I hated the nebulous concept of necessary evil and indiscernible lines between right and wrong.
“Let’s just get what we need and get out of here.”
Yeah, that’s easy, seeing that we were pretty much thrust in here by ourselves. I wondered if he considered it suspicious that the elves only wanted the two of us in the dark forest. Did they believe we belonged here with the other mutated creatures? A mistake, but not of their doing?
A distinctive whoosh sounded in the air, slicing through the various noises that consumed the area. It was a taloned creature, and not a damn bunny, either. Calling it a dragon wouldn’t have been a stretch. A reptilian creature, with daggerlike teeth and talons in place of hands. I couldn’t imagine anything being more dangerous than this thing—here was what Sebastian had gone up against to get the sleeper antidote. I extended my sword, preparing to engage. The winged creature grimaced, drawing back its lips. Then odd fiery orange-and-red eyes fixed on Ethan, and at that moment it began to choke with a gargling sound and fell to the ground in front of us.
Its breathing sped up and the choking sound increased as Ethan approached it and began to search its scaly body for sleepers. I saw several of the leechlike antidote carriers and a number of the Tod Schlaf. Ethan selected one of the latter and placed it in a jar that he’d pulled out of the small bag he carried. When the dragon-thing finally went quiet, so did everything else. All the mutated animals that lurked in the darkness retreated, something scaring them into silence, and that something wasn’t me. It was the same person that the dark forest had tried to claim the last time we’d visited Elysian—Ethan.
I couldn’t help but stare at the subdued animal that had dropped at just a look at Ethan. My attention quickly fixed on my companion. “What happened to it?”
He shrugged and tugged my arm, guiding me to the front of the forest. Handing me his bag, he took my hand and urged me toward the opening where we’d entered. The ward barring exit stretched, thinning to a diaphanous curtain that allowed us to see the figures of the people on the other side, but it held. I pressed into it and it rebounded back, pushing me into Ethan. I pushed it again, and magic twitched at my fingers pressing into the barrier, but not enough to open it. Silence prevailed, more ominous than before. The magic I’d been holding back before surged through, and I pressed my hand to the ward. It ripped and I slipped through; as soon as I did, it sealed on Ethan’s wrist. I clasped it tightly, shifting my weight and trying to tug him through. He wasn’t putting any effort into assisting, and moments later he slipped back. The barrier closed completely, thicker and stronger than before. I handed Ethan’s bag to Sebastian.
Josh’s eyes went black and hard as he called upon stronger waves of magic to blast against the ward, which wavered and bulged in but never gave. I no longer considered this place a heaven of magical beauty and unique creations. It was fucking hell.
The guides started to back away on their odd animals, warning, “It’s time to escort you all out.”
They said it in a steely tone of indifference that only made me angrier. Josh glared at them, baring his teeth, before returning his attention to the ward. The more magic he directed at it, the stronger the magical wall became. The weight of his failure quickly coursed over his face. He leaned into it and sighed.
“We have to go. Please let us escort you out.” The guides’ tone was gentler, a hint of unspoken condolence.
Sebastian shook his head. “We’re not leaving without him. Give us another opening.”
“We were instructed to arrange one entrance and one exit. It takes a great amount of magic to open the ward, leaving us weakened. We will not make ourselves vulnerable for the likes of you,” one of the guides began to assert, with his brother finishing the sentence. Their amber eyes became stony and cool, as had Liam’s when he dealt with us.
The anger that I had tamped down the first time they spoke reasserted itself and roiled through me like a wave as the desire to control it seemed to slowly decrease. I took a step forward, clenching the sword tighter, before Sebastian stepped in front of me. “Then we are going to have a problem, because I’m not leaving without him. If you think reopening it will leave you vulnerable, then you have no idea what I plan to do with you all if we don’t get Ethan back.”
They urged their animals back and then whipped around and trotted away. Who knew what they planned to do—their intentions were getting harder to read as they scurried away—but soon the animals were coaxed into a full-out run until they were no longer in sight.
