Crown of Smoke and Blood

by Sadie Jacks

  Magda nodded. “The Old World is the original Faery. The world they destroyed before coming here. Faery, as you know it now, is simply the realm they created with their magic the second time.”

  What the actual feck? “So you’re telling me that they killed their original world, but didn’t actually destroy it. And when they left the second time, they made it exactly like the first one?”

  Magda nodded. “Precisely. And because they were foolish enough to do so, both are Faery and both are not.”

  “And the portal colors told you this?” Vari asked softly.

  Beside me, Tavis nodded. “Faery—current Faery—only has one color in her portal. Old World Faery has two. Blue and green.”

  “Are there any other versions of Faery?” I asked.

  Both Magda and Tavis shook their heads.

  I blew out a relieved breath. “Thank the saints for that.”

  Everyone nodded.

  “So, back to Vari. Ye said ye’ve been out before. Where did ye go?” Tavis asked her.

  “Here?”

  Tavis’s brow furrowed. “I’ve not felt the portals move outside of registered movements in almost three centuries.”

  Vari’s mouth fell open. “Then where did I go?”

  “We’ll discover that, child. Have no fear.” Magda settled deeper onto the bare twin mattress inside the cage. “How many times were you able to escape?”

  Anger rushed through me. “Escape? Why would she need to escape? Escape from what?” I looked at Vari as I asked the last question.

  “King Atavian,” she said simply.

  As I shook my head, Tavis sucked in a horrified breath. “King Atavian? He’s still alive?”

  Vari’s brow furrowed. “Yes. He’s been the king of Faery for over five hundred years.”

  Magda made a low noise in her chest. “Oh, child.”

  Tavis shook his head. The brackets around his mouth were no longer etched with humor. He practically vibrated with suppressed rage as he spoke. “Vari, Faery doesn’t have a singular king. We have courts. Four of them. One for each season. Each Court has a royal family: king, queen, and their children. King Atavian was supposedly killed more than –”

  “With the Old World,” Magda talked over him. “His people rose up against him because he was killing their world. When they failed, they shut him inside the Old World and fled to Earth.”

  Vari shook her head. “No. No, that’s not right at all. Faery, the one I come from, is full of people. Millions of Fae—both Seelie and Unseelie.”

  Tavis jerked back with a hiss. “The Light and the Dark?”

  Vari nodded. “Are your courts separated into Light and Dark as well?”

  Tavis snarled. “Of course not! The system is archaic, even by our standards. No, we have the Four Court system.”

  Magda made a small noise at the back of her throat, drawing all of our attention. “And the Horde.”

  Tavis waved that away. “They don’t count. They can’t leave Faery and they don’t participate in our government.”

  “What’s the Horde?” Vari asked.

  “All the creatures that can’t glamour or hide themselves among the humans.” He snorted derisively. As I watched, hatred descended over his usually pleasant face. “They’re monsters. Demons.”

  Vari jerked back, gasped. She didn’t move, but I could see her drawing into herself. Getting as far away from everyone as she could.

  “Tavis!” Magda snapped. She grabbed Vari’s hand, squeezed it. “He’s young and apparently racist, Vari. None of the Horde are monsters. They are different looking, certainly some are scary, but they are not monsters. Nor demons”

  I looked back at my best friend. Saw the anger on his face, the red cheeks. He believed what he’d just said about the Horde. And, unless he was blind, he’d seen the creatures that poured out of Vari. Did he consider her a demon monster now?

  “Are they really so horrible?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Tavis said.

  “No,” Magda said at the same time. Magda looked at the younger man. “Tavis, where is this coming from?”

  He shook his head, getting to his feet. He walked away without saying another word. Moments later, the upstairs door slammed.

  I turned back to Magda and Vari.

  Vari’s eyes welled with tears. “I’m s-s-s-sorry. I didn’t mean to ma—”

  I leaned forward, grabbed the cage bar with my hand. “You did nothing wrong. That’s all him.” And I was going to punch him in the face for making her think she was to blame.

  She nodded, but didn’t look convinced.

