Saving the Fae (Daughter of Light Book 3)

by Leia Stone

  I’d become their enemy…

  Things had fallen so far from normal it was depressing. I had to fix things. Somehow, I had to get us all back to a new normal, whatever that looked like.

  Steeling myself, I stepped into the motel room and shut the door behind me.

  Liam lay on one of the beds, propped up by three pillows, his back to me. There was no TV on. He wasn’t reading a book. He just stared at the far wall and did his best to ignore me. From what I could see, his left wing was bandaged as well as his ribcage and arm.

  I walked over to the foot of the bed and sat down, it dipped with my weight, and I stared at my hands as I tried to figure out what I wanted to say.

  “I saw what happened that night with my mom.” I wasn’t planning on going there right away, but that’s where my mind wanted to go.

  Liam was silent.

  “I…” Tears clouded my vision. “She was everything to me. A mother, a father, a best friend. She was all I had.”

  Liam’s breathing quickened, but that was the only indication that he’d heard me.

  “And I was so blinded by my rage and grief that I just reacted without thinking. You shocked me with your confession, but I should have trusted you...”

  Silence.

  Mother fucker! Say something!

  “I wished you’d never told me!” I cried, softly weeping now. “But I can see now, when I replay all of our moments together, that you were trying to tell me all along. You tried to tell me you’d done horrible things, and I told you it didn’t matter… but it does.”

  His body stiffened.

  “Now I can’t think about my mom without seeing her in a negative light. Seeing her look at Cain like he was an animal who deserved to die… I—” My throat restricted with emotion. “You did the right thing, protecting your family. You did the right thing…”

  Fresh grief tore open in my chest as I came to the realization that I was grieving the mom I thought I had and not the one she really was. I’d idolized her, and she was still amazing, but she was flawed. I guess we all were.

  “You left me for dead.” His voice was deep and raspy. I’d been waiting for him to speak this entire time, and when he did, the breath caught in my throat. “Some soulmate you are.”

  “Liam—,”

  “No,” he growled. “I warned you. I told you not to get close to me. I told you I was a monster, but you acted like you didn’t care. You acted like you loved me no matter what.”

  My throat went bone dry.

  Loved.

  Past tense.

  My heart knocked so loudly in my chest; I thought I might die right here and now. “I do love you,” I said softly. “I just… hate you right now.”

  Could that be possible? To love someone and hate them at the same time? Liam took my mother, he took her perfect image from me and made her into a racist, halfling-hater, child-killing, monster… and that could never be fixed.

  “I’m sorry for leaving you while you were injured.” My voice shook. “I wanted someone to blame.”

  Silence descended on the room for a full minute.

  “I’m sorry for killing your mother,” he finally spoke. “Not a day goes by that I don’t look at your face and see her. I wish I could change it, but I can’t. If I had to do it all over again, I would. My family is the most important thing to me in the world.”

  Tears ran down my cheeks.

  What a juxtaposition. My family was the most important thing to me, too. I understood him. But in order to protect his family… mine had to die.

  I wanted to burst from this room and take flight, flying far, far away from here.

  Where did we go now? We’d both apologized, but nothing felt better. It felt broken with no glue in sight.

  “Why are you here?” he asked finally.

  “We have three crystals. Two of them, thanks to you. I can’t do this without you and your men. I’d like to formally invite you and your men, your brothers, to come stay in Faerie. You will be safe there. Your brothers can have the regenerating abilities of the crystals, and we can hunt for the rest. Together.”

  Silence.

  “I’ve already had the fae start to build you all a village across the river, so you could have your own space and come and go as you please,” I added.

  He said nothing.

  “Your mother could also move back in with Mara, and she would be safe.” I was rambling. This was me begging, and he knew it.

  He was silent for a long moment before he sighed. “I’ll think about it.”

  That was fair. “If you decide not to, you can keep the second crystal you brought us. Just let me know, and I’ll get it back to you.”

