by Lucy Auburn
No one had ever told me that a succubus could take people’s powers.
Maybe because we weren’t supposed to.
My hands were slick on the steering wheel as I drove home, but I wasn’t going there to take a break. I was going to talk to Maggie.
Somehow, it wasn’t a surprise when the vision came. It felt like I should’ve expected it. I barely pulled over in time to avoid a traffic accident, as internally I reminded myself to ask Tae Min about his antidote to these things.
Then, suddenly, I was him—the dark fae, who went by Percy Inn but had a name like death itself. It was a sound that no human tongue could pronounce. The closest it came to was Siiyrabinn, but humans called me many things. Chief among their whispers was that I was an evil god, a king of demons, enslaver of humankind.
What I’d become since was pitiful. A simple graveyard dark fae, who ate flesh and reanimated the dead. Without demons and other dark things walking among me, my life was nothing. I missed the Underworld; the Shadow Realm didn’t compare. And neither did Earth.
So I knelt on hallowed ground, in places where churches once stood and light was once worshiped, and I drew Her symbols. Closing my eyes, I spread my hands and prayed to Her.
Soon, She would walk the Earth, and together we would bring darkness to the light. We would remind humanity of what it once was: slaves to greater beings, serving gods too powerful to imagine.
I came out of the vision with a hungry feeling in my stomach, and resisted the urge to vomit again. Breathing through my nose, I did everything in my power to calm the fears inside me. I put my blinker on, got back into traffic, and drove.
Surely Maggie would have answers for me. There had to be an explanation—a reason for all this. And if she didn’t have one we would talk to Petyr about it, go to the Elders, have them explain.
I couldn’t have demon blood running through my veins.
And if I did, it couldn’t mean what I thought it meant: that my fall to darkness was inevitable, my fate written the day I was born.
She wasn’t home when I got there. I let myself in with the spare key and paced around the house, searching for god-knows-what. For some reason I was drawn to the letters from my parents, which Maggie had put back in their box and placed on the bookshelf. It was high, above my head. Reaching up, I grabbed the box from its position and carefully pulled it out.
As I did so my fingers brushed against something. It fell to the ground by my feet, curious and strange.
A necklace.
With a bright jewel, a small one that looked like the miniature twin of the one Vincent gave to me. I reached inside my shirt and pulled out the two amulets on the silver chain around my neck. The one from Elah seemed to sing with warmth, while the dark one buzzed and whispered. Vincent’s amulet and the jewel on the necklace were both crystal white and alive with energy.
Before I could figure out where the necklace came from, Maggie walked in through the front door. She looked at me, knelt in front of the bookcase with a necklace and the box of letters in my hands.
“Selena.” There was something in her voice I rarely heard: nervousness. “What are you doing home early from work?”
I held the necklace tight in my hands. “Do you know why a dark fae would claim that I have demon blood? Because I have a feeling you do, and that there’s something you know that you’re not telling me.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Whatever I’d expected when I accused Maggie of lying to me, I hadn’t thought she’d just nod. “You’re right. I have been hiding something from you.”
I stood up, the necklace in my hand, setting the box of letters down on the bookshelf. “You knew. This whole time, you... knew something about my parents. My real parents.”
My foster mother looked down to the floor, shame quickening her cheeks. “I thought I knew something. I was never really sure… Until I had to try that new binding on you. I took it from a spell book about controlling Underworld creatures, and it worked. Because part of you isn’t human or fae.”
Horror and nausea welled up inside me, and once again I choked them down. I wanted to go back to my old life—the life before Talia possessed, before I began to have these hungers. But I couldn’t, and now I had to face just how much of the truth had been hidden from me for the comfort of the people around me. Staring at Maggie, I sank down onto the living room couch, its familiarity no longer bringing me comfort.
Today was supposed to be the day we won. The day the demon summoner was taken into custody, and everything was made right.
But instead I had... this feeling inside me, dangerous and low, that said I was no different than the thing I just watched kill himself.
“What am I?” My voice came out unsteady and afraid. I followed up my first question with the one that truly haunted me, “Who am I?”
“You know who you are, Selena.” Maggie’s voice was rough. She knelt before me and took my hands into hers, the necklace swinging from my fingertips. “You’re my baby girl. The spitfire I’d give anything to protect.”
“But you knew something about me even before the binding spell. Something you’re not telling me.” I was surprised to feel the tears slide down my cheeks, but they hardly seemed unexpected after everything that had happened today. “There’s this... thing inside me. And it’s bad. Wrong.”
