by K. J. Sutton
Finn disturbed the stillness with a long, eager whine. Taking pity on him, I made my choice. Gravel crunched under my feet as I jogged toward the trees, trying to leave my thoughts behind. Pink and orange spilled across the horizon like someone had poured paint down from Heaven. Not even the beautiful sky improved the sight of the barn squatting on the hill, though. I couldn’t stop myself from glancing inside the windows as I passed, wondering if Collith was already inside for the day, but it was utterly still. I muttered a rare, desperate prayer to God, if he was listening, that the Unseelie King was finally getting some sleep.
For the next hour, I ran with a frozen riverbank on one side and trees on the other. Finn kept up effortlessly, visible through the bare branches. An ache started in my side, but I didn’t slow or stop. My head filled with the sound of my ragged breathing. The sun-dappled ground occupied the space any thought or memory might’ve taken. It was exactly what I’d been hoping for, and I ran even faster, as though the Devil himself were chasing me.
But then a shape caught my eye, a tree that stood at the edge of the river and blocked my path. The instant I registered it, I barely managed not to recoil. My tennis shoe slid through a thawed patch of mud, and I flailed as I fought for balance. The incident might’ve made me laugh in another lifetime. In this one, though, I was only capable of a horrified stare once I’d recovered.
It isn’t the same tree, I reminded myself. That tree was in the opposite direction, miles away. Watching over a crossroads. But… they looked eerily similar. The same numerous arms, reaching for the sky like some kind of octopus or squid, grappling from the depths. The same looming height. The same evil intent.
Despite knowing this wasn’t the place where I’d made my odious deal, I couldn’t bring myself to keep going. To pass the tree that seemed to watch me from a face without eyes, silently waiting for its chance to claim me again. Finn must’ve chased after a rabbit or a deer, because there was no sign of him, and I thought about shouting his name. Searching for him. Following his footprints. Anything to get me away from this place.
Why couldn’t I move?
Without warning, the demon’s voice sounded in my head. How charming. You thought I would want your soul. That’s not how it works, sweetheart. No, I take something that you value.
“No,” I whispered. For a moment, I tried to cling to logic. I reminded myself that it was daylight, where no demon could walk, and that it had already gotten what it wanted from me. When that didn’t work, I finally turned around and ran.
This time, there were no distractions from the monsters in my head. They launched out of the darkness, their yellowed teeth flashing, their mouths frothing. I pushed myself, running even harder, reaching for strength that hadn’t been there a moment ago. My body screamed with adrenaline and pain.
Then something leapt from the trees.
I was so startled that, in my effort to stop, I nearly fell. As I struggled to recover, I caught a glimpse of the things filling the air with their snarls and howls. Their fur was dark as Hell, their eyes glowed red, and it was all-too clear every single one of them was on me. They thundered down the path and I ran in the opposite direction, heading back toward that nightmarish tree. But my shoes were covered in mud now, unable to find purchase, and I slipped down the riverbank again. Time seemed to slow, and in that moment, I comprehended that these creatures were the very ones I’d just been picturing.
There was no time to wonder at it—I raised my muddy hands in a pathetic attempt to protect my face as they rapidly closed the distance between us.
In the next moment, Finn was there, slamming into the closest beast. I heard one of them yip, and panic tore through me. Was Finn hurt? The others were still running toward me, though, and I had no weapon.
No weapon? I could hear my father asking suddenly, his voice rife with disappointment. I’ve taught you better than that.
But I haven’t made physical contact with them, I tried to argue. I can’t use their fears if I don’t know what they are.
There was no more time, though. I finally scrambled back to my feet. The creatures were upon me, seconds from tearing into my flesh with those gleaming teeth. Reacting on desperate instinct, I threw my hands up, palm out, just as I had done with Savannah. I didn’t question it or doubt myself.
My invasion into their minds was so violent and unexpected that the beasts made sounds of pain and went tumbling. Flavors coated my tongue as I felt their strange psyches. These were no wolves, I realized dimly. They were something unnatural, intelligent, and malicious, and I felt no guilt using my abilities on them.