  Turning, he finally faced me, and there was so much emotion swimming in his eyes it nearly brought me to my knees. “If you took my mother from me, even in self-defense, I would never be able to look at you again,” he said. “How can you look at me?”

  I realized, this entire time, that he hadn’t faced the wall because he was so mad at me that he couldn’t look at me. He’d done it to spare me from any pain from looking at him.

  Fresh, hot tears rolled down my face. “Because before I knew you took her from me, I fell in love with you, and I guess love is stronger than hate.”

  He squeezed his eyes shut, and one single tear rolled down his cheek before he wiped it away and turned back around to face the wall. “I’ll send you my answer in the morning.” His voice was full of emotion.

  Reaching out, I squeezed his ankle lightly. “I don’t know where we go from here… you and I, but maybe we can just start over. It won’t be perfect, but if we work at it every day, it will be something new, something we create together.”

  Without waiting for a reply, I got up and left the room. Love was messy and hard and, at times, ugly, but I was learning that just maybe… love was enough. Because being near Liam again had made me feel at home. He was my family now, and we had to find a way to fix what was broken.

  Together.

  The next morning, I chugged my second cup of coffee and tapped a nervous rhythm on the dining table. Trissa, Elle, and Kira all sat around the table, staring at me. After leaving the Vegas hotel, Elle and I had gotten drunk on the Vegas Strip and come back here where I rambled to all my roommates about how I still loved Liam and hoped he’d pick me. Shitty thing about being fae was that the alcohol didn’t last long, and soon I was just sober and spilling my guts, which was less fun.

  “Think they’ll want to help us again?” I asked, holding my cup.

  Trissa set down her coffee. “I hope so, but if not, we will go city to city and put out feelers the old-fashioned way. Your mother and I did it for twenty years.”

  I nodded. “But I’m not sure we have that long. There could be a dark attack from the forest at any moment, and with the king turning the crystals dark… I need Liam.”

  I couldn’t touch the dark crystals; only he could. Maybe if I brought a jar of the healing water and threw it over the crystal before grabbing it, that would work—

  There was a knock at the door.

  I jumped up so quickly that my coffee sloshed all over the table. Getting to my feet, I hurried for the door. I’d sent Mara to Vegas early this morning to await word and now…

  Pulling the door open, I felt my heart flip over when I saw Liam standing there, leaning against a crutch to help steady himself.

  But his family wasn’t behind him, neither were his men. He’d come alone.

  Oh, gods, please don’t let this be goodbye.

  “Mara said you live here now?” he asked, eyeing the Tree of Life behind me. So much had happened since he’d gone. His eyes lingered on the three crystals.

  Of course.

  I promised him a crystal, and he’d come for it. I nodded, biting back the tears. “Yeah, I’ll get you the crystal.” I spun to go when his hand snaked out and stopped me. Feeling the warm pressure of his skin on my upper arm sent heat right through my core.

  “I’m not he
re for that.” His voice, his touch, I missed it all so much.

  I gulped, turning to face him.

  “I…” He dropped his hand. “I don’t think we can ever be the same again.”

  My heart fell, and I nodded.

  “But…” He added, “I’d like to start fresh again. Be something new, work at it every day… like you said.”

  Tears sprang from my eyes, and I stepped forward, tentatively, as he opened his arms to me. Feeling him tuck me into him, hug me and hold me… All of the stress of the past few days melted away. We weren’t perfect, never would be, but he was my soulmate, something my very essence craved to be around. Nothing felt right without him.

  “I’m so fucking sorry, Lily,” he muttered into my neck, his breath sending warm shivers down my body.

  “Me too.” I held him tightly. “I’m so sorry.”

  After we pulled away, he turned and looked over at the bridge my fae were building. “Need a hand with that? I got over sixty guys in Mara’s house, waiting on my word.”

  A grin pulled at my lips. “Yes.”

  We walked to Mara’s together, not hand in hand but at a few feet apart. Like you would on a first date. This was us starting over, getting to know each other again within the new light that had been shed over us.

