by Alexia Purdy
Something felt off, but I couldn’t place a finger on what.
How do people live here? I thought. The weather was harsh, dry, and unbearable most of the summer, and I did my best to avoid the city as much as I could, but we always ended up there one way or another. I’d even started thinking that Benton liked Las Vegas. Maybe it was because of Zena, but I’d never asked him. Maybe he just wanted to make things right.
I, on the other hand, knew things would never be right ever again. Not with Shade, or Aluse and Trey, or even Zena and Rachel. No one was ever the same when it came to magic. Even I had not been left unscathed. I wished I could help the ones that needed it and save myself as well.
“Excuse me.” A deep, resonating voice reached for me from behind, and I turned toward the voice. Before I could find the source, I felt something crack into my skull, and the world turned black.
***
“You shouldn’t have brought him here.”
“What choice did I have? He’s with that other guy, the elemental scum who killed Ralis. We have to get back at him. I needed some bait.”
“What if the other guy doesn’t come?”
There was a pregnant pause, and I felt eyes on me.
“Oh, he’ll come. These two are chums. I bet my magic he’ll show up sooner or later. He’s probably tracking his pal as we speak, so be alert.”
“You had to bring him here? Regal is going to be pissed you compromised our position. What if the light elves find us?”
The one I assumed was my attacker didn’t say anything, probably realizing his error. Benton would be able to track me anywhere, even if we were back in Faerie. He may not be fey, but he was just as powerful as one of us, if not more so. His human side tended to be immune to most of the tricks my kind dealt out.
These guys were about to find that out.
I blinked, adjusting my eyes to the dim firelight flickering in the chimney against the wall. A night elf squatted next to it, stoking the fire and moving the coals around. Another was sitting on a worn-out, threadbare couch against wall. I was on the hard wooden floor atop a pile of old, flattened potato sacks with my wrists tied and my ankles secured with twine. I could probably get rid of it if it was regular rope, but it wasn’t. Surely these dark elves had laced them with their own brand of magic.
I discovered quickly that these night elves weren’t as stupid as they looked when igniting the twine failed to burn through it. Now that escape was out of the question, I had to find out why these elves needed Benton. They certainly didn’t care about me at all, or I would be dead. I tested my restraints again, hoping I could loosen them, but they were awfully snug and didn’t have any slack to them. Great. How to get out of this pickle?
“He’s awake.”
I glared at my captors as one of them approached and kneeled near me. Not close enough to grab and strangle with my arms, but I could clearly see his pointy ears and pitch black eyes as he blinked down at me. No pupils, just big, black bug eyes that overwhelmed their faces, ugly as could be.
“What’s your name?”
“What do you care?” I got a smack in on the face for that response, but I refocused and returned my gaze to the night elf, flaring my nostrils out hard while waiting for him to get on with it.
“You will answer my questions or suffer the consequences, half-blood,” he snickered, knowing the derogatory term would probably upset me.
Too bad he didn’t know the word had no effect. Not anymore. Halfling, half-blood… there were several terms used for people like me, and none of them did a thing. I’d heard them all before. And he had something else coming if he thought I was afraid of pain and torture. I’d endured more at the hands of more brilliant adversaries, and he was as pathetic as they came.
“What are you called?” he asked.
I refused to answer, and it bought me a swift kick to the ribs. I gasped, squeezing my eyes shut as my lungs seized. I’d heard one of my bones snap, but I breathed through the pain and opened my eyelids to cut my gaze into him with surgical precision. He didn’t like that one bit.
“You’ll talk, half-blood, especially when your friend falls right into our hands. If you want any chance to save him, you’ll talk.”
He walked away and stoked at the fire once more before settling into a nearby chair and opening a book. He flipped to a dog-eared page where he resumed his reading, engrossed to the point of ignoring all else in the room.
A reading night elf. Who knew? It was amusing to say the least. I shimmied my body into a sitting position, which was much harder than one would think it would be since my wrists and ankles were wrapped taut with twine. When I had finally managed to wiggle upright, I gave the room a once-over and peered at my captives.
Where the hell was I? It looked like some sort of abandoned warehouse, but the night elves had made a few alterations. The sun had not yet set; I could see that thanks to a narrow window high up near the ceiling. I couldn’t have been out for too long, so it wouldn’t be far from Zena’s seedy apartment. I was definitely not in Faerie. The place lacked magic, and it got me wondering why dark faeries like these elves would shack up in a rundown old building. Their kind was not Seelie or Unseelie. They had their own laws governing them in Faerie, and most of them were lacking, in my opinion. The elves were the oldest creatures of magic, save for the Ancients, but neither cared much for the other. In fact, I believed the Ancients did not care what the elves did as long as they stayed out of each other’s way.
That was difficult to do lately, considering the Ancients roamed the earth once more, for the first time in centuries. Three of the four were awake and meddling in things they should leave alone. It was only a matter of time before the elves ran into them again.
“What do you want?” I demanded, my voice sounding alien and dry. Had I been knocked out for hours? Maybe more time had passed than I’d realized, and it was now a new day. Maybe we weren’t still in Vegas after all.
