by Dana Isaly
“I know you believe she wants to hurt me. But I just can’t think like that, Asher. She was my best friend. If she’s here, I don’t think she would be here to hurt me.”
One of his hands slipped into my hair, and he fisted it at the base of my skull, tugging it just enough that I felt it pull against my scalp. “She may not want to hurt you, Alyssandra, but I can guarantee that she wants to take you. And I will not let her take you from me.” His voice came out in a growl, and I shivered against him.
“Look,” I said as I wrapped my arms around his neck. “There aren’t any footprints out here. I obviously just made a mistake. I’ve been on edge since we got here. It’s nothing.” He ran one of his thumbs over my bottom lip, and I took it between my teeth. He growled, and it vibrated through my body.
“I will take your ass home right now,” he said, slipping his hands down my body and in between the fabric on my thighs. He squeezed the flesh there.
“You will not,” I murmured against his mouth. “You will take me dancing.” He groaned into my kiss, making me laugh. “Come on.” I tugged him out of the alley and down the sidewalk, following the groups of Fae making their way down. “What better way to show off your plaything than dancing with her?”
I decided not to tell Asher that I swore I saw Aoife’s flash of red hair again at the end of the alley as we made our way out of it. I was either seeing things, or she was here, and neither option was comforting. I knew Asher wouldn’t let her near me if that was what she came for. It was cemented in his mind that I would leave him for her.
I stumbled at the thought, and Asher gripped my elbow. He smiled down at me. I had come to cherish those smiles that he seemed to only share with me. Would I leave him for Aoife? For my family? He swung his arm around my shoulders and pulled me flush against him.
No, I knew I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t leave him for the world.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Three drinks in and Aoife was standing in the shadows of the corridor, watching me dance with Asher. When we locked eyes, she slinked back fully into the darkness. I turned in Asher’s arms and made the excuse of needing the ladies’ room. He kissed my hair and made me promise to be quick.
His shadows clung on my skin as I made my way across the floor, squeezing between the bodies. My heart was pounding in my chest, making me light-headed, but I knew I had seen her. And I knew she wanted me to follow her. My Fae eyesight adjusted in the darkness quickly, and I slowed my steps.
I didn’t know where she had gone, and there were darkened doorways on both sides of the corridor. Multiple places she could be hiding and waiting for me.
“Alys?” I jumped and spun to my right. And there she was, her copper hair looking more like fire now that she had released her glamor. A dark red at her roots flowed orange and then yellow at the tips. Her eyes shone like emeralds even in the low light of the room she was standing in.
“Aoife,” I breathed and ran into the room. I grabbed her and crushed her against my body. She smelled like wet leaves and bonfire smoke. Her arms wrapped around my waist, and I felt her release a breath into my hair.
“What the fuck happened, Alys?” She pulled back, eyeing the tiara on my head. “Why are you acting like a High Lord’s consort?”
“It’s a long story,” I started before she cut me off.
“You have to come with me.” The shadows around me began to stir. Aoife eyed them and took a step back. My stomach dropped. “He’s marked you,” she whispered. My hand instinctively went to my neck, where his dust lay restless.
“Look,” I said, dropping my hand back to my side, “he did that when I was still human to track me. He was trying to keep me safe, Aoife.”
“Not the dust, Alys. That’s a minor tracking bond.” She waved her hand. “His shadows follow you.” At her statement, they curled around my arms, causing my hair to stand on edge.
“And?” I asked her, not sure where she was going with her train of thought.
“Alyssandra,” she said as she stepped forward and grabbed my shoulders. Her staggered, panicked emotions flooded in, and I flinched away from her harsh grip. My magick responded to her emotions and flared hot under my skin. “He has marked you as his. He has claimed you. He’s made sure that everyone that sees you will know that you are intended to be his mate.”
I felt the color drain from my face. There was no way that she was telling the truth. She couldn’t know that. Just because his shadows seemed to like me? They most definitely did not follow me because he intended me to be his mate. I stepped fully out of her grasp and hugged myself. But a small part of me wondered if it would be so bad to be his mate, his person. Would it be the worst thing in the world to have someone love you like that?
