Deadly Dreams (Fortuna Sworn Book 3)

by K. J. Sutton

  I leaned closer to Ariel, trying to ignore how the world tilted. Before I could say anything, a hiccup popped out of her, and she laughed. I laughed, too. Then we were both standing there, just laughing. The current song wasn’t as loud as the last one, so I didn’t have to shout as I asked, “Want to know something?”

  “Always,” she managed.

  I held her arm for balance. Then I said, still speaking between giggles, “I hate being the goddamn queen.”

  The girl laughed some more, shaking her head. “What do you—”

  Someone grabbed my wrist. My senses were so dulled that I didn’t react right away. When the hand tightened and pulled me away, though, I started to think more clearly. I heard Ariel call my name just as I wrenched free. “Touch me again and I’ll fry your brain,” I snarled, raising my gaze.

  It was Finn.

  Something in his expression got through the tequila-induced haze over my mind. “Are you okay?” Ariel demanded, elbowing past the pastor’s drunk daughter.

  I mustered the most convincing smile I could. “Sorry, yeah, we’re fine. This is my roommate, Finn. Finn, this is my co-worker Ariel.”

  Ariel tipped her head and appraised him. Her eyes were bright with interest. The song ended and a new one started, this one with more base. The floor trembled beneath our feet. “I’ll be right back!” I shouted to Ariel. She waggled her fingers—more at Finn than me—and started dancing with a group of drunk college girls.

  I met Finn’s gaze and pointed toward the back door. He nodded and turned, weaving through the crowd like a wolf running through the forest. I stayed close, taking advantage of the openings Finn had created. It was the first time I’d walked through Bea’s on a busy night without learning a dozen people’s fears along the way.

  He stopped when he reached Cyrus’s order window. It was quieter in this spot, as if Cyrus had literally created his own world back here. I faced Finn, and with fewer distractions around us, I finally noticed the urgency burning in his dark eyes. It was also in his voice as he asked, “Did you get my text?”

  “I haven’t checked my phone for a couple hours,” I said, reaching for it now. The screen brightened and revealed several unread messages. Shit. “What’s going on?”

  Finn answered at the same moment I read it in his text. “I found Ian O’Connell’s body in the woods. He was murdered.”

  The werewolf paused, probably to give me a chance to process it. For a moment, my mind was stalled on the fact that Ian O’Connell was dead. Murdered. I would never see him again. I didn’t know what to say, how to react, because I knew it was wrong to be relieved. As a result, I had no idea how I felt. “Did you leave him out there? Does anyone else know?” I asked finally, looking back up at Finn.

  His expression was fathomless, but he spoke slowly. “There was another scent on him… one that I recognized.”

  “You think someone we know killed Ian.” My eyes flicked between his. “Whose scent was it, Finn?”

  “It was Laurelis,” he said after another pause. There was a shadow in his voice that I didn’t understand. Worry, maybe. He thought I was going to break, I realized. From which part, though? The revelation that a human I hated was dead? Or that someone I cared about—no matter how hard I tried not to—had done something so terrible?

  “Did someone say my name?”

  The Seelie King materialized by the door to Bea’s office. Finn moved quickly, pressing his back against my chest. “He’s not going to hurt me,” I said softly, knowing the werewolf’s sharp ears would hear it. The music was still making the floor and walls pound.

  Laurie observed our interaction with an impatient scowl. “I left a state dinner for this,” he informed us. Based on his outfit, I believed him. I’d never seen him in evening tailcoats before.

  “May I speak with you? Privately?” I asked, laying a reassuring hand on Finn’s arm when he growled.

  State dinner or not, Laurie could never resist a mystery. His bright gaze dropped to my hand, and he quirked a brow. “Lead the way.”

  I felt both Cyrus and Finn watching us. I walked past Laurie and pushed the back door open. A burst of cold air blew past, mussing my hair. Laurie stepped outside, went down the steps, and turned as the door slammed shut. His lip was curled with disgust. “I understand that you have needs, Fortuna, but I refuse to do this on a pile of garbage. Let me to take you to Italy for the rest of the evening. We’ll drink wine and fuck in the best hotel suite money can buy.”