“No—no, that’s not it.” Maggie shook her head vehemently, and I wondered who to believe: the dark, dead-rising fae who I’d spelled to tell me the truth, or my foster mother who just admitted she lied to me. “There’s nothing wrong with you, Selena. Nothing at all. Most of you is good, and I believe that will be enough to overpower the darkness. I’ve seen you grow up and I know that you’re not evil. I believe in you, Selena.”
“Then tell me who the necklace belonged to.” There was an edge to my voice, and we both heard it. Maggie’s eyes flicked up to me and I saw the hesitation cross her face.
That was all it took for me to make the biggest mistake of my life.
I did something I would never be able to take back.
Holding onto her hands as hard as I could, I leaned forward and parted my lips to pull Maggie’s essence into me.
Her eyes widened. She struggled—but only for a moment. She was so human, and so weak compared to me. Fresh tears spilled from my eyes even as I did it, knowing it was wrong, but I had to know.
And she was the only one who could tell me.
After a few long, agonizing seconds her face went slack. Pupils dilated, she looked up at me with eyes that were completely trusting—willing to do anything I asked of her.
I knew then that no matter what was in my blood, it wouldn’t matter. Because I’d crossed a line to get what I wanted. Dropping her hands, I held back a sob of fury and regret.
I’d done it, though. I had to at least make this transgression worth it by asking her the question which I desperately needed answered.
“Who did this necklace belong to?”
The answer fell so easily from her mouth. Lips that once kissed me while I sobbed myself to sleep now parted to bend to my will. “Your birth mother. It was on your when you were found as a baby.”
Cracks inside me. Darkness trying to get free. The amulet Vincent had given me began to vibrate, faster and faster, and I had to press my free hand against it to calm it down.
“What do you know about my parents?” Maggie looked up at me, a brief moment of hesitation flicking across her face before I pushed against her free will and said, “Tell me.”
“One was a Lightblood,” she said, her voice strangely free of emotion, as if she’d been hypnotized—by me. “The other was a dark fae. You were born with so much power.” She smiled at me, reaching up to push loose hair back from my damp cheek. “It frightened everyone who saw it.”
“Frightened who?”
“The witches.” Maggie’s eyes unfocused as she remembered the past. My past. “The nurse at the hospital where you were dropped off was a witch. The fae you were g
iven to found her and brought you to her because of her powers. She then brought you to her coven. They’d never seen so much power on an adult, much less a baby. So they did a spell, and found out you had Underworld blood. Demon blood.”
I inhaled sharply; even though I’d known this, it was different hearing it from her.
She continued, “Some wanted to kill you... but Jake and Leah wouldn’t let them. They took you away, called you their baby girl. A few of us were torn; we didn’t want you killed, but no one knew what you would grow up into. So we helped them bind your powers. Protect you. Hoping that if you grew up human, you would never succumb to your true nature.” Those eyes, ones that had watched me after my parents died, which knew so much about me, looked up at me with love and trust. “I answered your question. Did I do what you asked?”
Pushing away from the couch, I ran to the bathroom and barely made it to the toilet in time to empty the contents of my stomach. There wasn’t much in there; my earlier bout of nausea had made sure of that, and with the day I’d had there were only ever protein bars and coffee in me in the first place. But I tried and tried to get rid of all that was in me anyway, as if I’d throw up the darkness along with the rest of it.
Cool hands pulled my hair from my neck. They pressed against my forehead, checking for fever. I could smell Maggie’s perfume, familiar and warm, a scent I associated with motherhood as much as anything.
She deserved better from me.
Wiping the back of my mouth, I forced myself to stand up and push her away. “Stop it!” Raggedly, I breathed in and out as she looked up at me with confused adoration. “Stay away from me.”
Before she could say something else with that empty voice of hers, I reached inside me and slammed shut the connection I’d opened, drawing all my influence from her at once. Maggie gasped, eyes wide with shock. I tried to turn away before I could see the betrayal on her face, but I was too late. The little flash of fear in her eyes was all I needed to see.
It was me she was afraid of now.
I ran out of the house. Unlocked my car with shaking hands. Threw the damn necklace on the dashboard. Got inside and drove, not knowing where, not knowing what I wanted.
I couldn’t go back to the precinct; Leon wasn’t expecting me for work. Maggie would no doubt tell him and Petyr what I’d done, and I couldn’t stand the idea of what their faces would look like when they found out. Grimly, I pictured Naomi sharpening a knife for me, and wondered why I’d ever thought I was good enough to press my lips to hers.
I definitely couldn’t go back to the apartment I’d once shared with Talia, either.
All of them deserved better from me. They deserved better than who I was.
