Oh God…
“Tell me I didn’t…” I couldn’t finish, my hand covering my mouth. Rick, Brittany, Amie…
“I’m sorry,” the stranger whispered, his expression one of sorrow. “Your power burst out of you too suddenly for me to anticipate. I tried to save as many of them as I could, but the destruction was too much.”
“I destroyed the bar?” I whispered.
He hung his head, as if he blamed himself. “Yes.”
“And my friends?”
His eyes lifted to mine, the answer lurking in his gaze.
“Who?” I demanded. “Who?”
“The boy,” he said.
“Rick?” Oh God… I pinched my side again, but it was futile. I would never dream this. Not even in a nightmare. “I killed Rick?”
“It’s not your fault, Claire. You didn’t—”
“Not my fault?” I shrieked. “You said I burned down the damn bar!” I jumped to my feet, mindful of the roots in this stupid, tiny, forest-laden room. Such a lie. It felt like I was outside, but I wasn’t. And the air closing in around me proved it.
I needed to be free.
To run.
To be in the clean air.
Not locked in this little greenhouse with…
Fuck, I don’t even know his name!
Fae Realm.
Powers.
Fire.
Burned-down bar.
I spun, not hearing whatever he was trying to say beside me. Not caring to hear another word. This was too much.
I killed Rick.
Did I? What if he’s lying?
Why would he lie?
I don’t know. I don’t fucking know!
His palm was too hot against my forearm. I twisted out of his grasp, needing space, needing air. And as if hearing my call, it whirled around me, blowing him into the wall again with a grunt. His pained expression struck me in the heart, causing me to falter.
I don’t know him.
I don’t belong here.
“I can’t,” I breathed, staring at the window, watching as the glass blew out with a breath from my lips. “I’m sorry.” I followed the breeze on instinct, letting it carry me down to the grass below, not pausing to think about the how or the why, just needing to run.
There had to be a way home. A way back to the bar. A way back to Rick. To my friends. My family.
I couldn’t stay here. This wasn’t my place. This foreign land of endless trees and flowers and vines. Oh God, where am I even going? It doesn’t matter. Just run. And I did, sprinting through the fields and beneath the canopy of leaves, then across and more fields, past lakes, and continuing into unending nature.
The sun moved overhead, illuminating my journey, aiding my attempt to escape.
But nothing new crossed my path. Only more and more trees, denser with every step.
I whirled around, mystified, tears rolling down my cheeks.
“Where am I?” I breathed, falling to my knees in the thick underbrush. “Where the fuck am I?”
I collapsed to my side, my exhaustion finally overcoming me. My legs were bleeding, my feet aching, my heart… broken.
“I don’t belong here,” I whimpered, curling into a ball of despair. Leaves seemed to fold around me, cocooning me from the elements, soothing my spirit in a way I could hardly comprehend. But I allowed it. Because what else was I supposed to do?
“Who am I?” I asked, a sob ripping from my chest.
Claire… My name whispered on the wind, my vision blurred by the flutter of butterflies overhead. Claire…
I closed my eyes, not wanting to hear another word, refusing to acknowledge this insanity any longer.
This is not my home.
4
Titus
What a fucking morning. My head spun from the aftermath of what felt like a dream that had me in a fog for hours.
Something strange was happening, causing the campus to come alive in excitement. And I wasn’t in the mood for excitement, something most would say was out of character for me.
However, after my fuckup with Ignis last night, I had good reason. Sleeping with her had been a huge fucking mistake—not that I’d had much choice in the matter—and now she refused to understand the words never happening again. I didn’t do relationships, especially not with the likes of her. I just wanted to be alone. Heading to the gym and isolating myself in the guys’ locker room seemed to be the only place of solace I could find in this damned school.
Normally, I enjoyed the challenge a Fire Fae like Ignis would bring, maybe even indulge her with a round or two before I moved on, but I’d fallen into a temporary funk that I couldn’t explain.