  As he spoke, I searched his face, only half-listening to his words. There was no proof of it on his person. No blood on his hands, no smell of death. But deep in my gut, I knew the truth. Suddenly I had never felt more sober.

  “Did you kill Ian O’Connell?” I asked.

  Surprise flickered in Laurie’s gaze—he probably hadn’t expected Ian’s body to be found, or at least not so soon. He glanced at the door behind us and I could practically hear him putting it together. The werewolf found it. After a moment, he refocused on me with an expression I recognized. It was the same one he wore every time I confronted him or challenged him. Bored. Superior. Fae.

  “Yes, I did,” he said airily. “Oh, don’t look so surprised, darling. I’ve always been entirely capable of murder—I’m just not interested in the cleanup. That part always gets me in trouble. I knew I should’ve buried him…”

  I was going to throw up. My stomach flipped over and a bitter taste filled my mouth. Desperate to avoid the humiliation of vomiting in front of a faerie, I looked down at my shoes. I was standing on a flattened piece of toast. The sight of it almost made me throw up anyway. I forced myself to take some deep breaths. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. The nausea subsided enough that I was able to look up at Laurie again, and even though I knew better, I hoped he could give me a good reason for what he’d done.

  “Why? Why would you do that?” I asked.

  “He frightened you,” the Seelie King said, as if it were that simple. He even accompanied the words with a shrug. “And from what I’ve heard around this grimy little town, he wasn’t well-loved, anyhow.”

  I stared at him, and my mind latched onto a question that didn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things. How did Laurie know Ian had frightened me? My frown faded when I remembered. We’d been standing on the street. Ian drove by and acknowledged me, and Laurie was there to see my reaction to it.

  My fault. This was my fault. I swung away and resisted the urge to hit a brick wall. The smell coming from the Dumpster made my nostrils sting. I turned back around and glared at the faerie through a sheen of tears. “Fuck. You can’t just kill people, Laurie!”

  “I think you’ve forgotten who and what I am.” His voice was level, but his eyes gleamed in a way that made my blood run cold. “I don’t abide by human laws, little Nightmare. I am not governed by human guilt.”

  I went down the rest of the steps and faced him at the bottom. “Well, you should act like you care for five minutes. Seriously, new experiences are good for people. How am I supposed to look Bella in the eye next time I see her?”

  Laurie still looked bored. “Who’s Bella?”

  “His wife! No, excuse me, his widow.” I whirled away yet again, struggling to control the anger rising in me like lava. My eyes burned, and I didn’t need a mirror to know they were shining a bright, unnatural red. No more tears, because now I was pissed. I took three steps, getting control of myself, then faced the silver-haired king again. When he didn’t react, I knew I’d succeeded in changing my eyes back. “Laurie, you’ve made me responsible for another human’s death. He was a shitty human, yes, but I didn’t need his murder on my conscious. You don’t, either, whatever you may say. I refuse to believe you don’t feel guilt—that would make you a sociopath. And my taste in friends just can’t be that terrible.”

  “Can we talk about this later?” Laurie sighed. When I continued glaring at him, his lovely mouth turned into a pout. “Let’s go for drinks. I’ll take you to this café I love in Croatia
.”

  I gritted my teeth and shoved past him. “I have to go back inside. My friend is probably looking for me.”

  That was when I saw a figure standing at the top of the steps.

  My heart lurched—I hadn’t even heard the door open—but I let out a relieved breath when I saw it was Dracula. His eyes glowed like those of a nocturnal animal, and the effect was unnerving.

  “Are you here for a beer or to go another round?” I managed, knowing the vampire could hear how badly he’d frightened me.

  There was a long pause. Dracula didn’t blink or speak, and suddenly I felt like a mouse beneath an airborne bat. Small, exposed, vulnerable. Laurie stepped closer to me, so close that his chest brushed against my back, and something stopped me from instantly moving away. Probably the fact that I’d barely used my abilities since I killed Collith, and even now the thought of using them was terrifying. I was no longer a force to be reckoned with… which meant I needed the help of creatures like Laurie.