“Alys, you have to come with me. You don’t understand,” she said as she took a step towards me. “There’s so much to tell you.”
“I know what you’re going to tell me, Aoife. I know I’m your sister. Well, half sister. I know that our father wants me dead and sent you to keep an eye on me.” I could feel the anger boiling through my blood at the betrayal I had buried deep down as I recited Asher’s story from memory. “You were supposed to be my friend, but all of that was a lie.” Her eyes were wide as saucers and glowing an even brighter green.
I could feel my magick humming underneath the surface of my skin, begging to be used.
Kill the pretty girl, it whispered in my ear.
I ran my hands into my hair and pushed it out of my face while I took deep breaths, trying to cool the heat pouring through me. I paced a few steps right and then turned on my heel and went a few steps left. I could feel myself losing control, but to what, I didn’t know. My skin felt like it was going to be flayed from my bones. Gooseflesh broke out over my skin, and I could barely catch my breath. I thought I heard a pitiful noise escape my mouth. Asher’s shadows crawled up my torso and around my neck.
“Alys?” I threw my hand in her direction to tell her to be quiet, but instead of a harmless gesture, she was flung through the air and slammed into the wall behind her. I barely caught sight of it before my skull felt like it was cracking open. I dropped to my knees and crouched over. Fire. I was on fire. I tried to stop a scream from exploding through me but failed. His cool shadows tried to smother the fire, lying harshly cold against my burning skin and fighting to get in my mouth, in my lungs. I coughed, and my fingers tried to tear through my skin. I had to get it out.
Let me out. Let me out. Let me kill the pretty girl, it cooed into my ear.
“Alys.” Aoife knelt next to me and threw her arms around me, but her skin was even hotter than mine. I groaned and tried to throw her off, but she was unyielding. “We have to go. Now. Something has happened to you. This isn’t right. He isn’t right.” It felt like every bone in my body was cracking, every muscle was tearing. Tears streamed down my face, and my teeth ground together.
“Get your fucking hands off of her.” His voice cut through my pain like a dagger through flesh. It ripped right through me like falling into the frozen waters of the lake. I fell over onto the floor out of Aoife’s hands. I heard my tiara thunk onto the floor and roll.
“Alys, listen to me.” She was speaking quickly and hushed. I still couldn’t open my eyes to look at her. “He lied to you. Our father would never hurt you. But if I don’t come back with you, he will send someone else after you. He wants you home and away from this monster.”
“Enough!” Asher roared, and I flinched, curling in on myself even more. The pain was easing the closer he got, but it still thundered through my body.
“Father was right about you, Asher,” Aoife said. “You are weak and pathetic. Let her go. She is not yours.”
“Oh, Aoife.” His voice was as smooth as butter, cloyingly sweet. “You are right about that. She is not mine. Not in the way you insinuate, anyway. She is her own person with her own feelings and thoughts. I do not control her.” I felt him kneel behind me, and I instinctually rolled over towards him. He helped me up, and his shadows ful
ly encased me, smothering the fire in my veins. I leaned back against him as he held my weight and sighed at the respite.
I slowly opened my eyes and turned to face Aoife. This time, I could feel my eyes glowing. They took on a certain warmth that tingled and made water run freely down my cheeks. I blinked at it, but it wouldn’t relent. Aoife gasped and took several steps back. The sickly scent of fear rolled through the room.
“You will not speak to him like that,” I said, my voice as cold as death itself.
“What have you done to her?”
“He hasn’t done anything,” I said through a hoarse throat. I was tired, in pain, and getting more and more irritated at her. “This isn’t Asher’s doing.”
“If I don’t bring her back with me, Asher, he will send someone after her. She is our family. She belongs with us.”
“You can stop speaking as if I am not here, as if he speaks for me. I will not go with you.”