Sweat glistened around Josh’s brow when he finally dropped to the ground, the ward as strong as it had been before, with no signs of faltering or giving. He closed his eyes, then inhaled a ragged breath before speaking. “I don’t know if I can get him out.” There was the crux of it—they’d allowed us in to get the sleeper in exchange for Ethan, someone that the forest had wanted to claim long ago.
I placed my hand on Josh’s shoulder, regretting leaving the Aufero at home, because I’d thought the borrowed magic from Josh was enough and I hadn’t wanted to provoke Maya. I had also had no idea if I would be able to control magic in the dark forest or in Elysian, and I hadn’t wanted to risk it. Now I didn’t care. I wanted unconstrained, reckless, turbulent, and destructive magic.
Winter pushed up from the tree where she had been painfully silent the entire time. Every once in a while, her placid look and the tight lines of her lips faltered into a frown. The last time, it took more effort to remove it, and she washed her hands over her face several times and turned away to scan the area.
Blade in both hands, she advanced toward us and the thunderous sound that came up behind us. Liam moved toward us first, his animal a midnight horse with lava-colored eyes that possessed the same level of heat as magma. Its curved horns twisted and looked as dangerous and ostentatious as the crew of people behind them. The first animals had been there for transportation; now the Makellos had animals equipped for battle.
Swaddled in his trademark arrogance, Liam exuded a haughtiness and contempt that were as refined as the green suit he wore.
As if he needed anything else to make him more confident, he’d brought along a small army that outnumbered us five to one.
“Sebastian, you have been asked to leave. We’ve been more than generous by allowing you all to come here. The forest is not some playground.” He regarded Sebastian idly before he continued. “Even your kind aren’t a match for that which we hold in there. Your arrogance is your failure—that is your burden, not mine. You will be given the courtesy once more to leave of your own volition.” He looked back over his shoulder, and a new set of odd twins, this time male/female, presented us with animals to use to get us across the area quickly and out of their territory.
Without giving him the courtesy of an answer, Sebastian was the first to shift, fur puncturing through the skin of his hands, the transition slower than I’d ever seen—a display of immeasurable control and a nonverbal challenge. He was about to drop to the ground when a scaly slim body shot past us. A six-foot-long snake slinked around, its ventral scales expanded. Winter’s head darted and several of the soldiers dropped from their animals and hit the ground, paralyzed by the venom from her fangs. In were-animals, the state only remained for ten minutes or so, but we didn’t know how long the effects would last on others. Winter rarely donned her animal form; this was the first time since we’d met that she’d used it for battle. Her sinuous movements were faster than I expected as she moved through the area, powerful strikes knocking the soldiers off their mounts. She continued the rampage, retreating back only when someone advanced toward Sebastian.
We’d seen Sebastian in fights before. He was a force to reckon with, and it was easy to consider him indestructible and undefeatable. Winter was trying to protect him, and it didn’t go unnoticed. Since his near-fatal injury weeks ago, she had been cautious around him, protective. Several bullets had hit his chest and body, and as he’d fallen to the ground, the illusion of
his indestructibility had been shattered in one sweeping act. He was like us, capable of falling and being wounded, and Winter seemed to have taken it harder than anyone else. Her loyalty wasn’t misplaced: he’d fought and annihilated an entire pack to save a young Winter’s life. The massive snake had now wiped out half the Makellos army, most on the ground, frozen in a state of confusion and fear. The others had been tossed a distance away when her tail coiled around them and displaced them.
I was left speculating upon which form Winter was the most dangerous in. Arrows whizzed through the air toward her, and Sebastian reached up and plucked the first one from the air. The second hit her, but it looked superficial because Sebastian had grasped the end of it and only the tip had punctured her skin.
“Change back,” he ordered her as he pulled out the arrow. She quickly shifted back to human form. One of the benefits of being a lesser were-animal and a snake was that her shift didn’t destroy her clothes in the process.