  “Neither,” Dracula said finally. He shifted into the light, and that eerie glow in his eyes faded. He gave me a faint, enigmatic smile. His leather jacket gleamed. “I came to speak with you, Queen Fortuna.”

  Still wary, I was slow to respond. Laurie subtly nudged me from behind. “Talk to me about what?” I asked, and somehow my voice sounded casual. Normal.

  Dracula opened his mouth to respond, but something landed between us with a jarring thud.

  I saw Dracula reel back as I lost my own balance. I hit the side of the building, but not hard enough to hurt, and I recovered quickly. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Laurie moving to my side—most of my focus was on the creature. At first, all I saw was a mass of white feathers. My gaze dropped lower, though, and I caught a glimpse of a massive paw.

  “What the actual fuck?” I whispered.

  At the sound of my voice, the creature swung around, and the wings snapped out of the way. To my horror, I realized I was gaping at multiple heads. I saw a man, a lion, a cherub, and an eagle. All of its milky, malevolent eyes were fixed on me.

  “Fortuna, get—” Laurie started, his voice low and urgent, but the creature launched at us in a burst of preternatural speed. In that instant, my mind went blank. I knew we were about to die.

  Death never came, though. Instead there was a flash of silver—Dracula’s cane had turned into a sword—and a blur of darkness. A bellow of pain filled my ears. Laurie pushed me against the brick wall and used his body as a shield. I peered over his shoulder, frozen and wide-eyed.

  The streetlight shone down on the scene as if it was a stage. Like a warrior from some ancient legend, Dracula wielded a bright sword. His rings glittered as he swung. He was the best fighter I had ever seen. Every movement was certain and true, then it blended into the next, making it seem like a deadly dance. The creature—whatever it was—was only saved by its speed, and it evaded every swipe of Dracula’s blade.

  I was still staring in open admiration when the second creature landed.

  Moving faster than my eyes could track, Laurie bent and straightened, holding something in his hand. It looked like a compact umbrella. I heard a click, then another sword was gleaming in the sickly tint of the streetlight—the black part I’d mistaken for an umbrella was its hilt. Okay, I need one of those, I thought just as screams tore through the night. When I realized it was coming from the bar, panic exploded in my chest, and I ran for the door. Cyrus. Ariel. Finn. Fuck Angela, though. They could have her.

  “Fortuna!” a familiar voice shouted. I turned in time to see the Seelie King nearly slice one those pearly wings off. The eagle shrieked. The creature reared back, the lion’s head baring its teeth in a snarl. Laurie put his weight on one leg and swung the other, landing a merciless kick to its chest. The creature hit the opposite wall so hard I heard bones crunch, and it stayed down for a few seconds. Despite its obvious outrage, the wound on its wing was already knitting together.

  Laurie twirled the handle of his sword, sending it through the air in a graceful arc, and faced me. “You—”

  “There are more of those things inside,” I told him, wrenching at the handle.

  He swore, but that was the only response he was able to give, because the creature was getting back up and I was darting inside.

  The bar was chaos. I paused for a beat, scanning the room for the humans I loved, and that single glance told me there were at least four of those creatures here. Glamour shimmered over them, but apparently it was a bit harder to fool the Unseelie Queen. All I saw was the grotesque, patchwork monster. Whatever everyone else saw still brought fear to their eyes, though. Ariel seemed to be holding her own, surprisingly enough—she had a frying pan in each hand—but I couldn’t find Cyrus or Finn. Angela was huddled in a corner booth, clutching a steak knife. She was also screaming hysterically, over and over again, and it drew one of the creatures right to her.

  For a moment or two, I considered letting Angela get eaten.

  She must’ve managed to cut the creature’s snout, because it jerked back with a cacophony of sounds. My instincts finally surged forward, and I did my own version of Laurie’s kick from the alley. As the creature stumbled back and fell over a table, I shoved myself into the space next to Angela. She shrieked and brandished the knife at my face. I barely managed to dodge it in time, but the abrupt movement sent me tipping back into the open. The creature I’d sent tumbling recovered, its heads growling, shrieking, or hissing, and came at me again.

