I don’t want this life.
4
Warmth brushes against my hot, sweaty cheek. The sensation draws me out of my sleep. I blink awake—and lurch back.
Spike has scooted much too close to me during my rest, and he watches me. My widened eyes land on the one breathing too hot on my face.
I’ve reeled back, horror slackening me for a frozen moment.
Distantly, I note that in my peripherals, the dark fae is spread out over the bench and he sleeps. And that gives me an opportunity.
I hike up my knee, prepared to deliver a precise boot to Spike’s face. But before I can even twist my face into a snarl, he holds up his hands, one finger lifted, and shushes me. His gaze cuts to the bench, to the sleeping fae.
The message is written all over his hopeful face. He was meaning to wake me up, waiting for the warrior to fall asleep.
I shift, leaning my aching—definitely bruised—side on the post. Letting my head rest on the rotting wood, I mouth, “What?” with more snark than maybe the question needed.
“Kale got away,” he whispers, and my heart stops.
The scowl that I wear starts to fade away, wrinkles turning to smooth lines. I sit up a little stiffer.
I knew I counted someone missing from the scattered corpses. Well, I’d counted two people missing—but head injury and all that.
My voice is hushed and rough, as though I haven’t had a sip of water in days. Have I...? “You’re sure?”
“I saw him run,” he tells me, all secrets and leaning closer—so close that I can smell the sleep-stink of his rotten breath.
I pinch my mouth shut. Try not to breathe.
“It doesn't matter,” he adds with a glance over his shoulder at the motionless fae. “He won’t do anything about this...” With a jerk of his head, he gestures to us and our situation.
“I’m only in this because of you,” I hiss before I even know the words have sprung to mind. That missing scowl returns, twisting my face. “If you hadn’t said anything about my freckles, I would have died back there.”
His furry eyebrows knit together. “Is that really what you wanted? He wouldn't have made it quick, Coralie. I’ve seen how long they can draw these things out. And sorry, but I didn't want to watch that. Not again.”
‘Trauma’ creeps into my mind. Flashbacks of what he might have experienced and seen in his time with the dark fae army.
But fuck his trauma, he’s only created mine in avoiding his.
“I wanted to die.” My voice is firmer now, all hushes crushed to dust. “You stole my choice—and that’s just the kind of guy I think you are.”
His furrowed brow smooths out. A mask slips over his face; stony. “I’ll remember that,” he promises, then shifts around to turn his back to me.
He leans against the post, as though to find rest, but the tension in his shoulders alerts me that he’s still very much awake, and absolutely fuming.
Perhaps I should be more concerned about his promise—or threat, more like. Maybe I should I worry myself over it but, in truth, I think there’s little he can do. We’re watched too closely by the dark fae; so little opportunity to set each other up.
And, in all honesty, anything he does that might deliver me to my death is a blessing and I welcome it.
Bring it on, little weasel.
*
Sleep is long gone for me after Spike’s stinky, hot breath woke me up.
For too long, I’ve stared at the orange glow cast over the wooden boards above me, then rubbed my fingertips over the burnt-sun rust on the hooks I’m bound to. Eventually, I can’t fight it anymore and my gaze lands on the cardboard boxes in the corner.
Everyone else is asleep.
The fae hasn’t stirred on the bench, and I fleetingly wonder if that black powder stuff takes it out of him, or he needs to sleep to help recover from his quick-healing wounds.
Spike is snoring, a gravelly sound, so I know he’s out cold.
Who’s to say anyone will know if I sneak a look into the boxes?
I try my luck and twist around the post to face the boxes. Casting a glance over my shoulder, I see that the others are undisturbed. The rustle of my ropes didn’t stir either of them.
Arching away from the post, I stretch out my left leg. Kisses of pain bud all over my kneecap; I snub the pain, since it’s nothing compared to the hot, wide-spread ache that’s grown all over my back.
