Crown of Smoke and Blood

by Sadie Jacks

  Putting a finger under her chin, I raised her face slightly. “Look here, Catriona.”

  I waited for her blurry eyes to focus on me. “You’re safe. Close your eyes, luv. I’ve got you.” I pushed a steady stream of power into her mind. Pushed out the nightmares and settled only comfort and love where horrors had taken residence.

  Looking around the room, I saw that the other men had their women fully under their power. The women no longer balked or backed away. They sat placidly, slight smiles on their dirty faces.

  “I can carry these two,” Gideon said as he pointed at Georgia and the woman closest to her. “But we need someone to come meet us. Carrying women over our shoulders is going to raise the alarm.”

  I snorted. “Are you sure?” I rolled my eyes. “Hector, call for a pickup.”

  The ancient turned the flashlight off on my phone. His fingers danced over the screen for a moment before he lifted the phone to his ear. Having phones was so terribly convenient. And meant we didn’t have to split our magic—ensuring our rescues would stay under our compulsion. They didn’t need any other trauma from our kind.

  Hector’s Spanish flowed through the small room. He finished with a grunt and tossed the phone back to me when he was finished. “Marco will meet us on the street. Five minutes.”

  I nodded. “Let’s get them free. We’ll need to have Hayes look them over before we send them on their way. We’ll also need to get their statements.”

  Ambrose turned to me. “You think Michael had help.”

  I nodded, even though it wasn’t posed as a question. “Catriona here said he had her for three weeks. There’s no way Michael could have kept them all alive. Not for that long. Even if he was sipping and screwing with them. The idiot couldn’t have pulled it off.”

  Hector nodded. “My sweet Amberlyn has been here for just under three weeks. She begged for some water, said that the last bucket had run dry over a day ago.”

  I ground my teeth together. That these women had suffered at the hands of one of my own fueled the rage that finding them had started. Michael was big and brutal. No way he could have restrained himself from a bloodbath if he’d had free reign. His game was fast and harsh.

  Not this long drawn out night of horrors. Someone else had to be helping him. And once I found him, everyone under my rule would learn that I didn’t stand for the barbaric treatment of innocents.

  “Let’s get them out of these chains.” So saying, I bent down and ripped the chains off Catriona’s ankles. The clatter of the steel links falling to the floor sounded like an angel’s chorus. Reaching down, I pulled the compelled woman into my arms. Arranged her so that it would be easier to carry her.

  Gideon had Georgia and his other woman up and over his shoulders. He stood up as if he held nothing but a bag of feathers on each side. “I’m going to head out.”

  “Stay away from Deema, Gideon. That’s an order,” I called after him.

  “Go it, boss.”

  Hector carried his Amberlyn in his arms as if she were a cherished child. He murmured into her ear as he walked. His Spanish low and comforting.

  Ambrose lifted the woman in his care. “Any who helped him...they die for this,” he bit out.

  I nodded. “Yes. Slowly and painfully.”

  He nodded and strode from the room. His woman cuddled in his arms against his chest. He rested his cheek against the crown of her head.

  I brought up the rear of the group. At the end of the hallway, I could see the sky had lightened considerably while we were dealing with the women. Hopefully, Marco had already pulled up.

  Deema was nowhere to be seen, and that was a kick to the crotch. She better not have run off. I’d try to contact Vari through our connection. See if I could reach her. It would be the first time we’d be able to see if distance was a factor in our telepathy. Considering the strength of her power, I was willing to bet that distance wouldn’t matter one iota, but we did need to check it out.

  Standing at the back of the limousine with Catriona in my arms, I waited while the guys helped Ambrose get his charge loaded onto the seat.

  A yawn pulled at my mouth as the first rays of sunshine reached her golden fingers across the sky in all her glory. If nothing else, getting to see a sunrise was a blessing. One I owed Vari. She’d given me something I’d not thought to even wish for in almost two centuries. Was it even a wonder that I was infatuated with her?

  “Boss, we’re waiting,” Gideon said from the depths of the long car.

