by Kim Faulks
I thrashed my hands through the air behind me and plunged through the trees. Beasts at my back…beasts overhead. I stumbled with the uneven ground, and lunged over rotting logs.
There was no way I could survive out here. Not for a night…not for a minute. Thunder echoed as the beasts came for me. I ran…ran like I’d never run before.
Branches and hollows tripped me. I fell, hit the ground hard, and rolled. Against the Unseelie earth I could hear it…marked…marked…marked…I shoved from the ground and stumbled, tearing back through the smothering forest toward the castle once more.
Faint light flickered in the window as I left the towering trunks and the cruel lash of tendrils behind. My boots crunched on pebbles, and for a second, I could’ve cried with the sound.
The Unseelie castle rose in the distance, dark, hostile…but the Queen swore an oath. My life for Absolon’s, and as I scurried toward the first step, I prayed.
Prayed Lucifer wouldn’t kill him….
Prayed my men would find a way to get me out of here.
Before it was too late.
I lunged up the first step, slipped, and shoved out my hand to stop the fall. Cold marble kissed my palm. I crawled more than stumbled, scurrying all the way up until the top of the stairs.
The massive doorway was still closed. I gripped the handle…please don’t be locked…please don’t be—one shove and the monstrous thing swung inwards.
Relief swept through me as I took a step, and then glanced over my shoulder.
I caught the pale glow far back in the darkness of the forest, as though the stag had hunted me to the edge of the tree line and no further.
I’d be careful outside the walls of the castle. The Queen’s warning rang inside my head as I slipped through the gap of the door once more and back amongst the safety of the stone.
My hand trembled as I gripped the handle and shoved. I wasn’t sure if the castle walls were spelled. I couldn’t feel Unseelie power at all. Everything just felt cold, and empty. But there was no way I wanted those creatures slipping through behind me…
The door swung closed. I ran my fingers along the stony surface, searching for a lock. But there was none. No lock, no hinges. I took a step backwards, staring at the opening and then glanced behind me toward the kitchen.
I’d find no compassion, no safety or care. I’d find nothing other than what I could give myself. The shadows of the kitchen gave me little, but with towering males like the Unseelie army, and a Queen who was painfully narcissistic, there had to be at least the basics hidden inside the drawers.
I made for the counters, skirting my fingers along the outside until I found handles, and then yanked.
Steel clattered inside…my heart gave a leap as I eased my fingers down from the edge and then probed the darkness. Sharp edges, wicked hooks. They were all here. I gripped the biggest hilt I could find and dragged the weapon free. Black steel shone against the faint light. I ran my gaze along the edge and then lingered at the tip.
I had no powers here, no fire from Hell. I had no magic, but I had training…I had hope—both of those had served me well in the past—I needed them to serve me well once more.
My thoughts slipped…Rival. He’d be beside himself, as would Titus. But my cop was still weak…still recovering from the fire that almost ended his life. He wouldn’t make it here…and neither would my Archangel. Not even the Lord of Hell could unleash his power here.
There was only one who knew this place—I turned my gaze to the faint light coming from the doorway behind me...there was only one who knew how dangerous this was.
Would he come for me?
Would Redemption risk it all to face the one person he feared among all others? Would the warrior go to war with his Queen?
There was a tremble inside my chest. A hint of the fear trapped inside. I wouldn’t blame him for running. I wouldn’t blame him for leaving me to my fate.
It was just one kiss…one goddamn kiss on the side of the roadway while I fought to save Titus’ life. Redemption didn’t owe me…
He didn’t owe me a damn thing.
I gripped the hilt of the knife and turned toward the doorway to the dining room. I skirted the shadows better this time, finding my way in the dark.
Pain lashed my ankle, my wrist and my thigh, and the sickly metallic scent of my own blood filled my nose. I knew the scent better than I knew fresh spring flowers, or the suffocating smell of rain.
