by Billi Jean
“Ignore him, that was for me.” Stephano took hold of her hand. Immediately her fear lessoned. No one will get past Stephano. She threaded their fingers. But they did before. She held on tighter, taking heart in the many callouses on his strong hand.
“We have to get you out. It’s your presence that is tipping the balance,” an elder Silkie was saying to her companions. Even with his hair glistening like snow he stood tall and broad-shouldered with his men. His beard was short, framing his face but not adding any age to it that she could detect. But when he settled his gaze on her, she could sense the eons he’d lived in the depth of his aquamarine eyes. “It is you, and yours that have upset the order of things here, in our realm.”
“Nonsense,” Brennan argued. “Their presence has nothing to do with it. Your meddling has caused this, not the presence of these foreigners. If you wish to free our realm of this evil then these are the ones who can do it! They fought them and won twice now!”
“Brennan,” Ajax muttered, “we’re not here to rid this world of the Faye. Such a task is beyond us. All we can do is return to our realm and inform our commanders. Let them know of the ties between this world and the darkness in our world and others, eh?”
“He’s right,” Garret agreed when the Silkies all started grumbling. “The Dark Faye have made pacts in our realm, it’s not too much to imagine they’ve made others as well.”
“And? Once you are gone from here, you will fight your battles on your soil and leave us to ours.” The elder’s gaze grew icy. “We know your kind. You come here but give nothing back.”
“Nothing back? I’ve given back.” Brennan struck his chest with his fist. There was such rage in his tone, Maeve shivered and clung to Stephano’s arm. “My people were destroyed fighting the Dark Faye. We suffered from outsiders too, but it was the evil within this realm that destroyed the Sirens. Where were the Silkies, the guardians of this realm, when we were left with nothing? No homes, no cities, our people scattered? Don’t talk to me of riding this realm of outsiders when they are fighting a battle you’ve perpetuated!”
“How dare you!” one of the Silkies snarled, drawing his weapon.
“How dare I?” Brennan shouted. “You’ve made pacts with the Dark Faye. Don’t tell me otherwise. Your border sits on theirs and yet they don’t attack? Until now,” he amended. “Right when they believe they will lose something that they want.” She couldn’t decipher his expression he directed at her.
The Silkie shoved forward. “We have no—”
The elder held his hand up and around him, the men sheathed their weapons and quieted. “There was nothing we could do for your people. Their lives were gone before we were even aware they were threatened.”
Her memories of smoke and fire, of screaming and her mother’s frightened face…then Brennan, a boy himself, hurrying with her through forests she didn’t recognize. The starving time, the dirtiness and always being cold. He never spoke of it, and after a while of him not answering her questions, she stopped asking.
“Mae? Maeve?” Stephano brushed his knuckles along her jaw.
“I’m all right.” She shook her head slightly at the memories. Such a long time to carry such pain. Does he carry it as well? Is that why he is always angry?
“When we leave this place, we will return.” Ajax stepped forward. “This is our word. We will return and aid you in this fight.”
“If we can stop it here, maybe we can stop it there, as well.” Garret motioned to his brother. “We come from a people that have always upheld the right. We will aid you, if you will allow us.”
The elder and his people still appeared unconvinced.
“Now we know there are connections between our worlds. If we can cut those, sever the head from the body, we will.” Stephano moved away from her, but only by a few steps. She still felt oddly exposed as if he’d left her. “It’s not our way to let evil linger, even in worlds that aren’t our own.” He spoke with much more reverence than she’d ever heard from him and the elder seemed to respond to the tone of respect.
“Very well, Spartan. We will trust your word.” He bowed his head ever so slightly. She got the impression he wanted to silence the arguments still lingering in the air more than anything. Did the Silkies have such agreements with the Dark Faye? She tried to catch Brennan’s eye but he was staunchly avoiding her. “Your lands are through this gate.” He gestured to one with an oak tree in the center of the arch and six stars surrounding it. “Trevor and Argon will be able to open the gate once you wish to return.” For some reason, he gestured for her to come to him.