“You’ll see. All in good time.”
“That doesn’t tell me much.”
“It’s all on a need to know basis, and you don’t need to know.”
How cute. The dude was being a real arse. I sighed, reaching up to feel the swelling on my left cheek. The guy was a righty, that’s all it told me. I was betting he was a sore loser too.
“You’re that dude that Benton beat the shit out of in a Las Vegas alley, right? Cornelius?”
This got the night elf’s attention, but he held back and refused to move from his spot next to the cozy fire. Instead, he turned the page of his pathetic book. It probably wasn’t that great. It was the first page he’d turned in minutes.
“Benton would be wise to abstain from spreading lies.”
“He doesn’t lie.”
“He’s a human.”
The guy looked like he didn’t believe me.
“Right. He may be human, but at least he has some integrity. He has no reason to lie to me and wouldn’t.”
Cornelius snickered and leaned forward, rolling his eyes before staring into the flames. “I trust no one. Not even faeries like you.”
“It must be a lonely existence, then,” I muttered, leaning my head against the cold, hard wall. My body protested from lying on the hard ground for an unknown amount of time and begged to stretch. I was tethered to the ground, the magical twine knotted expertly and tied to a round hook buried deep into the cement. Dark brown stains peppered the ground, and a foul smell rose from the cement, tainting the air with a faint, irony taste. This place had been used before. My captors were adept at this kind of thing and probably enjoyed the violence a bit too much for my liking.
It gave me little comfort as I waited for Benton to show up so they could get what they wanted from him and then probably kill us both.
Let them try, I thought. Just let them try.
Chapter Twelve
Benton
“Your friend is a bit jumpy, eh?” Zena scoffed, sliding down into the chair and propping her legs up
on the table.
I leaned forward, ran my fingers through my hair, and then rubbed the day-old stubble on my chin. It was going to be days if not weeks before I returned home and got to lie down in my own bed, let alone shave. Though I was used to my life on the road, roving about the world and doing my duty to my sister’s royal court, it got old fast.
“Did you hear me at all?”
I peered up at Zena and found her picking her short nails, raising an eyebrow at me. Her relaxed demeanor was in sharp contrast to her nervous panic from earlier. I wondered if she knew how different she acted now that Soap wasn’t around.
“Yeah, he’s a bit jumpy. It’s been a hell of a long week already, and it’s not even close to being done with.” I sat up, breathing out and stretching. Staying put was making me tired. I needed to get moving, or I’d surely pass out from sheer exhaustion. Fatigue was best ignored, or it could overcome one’s willpower. I had to keep moving to hold it at bay.
“Well, it was a bit rude of him to leave like that.”
I stood, grabbed my bag of supplies from the table, and strapped it at my waist.
“Where you going?” Zena jumped to her feet as I got ready, back to her jittery self.
“I’m going to see what Soap is up to. Honestly, I’ve never seen him so unhinged. He’s usually very comfortable talking to women. But you….” I stopped and stared at her, taking in her deep maroon hair and soft, fair skin. The spray of freckles across her nose was enticing to say the least. She was pretty, in a non-faery way. I was oddly attracted to her, and contrary to what I’d said about going after Soap, I wanted to stay and get to know her even more.
“‘But me’ what?”
“Excuse me?”
“You said your friend, what’s his name, Soap…? That he’s comfortable talking to women? What does that mean?”
“Oh.” I scratched the back of my head, at a loss for words. “Well, he’s rather charming with the girls.”
“More than you are?”
Zena jumped to her feet and stepped closer, and I could feel the heat of her slender body as it neared mine. It sent sparks shooting through me, and I could barely breathe. “I’m not a faery. I’m not into tricking the ladies with spells or stuff like that. I’d rather a girl like me for me, not because of some love trick.”
“Love sometimes is a trick.”
“Who told you that?” I tilted my head, studying her intensely. This girl was far different from any I’d ever met.
She shrugged. “It just seems like something that couldn’t work without a bit of magic. I really wouldn’t know.”
“You’ve never been in love?” I asked.
She shook her head and plopped down in the chair across from me again.
“No. Have you?”
It was my turn to shrug. This conversation brought thoughts of Sary to the forefront. I tried not to think of her; it was too easy for her to affect my thoughts and even my mood. It was better to compartmentalize my life, otherwise it got too complicated to deal with, and lord knows I had way too much on my plate to deal with at the moment.
“Love makes life complicated,” I muttered, stretching out my arms like a cat and yawning.
“It doesn’t have to be complicated.” Zena said. I wondered what she was getting at and tilted my head at her, curious to see what she was thinking.
Apparently, her restored memories were having some sort of effect on her. With hooded eyes and parted lips, she stared at me with a most curious expression. If I hadn’t known better, I would have thought Soap had dropped a love spell on her before he’d abruptly left. But why would the bastard do that?
“Zena?”
“Yes?”
She leaned closer, our knees bumping as I gulped back the rising desire inside me. Dammit if I wasn’t attracted to her. Soap knew how she’d occupied my thoughts since I’d left her in Vegas, mind wiped, alone, and vulnerable. He was the only one who knew how often she had been a concern of mine, but to take it as far as to place a love spell on her was just too much. I was going to smash his head into the wall the next time I saw him. He deserved the beating I was going to deliver to him, knuckle to lips.