  I jolted into motion. Helped guide Catriona’s body down so he could pull her into the sun-proofed car. “Watch her head.”

  “Got it. Now get in before you fry.” He tugged Catriona’s body towards himself on the seat, making room for me.

  I took just another second to admire the early morning sky before I folded myself down and into the car. Promising myself I would test the limits of my new ability to sun walk, I shut the door. “Back to the mansion, Marco.”

  “Aye, aye, Cappy Tan.”

  Rolling my eyes at the typical reply, I leaned back into the seat. Counted the moments until I could release Catriona and search for Vari with my mind.

  Chapter 27 – Vari

  After what seemed like an eternity, Deema finally came strutting down the hallway. Her long hair and cold blue eyes shifted through the dark. “You’re in trouble.” I swear, she made it sound like I was a kid again and getting bullied for being small.

  “And you’re late. What the feck have you been doing?” I’d tried reaching out to Koehn for updates, but for some reason the connection was dead. Well…not dead, per se, but something seemed to be blocking it.

  I’d never had to worry about my power failing, even when another creature was at the helm. That I couldn’t reach him had panic eating away at my belly.

  “They needed me to find the women, just like you said.” She flicked her hair as she passed back through the cage of her cell.

  I slammed it shut before she could bum rush me. But it also terrified me that she’d returned to her cell so passively. Of all of my creatures, Deema hated confinement the most. She usually led the charge for mutiny with the rest of them.

  “You should have had their exact location. What took you so long?” I fed a bit of blood to the lock and sighed with relief when the bars coated themselves in iron.

  “Not that I should tell you, but I wanted to do some exploring. It’s been forever since I was out last. The night air felt good on my skin.” She rubbed a hand down her arm as if I didn’t know what her skin was. Her fingers curled for a second as if she were petting something. “What do you know of Gideon?”

  My blood froze at her question. “What did you do to him, Deema?”

  She looked at me through the bars of her cage. Her smile was animalistic. “Why?”

  “Answer the question. I won’t ask again.” I put power into my words. Watched her flinch back from the promise of pain.

  “Because something about him…spoke to me.” With that, she flicked her hair again and walked deeper into her prison. “Now, I’m tired. Leave me alone.”

  “Did you hurt him?”

  “No.” She didn’t expound or explain, but as much as I hated the woman, I knew she didn’t lie. At least not to me. It was pointless, really. Especially when I took control again and would know most of what she’d done in our shared form.

  Nodding, I started the walk back up the hallway. Preparing myself for any kind of shitshow, I was only mildly surprised to find myself outside of Koehn’s home.

  And slightly more surprised to see Tavis standing on the porch in front of me. The blade in his hands kissing my throat was the real shocker. I knew he didn’t really like me, but this was a little extreme.

  “Answer me, Vari! I’ll not ask ye again.” He pushed the steel blade against my neck. The slight sizzle told me the metal was true steel.

  “Tavis,” I said as I tried to back up. My heels pressed against the siding of the house.

  His f
ace went slack for a moment. “You know my name.”

  I nodded. Winced as his blade bit into me a little deeper. “Of course, I know your name.”

  “When I asked you just now, you acted as if you’d never met me.” He lowered the weapon as his chest heaved slightly. The blade quivered ever so faintly in the low light from the house.

  I took my first full breath and felt my eyes almost bug out of my head when I saw the broadsword he carried. Pushing out a cool breeze of power, I moved the tip of the weapon away from me. “That’s because I wasn’t me just now.” I looked him up and down. “Why are you here?”

  He shoved his sword up and into a personal pocket dimension. “I’ve been looking for Koehn. Magda needs to talk to both of you.” At least he didn’t have a sneer on his face. But he did lean down and inch his face close to mine. “Why weren’t ye, ye just now?”

  I clenched my back teeth, remembering his departure the last time. “Do you want to know the truth or are you going to see me as nothing more than a Horde member?”

  He flinched. “The truth. Always.” The words ‘even when it hurts’ drifted on the wind, though he hadn’t spoken them.