I leaned back against the lockers and let my head thump against the unforgiving steel. It was the only place on the premises that wasn’t covered in nature and shit. I needed metal and grounding. I needed to focus. Closing my eyes, I focused on the flames licking at my insides and threatening to burst out of me. The air around me wavered, and I knew I risked melting school property if I didn’t get my shit under control.
“You okay, man?” River asked, wiping both the sweat and conjured water from his face with a towel.
As a Water Fae, he was the only guy who’d dare approach me in an enclosed locker room. That was predominantly why the shy fae and I had become friends over the past year. In some ways, I seemed to be even more isolated than him. A side effect of being the Powerless Champion—winner of the ring where fighting to the death was common and the use of powers meant execution in the most fantastical manner.
One rule: no powers—hence the title the “Powerless Champion.”
It took a certain kind of mental state for me to win in that kind of fighting ring, but that had been me for quite a few years. That was before the accident. Before the Academy. Before a friend like River.
Another spasm rushed through my body that left me feeling nauseous. I felt as if I were being pulled somewhere off campus, like my whole body wanted to run. I never ran from my problems, no matter how big or irritating they were.
Rubbing the back of my neck, I suppressed a groan. Everything hurt as if I’d been back in the fighting ring for weeks, but the days of bashing skulls were behind me. I was trying to turn over a new leaf and control my powers instead of pretending they didn’t exist—which had gotten half of my family killed when they finally demanded acknowledgment.
Fuck if that was going as planned.
“I must be sick,” I replied to River. I showed him my palm. Instead of veins, embers writhed under my skin like possessed snakes. After so many years of denying myself my powers, they were coming through with merciless greed—or something was calling them to the surface.
Instead of fear, River looked amused. “Must be the curse,” he said as he flicked his wrist and sent water splashing onto my skin. Steam hissed immediately and fogged the air, but it felt good.
Waving away the mist, I glowered at him. “Don’t tell me you believe in that bullshit, too.”
He cocked his brow and strapped the towel around the back of his neck. “So you heard about her?”
Of course I’d heard about her. News of the Halfling was spreading faster than any wildfire I could create. Maybe it was the anxiety surrounding her arrival that set me on edge.
“I have no interest in humans,” I said flatly, although the surge of heat in my core suggested otherwise, as if she were somehow the source of all my power trying to burst out of me. Ignoring it, I popped open the locker and snatched my fireproof shirt, stretching the fibers before pulling it over my head. “Why don’t you go take a shower?”
It was a poor attempt at tricking River into leaving me alone. The Water Fae didn’t need a proper shower, not with his powers fully under control.
Showing off, River spritzed himself with a splash of water and stepped closer to me to evaporate the excess. He grinned before pulling his shirt over his head.
“You know the Halfling is a female… right?” River waggled his brows,
no doubt hoping to entice me to go check her out for ourselves. He would be far too shy to approach her, but he was always fascinated by humans. He took every elective and training session he could get his hands on to study the short-lived race.
I rolled my eyes. “I don’t care what she is. I don’t want to see another girl right now.”
Just when I was about to lean back onto the lockers again, River took me by the wrist and yanked hard. He flushed his grip with water that sent fresh steam into the air and protected him against my burning skin. “Stop pouting,” he said. “We both know Ignis is waiting right outside, and you’ve been avoiding her. It’s time to confront her and get the bullshit out of the way. Then we can go sniff out the Halfling and see if she’s put a curse on you,” he added with a smirk.
I narrowed my eyes but allowed River to drag me out of the locker room. He was right. The sooner I faced Ignis and told her to fuck off, the sooner I’d feel better. Something was wrong with me, and I didn’t need to be stressing about her right now.