She held back but at his continued wave she stepped forward until she was close enough to see the fine lines around his eyes. Stephano had walked with her so she could feel his presence at her back.
“You have a part to play in this, much as you had a part to play in freeing the White City. It is not your place to leave this realm—”
“What?” Stephano moved to half shield her with his broad shoulder. “She’s leaving. She comes with me.”
At Stephano’s words, mayhem broke out, not only among the Silkies. The elder and three of his men began speaking in their language. Ajax suddenly muttered something in another language to Stephano. Brennan shoved his way to her side, then shocked her by yanking her arm hard enough she gasped.
At the sound, Stephano suddenly had hold of Brennan by his leather armor. In his face, he growled, “Never do that again.”
“I’m fine, I’m fine.” No one seemed to hear her, least of all her enraged lover and her brother.
“You touched my sister, didn’t you? Filthy Spartan! I should geld you!” Brennan shook him off, shoving Stephano hard enough to make him stumble backward.
She watched in horror as Stephano’s expression became fierce. “What did you call me?”
Without a word, Brennan threw a punch at Stephano. The blow barely missed his face and only because he ducked and it hit his shoulder. Brennan quickly landed a hard jab to his stomach instead. Stephano crashed his fist down on Brennan’s face, scaring her so badly she covered her mouth and cried out.
Ajax, Trevor and Garret wrestled a still struggling Stephano back. His hair had fallen loose, much as it had last night. The reminder of how he’d so gently loved her made her heart thud. Two Silkies had hold of Brennan. He stared at Stephano and dragged his wrist over his mouth.
All at once, the clearing grew quiet. Above the drum of her heartbeat she tried to make sense of what seemed to be moving much too fast.
“You see? You belong here.” The elder gestured to the gates. “In their world, you will cause this and more.” Her stomach, already tight with fear, clenched even harder. I can’t go with them. I can’t. I always knew I couldn’t. “Everywhere you go, you will draw death.”
His words felt like a slap. A tear leaked free before she could control it. Then, before she knew he’d moved, Stephano held her to his chest. The contrast from angry warrior to protective lover was startling. But the steady beat of his heart against her gave her strength. What if I am the cause of his death?
“Don’t listen to him, Mae,” he murmured in a voice she realized then was only used with her. She tried to listen, tried to believe him, but what if the elder was right? What if I cause this trouble? I did for Brennan. What if I do the same everywhere I go?
“She is not causing anything.” Stephano turned her in his arms, hiding her from the Silkies. “He is. I will never stand by while she is harmed. Brother or not, if you hurt her again, I will ensure you never do it again.” Stephano tightened his arms around her protectively at his shocking words. “She stays with me, either here or in my realm. But she is not the cause of this, no more than any other woman who chooses a man her brother doesn’t like.”
Brennan finally met her eyes. He dropped his. Is Stephano right? Is this about me not choosing a man he wants? She trembled at the anger visible in his tense shoulders and breathless stance. He lifted his head, and there in his eyes she saw the ang
er still simmered.
“Is this true? You have chosen this…man?”
With all eyes on her, and Stephano holding her so firmly, she couldn’t think of an answer that would explain what Stephano meant to her. “Yes.”
Stephano sighed, she thought maybe in relief. She hugged him once more, then dropped her arms and tried to back away.
She would have gone to Brennan, to explain more, but with a disgusted shake of his head, he muttered, “Then you have made your decision.”
The air left her as if he’d hit her in the abdomen. She couldn’t understand his anger, or what he’d said to Stephano. It had sounded personal. ‘Dirty Spartan’. Her legs were trembling but she took a step out of Stephano’s arms and toward her brother.
Stephano caught her elbow and gently stopped her. “Let him have some space, Mae.”
