fighter. And using my words to get what I wanted seemed to be working relatively well with her so far.

  So I took a deep breath, imagining it as a wave of calm cooling my veins. One, two, three, I counted off in my head. Then, I returned my focus to her. “If you expect me to get up and walk, you need to stop using your gift on me.”

  “The magic I most recently used on you is muting your magic. It’s not making you physically weak,” she said. “That’s the effect of you nearly depleting your magic when you attempted to create a portal to your realm, and then not eating for three days.”

  I wished I could accuse her of lying. But even if fae could lie, this wasn’t the first time I’d nearly depleted my magic. It felt just like this.

  And there was only one quick fix I knew about.

  “There were two golden apples in the pack I flew in here with,” I said. “We found them on our journey. I can eat one of those to regain my strength.”

  “I already found them,” she said. “It was kind of the gods to gift them to you.”

  “Julian told you?” I held my breath, praying she’d deny it.

  “He told me the entire story of how the two of you found the wand,” she said, and another wave of pain hit me at the extent of his betrayal. “The gods, Sibyl, the Golden Bough, the Underworld, the Fomorians. All of it. The two of you had quite the adventure.”

  What about the Sanctuary?

  I stared up at her and blinked, waiting for more.

  Did Julian not mention the Sanctuary?

  It didn’t seem like it.

  What was he playing at?

  I didn’t know, but if I paused any longer, Sorcha might get suspicious.

  “Where are the apples?” I asked to get us back on subject.

  “The gods must have decided you didn’t need them anymore, because they were rotted and crawling with worms. But the pastries were baked with care by a fae gifted with healing magic.” She walked over to the breakfast tray, picked it up, and placed it on the floor next to me. Then she sat down again and laid her skirts around herself like we were having a picnic. “The food will help you, not hurt you.” She plucked a jelly doughnut from the top of the tower of sweets and tore it in half. “Choose one side. I’ll take a bite of it, and you can decide what to do from there.”