  I gave him a very brief rundown of everything I’d told the vampires. Even told him what my end game was.

  His bright green eyes widened. “Ye’re going to kill King Atavian?”

  I nodded. “Yes. He does not deserve to live after killing so many of us.”

  He rolled his tongue over his lips, took a deep breath in through his slightly open mouth. “Ye speak truth.”

  I nodded again. “That I would never lie about.”

  Tavis, the giant man who towered over me and was at least three times my size, knelt at my feet. “I pledge fealty to ye, Vari of Faery. I will fight by yer side to rid all the realms of King Atavian.”

  “I will not help you kill the Horde, Tavis. That is not my quest.”

  He nodded, looked up at me. “Understood.”

  I lowered my hand to the crown of his head. Let my magic pierce through to his mind. “I, Vari of Faery, do accept your vow.”

  He shuddered for a moment. Once my magic had settled into him, he rose back to his feet. Wobbled a bit before he stiffened his knees. “Ye sure pack a wallop fer being so tiny.” His smile was a bit lopsided, but I didn’t feel any of the animosity that he’d directed at me from earlier.

  VARI! Koehn’s voice ripped through my mind so loudly I stumbled. Grabbed my head.

  “What’s the matter, lass?” Tavis asked as he moved forward to catch me.

  “Koehn is yelling at me at the top of his mental lungs.” I shook my head and raised a finger to Tavis, asking for a moment.

  He was nice enough to nod.

  What? And for the love of all human gods everywhere, lower your volume. The bite in my voice gave me frostbite. I could only imagine how it felt to him.

  Oh, thank feck. I’ve been calling you for the last hour. Nothing was going through. Where are you?

  I leaned over to Tavis, turned his wrist up so I could see his watch. “Fecking Deema.” I shook my head. I’m at your house. Apparently Deema brought our body back here. Where are you?

  “Who’s Deema?” Tavis asked.

  At the coven’s mansion. I’ll give you directions, Koehn said at the exact same time.

  Hang on, Tavis is talking. I looked up at the bigger man. “Deema is who was using my body when you found me…us...” I waved the whole confusing mess aside. “Do you know where Koehn’s coven’s mansion is?”

  He nodded.

  I interrupted Koehn’s questions. Tavis is going to bring me to you. Now be quiet so I can think.

  Koehn finally shut up.

  “The last thing I remember was giving Deema the controls of our body. She was supposed to take Koehn and the guys to the place where Michael had the women held hostage.”

  Tavis’ eyes widened, and his mouth dropped open. “What the hell happened in the last seven hours?”

  My laugh was dry. “Too much. I’ll fill you in on the way to the mansion though, if that works for you?”

  He nodded and walked down the porch steps. “I’ll sift with ye.”

  My foot hesitated before taking that first step down. “Um.”

  He looked at me over his shoulder. “Ye’re Fae. Sifting is basic and easy.”

  My stomach curdled. “I’m not normal Fae, Tavis. Can we walk there? Or even run? I’m a fast runner.”

  Tavis turned to face me fully. “Ye can’t sift space?”

  My cheeks heated. “The last time I tried it, it went wrong. I never had to sift in Old Faery. I used something else there.”

  “Such as?”

  I mumbled the answer under my breath.

  Tavis chuckled. “I don’t speak mumble, lass.”

  Glaring at him, I sucked in a breath through my nose. “Teleportation. But someone else is always running the show.” I jabbed a thumb towards my chest. Raised my eyebrows. I’d literally just told him about the creatures. Surely, I didn’t need to tell him again.

  His mouth formed an O as he nodded. “Right. Well, I did bring my car. We could take that.”

  I shuffled down the stairs. “Of course. Lead the way, Tavis MacDougal.”

  We walked to the metal beast. I’d never ridden in one, but it couldn’t be too awful. The mechanical things were all over the world here. If they were so unsafe, I doubted the people would use them all the bloody time.

  Tavis held a door open for me, waved me to sit down on the seat.