Sunlight made me wince when we stepped out into the cool exterior of the gym. It wasn’t like my pad back in the Fire Kingdom, with iron and walls that blocked out the elements. The Academy encouraged all elements to play freely, meaning an exercise and training building would be open for all. Enormous windows spanned the ceiling, allowing wind and light to slip through to caress the great oaks and vines that acted as climbing walls with shifting footholds. I let my eyesight adjust, and three female fae came into focus.
Ignis glowered at me, tall and furious. Her red hair curled around her cheeks in a way that could have made her look innocent if it hadn’t been for the tiny flames that licked across her fingertips.
I groaned when I saw that she’d brought reinforcements. The Water Fae, Sickle, and the Air Fae, Aerie, stood on either side of her with hatred blazing in their eyes.
“Thank you, River,” Ignis said curtly and waved him away as if she’d ordered him to retrieve me, which she likely had.
River ducked his head and let go of my wrist, but I spotted the mischievous glint in his eyes as he glanced up at me through the shaggy hair covering his face. The bastard thought this was immensely entertaining. “I’ll catch up with you at the entrance,” he muttered, stuffing his hands into his pockets and shuffling out of sight.
I sighed. “Look, Ignis—”
She stormed up to me and slammed a crooked finger into my chest. Any other fae would have gotten burned by an act like that, but her fire seemed to have grown overnight—after she’d tricked me into sleeping with her.
Damn it.
I was a moron.
“Why have you been avoiding me?” she snapped. “You’re mine now, Titus. You and I fucked, which is a binding contract between Fire Fae for at least a month’s time.”
Well, she wasn’t going to beat around the bush about it, was she?
She grinned, no doubt thinking she had me right where she wanted me. I was going to be her trophy for a month? No fucking way was that going to happen.
I matched the fire in her eyes with my own. Maybe if we’d been back in the Fire Kingdom, I’d have to indulge her—no matter if she’d poisoned me with seduction magic or not—but not here, not in the Academy, where freedom was encouraged and elemental customs wavered.
That didn’t make my predicament much better. She would fight for this particular custom to be enforced if only to imprison me to her side and add to the growing reputation as a Fire Fae not to be messed with. Taming the Powerless Champion no doubt was on the top of her list of recent achievements and would reduce my pride to the most withering of embers when she was done with me.
The most logical prevention would have been to not sleep with her, and of course I knew better than to stick my dick in this crazy bitch. Just because I had a playboy reputation didn’t mean I always acted on it. No one would believe me if I told them that she’d tricked me into sleeping with her.
Seduction magic was a black-market commodity and not permitted on Academy premises, but I still had the sour aftertaste of its recognizable compulsion in my mouth. The bitch had stoked flames that weren’t intended for her, which was likely what had left me feeling so off right now. She might have gotten a taste, but never again.
Growling, I gripped her fingers and forced her arm to bend backward. Like most fae, she was graceful and lean, but she was still of the fire element. With the amount of power coursing through her right now, I suspected she might even be a suitable match if we really went head-to-head. I’d already gotten dinged for fighting this year and couldn’t afford another mark.
“I’m not interested in entertaining your fantasies, Ignis. You might have tricked me into your bed, but in the light of day, I see you for what you really are.” I leaned in, enunciating my words carefully. “Not. My. Type.” I let go of her arm. “I’ll watch my drinks with a closer eye from now on. Don’t think you can trick me again.”
Ignis stumbled, overacting the motion as if I’d hurt her. Her eyes brimmed with crocodile tears, and her friends rushed to her side. “You would accuse me of spiking your drink?” she shrieked.
“You brute!” Sickle snapped at me, her voice grating against my ears with the icy edge of her power, making me wince. “How could you treat a kindred fae like Ignis so poorly? What a horrid accusation!”
I narrowed my eyes and crossed my arms over my chest, which was more of a motion to try to keep the growing inferno contained than anything else. “When she acts like a kindred fae, perhaps I’ll treat her in the manner worthy of her station.”
Ignoring them, I flared my heat, allowing enough of it to singe the air until the fae instinctually backed off, allowing me through.