Whatever they were, they had fears. Fears I could use.
The largest beast, the one still glaring at me even as it writhed on the ground, suddenly found itself lost in an unending mist. The one beside it was being attacked on all sides by angels. The third, which had fallen down the riverbank and now lay halfway in water, whined deep in its throat as it watched a figure walking toward it. A figure with golden hair and broad shoulders.
Their terror coiled in my stomach, low and hot, like I’d just taken a shot of tequila. I wanted more. I wanted to get drunk on it. Before I could, a snarl drew my attention away from them. I saw that Finn was still engaged in battle—he looked like he was holding his own, but I was desperate to reach him. Save him. Protect him.
Maybe that was why I proceeded to destroy the red-eyed beasts, one by one, without hesitation or remorse.
As their death-knell cries died away, the baleful lights in their eyes faded, and their twitching paws went still, I turned away. Now an unnerving silence settled upon the forest. I blearily picked my way through the mud and up the embankment. Finn stood at the top, his wide chest heaving. The beast he’d been fighting lay at his enormous feet, its gaze glassy and unblinking.
Once I was certain it was truly dead, I turned my attention to Finn, searching his fur for any sign of blood or broken bones. He would heal, yes, but if it healed incorrectly, it would mean a lot more work and pain for both of us. Besides a cut along his leg, which was already knitting together, Finn seemed wholly uninjured.
I couldn’t stop looking at him, though. Something about my werewolf’s stance, or the fierceness in his eyes, emanated pride. In that moment, we understood each other perfectly. He was not broken. He had fought back. He had won. It was the sort of feeling you only experienced after going to Hell and back. As the silence lingered, I gave Finn a soft smile and said, “Let’s go home.”
Such a complicated word. Home. I didn’t think of Cyrus’s as ours, and neither did Finn, in all likelihood. That wasn’t what made him hold himself a little higher, a little straighter—we’d both learned that home wasn’t four walls or the address where all your mail came, but the people you returned to.
Finn and I started to walk away, but it occurred to me that we couldn’t leave Fallen where anyone could stumble upon them. Glamour faded after death, if these creatures had even been capable of casting it. Fortunately, being queen came with a few perks. I pulled my phone out and sent a brief text to both Lyari and Nuvian, explaining the problem, along with our coordinates. The service may be spotty at the Unseelie Court, but they’d get it eventually.
Once that was taken care of, I studied the creatures I’d killed, wondering if I should be more upset by my part in their deaths. I could still taste them, though, and whatever humanity those things once possessed had been buried past the bedrock of their souls. All I felt was an exhausted sense of resignation. I’d made a promise, once, and I had meant it. If you fuck with me and mine, I will return the favor tenfold.
As we began the journey back—for once, I was grateful that Finn couldn’t speak—my mind became a tangle of thoughts. Where had those creatures come from? One moment, they’d been a figment of my pain and terror, and the next they’d been bursting from the trees. Did I… make them appear? Had it been some kind of premonition? And how had I used their fear without needing to touch them first?
Up ahead, Finn’s b
ushy tail swung back and forth. At least one of us is feeling invigorated from our morning excursion, I thought with a soundless sigh. Within a minute, the trees fell away, and Cyrus’s barn rose up. Finn vanished, probably to begin the transition back to his human form, and I crossed the yard alone.
Once again, when I passed the barn, I couldn’t resist looking through the window. At the sight of Collith, who was bent over a benchtop band saw—when had he gotten that?—I stopped. For a moment or two, I shamelessly watched. Despite the wintry chill clinging to the dawn, he worked without a shirt on, and the sharp lines of his body looked like a sculpture of marble or stone. His hair, which had needed a trim weeks ago, hung into his eyes and curled against his neck.
Right on cue, Ian O’Connell’s face flashed in my mind, and I winced.
As though there were still a mating bond between us, Collith lifted his head and looked directly at me.