Everything was moving too fast. Ajax rounded on Brennan, telling him that a brother supports his sister and that Stephano was the best man he’d ever fought beside. Garret slapped Stephano on the back and tried to calm him down with advice on brothers-in-law. The Silkies were back to discussing something in their language, but all of it blurred, as if the pain of Brennan’s dismissal eclipsed everything else. He can’t stay angry with me. But she saw the set of his shoulders, the tense anger on his face and the way he shut her out. He’d always done this before, but never at her, but she knew the signs. He was moving on. He’s leaving me now.
The crash, when it came, scared her to the point of crying out.
Stephano caught her to his chest again and tucked her close with one arm, while his sword rang as he pulled it free with the other. “What was that?”
The Silkies all drew their weapons. The elder shouted something to his men. Several formed a unit as they ran toward the arches. Trevor, she thought it was Trevor their Silkie guide, hurried to them, his face creased in concern.
“Come. The last barrier has broken. We can’t hold them off if they’ve gotten through our guard.”
“What does that mean?” Stephano’s muscles hardened against her where they touched.
Ajax stepped closer and Garret moved to her front, blocking her view of Brennan.
“It means that soon this clearing will be filled with Dark Faye. Come, we leave now, my people will see to them.” Even as Trevor spoke, Silkie warriors dressed in the red sea serpent armor and wearing capes of crimson with long, flowing blond hair began to pour out of the gates nearest them. Some carried bows, but most had broad swords like Stephano and raced toward the entrance they’d come through the night before.
Stephano ushered her after Trevor so fast she barely had time to notice it all, but she kept scanning the woods as they ran, her attention divided between Stephano and her brother.
“Here, through here,” Trevor urged. Angor was already up ahead, waiting by an enormous arch set in the middle of the forest, his long bow out and an arrow already notched. The gate.
In front of her, Garret had his bow out, as well and held back with Angor as they raced by. Ajax shouted something to Stephano and broke off from them, flanking their left.
Stephano took her hand tightly and forced her to run faster.
Trevor motioned to the gate. “We go—”
A black arrow hit him in the throat, and he fell backward, unmoving. She screamed in her hands, and spun in time to barely miss being hit by another arrow. It thudded into the wood of the gate, right where her head had been.
Stephano deflected another with his sword and shoved her to his left, arm out to hold her back or protect her, she didn’t know.
Another Silkie died in front of her. Garret hit the archer. The Dark Faye went down and didn’t rise. Three more soared over a fallen log in the forest to land mere feet from them, already releasing arrows.
Unable to keep her fear quiet, she shouted, one word, that echoed as if she’d hit a mighty gong. “Stop!” They paused, their bows drawn tight, their arrows notched and ready.
Stephano spun and their eyes met. Ajax paused as well. “Again, Maeve, do it again,” Stephano urged.
She nodded, unable to bear the idea of any of them dying.
“Stop! Stop this and return to your realm, leave this land, it is not yours!” She put every ounce of sorrow, every memory of pain and fear she could in her voice and shoved it at the warriors in black. She continued to sing, drawing more of her painful break with Brennan into her voice, and built in the fear she felt over losing any of them. “Go, go away. Never return!” The pain, the terror, the fear, all rolled together creating the song and making it stronger as it took more and more from her.
They fell back, their expression turning from rage to terror as they stumbled and clutched one another. Then as if by magic, the Faye were suddenly running back the way they had come.
In the silence that followed, she collapsed to the forest floor, finding it odd that her body felt as light as a feather, but she still experienced a sharp crack as her head impacted with a rock. Her vision tunneled in on itself until all she could see was far, far away the blue of the sky as it shrank to a pinprick then vanished.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Stephano regarded Brennan over Maeve’s still body. She was sleeping, but her silence, when he knew her to be full of energy and life, made his chest hurt. Her brother only added to the pain by pissing him off. Ajax was at the foot of the bed, to ‘see you don’t thrash the boy’, and of course to give his two cents whenever the urge struck him.
“She’ll wake,” Ajax muttered. “She’s used magic. It makes the witches weak. She’s recovering.”