  “So, Mara says you’re Queen?”

  “Temp Queen. Couldn’t keep my powers in after you left,” I admitted.

  He was silent. “Indra?”

  I shrugged. “Not really sure how to deal with her. I moved her to a house on the river with the other elders, questioned her, and took a piece of her hair. I’m hoping the real Queen can deal with it when she wakes.”

  He nodded. “I know where my dad is. And where he is, the crystals will be.”

  My eyes widened, and I stopped walking. “How do you know? I couldn’t feel the crystals anywhere.”

  He looked at me through dark lashes. “That’s because he’s cloaked them, but he’s too stupid to cloak the sword I let him take.”

  A grin pulled at the corner of my lips. “You let him take the Sword of Night? So you could seek that?”

  He nodded. “But I didn’t expect that he’d be able to control my mind with it.” His voice turned hollow, and he brushed his fingers over his ribcage where his injury once was.

  I gasped. “Oh, Liam…”

  He waved me off. “It’ll be fine. I’ll track it and get it back and then use it to get all the crystals from him.”

  I nodded, but that didn’t seem as easy as he made it sound. Liam’s dad now had the sword, and it could control Liam’s mind. This was going to be harder than I thought.

  We made a plan to work today on getting the boys settled in and then move out tomorrow to seek the rest of the crystals with Liam’s help. After Liam’s men examined their new home across the river, we all got to work. By nightfall, the bridge was done, three huts had been built, and the trenches for plumbing were dug with piping laid that diverted water from the river into their homes. Liam’s mom was back, living with Mara, and his brothers were running wildly around the forest, laughing with abandon. It was a good sight to see.

  Not all of his men seemed so enthused though. They seemed relieved to be here among the crystals’ energy, but when they passed me, they gave me glares that made it clear I would have to earn back their trust. Cam was still being cold to me as well.

  It was clear I was not their Queen.

  “Once we get the fence finished to keep anything from the dark forest out, it should be a decent home for now,” I said to Liam, surveying the men sitting around the fire and eating what the farmers had brought in.

  “It’s great. Better than we’ve ever had.”

  I frowned. “That’s not true. Your farm was much nicer.”

  He nodded. “But I didn’t have a permanent crystal, much less three of them. You can’t really feel it, can you? Maybe because you’ve never gone without it for more than a few hours. Coming here…it’s like we can finally breathe.”

  Emotion constricted my throat, and I nodded. “Well, you have a permanent home here now. I’m a Queen, so I can say that and make it law or something.”

  He chuckled and looked over at me. The firelight danced across his face, making his eyes look like they held hot lava. “Lily…” He sighed. “I’m really sorry about your mom… Maybe if you had met me sooner and she’d seen that we weren’t the evil creatures she’d been taught or that we were soulmates—”

  I waved him off. “I don’t think we can live in the past anymore. It won’t do any good. Let’s just move forward.”

  He nodded, his fingers reaching out to brush the back of mine. It was like he was asking permission to hold my hand. That small brush of his skin held a promise of more.

  I flipped my palm upside down, and his fingers laced through mine as we held hands and watched the dying firelight. Butterflies fluttered nervously in my belly as we took this new step forward.

  New Liam and New Lily were just going to have to take things slowly. I still loved him, and I hoped love was enough.

  Chapter 7

  The next morning, we all met at the blue door. Liam’s men look hardened from sleeping on the dirt floor of the forest, but they also looked… restored. Like they’d finally found a place to call their own. I’d overheard them giving input to the builders on certain ways things should be built. They were invested in this. The huts were circular in shape with one main circle for the kitchen and living room and then three smaller circles around the main one to partition rooms. Each hut could hold three men, each with his own room, or six men with bunk beds. Liam and his brothers would all live in one for now.

  “The huts should be done by tonight. My people are working round the clock,” I told Liam as we waited for everyone to gather.