  Magda grabbed her arm. “Koehn is right. That is Tavis’s sin to carry. You have done nothing wrong, my child.”

  Vari pulled free of the other woman. Scooted back on the bed. The chocolate bar she’d rescued fell to the floor.

  Vari just pulled her knees up to her chest, rested her chin on her knee. “He’s not wrong. I am a monster. That’s exactly what he created me to be.” A tear trailed down her cheek as she stared at the floor.

  Chapter 13 – Vari

  “Who created you to be a monster?” Koehn asked. His voice was harder than the stone he sat on.

  “King Atavian.” I swallowed. Closed my eyes against the truth of my next words. “My father.”

  Magda jerked back. Actually got up from the bed and moved to the far side of the cage. “No.”

  Dread consumed my heart as I nodded. I should have stayed. Stayed in my Faery. I was doing nothing but bringing pain to these people. Pain they didn’t deserve. Hadn’t earned.

  Distantly, I heard my father’s sharp laugh. As if he were here and laughing at my foolishness. The one that made the hair on my neck stand on end. The one that made my soul shiver from the evil in it.

  “Wait. If King Atavian is still alive in the Old World, and Vari is saying that the Old World is full of Fae, then how does the current Faery not know anything about it?” Koehn asked as he stood up.

  Magda shook her head. Blew out a breath. “I’m sorry, child. My actions were no better than Tavis’s outburst. I remember King Atavian from my youth. He was—is—not a good man.”

  My laugh was brittle and scratched my throat. “Oh, I know full well what kind of man he is. I just didn’t think he was also a specter for other Fae. I thought they loved him.”

  Insanity threaded Magda’s laugh. She let her white-haired head tip back on her shoulders as hoots and cackles of laughter shot to the ceiling.

  My eyes were huge as I looked at Koehn. But he looked just as confused and concerned as I was.

  We waited in awkward silence as the Elemental Priestess shook with her laughter. At one point, I thought she was going to gag. Gradually, it tapered off into hiccups and chuckles. She eventually wiped her eyes. “Oh, my child. I needed that.” She shook her head. One last chuckle rose before she cleared her throat. “No, King Atavian is not beloved. Or at least he wasn’t in the Old World. That might have changed after all this time, but I can’t speak to that.” She settled back on the bed. “I’m truly sorry for my reaction. That was rude of me. Can you forgive me?”

  I nodded.

  Magda dipped her chin. “Thank you. Now, back to the important matters. How did you escape?”

  Shite.

  “Could we talk about what is going on between Vari and me? I’d like some clarification.” Koehn looked at me as he asked the question, an expression on his face I couldn’t quite decipher.

  The man was my personal savior, that was for damn sure. He’d saved me again, and he didn’t even know that I’d been in trouble this time.

  Magda nodded. “Of course. I can’t promise to have the answers, but I’ll do my best.”

  Koehn smiled at me. “Well, I found this minx after she plopped into the middle of the street, blood leaking everywhere. I scented her from about four miles away?” He nodded. “Something like that. I brought her back here.”

  Magda’s chuckle brought a blush to my face, and I wasn’t really sure
why.

  Koehn’s cheeks went pink. “I wasn’t going to ravish her.”

  More’s the pity on that one, I thought.

  He looked at me sharply, one dark brow raised.

  “But I did want to taste her. I cut myself, intending to heal her wounds. Once she’d healed, I pulled my hand back. When I couldn’t, she pierced through my mental shields as if they weren’t there. Then, I ended up in my own front yard as the sun rose.”

  Magda’s eyes were huge as he thrust out a finger for each point he stated. She turned back to me, her mouth hanging open. “Did you, child?”

  I shrugged. “I did speak to him telepathically, and I did put him down in the nearest yard. I didn’t know about the sun part of that.”

  The Elemental Priestess turned her white head, looking back at Koehn once more. “But you’re not dead. So what happened?”

  “Just as I was shouting at the gods for letting me slow roast in my own fecking yard, Tavis saved me. Dragged me into the house. The man’s a bit of a weakling.” Koehn chuckled. “Couldn’t even lift me. He literally dragged me up into the house.”