Automatically, my tongue sticks out the corner of my mouth. Under the weight of the aches, my leg starts to twitch the farther out I stretch it. Still, I manage to catch the heel of my boot on the edge of a damp, soggy box. It’s nearest me, not on the pile, and sagging—so that’s the one I target.
Hitching my breath, I hook my boot into the mouldy cardboard corner and pull my leg back to myself. The softness of the box makes little sound as it drags over the floorboards.
I quit while I’m ahead. No use dragging it all the way over to me and risk waking up the psychopathic warrior on the bench. Or the rapey creep sleeping on the other side of the post for that matter.
Scooting my butt over the floorboards, I shuffle myself closer to the box, meeting it halfway—as far as the ropes allow with some leeway still left over.
Delicately, I peel off a slice of wet cardboard. But at my angle, I’m blocking the inside of the box, and I see nothing but shadows. Could be a horde of rats or spiders in there, for all I know.
The thought spears me with an icy sensation that chills my spine and I twist away. Torchlight floods the interior of the box. And at what I see, a small smile dares to tilt up the corners of my chapped mouth.
I reach out my restrained hands for the top of the pile.
Old photographs, stacks and stacks of them. Most of them gleam a dusty brown hue under the firelight.
I pull out a handful, then angle them towards the torch. I flick through them. Nothing spectacular—if family memories and the memories of our soon-to-be extinct species are unspectacular. Still, none stand out to me. The poses are stiff, faces are unhappy, clothes are too corseted and miserable.
I set the photographs aside before I reach into the box again. I feel around, go through stacks of pictures, until I come across a smaller hard-wood box.
Inception, I think to myself, and that stupid smile twitches again.
I bring the smooth, polished box to my lap, then flip open the golden clasp. Inside, a bunch of medals shine up at me. War medals and memorabilia I assume. Tucked beside them is a small stack of Polaroid pictures (really, one of my favourite cameras).
Now this is what I’m talking about. Sincere moments, captured and forever preserved in time—two mates in tank-tops passing a bottle of beer between them; a wedding photograph in black and white with one of those lacy vintage style gowns that I just love; and one of those classic ones with a woman leaning up against the side of a train to kiss her lover who hangs out of a window to reach her.
I pinch all three of the photos, tucking them into the side of my boot. With socks, they would be better secured, but I make do.
Those Polaroids flood me back in time when I got my first camera. Same camera (obviously my devices advanced over time), and my first love.
Photography is an eternal passion of mine; one lost some time ago. But in all truth, I was never any good at it. I just did it. I loved my pictures of bland, withering flowers, and shadows stretching over cobblestone streets, and that time my mother passed out in the bathtub after too much morning-vodka. No one liked my photos, except me.
Wonder where they are now. I had a collection, boxes and stashes of them. Probably burned to the ground by now.
I let go of those thoughts as I close the lid on the box and push it away from me.
I tuck back to the post.
As I twist around to face the door, a shadow catches in the corner of my eye and I stiffen. Eyes widening, I slowly slide my stare to the bench—and see the warrior straddling it, sitting upright, and looking right at me.
&nb
sp; His arms, bare like his chest, looks slick under the torchlight, as though slathered in tanned oil. Orange light licks up the profile of his olive-skinned face, catching the cutting shadow of his chiselled jawline. Those amber flecks in his eyes dance like wild flames through towns, made darker—more threatening—by the loose strands of dark hair brushing over his brow.
I swallow, audibly.
I have a thought—are all the dark fae so beautiful because they used to once lure us humans into their realm?
That’s how the stories go, at least. Could be zero truth to them at all, but I doubt that since most of the world had lost their belief in the fae and then, what-da-ya-know (as my school roomie used to say), they came here with all their power and magic and ferocity, and they decimated us.
Loosening a quiet breath punched with exhaustion, I turn my gaze down to the fae’s side.
Reddened and bruised, the wound looks nearly knitted shut by invisible threads. He’s almost fully healed.
And he caught me in the act of preserving some of human history.
Yet, he does nothing. He says nothing. He simply watches me.