Brennan shot Ajax a frown, then focused back on his sister. “She’s never needed one before.”
“When she sang for Evie, you mean.” Stephano didn’t bother to keep the censure form his tone. If he’d been her sister, he’d be damned if she’d have sung to men, to get them aroused, no doubt.
“She’s only used her voice at Evie’s. Otherwise, she didn’t.”
“So you don’t talk to her, that’s what you’re saying.”
“I talk to my sister, Spartan.”
“What is it with you and Spartans? How many could you have possibly known?” He laughed and crossed his arms.
Brennan didn’t answer for so long that Stephano had to grind his teeth to keep from attacking him. No doubt such a thing would hurt Maeve more than Brennan. “Ares is your god, is he not?” Brennan finally muttered.
Stephano didn’t think this needed a response other than a grunt.
“You follow him, correct?”
It seemed important enough that Stephano nodded.
Brennan’s scowl deepened. “Maeve’s father was a man who worshiped Ares.” Wait, what? Mae’s mother was… “My mother was attacked and raped. Six years later, he led a force of the war god’s men to our village and killed our parents, took hostages and burned our homes. All for glory of Ares and the gold they got selling us to the Faye,” he said bitterly.
Stephano’s stomach tightened to the point of pain. Maeve’s mother was raped? He eyed Ajax. His shield brother looked just as stunned as he felt.
“Ares has followers in this world?” Ajax asked in a tone void of emotions Stephano knew had to be under his formidable scowl.
Brennan sneered. “The god of war is known here. There is little love for his followers, and less for him.”
“We aren’t those men. We don’t destroy villages, or burn them. And we sure don’t deal with slavers.” Stephano crossed his arms. “Ares would murder any one of us for raping a woman. We protect, we don’t cause harm.” At Brennan’s unchanging stare, he demanded, “How do you even know who attacked your village? I thought it was the Dark Faye.”
“It was the high priest’s wish to have a Siren to sing for him. You know now what my sister can do—”
“Your sister? Not you?” Ajax asked in such a nonchalant tone Stephano focused on Brennan’s response.
Brennan grimaced, reminding Stephano of Maeve when she didn’t want to say the truth.
“We are both Sirens, but men are different and our voices are not the same.”
“Interesting.” Stephano couldn’t help yanking Brennan’s chain. The man was too self-righteous. “Does she know any of this?”
“No. She is my sister. Nothing else matters.”
“Well, I matter. She’s my…mine.” Wife? Bonded? “No one stands in our way. Not even you.”
“Stephano.” At Maeve’s whisper, he forgot all about how much he wanted to deck Brennan and focused on a sleepy-eyed Maeve. Her amber eyes were darker, more green than hazel when she was tired. “Don’t harm my brother.”
Brennan muttered something under his breath but ignored him. “I won’t hurt him, Mae, you know that. How do you feel?” He squeezed her small hand in his, feeling her return the pressure, but only a little.
“Tired. So tired.” She curled up on her side. “We are safe?”
“Yes. Everyone is safe,” he assured her.
She blinked then closed her eyes for longer, only to open them again and twist her head to meet his eyes. He waited but whatever she saw must have reassured her. Then surprising him, she closed her eyes again. “All except for Trevor and his kin.” She sighed, sounding sad. Within a few seconds, she was back to sleep.
He closed his eyes briefly, but opened them to watch her. The sharp pain his chest grew to encompass his throat. She was so beautiful, so small and fragile. He lightly squeezed her fingers, feeling a sense of rightness slowly ease over him. He studied her breathing, the sense of peace loosening the painful restriction in his chest and throat.
“She always cares deeply for you.” Brennan’s voice was a shock after the silence.
Stephano couldn’t respond. He couldn’t catch his breath. She still held his hand, but it felt as if she had hold of his heart. What a pussy I’ve turned out to be. Not only can’t I protect my woman, I can’t breathe correctly without her.
“You’ll stay here with her, Narc.”