Sebastian’s low, rough tone was laden with threat, and so was the snarl on his face as he forced words through his teeth. He looked at the men Winter had disabled in just a few minutes and then directed his attention to Liam. “That was just one of us. It’s your decision—do you really want to do this? Next time, I won’t stop anyone. The casualties of this will be your burden alone.”
Liam’s grimace gave way to a tight frown; he took a few moments to survey the results of just minutes of Winter’s assault upon his army. The level of abhorrence he had for us was going to be the downfall of his people. Conceit and stubbornness were as much a part of him as his magic. I thought he didn’t know what to think of Sebastian’s calm countenance, which I’d quickly discovered was the serene moment before the tumultuous storm. It was something that needed to be experienced only once.
Liam raised his hand to his people, but the way it was positioned, I couldn’t tell if it was going to tell them to retreat or attack. Before he could specify, a burst of magic hit us all, pounding against our backs like shrapnel—hard, dark, deadly. I turned, and Ethan stood in front of an opening that gaped larger than the one that had allowed us entrance. It wasn’t until one of the elven-created creatures stepped through the opening that the elves reacted. They moved toward it, trying to counter the strong magic that forced the opening. It was nothing like theirs, and the difference was tangible.
There were small tears in Ethan’s shirt, and his hands were stained with blood, but he didn’t seem injured. His eyes were slowly being taken over by specks of black, similar to the way Josh’s eyes looked when he called on more magic.
He gave me a faint smile as he moved closer to me, and I made every effort not to stare at his eyes. He stopped for a moment, leaning against a tree, his head pressed back against it. He’d taken a similar posture when he’d been fighting to keep from being pulled into the dark forest during our first visit. Now he was fighting off something entirely different—magic. I took several steps back to give him space as he attempted to ward off whatever it was. The elves who had broken away from the others were trying to contain the animals that had escaped and replace the shattered ward. The male/female twins mounted their animals and made impatient sounds, preparing to escort us out.
Ethan took a few more controlled breaths, and when he opened his eyes, they had returned to their natural color but somehow weren’t the same. The coal color had retreated, but its presence lay just below the surface.
The elves ushered us out, and their parting words made it very clear that this was the last time we would be allowed into Elysian under any circumstances. Sebastian and Josh split their attention between Winter, who winced each time she moved her arm where the arrow had hit it. Blood stained the area. “You shouldn’t have done that. I hadn’t given an order to,” Sebastian said, his tone firm but gentle.
Winter started to speak but stopped, chewing on her bottom lip. Words didn’t need to be spoken: she wore her emotion and fear for Sebastian over the gentle lines of her face. He seemed to be having as difficult of a time determining how to deal with her break in protocol and the reasons she’d done it. Steven got into his car, but Sebastian stopped Winter as she started to get in the passenger side.
“You ride with me. We need to talk.” She nodded but had difficulty making eye contact with him as she followed him. Although most times it seemed difficult for me to hold eye contact with Ethan, today I didn’t have any problems. I scrutinized him, the way he looked and the peculiar ominous magic that had settled over him.
After I’d slipped into the passenger side of Ethan’s car, next to Josh, who offered to drive, Ethan handed me four small containers before getting into the backseat. I held them up. “What are these?”
“The antidote for the sleeper.” I glanced at the creepy-crawly little leeches like the one that we had used to cure Kelly. We had been so focused on finding a sleeper to use on Logan that we hadn’t considered the antidote, although I doubted that was something anyone was really concerned about.
“We have them all now. If anyone wants to use one, they will have to go through us. We need to give them to Dr. Jeremy,” he said coolly.
“Is this why you allowed yourself to be pulled back in?”
He nodded, keeping his eyes on the road, but I was determined not to see the reality in which he wished me to believe. I’d felt the magic, seen his eyes, and witnessed the response of the dark forest animals to him.
“Why do some creatures and Tre’ase respond to you the way they do?”
With a quick shrug, he dismissed my question.
“We removed the dark elven magic,” I said.