  “That must have been quite the sight,” Magda giggled.

  I nodded. I’d have liked to have seen it as well.

  Koehn got to his feet. Pulled up his shirt. “Then I found this on me.”

  His bronze skin…I wanted to lick it. Suck on it. Bite it. My fingers started itching like mad as I crawled off the bed and across the floor to the side of the cage where he stood.

  He pressed against the iron, a slight hiss slithered through his mouth as he sank to his knees. Reaching through the bars, I touched him. It was like velvet against my fingertips. An ache started in my core as I imagined his cock thrusting up inside me.

  Koehn made a choking noise. “Sweet saints, Vari, I can hear you in my head.” He reached through the bars, tangled his fingers with mine. Careful to keep my skin from the metal cage.

  “Is the reaction always like this?” Magda’s words were soft background noise as I explored every inch of him I could reach. Every time my fingers moved, the texture of his skin seemed to change. The hair on his arms was a rough silk. But the underside felt like satin.

  “Vari!” Magda yelled, her lips caressing my ear. “Listen, child.”

  I turned to her. This woman who was interrupting my touching Koehn. If she didn’t stop, I would kill her. “Don’t bother me.” I turned, immersing myself in the feel of him. Was it weird that I kinda wanted to wrap him around me? Not like wearing his skin as a cloak or anything, bu—

  Koehn snorted. “I’d hope you don’t want to wear me like a suit. But I would definitely be good with the first part of that.”

  A blast of cold wind shot through the room. Swirled around me like I was in a polar vortex for some kind of sick training excursion. I shivered.

  “Vari, I need to talk to you. Can you let him go?” Magda asked.

  Both of us snarled at her.

  Magda sighed. “Vari, do you have a similar mark on your body?”

  “Oh sweet saints, tell me I get to see her skin,” Koehn whispered. He thrust his other hand through the bars, started grabbing handfuls of my cloak.

  It fell away in strips. Same with my leathers. The soft clanking of material-wrapped swords was soft in the room. But that, more than anything else, made me feel naked.

  “Sweet feck and all the stars,” Koehn breathed as he looked at me.

  Magda sucked in a heavy breath. “By the lands, child, what happened to you?”

  “She’s perfect. Every fecking inch is perfection,” Koehn said, his eyes skimming over my nude upper body.

  He tugged me forward, his hands sliding up my arms. “I need to touch it.”

  Before I understood what was happening, searing pain flashed through my breasts and abdomen. I wrenched back in pain with a cry. Shook my head as Koehn’s curses filled the air.

  “Shite. Vari, I’m sorry. Are ye okay, minx? Did I hurt ye too badly, lass?” His accent deepened. His speech patterns more closely matched Tavis’s as his eyes went wide with horror. “Vari?”

  I shook my head again. Pulled back. “I’m fine. It’s okay.” I rubbed at the long streaks of black and red. Iron hurt, but not usually this bad. Looking down, I sucked in a noisy breath. “I-I-I-I have a-a-a-a brand.” I looked up at Magda. “I have a brand. I didn’t have that before.” I glared at Koehn. “Did you do this to me?”

  He backed up, his own torso bare. “It matches the one you gave me, Vari. I’m pretty sure they came from you, not me.” He continued to devour me with his gaze.

  Through the shock, the now familiar heat of his gaze wrapped around me from the inside out once again. Like I wasn’t in charge of my body anymore, I drifted forward.

  Magda moved in between us. “Have you shared blood?”

  I snarled up at her. “Yes. Now move. I need to touch him.”

  She snorted and cut off my next shift to get around her. “You can touch him in a moment. I’ll even let you out of the cage. But I need your attention first.”

  “Regular blood turned to ashes,” Koehn said in a tight voice from the other side of Magda.

  She whipped around her. Skirts slapping me in the face as she matched my move without having to see me. “But you drank the bag Tavis brought you in the cage.”

  “Yes, but only because I had to make sure Vari was okay. It tasted like death.”