“What you feel right now… it’s not real. You know that, right?”
She was taken aback, pulling away from me with a devastatingly confused expression I wished I could wipe off her face. She was more beautiful in that moment than I had ever seen her before. Her emotions were there, raw and vulnerable. My heart sank as I realized that this was not a love spell. Soap had not tampered with this girl at all. Her feelings were real, more real than I knew what to do with.
I shook my head. No. Soap had to have had a hand in this. No one falls in love with me that easily.
“You’re mighty presumptuous, aren’t you? You don’t even know what’s real and what isn’t anymore.” Zena’s voice dripped of hurt and anger, turning her pretty freckled face a violent red.
“Zena, I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I just thought—”
“You thought wrong. For a warlock, you’re terrible at reading people.”
“Now, wait a minute. That’s far from true.” I wasn’t making the situation any better by talking, and I told myself to shut up already. I was afraid I’d caused irreparable damage as it was. I had done myself no favors by mind wiping her in the first place.
“You have something against the magically inclined?” I asked.
My suspicions grew the longer I stared at her. She was fascinated with me for some reason, like she was staring at something she’d been told to avoid all her life because it was dangerous, but the pull to touch it was just too much. I was that forbidden fruit. Maybe Soap was too.
“My mother told me to stay away from all supernaturals at all costs. I grew up running from beings like you and Soap.” She sighed, leaning back in her chair, the fatigue from the long day beginning to take its toll. She worked normal jobs to get by. I never could do that. I got by with magical tricks to fake money and buy the things I needed. I didn’t need a studio apartment like this; the cement floors of warehouses and the grasses of local parks were my beds at night. I doubted I could ever conform to a normal life, ever. The closest I got to it was my house at the edge of Portland, surrounded by wilderness that met the borders of Faerie.
Magic was my entire life.
“So why did you let us into your life now?” I asked. My lingering gaze made her blush, and I liked the vivid pink blossoming across her skin. Her freckles turned vibrant against it, and her eyes turned a more brilliant hazel green. Flecks of brown interrupted the green of her irises, but like her freckles, they were far from an imperfection; they made her even more beautiful. I could drown in those eyes forever. That thought caused me to clear my throat, lean away, and break eye contact.
“No matter how hard I try to avoid your kind and the faeries,” she said, also looking away, “there is no escaping it. My mother had it all wrong. We shouldn’t be running away from the magical world. We should embrace it, learn to not fear it, see what makes you all tick, and not run away every time we see one of you coming around the corner. I’m done running. That was my mother’s way to cope. I can’t do it anymore.”
I nodded my agreement. I wanted to encourage her in this train of thought. “You’re right. You shouldn’t avoid the fey or other supernaturals. Your fate is intertwined with those of magic, and I don’t think there’s any escaping it. From the moment I laid eyes on you, you and magic were always one. Especially since you wear a stone around your neck that one of my ancestors helped create to protect your kind.” I pointed to her chest. The gleaming, jade-like stone glowed brilliant in the dim light spilling though the ragged curtains blocking the bright late afternoon sunlight outside.
She gasped, clasping the pendant in her fingers and giving it a good squeeze. “How can you tell it was made with magic? Who is this ancestor of yours? How would you know all that?”
Her flurry of questions made me smile. I was eager to tell her all about my grea
t, great, great uncle Brendan. I’d never shared much of the story with anyone else. Not even Shade or my siblings, who were far too busy to read the grimoires and study our past like I had. Maybe one day they would, but for now, the idea of telling Zena things that only I knew felt as intimate as anything else we might do.
“Ever since the day I met you on the L-train in Chicago, I knew you were different from others.”
She looked away, pain piercing her features. “You don’t even know me. I could be a horrible person.”
I gave her a wry smirk, shaking my head. “I doubt that.”
She waited for me to say more, but I honestly didn’t know what else to say. She’d suddenly made me feel doubtful, nervous. Perhaps I’d wait for a better time to tell her about my family history.
“I noticed you too that day on the train,” she said quietly. “You and those girls. Who were they again?”
“Braelynn and Sary.”
“Are you close to them? I mean….” She wrung her hands, looking more nervous than I’d ever seen her. “I mean, are you with one of them?”
I watched her closely, wondering if I was hearing her correctly. Was she jealous? Why would she be? There was no reason for her to be. Sary and I… well, we were over. It was apparent I wasn’t good enough for her love, and that was that. But this girl? She was human like me and knew about the magical world. Maybe there was a chance she and I could be something more. Maybe.
“No. I’m not with either of them.”
Her face flashed from confusion to elation in a split second, and I hoped that meant she knew now that I was an available man. Not that I was looking. I wasn’t, was I? It was just a nice thought, and a beautiful girl in my life wouldn’t be unwelcome.
“Oh,” was all she managed to say. It made me smile to myself. Well, at least I knew she must like me a bit, right? This could get interesting.