Normally, I would have been flattered that a powerful Fire Fae would have thought me untouchable enough to have to spike my drink to procure a night with me, but now I just felt angry, manipulated, my pride bruised. Seduction magic might not be permitted on campus, but it wasn’t entirely illegal generally because it couldn’t force someone into bed unless an ember of desire existed in the first place. It grew passions; it didn’t create them.
But I didn’t even like Ignis, let alone find the devilish female attractive.
No, something felt wrong. My powers were stirring restlessly inside of me, as if on the brink of chaos. And it had started late last night.
Which, from what I had heard, was when the Halfling had arrived in our realm.
Whispers reached my ears, all of the other fae talking about her.
“I heard she’s killed already. Should she really be here?”
“Is she bound?”
“Who is her mentor?”
“I heard she’s hot!”
Growling, I found River leaning against the entrance and brushed past him. “Since when do you play lapdog to Ignis?”
He shrugged, a little sheepish. “She’s a little scary, if you haven’t noticed.”
“Oh, I’ve noticed.” Damn female had bitten me last night, too. Leaving her claim proudly on my neck. “She’s—”
“You,” Exos interrupted, his sapphire eyes trained on me. From the state of his shredded clothes, he’d been in a battle or two—on the losing end, for sure.
My eyes widened. The Royal Prince of Spirit Fae was a legend, his connection to Spirit magic the strongest anyone had ever seen, his affinity for fire besting several of my brethren. “Yes?” I asked him, unsure if I should bow or refer to him formally. “Uh, Your Highness?” What are you doing here? I wanted to ask.
Then it struck me.
He’s here because of the Halfling.
Exos leveled me with a powerful gaze. “I need you to come with me.”
* * *
I didn’t ask questions. When a Royal Fae issued a demand, everyone adhered to it. Especially when that Royal Fae was a legendary Fae Warrior. Like Exos.
He led us—me and River, who had insisted on tagging along—deep into the forest surrounding the Academy, having already shown us the destruction at Chancello
r Elana’s home just off campus. In a quick debrief, Exos had informed us that he’d been put in charge of the Halfling’s protection, and lost her.
Which was why he needed me.
The girl’s affinity for fire had left a string of smoky notes in the air, too faint for him to catch. And I was the strongest Fire Fae within immediate reach.
“Keep up. I need your proximity to sense her,” Exos said, his feet moving quickly over the exposed roots and fallen leaves.
Great, giant boughs seemed to sway away from Exos as we followed the faint scent of the most powerful fire magic I’d ever felt—and that was saying something. “You’re sure she only just came into her powers?” I ventured, struggling to keep myself from sprinting past the fae. Not only was I strong, but I was fast, too, and now that I had her trail, I wanted to follow it.
“Yes, and so far, I sense multiple elements from her. Spirit and Fire, of course, but also Air and Water.” He glanced back at River, who trailed behind us. “Is he going to be up to the task? The Halfling is powerful.”
I nodded, confident in River’s ability. When his head was on straight, he was strong—stronger than even he realized. “He’ll be able to help.”
Exos gave a curt nod before reaching out a hand to stop us. “Good, because she seems to enjoy playing with fire.” He sounded disgruntled over that, which explained some of his singed attire.
“Hold on,” I said, my nostrils flaring as I picked up the tendrils of her smoky power. “She’s near.”
“Lead us” was Exos’s reply, his vigilant gaze sweeping the grounds.
My eyes darted across the clearing we’d stepped into. It presented a calm facade, an oasis that now descended into dusk with the softness of purple butterflies lazily lingering over the sleepy meadow. But I sensed the Halfling, her exquisite aura of molten iron mixed with a tornado of power that dared me to take a single step closer.
Exos eyed me warily as I followed the tug that seemed to grow straight from my chest toward a heap of flowers with the shadow of a curled form hidden beneath the colorful earth. Was that her?
Shadows and Sorcery: A Collection of Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance Novels Page 5