I’d breathed in the tang of pennies so many times now it lingered in my lungs. Fingers skimmed the doorway as I left the dining room behind and travelled along the hallway. That faint flickering light grew brighter…and brighter…until I stepped from the hallway and back into the throne room.
The Unseelie Queen sat in the exactly same position, staring at the shine on her perfect, polished nails. Blood red, I think they called the shade. She lifted her head, dark eyes glinting with satisfaction. “Welcome back, Lorn. I knew you’d come to your senses at some time.”
The wall of males surrounding her never shifted, never moved. Only stared at their Queen, waiting for her command.
“So, as I was saying. The consort’s room is the only one available. I gather you’re tired after your little jaunt through the forest…I do hope you didn’t kill any more of my hags.”
I flinched at her words, but just gripped the knife and waited.
She wasn’t getting what she wanted. Not an argument, not even a mention of what had really happened between her son and me. She gripped the end of the armrest of the throne and rose to her feet. One quick glance at the knife by my side, and she turned. “Boroch, show our guest to her room, and relieve her of her weapons.”
The massive Unseelie male next to her stepped forward and bowed his head. “Yes, my Queen.”
The wall moved then, splitting down the middle to form a guard wall as she swept from the room. Her footsteps rang out as Boroch turned toward me. Dark eyes glinted with a hint of rage. I opened my hand, letting the weapon fall.
Steel hit the marble floor with a clatter, and there the blade stayed. There was a twitch at the guard’s lips, a flare of annoyance. I opened my hand and raised my arms. “No more weapons here,” I murmured and took a step closer.
I was wrong before. Surviving this place wasn’t about weapons, or attack.
Surviving this place would be waiting…watching…and being ready to make my next move.
He crossed the floor in three massive strides and grasped my shirt in the center of my chest.
“You can’t hurt me,” I lifted my gaze to the mean-looking sonofabitch.
In a different light, he could almost look like Redemption, except the eyes. There was a hardness Redemption carried, a broken look…a blood-stained, war-weathered look this towering baboon didn’t possess.
They were the same height, almost the same weight.
Muscles bulged in Boroch’s arms, straining as he heaved my body into the air. “What did you say to me?”
“You…can’t hurt me,” I met the bastard’s infernal gaze with my own. “You do, and you’ll never see your fucking Prince alive again.”
His breath tore in and out like a goddamn bull. Nostrils flared, his fist tightened, strangling my shirt.
They would take my weapons.
They could take my power.
But I still had it…charm for the fucking win.
Something flared in his eyes, some kind of recognition, before he straightened and his grip on my shirt eased. My stomach clenched in warning. “What’s that look?” My boots touched the floor once more. “What’s that fucking look, Unseelie?”
He jerked me forward. I stumbled and lashed out, grabbing his forearm to catch my balance. Muscles tightened under my grip. Warmth and hardness…rage and violence.
I sucked in a breath as something inside me weakened. Desire amidst panic and fear and a cold knowing slithered in from nowhere.
I could die here. Die in this cold, unfeeling realm. I’d never be abl
e to touch my men again. Never be able to whisper the words I desperately needed them to hear.
The thunder of my boots rang out against the walls as the guard dragged me toward the hallway at the rear of the throne room. I gripped the warrior’s arm, and closed my eyes…sending one spearing, desperate thought between the veils of this world and mine…whatever happens…I love you.
“Should’ve stayed in the forest,” I muttered. “Taken my chances with the ugly bitch and the fucking stag.”
The warrior stilled, and then turned on me. “What did you say?”
“The hag in the forest and the white stag. I should’ve stayed there, taken my goddamn chances.”
“There’s no such thing as a white stag in the Unseelie realm,” he growled. “So, you’re a liar as well as a murderer.”
He turned back to the hallway, and dragged me behind him as he crossed another hallway to the right and stormed through an open doorway into a bedroom.
“Here,” he snarled. “You wanted a bedroom? Here’s your damn bedroom.”