Shit. Though it was far too late to pretend I hadn’t been staring, I ducked my head and hurried away. Shame coiled in my stomach and hissed like a venomous snake. I had no right to long for him. No right to admire a male I had destroyed in both body and soul. What possibilities or potential that once existed between us had died when I’d killed Collith.
Feeling as though I were on the verge of breaking, I rushed up the porch steps and reached for the doorknob. I heard voices inside, though, and realized my family couldn’t see me like this. My hand dropped to my side, and after a moment, I moved away. I lowered myself to the top step.
To keep the memories and thoughts away, I tried to focus on the details around me—the wind in my ears, a single bird calling to the sun, the weathervane creaking. But images kept slipping past my defenses. The red glow of those dog-like creatures’ eyes. The gleam of slobber falling from their jaws. The yellowed claws adorning their massive paws.
“What’s happening to me?” I moaned, rubbing my face as though I’d been crying. It felt like I should’ve been, like I wanted to, but I couldn’t grant myself even this small reprieve. Another gust of wind went by and found its way through my sweat-drenched clothes. I shivered and flattened my hands against the porch, thinking to stand.
At the same moment, one of the barn doors opened. My head emptied as if someone had pulled a drain stopper out. Everything inside me stood on tiptoe as Collith emerged into the daylight.
He looked nothing like the faerie I’d met at the black market, all those weeks ago. Gone was the self-assured tilt to his head and the gleam in his hazel eyes. In their place was a creature who always looked… tired. There were lines under his eyes, which I hadn’t known was possible for an immortal, and he moved cautiously now. As though, at any moment, a trapdoor would open beneath him and he’d fall back into the darkness.
Perhaps Collith sensed my despair, because he didn’t walk past as I expected him to. Instead, he lowered himself to the edge of the step and faced the sunrise, as well. His hand was very close to mine, and suddenly every part of me yearned to entwine my fingers in the spaces between his. But I thought of the demon, and I thought of the hatred Collith doubtless harbored toward me, and I resisted.
As surely as rain fell to the ground, though, my eyes went to him again and again. He had recently showered—he smelled like soap and his hair was damp. His skin shone. Worry poisoned my insides when I realized he wasn’t wearing a hat or gloves. “You’re going to get sick,” I told Collith softly. “You’re in a weakened state right now.”
He didn’t acknowledge my words. When I glanced at him for the hundredth time, Collith was staring downward with an unreadable expression. I followed his gaze and realized he must’ve noticed the flower. It was next to the bottom step, impossibly full and thriving, even as it nestled in a bed of frost.
“It’s called a wood anemone,” Collith said. His voice was tight. “Usually it’s a spring flower.”
I frowned down at it, too. “Well, I’d hardly call this spring. Maybe it’s the work of a witch?”
But the faerie king had apparently fallen silent again, because my words were met with a lone whistle of wind. For once, he didn’t ask about his nightmares or how I’d brought him back. We just sat there, coexisting in the same space, the air around us subtle with grief. All my instincts wanted to avoid it or seek a distraction. Fortunately, I had endured loss before. Pain was like a physical wound—it couldn’t be ignored, or it would fester.
“Have you eaten yet?” Collith asked abruptly. I turned my head and studied his expression. After a moment, I shook my head. He stood up and held his hand down to me. I stared at it for a long, long moment before taking it, my fingers curling around his. I waited for the inevitable panic to set in, but there was nothing except the pleasant coolness emanating from Collith’s skin.
Suddenly I never wanted to let go.
Damon and Matthew were at the kitchen table when we came in. My nephew sat in his brand-new high chair, making a sopping mess of his cereal. A Cheerio clung to the child’s pointed chin, and his skin gleamed in the morning light. His smile radiated innocence. God, he looked so much like Damon it hurt.
Though Matthew had only been with us for two weeks, I knew everyone in this house would lay down their life to protect him. To give him the childhood so many of us never had.
“Maybe he’d be better off with oatmeal or something,” I told Damon, trying to make it sound offhand. I opened one of the cupboards to get a clean bowl for myself. Collith slipped from the room, moving as soundlessly as he had that day in the market, when he’d dropped a set of keys into my cage.