Before I knew it I’d driven until the fuel light on my dashboard was blinking. Pulling into a gas station, I tried to concentrate on the present, but my head was all over the place. Once I’d filled the car up I pulled into a parking space and went inside the gas station, eyes roaming the shelves of processed snacks. I needed food—and to slake a hunger of another sort, one that I hadn’t fully fed at all.
Elah. My intended. He would never agree to our engagement once he knew what I really was. I fished the amulets out of my shirt, staring at them sitting next to each other.
I should have known what I was the instant I kept Vincent’s amulet. A light fae, one who deserved to live and work with humans, would never have kept a dark fae’s gift.
I had to tell him now, so that he’d hear it from me. Trembling, I headed out of the gas station without buying anything, and walked into the vacant parking lot behind it. There was construction on this lot, but it looked like it was going nowhere; there wasn’t a soul in sight to see me talk to an amulet.
Holding Elah’s gift in my hand, I closed my eyes and said his name three times. It sounded soft and pleasant on my tongue—just like the man himself.
“Selena.” I could hear his voice as if he was standing right next to me. “I’d been hoping to hear from you. I just finished up my business—if you want to meet up again to finish what we started last time, I’d be more than happy to come see you.”
He sounded so warm, so eager to be with me and please me. For a moment I was tempted to just lie to him—to sink into his arms, away from the world, and just breathe.
“I’m sorry, Elah.” My voice came out more emotional than I’d expected; for all that I barely knew him, I’d felt safe in his arms. “I have to break things off. I can’t get engaged to you.”
“Selena?” He sounded worried, confused. “You sound like you’ve been crying.”
Inwardly, I cursed my own stupid emotions. “I’m fine. Please, don’t worry about me. Just find someone else.”
Not knowing how to break the connection, I stared down at the amulet in my hand. Letting go of it seemed like it would be more than enough, so that’s what I did.
Then I pulled both the amulets off my neck, bought enough protein bars to last me for a while, and got back into my car. It was time to go... somewhere.
I just didn’t know where.
I stared out the windshield, trying to think. The necklace—the one Maggie said belonged to my mother—caught my eye. It looked so simple and innocent just sitting there. Reaching out, I grabbed it and held it in my hands. The string of amulets, which I’d tossed in my passenger seat, seemed so similar to the necklace. I picked them up as well, staring down at the necklace, wondering why it looked so much like the amulets.
“Who are you?” I asked, voice soft. “Who am I? Mom...”
In answer, the necklace vibrated so hard that my arm shook. My other hand, where the two amulets were still clutched, began to buzz and shake as well. I yelped and tried to let them go, but my fists were stuck, all three mysteriously spelled gemstones gluing my skin together. Frantic, I shook my hands, trying to dislodge them.
All around me the world blurred, just like it had when Petyr took me to the Realm of Light. So fast that it jarred me, I was hurtled through space and time, my hair whipping around me from the impossible force. My car vanished, and on either side of me darkness began to rise, fingers of it clawing towards me like they were alive.
There was fire—and things in the fire. Castles and nothingness, waves of bodies twisted in agony. It seemed like I traveled for forever, pulled by the energy in the necklace I held. More than once I screamed, but the sound was swallowed by the nothingness.
Then it all stopped.
I fell to my hands and knees, the amulets and necklace rolling free on a slick tile floor. My stomach heaved, but once again there was nothing in it. Staring down at the decorative tile beneath me, it took me a moment to look up at what I’d barely glimpsed as I was brought here.
A throne.
One that was empty, but somehow ominous.
And then I heard it: footsteps behind me, approaching. A chill wind whispered across my skin. I didn’t want to turn around to see who approached; I didn’t want to see anything at all. I wanted to wake up in my foster mother’s bed, to look into her eyes and see someone who loved me without condition, who I hadn’t... Hadn’t...
A woman’s voice spoke, the sound of it sucking up all the air in the room. “Hello, my dearest.” She knelt and brushed my hair back from my face, neatly pushing it over my shoulder. Her fingers were warm—too warm. My skin reddened where she touched me. “My precious little girl. Finally. I’ve been waiting for you.”
Slowly, I looked back over my shoulder, and up into her face.
When I screamed this time it wasn’t silent.
The sound of my terror echoed all around us.
Also by Lucy Auburn
Wild Heart Chronicles
Primal
Feral
Savage
Standalones
Bad Boy Fighter
About the Author
Lucy Auburn is an urban fantasy/paranormal romance writer who lives in the Southwest. She loves writing interesting stories about strong women. Some of the writers who inspire her i
nclude Patricia Briggs and Tamora Pierce.
Catch up with her…
www.LucyAuburn.com
[email protected]