  Once I had, he shut the door and jogged around the front of the car. Getting into his own seat behind a giant wheel, he pushed a button on the mount, and the beast rumbled to life.

  “Why not just sift into the car?”

  His cheeks heated as he curled around and put an arm across the back of my seat. “I don’t always get the seat height right. I was pulling fibers out of my arse for a week.”

  Backing up to get us out onto the street, he spun back around and pointed the car north. “I’ve a question before ye begin with the rundown of the time I’ve been missing.”

  I nodded. Riding in cars wasn’t nearly as bad as it could have been. Although, I would have thought they went much faster than this. I could have walked and kept up with Tavis in the car.

  “How did ye know my name? Ye spoke it before I told ye.” He glanced at me out of the corner of his eye.

  I looked at him, nodded. “You’re Fae.”

  A heavy silence filled the small enclosure. “…and?”

  My brow furrowed. “And I’m Fae.”

  We pulled up to a sign that said STOP. He turned and looked at me. “And? That doesn’t make a lick of sense, Vari. I don’t know every Fae I come across. I can feel their magic, yes, but I don’t know their names.”

  Oh shite. I’d known I was abnormal—hell, even among the Vast, I was different—but I’d thought all Fae knew each other by touch. “Umm…Surprise?”

  He snorted and rolled his eyes. “That’s not good enough. Try again.” He got the car moving again.

  I kept track of the turns and distances from Koehn’s house to the coven’s mansion. One could never know enough geography. I shrugged. “I don’t know what to tell you about that. I’m sorry. I’ve always been able to tell who Fae are by touch alone. Their names just come to me.” I swallowed. “Are you ready for me to explain the last however many hours?”

  He nodded and sat quietly for the rest of the trip. Not a gasp, a sudden inhale. Nothing. The man just absorbed information as if he were a sponge and the info pure water.

  We finally pulled up at a set of ornate gates that stood about fifteen feet tall. Stretching along either side was a stone wall of the same height. On top of the wall ran a series of spikes that looked deathly sharp.

  “This is the coven’s mansion?” I asked, even though I knew the answer.

  Tavis hit a button and his window rolled down with a soft hum. “Aye.” He leaned out the window. “Tavis MacDougal and Vari of Faery here to
see King Koehn,” he spoke into a small box with a screen on the front of it.

  The box clicked right as the gates started opening.

  “It’s weird that he’s king, right? That’s not just weird to me?” I asked as we waited for the gates to open enough that Tavis could scoot the car through.

  Tavis chuckled. “It is weird. He’s not like any royalty I’ve ever met.”

  I turned to look at the big man. “And you know a lot of royalty?” My smile was huge. This man was an enigma.

  His brows lowered. “I’ve known more than my fair share.” His tone didn’t invite further questions.

  We drove up a winding drive that was bracketed by a thick layer of trees. It wasn’t until we’d breached the line of trees that I saw the mansion. And mansion didn’t really give a good mental image of the structure that sat in the darkness.

  Five stories high, it rivaled a church we’d passed in town with its soaring spires and gothic architecture. Gargoyles even sat at the ledges, their menacing faces glaring down at strangers brave enough to encroach on their territory.

  Massive windows, probably as tall as Tavis, sat in pairs along the full face of the mansion. Arched and inlaid with colored glass, each set told a story. Angels and demons, good vs evil, clouds and birds, trees and flowers, animals and water. It was amazing.

  Beside me, Tavis shivered. “I’ve never liked the mansion.” He opened his door and got out of the car. “Come along. If Koehn is waiting, then there is a good reason for it. He hates being here almost as much as I do.”

  With his hand at my back, we walked up the twenty-five steps to the ornate wooden doors with a giant tree carved expertly into their faces. If I squinted just right, I saw what looked like a snake in the grass near the base of the tree.

  The doors opened before Tavis could raise his fist to knock. “Welcome to House Thanatos,” a very pale man said. His clothes were pressed to within an inch of their life. I wondered if he could even bend in them. But it could also be that he had a long, skinny foreign object shoved up his arse. That could prevent bending at the waist as well. Time would tell.