“Oh, you’re too serious, Fortuna,” Emma interjected as she entered the room. A hint of her perfume reached for me, something cloying and sweet. “You should be out having fun. Buy a motorcycle! That way I can borrow it.”
I watched her as she spoke, noticing her heavy lids and how the whites of her eyes had gone slightly red. Laughter bubbled up inside me. I disguised it by fetching a spoon from the silverware drawer. “You’re high as a kite, Em.”
My godmother winked and put a finger to her mouth. As she bent to kiss the top of Damon’s head, I started toward the fridge. I was just reaching for the handle when I spotted a jar of homemade jam on the counter, the rim wrapped in twine and a heart drawn on the lid. I wondered which nosy neighbor had dropped it off hoping to see Damon Sworn, who’d been kidnapped and held captive for two years, according to the papers. They weren’t wrong, exactly—there just hadn’t been any humans involved, and I’d made certain the kidnapper would never take anyone else.
Thinking of everything I’d done to rip my brother out of Jassin’s claws, I twisted the lid off, dipped the spoon inside, then viciously shoved all of it into my mouth. The taste of berries and sugar exploded on my tongue, and I’d never found it more unappealing.
While I’d been reliving my first week at the Unseelie Court, Emma had settled into the chair beside Matthew’s. I watched as she crossed her eyes at him. Matthew beamed and offered her a Cheerio. What age did children normally begin talking? Shouldn’t we have heard him say something by now? Looking entirely unperturbed by his silence, Emma accepted my nephew’s offering and kissed his round cheek.
“What would you like to do for your birthday tomorrow?” she asked without looking at me, deliberately changing the subject.
Jam stuck to the roof of my mouth. Shit. I was hoping everyone would forget. Luck was finally on my side, though, because Cyrus came through the front door a moment later. He must’ve just gotten back from taking Stanley for a walk—the leash was still in his hand.
“Good morning, Cy,” I blurted, trying not to sound overeager. “Still up for carpooling?”
He’d suggested it last week, in the interest of putting less carbon emissions into the air. The fry cook avoided my eyes, absorbed in freeing his dogs, and nodded. I got up, trying not to appear overeager, and hurried down the hallway to shower. “We’re celebrating your birthday, Fortuna Sworn!” Emma called after me.
The door clicked shut behind me. I pulled
the shower curtain aside and turned the handle as far as it would go. Water burst from the nozzle, pounding against the plastic floor. Steam rose toward the ceiling. With a weary sigh, I undressed and stepped beneath a stream of scalding water.
Maybe this was the day I’d finally feel clean again.
Chapter Three
A half hour later, Cyrus maneuvered his truck alongside the curb on Main Street. It was just the two of us, since Finn hadn’t returned before we left the house. The sign for Bea’s shone neon-blue in the window, like a strange lighthouse in a sea of concrete and pain. Most people came here to forget that part of themselves.
As my friend killed the engine, a familiar figure walked past. Ariel must not have spotted us, or she would’ve given us one of her signature finger waves. She pulled the door to Bea’s open and slipped inside. I turned to unbuckle, and I caught sight of Cyrus’s expression—the fact that he even had one was significant. He still hadn’t looked away from the door, either, despite that it had been closed for several seconds now. “Why, Cyrus Lavender,” I teased, pressing the button that would release my seatbelt. “Do you fancy our new server?”
My friend’s countenance reddened, and he left the truck without answering. Still smiling, I hurried to follow, but apparently Cyrus moved quickly when he wanted to avoid answering certain questions. The weak sunlight bounced off his flame of hair. He didn’t look back as he rushed into the bar. I reached the door a moment later, but when I reached for the long handle, reluctance filled the pit of my stomach. I faced the street, thinking to take a moment or two. The sunlight hit my eyes, and I squinted. I saw shapes on the sidewalk, silhouettes of people who’d once stood here. Voices moved through my memory.
No bargain. Not ever!
If a time comes that you should feel differently, all you must do is say my name.