I stared at the open door. There was no hinges for a door, no privacy at all. I turned to look around the room. The massive four-poster king-sized bed sat in the middle of the room. Midnight wood gleamed from the fire that flickered beyond the hearthstone. Leather straps shone from the posts of the bed, four straps, two at the feet, and two for the hands.
This wasn’t a bedroom made for sleeping—that part was evident.
So why…why was it given to me?
Wait…room across from hers…her consort’s fucking room? No way…no fucking way… I jerked my gaze to the warrior. “I don’t…I don’t swing that way.”
He took a step closer, brows narrowing as he towered over me. “And what way is that?”
“To lie with another woman,” the Queen answered. “It seems Lorn here doesn’t want to share my bed.”
She stepped in through the other side of the room. The doorway wasn’t really a doorway, just a damn missing wall. I could see right through the opening into her room from the middle of the consort’s room.
There was no black lace to sweep the floor this time…the Queen strode toward me, dressed in a blood-red wraparound gown.
“She should be so damn lucky,” the guard murmured.
But it wasn’t me he stared at. He was transfixed by the Queen of Air and Darkness as she cut across the room.
“You think I brought you here to fuck you?” the Queen murmured. “Is that the kind of woman you think I am?”
I flinched at her words as she stepped closer. She never once looked at the warrior…never once cared.
“You think all this was just a game…a set-up from the very beginning, like somehow I’d know you’d turn rogue and murder an innocent…”
“—I didn’t murder anyone. Like I told you, I acted in self-defense.”
“I highly doubt that,” she growled and lifted a hand to the opening of her gown. “Either way, it seems my bed is barren.”
“My Queen,” Boroch growled and stepped closer. His hand went to his belt. One snap and the weapons swung free. “My flesh is for your pleasure. Your comfort and safety are my only concern.”
She glanced at him and then slid her hand to the sash of her robe. “And what would you do for me, warrior?”
Heat rushed to my cheeks as Boroch reached over his shoulder and dragged his uniform shirt free to drop to the floor.
His back was marked, bites, bruises, lash-like red welts that ran from side to side. I’d seen evidence of a beating. I’d seen the remnant of a battered woman. But this…this was something else entirely.
She watched him like a predator watches its prey. Red lips parted, eyes glinting with lust. “I feel particularly cruel tonight, warrior.”
There was a tremble in his voice. “Yes, my Queen.”
And with that, she turned on her heel and strode from the consort’s bedroom and into her own. There was a second before he moved…a second where I caught the shudder that raced through his body.
His shirt was left behind as he took a slow step, and then another, following her into the Queen’s private bedroom and into her bed.
I stood there in the middle of the room, frozen by the bitter taste of dread in the air. There was no twang of bedsprings…no sigh of pleasure. No soft, perfect sounds of love of any kind.
Only a whimper.
And then a moan, the kind that makes your insides quiver. I backed away from the echoes, and my boots rang out against the marble floor until I turned at the doorway.
The black Unseelie mist was everywhere, floating up from the floor to lap the walls. The mist was pressure, pushing me back as I tried to step through. I tried again, gripped the doorframe and drove my body into the mist as the first cry of agony cut through the air.
The mist rose up to shove me backwards. My heels slipped on the floor, momentum was lost in a heartbeat. I scanned the walls, searching for another way out. But there were only two doorways, the one to salvation…and by the sound of the guard’s whimpers—one to his own private Hell.
No doors. But I was a prisoner just the same. If not by the beasts that waited for me outside these walls, then by the Unseelie fog that dwelled within.
I took a step backwards and then turned. A male’s scream tore from the Queen’s bedroom, the sound rupturing and tormenting. I clamped my hands over my ears and stumbled toward the massive four-poster bed.
This was what she wanted.
This had been her plan all along.
There was no safety in the Unseelie realm.
Not by her hands, to the sadistic hands of her son.
I dragged down the bedsheets and climbed in, boots and all.