  I shrieked as Magda cut me off once again. “I’m getting angry, Priestess.” My words were soft with warning.

  She spun back around to face me. “Hold out your hand.”

  I got to my feet. Heard Koehn’s sharp inhale. “Why?”

  “Because I believe I can help with this craving you two seem to feel.”

  I stuffed my hands behind my back. “There’s nothing wrong with how I feel. You don’t get to tell me what I can and cannot feel.”

  Koehn’s arm threaded through the bars of the cage. He caught Magda around the neck and pulled her back. Yanked her upright until her body was straight. “What she said.”

  Magda sighed. “You force me to do this. Just know, I do it for your own good.” She mumbled something under her breath, then slapped her hands together.

  Thunder smashed through my brain. I couldn’t hear anything around the pain. Falling to the floor, I covered my ears and screamed. It felt like my brain was trying to leak out my ears.

  Magda leaned down, pity on her face. Then she straightened and lifted her foot.

  It smashed down on my face before I could process anything through the pain that felt like nails in my head.

  Once again, black pulled me under.

  Chapter 14 – Koehn

  The snap of magic between us faded once more, but I could still feel it. Like a low vibration in the air around us. I let go of Magda, pulled my arms back through the cage. “What did you do?” I cursed myself for not having a weapon on me. This woman—no matter her supernatural status—would die for hurting Vari.

  Magda went to mist right in front of me. In her essence form, she sifted back through the bars of the cage. She spun, looked up at me. “Give me your hand. We’ll do this while she is unconscious.”

  I looked down at Vari. She was at least breathing this time. Not in the deep recovery state that Tavis had put her in. “What are you going to do?” I looked back at Magda.

  “I’m going to give you time to sort through this. Whatever collection of magic and essences she has inside her are amplifying the mate bond between you.”

  I shifted back slightly. “Mate bond?”

  Magda tipped her head to the side as she peered up at me. “Yes. What do you think the compulsion is between the two of you?”

  “Lust?” Even I heard the doubt in my voice.

  Magda shook her head. “Yes, that is in there as well. But you crave each other. Yes?” One white brow rose high.

  I nodded, could feel that craving at the back of my throat. The need for Vari had my gums tingling and my body constantly on edge.
She was mine.

  The predator inside me agreed wholeheartedly.

  Magda nodded. “I’ve never seen a mate bond quite like yours, but you need to have a conscious choice in it. Otherwise the bond will warp and become a prison of anguish instead of lovely passion.” She held out her hand again, palm up. “Give me your hand, boy.”

  My lips quirked at being called a boy. But considering how old she could be, I probably was still in my infancy compared to her.

  “What will you do?” I might agree with her, but I wasn’t going to do anything without knowing everything about it that I could.

  She smiled, her cheeks glowing slightly. “I think you will be good for her. Very well.” She folded her hands at her waist. “I’m going to essentially place an air pocket around both of you. You’ll still feel the need, the craving, but you’ll be able to think and feel like normal. You will have the choice to seal the bond with your full heart, mind, body, and soul.”

  I blinked. “An air pocket? How is that going to work?”

  Her eyes twinkled. “Do you want the whole metaphysical discussion or do you want to trust me to know what I’m doing?”

  Shite. “How long of a discussion is it?”

  Her brows rose. “What do you know of metaphysical soul connections, quantum mechanics, and ai—”

  I held up a hand. Shook my head. “Can you give me the Cliff Notes version?”

  Magda chuckled. “Essentially, I will air gap your systems. They will no longer be accessible from outside forces.”

  Something inside me settled. “I know what air gapping means. What will be the parameters of it?”

  “You won’t be able to touch each other for very long or share blood. Absolutely no sexual contact. Since both of you are experiencing physical and supernatural changes, I suggest you be diligent in your quest to find answers or guides. The air pocket will provide you time and space to learn without the incomplete mate bond interfering.” She closed her mouth and studied me with ageless eyes.

  No sex? Was she out of her mind? I looked down at Vari, felt my heart break at seeing her laying there. “How long is ‘very long?’” I didn’t look away from the woman sprawled on the floor.