“I know, I was there.”
“But you still have magic. I felt it and saw it.”
“My mother was a witch, remember?”
“I’m very familiar with witch magic. Your magic was distinctively different from anything I’ve felt on Josh or any witch. Darker, deadlier.”
His tone was level and cool. “All magic can be considered dark and deadly, Sky. Please don’t find a problem where there isn’t one.”
CHAPTER 6
The drive home from Elysian was riddled with uncomfortable glances and quiet. Ethan worked hard to pretend things were normal, but I wasn’t going to let it go. While Josh drove, he kept casting curious looks at his brother, who was resting in the backseat. When Ethan’s eyes opened, they locked on his brother’s in the rearview mirror. I studied their interaction, still certain that their communication came from more than a sibling connection. A look spoke volumes more than it should have, and whatever Ethan conveyed to Josh assuaged his curiosity enough that he didn’t ask questions. Josh drove to his home, and when he got out of the car, Ethan did, too, and then moved into the driver’s seat. Curiosity drove me, and I had a hard time managing it but convinced myself to wait. Waiting lasted a total of six minutes, and that seemed too long. “Ethan.”
He sighed heavily, preparing for incoming questions. Good, because I had plenty.
Preemptively he said, “I can do magic. This isn’t a secret. Just like Josh, when I need to, I can use more. You saw it’s not readily available to me. It tires me as well. I responded differently in there, too. I have no answers as to why.”
I really wanted to believe him. I knew Ethan’s life was a myriad of secrets, and I’d really thought I could just accept and live with the fact that it was going to be that way with him. But what I’d seen today in Elysian and the dark forest was something I wasn’t sure I could just live with. Would he ever feel the need to share what he kept from me?
I was about to ask, when he pulled up to my driveway and I saw the peculiar man resting against my door. His look had changed, but his amethyst eyes were the same. Logan enjoyed the ability to manipulate his appearance more than others. The form he’d held the longest was very similar to Ethan’s—chestnut-colored hair, defined features, and a tall, muscular build. Logan had traded that shell for a more classically handsome appearance with a square jaw, wide brow, and darker brown hair tha
t looked as if he’d used too much product to attain the style. His eyes, which I’d once found kind and intriguing, were pits of menace and nefarious intent.
His lips pulled back in a tight smile that he directed at me as I got out of the car. When Ethan got out, Logan’s attention focused solely on him, eyes narrowed with interest as he pushed himself up from the door and stood up even taller. The ever-present intrigue and wanton interest were there as he approached us, never taking his eyes off of Ethan.
Lips parted, he was in a place of mesmerized awe, and the seconds slowly became uncomfortable minutes as he held his hands at his side, fingers twitching with desire to touch Ethan. The being who’d been around from the very beginning, when were-animals’ appearances were more beast than human and Winter’s kind were snakes that used their tails like legs, stared at Ethan as if he were the most remarkable thing he’d ever seen.
Logan, who found wonder and amusement in pain, was strangely captivated by death and darkness—and Ethan.
Giving in to his curiosity, he started to touch Ethan. One of Ethan’s hands grabbed him by the wrist, the other by the throat. The threat came out as a coarse rumble. “Don’t touch me.”
And just as I sensed it, so did Logan—he fixated on Ethan’s eyes, where stygian magic lay just below the surface. There wasn’t any denying that what Ethan possessed was more than witch magic, and I wasn’t sure what about the forest drew it out, but it was there, strong and commanding.
“Why are you here?” Ethan growled, his hands still placed on Logan, who was so enchanted that he was having a hard time focusing. It wasn’t until I spoke that he bothered to pull his eyes off Ethan.
“I wouldn’t expect such rudeness, from either of you. This courtesy is a friendly reminder that you have a job you need to complete and something you need to return to me.”
It made me nauseous that he had reduced Chris to an inanimate object to be returned to him—as if she was just loaned apparel that he wanted back.
Moon Cursed (Sky Brooks Series Book 5) Page 9