She stiffened as her gaze found mine through his shadows that were angrily filling the space. For a split second, her face crumpled into sadness, but it disappeared so quickly I wasn’t sure if I actually saw it.
“Let them come,” Asher said. There was something in his voice that made me think he wanted them to come, that he wanted the bloodshed that would follow. In that moment, I couldn’t blame him. This whole situation was really starting to grate on my nerves. The pain was receding more quickly now, and I leaned my head back against his chest and took deep breaths.
“Aoife,” I said through a heavy sigh. “You betrayed me. I thought you were my friend.” I took another pain-free breath, and my body relaxed even more. “You say that you and our father are my family? He wants to kill me, Aoife.”
“He’s lying to you.” Her voice cracked, and I felt my throat burn with my own tears.
“Asher’s my home now. I choose him. I will always choose him, Aoife,” I said thickly. She reached towards me, and I noticed her blackened fingertips for the first time. Another punch to the gut. Another thing I never knew about her. Another thing I had to find out about her through Asher. He pulled me tighter against him, and she dropped her arm back to her side.
“I am your sister,” she said as tears fell over her lashes and sizzled into steam as they rolled over her cheeks. “And I will still be here when you realize he is not who he says he is.”
And then she was gone. Poof. She disappeared into thin air, and I stared after her as my heart felt like it ripped in half. I turned into Asher’s chest and let the tears come. I choked on my cries, and he cradled my head in his hands, his fingers weaving themselves into my hair.
“Let’s go back to the cabin,” he whispered into my hair after a minute of letting me cry. I nodded and pulled away slightly, wiping away my tears. I knew my face was blotchy and red, but I was too exhausted to care that I was an ugly crier. He picked up my tiara and placed it back on top of my head.
“What’s wrong with me?” I whispered just loud enough for him to hear.
“I don’t have the answer to that.” He wiped the rest of the tears off my face, and I agreed as I took a few steadying breaths. “But we will get you answers.”
He grabbed my face in his hands tightly and jerked my mouth to his in a bruising kiss that stole all the breath I had just taken. The sheer adoration in that kiss, in the skin-on-skin contact from him, made my knees weak.
“You chose me,” he said in a whisper on my lips. “No one has ever chosen me.”
My throat ached again, and I swallowed those tears. I could feel his whirlwind of emotions through our touch. There was so much pain in his heart.
“I will always choose you.” I stared into his eyes and thought about how Aoife had claimed he had marked me as his mate. That was something we would have to talk about. But it was on the back burner until we figured out what the hell was going on with my magic. And, honestly, when I looked up into his eyes, I didn’t care if he had marked me. A part of me, a part I wouldn’t let show itself yet, wasn’t angry. That little part was content to be his.
But it was overshadowed by the terrifying amount of power I had felt earlier. I was out of control, and it had been trying to overtake me. Whatever that voice was…it wanted out. It wanted me. And it had almost succeeded.
“Come on, little duck,” he said as he took my hand. “Let’s sneak out the back and maybe get you some hot chocolate on the way back?”
I smiled and leaned into his arm, breathing in his clean scent. “And sugared pecans, please,” I said as we made our way through the darkened corridors.
“Of course,” he said. “Anything for my princess.”
I sighed at the nickname and wondered now if that had more meaning than I had wanted to believe.
Chapter Twenty-Three
I told Asher everything. I told him about the uncontrollable power and about the voice that accompanied it. I told him about how it whispered for me to kill Aoife and how I was pretty sure it had also told me to kill him in a dream I had. He gave me his full attention and hung on every word until I was finished and folded my legs underneath me, trying to curl up and disappear.
He stared at the floor for a moment, and I watched him intently, waiting to see what he would do. We had both changed when we got back. He wore loose pants and a tight white shirt that clung to every muscle that was now taut with stress and worry. I played with the hem of his shirt he had insisted I wear.
“I want my scent all over you,” he had growled in my ear.
I didn’t protest after that.