  He nodded, tracing the spot on his stomach where his dad had gored him. But he’d ditched the crutches, and Kira had done another healing on him, so he looked good to go. What did that do to a person? To have their own father turn on them like that? I must have spoken that out loud because Liam turned to me, boring into my eyes with his blue-eyed gaze. “It does nothing. He was dead to me years ago.”

  I wanted to believe him, but the quiver in his voice gave him away.

  The door opened behind me, and Mara popped her head out with a small bit of syrup on her chin. “Sorry I’m late. Your mother makes the best waffles,” she told Liam.

  He grinned, and I was so damned happy the water had healed her cancer and we had a safe space for her now. Double happy that she and Mara seemed to have bonded and grown a friendship.

  We all slowly trickled into Mara’s house, packing the place from wall to wall, Jasper, Elle, Liam, and his sixty men. It was a large contingent, much better than I could do on my own.

  “To Montana?” Mara asked, twisting the dials on her desk as Liam and I strapped into the harness on the seats.

  Everyone else in the house would hold onto something firmly, and Mara would have to move her entire house with us to the blue door. Liam had tracked the sword to Montana, but it was in the middle of nowhere. So while we slept last night, Mara had created a door from a little shed that was out near the land.

  Liam nodded, and then everything spun. I heard a thud coming from the hallway, and tried not to grin. Someone wasn’t holding on tight enough. After the spinning sensation stopped, I looked at Liam.

  We’d been through so much together, and yet… he felt a little like a stranger now. It was sad and weird, and I wasn’t sure how to go back to working together. Who would take the lead? How would we—

  Liam stood and looked down at me. “I’ll go for the sword. You hunt for the crystals. Once I meet up with you, I can control my dad’s thoughts with the sword, and we will walk out of there with all of them.”

  Okay, I was glad he was focused on the task at hand. Clearly, I was overthinking things. I nodded. “Sounds good.”

  We piled out of Mara’s house and into a thick-treed forest. Looking over my sho
ulder, I saw a small blue and white garage shed.

  Amazing. If any nearby hunters had just seen over sixty people exit the little shed, they probably would have thought they were losing their minds. Liam’s mom and Mara stood in the doorway and waved us off.

  “I’ll stay right here,” Mara told me, and I nodded.

  I pulled on my seeker ability, trying to feel for the crystals, but I couldn’t sense them anywhere.

  “They’re close. I feel the sword,” Liam instructed. “Let’s split up.”

  His men fanned out into the densely cut woods while Jasper stayed at my side, along with Elle and Trissa. Liam stood there, shifting awkwardly from foot to foot before finally reaching out to lace his fingers behind my neck. Pulling me into him, he grazed my lips with a short kiss.

  “Be safe.”

  Holy mother of all things fae. An inferno ignited in my chest as the heat traveled down my stomach to rest between my legs.

  His kiss, the public display of affection, in front of everyone… it meant the world; it meant we were going to be okay.

  “You too,” I croaked.

  “Me next.” Cam stepped forward and grabbed my best friend. Trissa’s eyes bulged, and my jaw unhinged as he dipped Elle backward and gave her the most inappropriate, yet sexy, French kiss I’d ever seen. When he righted her and backed away, her cheeks were flaming red. “Be safe.” He echoed Liam.

  Elle just nodded, speechless, and Jasper groaned. “Alright, you horny little children, let’s go.”

  With a grin, we split off into two groups, and I led mine out through the thicket of trees while Liam was just beside us, slightly off to the right.

  “Be safe,” Jasper trilled in a high-pitched, feminine voice.

  “Jealous?” Trissa asked him, wearing a half-cocked grin.

  Jasper waved her off. “Hardly, I—”

  My fist came up the second I heard the men speaking, and Jasper stopped. Everyone froze.

  Pulling my sword, I allowed my wings to carry me up and over the brittle trees. Elle popped up into the air beside me, and I noticed Liam do the same while the others stayed back. This just became a scouting mission.