  I had no idea if it could be killed, but at least I knew it would bleed.

  With a small and vicious smile, I picked up a steak knife from the closest table. The creature froze, but it wasn’t because of the blade in my hand—the head shaped like a man had finally looked at me. This thing had probably never met a Nightmare before. It grinned back, and there was a dark promise in the curve of those thin lips.“I pick you,” I crooned.

  The man head was still leering, its instincts slowed by my influence, when I burst forward and put my knife through one of those white eyes.

  While it was screaming in pain, I picked up another knife, jammed it into the creature’s gut—at least, where I thought its gut was—and used all my strength to pull the blade upward. Its flesh was tougher than it looked, though, and I lost hold of the hilt when the creature recoiled. Taking advantage of its retreat, I cast another glance around the room. Cyrus was beside Ariel now, holding a shotgun, but there was still no sign of Finn.

  Angela was sobbing now. As I rushed toward her hiding place again, she repeated her attempt to stab me. “How do you expect them to take you seriously if you can’t even hold a weapon correctly?” I hissed. “Your grip is all wrong on that. Oh, for Christ’s sake, just give it to me.”

  “It won’t do any good, anyway! These people are crazy,” she wailed.

  People? I thought. Right, the creatures were wearing a glamour. Telling myself to ask Angela what she’d seen later, I crawled back under the table, grabbed the knife from her, and lodged myself so that she was protected by my body. At the same instant, so quickly that I had no chance to block it, a hairy arm shot into the space and yanked me right back out. The creature tossed me like I was a rag doll—it was the one I thought I’d gutted, but the hole in its body was already knitting itself shut—and I slammed into the opposite wall with such force that I went through it.

  Agony tore through me. I nearly succumbed to the darkness then and there. I fought it, though—my friends needed me to stay conscious. As the haze of pain ebbed and flowed, I realized the creatures were filling the air with their rage. I lifted my head and saw that they’d descended upon the one that threw me. Body parts started landing on the floor, and the beast bellowed and screamed in equal parts as they ripped it apart.

  They’re killing it, I thought dimly. But why? Were these things so monstrous they just randomly turned on each other?

  No… they’d only reacted when I got hurt. It seemed like a safe bet these things were here for me, and whoever had sent th
em apparently wanted me alive. A new idea formed in my head. “Hey!” I shouted, climbing out of the wall. Colorful spots filled my vision and I went still.

  My eyesight cleared in time to see every head in the bar swivel toward me. I was still holding a knife—I probably had Dad’s training to thank for that. Once I knew I had the creatures’ attention, I placed its edge against my stomach. I chose my next words carefully, because there were people here who had no idea what I was or that a supernatural world existed.

  “Get the fuck out of this bar, or I swear to God I’ll gut myself,” I called. Music was still playing from the speakers, and I didn’t know if these creatures had good hearing. “And then you’ll have my death to atone for. Is that what you want?”

  It seemed my theory was correct—most of the creatures didn’t look away from the knife.

  Some humans saw their chance and slipped away. One of them was Phil’s daughter, who must’ve been back in Bea’s office while he was bartending. She always sat at the desk and worked on homework. A creature noticed Amy crawling past, and maybe it had seen my fear for her, because it seized the girl by her ankle and hauled her up. The twelve-year-old screamed and swung her fist at the lion’s head.

  Without letting myself think about it, I flicked my hand, and within seconds blood seeped through my shirt. Someone cried out in horror. The creatures definitely had a heightened sense of smell, because every single one of them was already surging forward. The one holding Amy dropped her in its rush to reach me. I saw her run out the door, and relief ballooned in my chest before I turned my attention back to the horde of monsters.

  “Get back. Get back,” I shouted, moving as if I was going to cut myself again. The creatures hissed and yowled, and they all clustered at the other end of the room like frightened sheep. Their pale eyes glared at the knife. I maneuvered around overturned chairs and fallen tables, getting them into a corner. Behind me, I heard shoes squeaking on the floor and the door banging open. Good—the rest of the humans were fleeing.