But now, sitting wrapped in a blanket on the couch, waiting for him to respond to my story, I felt self-conscious. The anxiety that I had rarely felt since crossing into this world was suddenly creeping its way back around me like ivy, gripping at my heart. Without even realizing I was doing it, I reached out my senses, my anxiety fueling the need to know what he was thinking, and skimmed the edge of his power with mine.
“You’re being a bit more gentle this time,” he whispered.
“Sorry,” I said and pulled it back. “My anxiety is a bit of a trigger for it.”
He grabbed my hands, and I watched our shadows twirl around us there, a cool breeze against our skin.
“You never have to apologize to me for your power, Alys.”
I met his grey eyes and smiled, but I knew it didn’t reach my eyes. I could feel the sob climbing its way up through my throat.
“Something is wrong with me.” My voice broke. “Maybe I shouldn’t have changed. Maybe it took so long because I wasn’t meant to be here.” I was spiraling. I could feel the panic take hold in my stomach and chest, seizing my muscles. I couldn’t breathe. I stood up and paced in front of the sofa. “I wasn’t supposed to be here, Asher. You brought me here. You took me and brought me here, and I wasn’t supposed to be here!”
“I know,” he whispered into his hands.
“Why did you do it? Why did you have to bring me here and turn me into this?” I gestured at my body. I knew I was being ridiculous; I could feel it. I always knew when my anxiety took hold and I was no longer being rational, but I was on a roll and couldn’t stop the words from tumbling out of my mouth like a waterfall. “This is your fault,” I said in a deathly, low whisper.
My power pulsed through me in a shock wave at those words.
His fault. His fault, it whispered.
Another pulse of power hurtled through me.
His head still hung in his hands, the thick strands of hair curling around his fingers.
“I know, Alyssandra.” He lifted his head and looked at me. “You don’t think I hate myself every day for bringing you here? Tearing you out of your comfortable life? I hate myself for bringing you here and making you stay with me.” He stood and gripped my arms, his fingertips digging into my flesh. “I hate how selfish I am with you. I knew from the moment I saw you that I was well and truly fucked. Why do you think I treated you so badly? Kept you at a distance?”
I ripped myself out of his grip. I was angry and h
eated, and I knew I would get lost in those eyes if I stayed too long. I made circles around the small living room and then poured myself a drink and downed it in one gulp, letting the liquor set my skin on fire.
“I had come to York to save you. I knew Theron was hunting you. I knew Aoife was close to you. You don’t understand the horrors I grew up with. You don’t understand all the things I have seen him do to not only me. When I heard he was looking for someone, for you, there was just something inside me that broke at that. I couldn’t let him do it again.” He was really shouting, causing his shadows to seep through the room and block out all the firelight. His face was red, and his eyes seemed to light up with anger.
“You did it out of spite, Asher. You did it to stick it to Theron one last time. Do not delude yourself into thinking this was all for me.” I swallowed another glass and ran my hands over my face. My magic thrummed under my skin, pushing me closer and closer to the cliff. I turned away from him and gripped the bar until I felt the metal dip under my fingers.
“Alys,” he said and placed a hand on my shoulder to turn me around. His eyes widened slightly before he pulled me to him, my face cradled in his hands. “I did not only do it for me. I felt something pull me to you.” I felt tears prick at my eyes. “Breathe for me, little duck. Grip that power and pull it down.”
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, pushing it as far down as I possibly could, my power writhing against me, fighting the entire way. I couldn’t tell the difference between my anger and the thing inside me. I didn’t know if what I was feeling was real or if it was that thing trying to take me over.
But I felt rage in that moment. Rage that my mother wasn’t my mother. Rage that everything I grew up knowing was a lie. Rage that I was taken from my friends and family.
He took you away, it whispered.
I pushed back at it, forcing it down and hidden. I had to sort through my own thoughts and my own feelings. With Asher’s skin against mine, his own self-hatred free flowing into me, and the thing inside me swelling with hope it would be freed again, I couldn’t breathe.