The midnight silk sheets were cool to the touch. They warmed from my breath and trembled from my fear. I closed my eyes and kept my hands over my ears.
There’d be no sleep for me tonight.
No sleep at all.
I huddled like that, burrowed deep, while Boroch’s screams turned to whimpers, and then finally to cold stony silence.
Chapter Four
Redemption
Whatever happens…I love you…
The faint echo slipped through the cracks of my mind. My heart lunged, slamming against the confines of my chest. I spun, and scanned the darkness. “Lorn?”
But there was no answer, and there was no Lorn.
Just a whisper of a woman.
Her final words thrust between realms.
Jesus Christ…Lorn.
Panic filled me. “Stop,” I growled and lifted my head to the others.
Absolon’s faint screams rebounded off the walls, finding me as we climbed from the lower level of Hell. “We have to go back.”
Gabriel stilled beside me. Titus glanced over his shoulder, but it was the Hellhound who snarled at my back. “No, no fucking way. Don’t even think about it. Not when the Lord isn’t here to protect us.”
The whites of his eyes glistened in the murky gloom. I shook my head, desperate to make him understand. “The portals would be closed. All of them. We have to find another way through, and as much as I fucking hate it, Absolon is that way.”
“No fucking way…no how. You’re not going back there.”
Something soft skimmed my cheek. I reached up, grasping the downy feather as it floated through the air and then glanced at Gabriel. “You okay, brother?”
He held up his fists, perfect white tufts stuck out between his fingers. “I’m losing all my feathers.”
“He’s an Archangel…standing in the bowels of Hell,” Rival growled behind me. “Let that sink in for a minute.”
“I’m fine. If it gets us to Lorn, then it’s a price I’m happy to pay.”
I turned back to the Hellhound. “What price are you willing to pay, Hellhound?”
“You know,” his lips curled as he snarled, “one fucking day, you’re really gonna piss me off.”
But he turned…he turned and that was all I cared about, before the Hellhound glanc
ed over his shoulder. “If we do this, then it’s gonna be just you and me, Unseelie. Gabriel and Titus need to get to higher ground. They stay down here too long and they’ll lose more than fucking fluff.”
Gabriel seemed to pale.
“Go,” I murmured. “We’ll catch up.”
There was torture in their eyes. Titus shook his head. “We should all stay together.”
“No, not this time, cop. You and McPlucky here get topside and wait for us there,” Rival growled before he met my gaze. “We’re about to find out how dark your blood runs, Unseelie.”
There was a tremble in the Hellhound’s voice.
A tremble I felt to my goddamn core.
“Go,” I urged the others as I turned and took a step back the way we’d come. “We’re gonna be right behind you.”
The Hellhound sniggered, loose gravel scattered under his boots. “See you up topside, fellas! Make sure you have cookies and hot chocolate ready…we’re gonna fucking need it.”
I followed, taking long strides back down to the lower level of Hell, and leaving the other two behind. Five steps…that’s all it took before they were gone…or was it the other way around?
I couldn’t hear the echo of their steps, couldn’t hear the mumble of their whining. All I heard was the heavy thud of my own heart…getting faster…faster…faster…
Shadows reached up around me. Claws raked the walls. There was movement at the corner of my eye. Just a whisper…a face…one that morphed before my eyes.
Fiery hair, perfect lips. My heart lunged with the sight. “Lorn?”
“It’s not her, keep walking.”
I flinched and jerked my gaze toward the dark outline of the Hellhound. “Wait…just fucking wait.”
The scuff of his steps slowed. He wrenched his gaze over his shoulder. Dark, infernal eyes danced with blue flames. It wasn’t him who spoke to me, not the Rival I knew. “Do I have to fucking spell it out? It’s not her. It’s a goddamn demon. Do not look at it. Do not touch it. Do not acknowledge its presence at all, or there’ll be no goddamn topside for you, Unseelie. You’ll be lost down here in a maze of your own making.”