I sink back against the post, bringing my knees to my chest, holding his ember gaze.
After a while, he pulls his gaze from me and starts to check his wounds. I finally loosen a strangled breath and let my head fall with relief.
He works in silence for the better part of an hour, reapplying salve and balms, redressing his shoulder. I take the chance to check my own.
With the dark fae distracted and Spike snoring like a foghorn, I lift up the torn hem of my dress. Revealed, my legs are bruised and scraped from the knobbly knees up.
I cut a glance at the warrior, making sure he’s still distracted—and he is. He has his back to me now, hunched over (back muscles rippling with every move of his arms) as he riffles through a satchel.
For a beat, I study those charred-like, ribbed scars running down his back; shoulder-blade to the defined muscles of his smaller back. The scars are exact mirrors of each other, and I still can’t decipher whether they mean something in his culture or he was simply born that way.
I throw the scars out of mind. I have my own mending to do.
Knowing it’s safe for a moment, I lift up my dress to check my torso. And it’s covered in kiss-bruises. Except the right side, where the bastard booted me onto my back and definitely cracked a rib or two.
I let my dress fall back into place before I reach up my aching fingers for the strip pulled tight around my mouth. I wrestle it out, then settle it over my nose; it’s a better angle to press against the wound at the back of my head, and I can breathe much better this way.
As I look up at the bench again, I catch the dark fae watching me. He has a waterskin in his hand, his gaze burning into the muzzle I fought out of my mouth.
All he does is toss the waterskin through the air. I watch it arc towards me, then land right on my lap. A perfect aim.
Hesitation clings to me. For a moment, a battle erupts inside of me; is it poisoned or is it drinkable water? But then, I want to die and I want to drink.
So what’s the harm, I decide?
I pull out the cork-lid and lift the leather-bound waterskin to my mouth. Leaning back my head, I pour a steady stream of tepid water down my throat. Don’t even stop to swirl it around my parched mouth.
Barely have a moment to lower the waterskin from my mouth before hands snatch it out of my grip. I snare my snarl on Spike as he starts to guzzle down as much of the water as he can—
But he hasn’t got another moment before the warrior is towering over us. One look from the fae, and Spike’s hands tremble as he draws the waterskin away from his mouth. He offers it up to the dark fae.
Before he takes it, he shoots a puzzled look at me—that I have no idea the meaning behind—then stalks off to the bench. For a heartbeat, I almost let myself wonder if we’ll have more time to rest. But those hopes are shattered as he scoops up the satchel straps then flings them across the shed at Spike.
The warrior storms over to us.
Numbly, I watch as he unloops our ropes from the hooks, then fastens us to his belt. The leeway is shorter now, but I can’t decide whether he meant to keep us closer to him, or it was just done without much thought.
Once we’re secure, and Spike has the satchels over his shoulder, the warrior adjusts the sword slung over his back and the weapons belt low on his hips.
He makes to move away, but pauses in front of me, turning his head to cast his dark stare down at me. Then, after a moment, he snatches the fabric from my face and fits it back into my mouth.
My face crumples, making no effort to hide the glower I shoot his way.
Indifferent, he turns his back to us and kicks out the door again.
Time to go. And my whole body screams at the idea.
5
I suspect we spent too long in the shed, because the warrior moves faster across the farms this time. Though, he doesn't have his bleeding, gaping wounds to slow him down this time.
Still, it very much feels as though he’s trying to make up for lost time.
I’m slow, staggered by the aches that plague my whole body, and he often has to tug my rope to hurry me along. Unlike before the shed, he doesn’t pull the rope hard enough to bruise my wrists any further.
The trek is an agonising, monotonous one. Spike fumbles with all the baggage and the torch he has to mule across the plains, and I’m just trying not to collapse on the hard earth. At least the warm breeze is back to warm away the prickles on my bare legs. A small thing to be grateful for. It’s the little things these days, you know?
When the dark fae stops in the middle of an abandoned farm—the countless ones we’ve passed through since leaving the shed all those hours ago (at least a whole day)—he pauses and turns his head to the right.
I study his profile as it hardens; his face turning to bronzed stone. He lifts his strong chin for a moment, then I see the deep inhale he takes through his nose. It fills his chest and spreads out his broad shoulders. When he releases the breath, his body relaxes as though tension unribbons through him, but his eyes lower and he cuts his head to the left.
An uneasy wave curdles my gut.
He smells something—he maybe even sees something far in the darkness. Whatever it is, he knows something’s off.
A sudden decision strikes through him. He cuts to the right, our ropes staggering us along behind him, and heads off in the opposite direction to the one he glowered at.
Humans, I wonder? Enough for them to be a threat to a lone dark fae warrior? I mean, he likely recalled how we blew up and killed his companions, ready to die for our cause, and just decided it wasn’t worth the risk. So he takes us deeper into the black, and we wind up slipping into a sparse tree-line.
Not the fucking woods.
I hate the woods.
They are so damn dangerous these days. More than they were before. Animals from all over Europe moved wherever the wind took them with the loss of humans; and now, even in France, we have bears and wolves to worry about. Not only that, there are all sorts of problems that come with the dark (and the creepy crawlers!).
Last time my group went into the woods, we wandered right into the path of another tribe’s cabin. We lost three of our own trying to escape. Some people are really hungry these days—and humans aren’t off the menu.
Gruelling shit.
So it’s no wonder I start to drag my boots across the foliage-dusted ground and tug on my ropes.
Impatient, the warrior turns on me sharply. The torchlight reflects off his vexed eyes.
I stumble back a step as he reaches out for me.
His grip is firm as he takes my rope in his hand and guides me closer. Then he loops it around his belt a few more times, until there’s hardly a half-metre between us.
Venomous words build up in my throat, threatening to spill out onto my tongue—but I’m muzzled like a fucking dog, and so all I can manage is narrowi
ng my eyes on his unfazed face.
He heads back into the trees; and the pull of him is suddenly stronger the closer I’m bound to his belt. I have little space to fight against him; so, I stumble at his heels, a moody look on my downcast face.
After a while, Spike’s breathing takes a hoarse, haggard turn. He’s weak; hungry and parched, struggling to carry the load of a mule.
The fae does nothing to aid him. And even if I wanted to help Spike, it’s not like I could do much. My body is too broken and bruised to carry anything, let alone a satchel filled with waterskins and food and medical supplies and whatever-the-fuck else this beast has with him. Probably the decapitated heads of his enemies, the psycho.
Despite his choppy breaths, Spike manages to keep pace. And we walk for a long time.
I swear we’ve been moving for a whole day and night by the time I hear it; a crunching sound to my right, like bone being pulverised.
My heart stops and, instinctively, I duck closer to the side; tucking myself between the fae and Spike, as though they are special shields made for me.
The warrior pauses and looks over his shoulder at me. My wide eyes meet him. He blinks something weary, then slowly turns his gaze to the side, where the crunching sound crawls out from again.
The fae reaches back for the torch. Spike releases it with an audible sigh of relief. But the relief is short-lived as the warrior extends his arm out and, with it, the light of the torch, showing us what’s making those noises.
I pale, instantly. I feel all the colour drain out of my face, down my body, and the swirl of it all in my watery gut.
It’s a pack of at least five dogs. Pet dogs—old, torn and bloody collars. Dogs that were once loved. And they are feasting on the body of a lone human. Clothes have been torn from the now-exposed body, but it’s clear that it was once a man from the body parts that still remain. A torso and bits of meat still clinging to bony legs.
Suddenly need to be sick again.
I shut my eyes, the woods spinning around me, and pinch my mouth shut. My hand comes up to my burning throat. I lean forward, meaning to fold myself over and steady myself, but my forehead touches something cool and firm; the warrior’s bare back.
Dark Skies : A Dark Fae Romance, A Dark Paranormal Romance (Dark Fae: Extinction Book 2) Page 3
