Until I saw what I was standing on.
At first, it just appeared to be caked mud. But as I watched, using the sunlight as a flashlight, it began to move in rivulets, breaking the surface and letting slick dirt out from underneath, which caught in my sneakers. As I stared down at my once white shoes, I grunted as I saw the rivulets begin to snake. They wiggled from side to side, undulating in a way that was pretty mesmerizing.
Was it a snake?
Or was it an illusion?
I began to rush off, but the mud glued itself to my shoes, making each step feel like I was taking my thousandth. My feet were like lead weights as I tried to stomp off the path, and I grunted with the strain as the rivulets began to break open to reveal dark craters that were oozing something.
And this witch?
Didn’t want to know what that something was.
I hated to give up the light, especially when I wasn’t sure when I might get some again, but the only way I could think of drying the mud was to use the wind and the heat from the light.
Calling on my magic, I let my gut do the work. I had no idea what I was really doing, so I just balled the light up tight and small so it was vibrating with heat and tension, then let the wind drag it along the ground around my feet so it dried as I walked.
My focus was on my feet so when something hit me from above, the squeal I released was loaded with both fear and shock. I tipped my head back and I saw it was a bird. Its wings were flapping in my face, brushing against my cheeks as the claws dragged against my skin.
I raised my hands to cover my face, but as I did, the mud began to move again—I could feel it breaking apart, the liquid it oozed more like concrete than wet dirt.
Another scream escaped me as the bird scraped against my eyelid—was it trying to take out my fucking eye?
A growl sounded from above, but I couldn’t look, couldn’t open my eyes for fear of the bird getting to the soft, tender flesh hidden beneath the lids. A scream escaped me, one that entwined with the growl, and suddenly, the bird was no more. It made a shrieking caw, and then wet fluid sprayed over my face.
Disgust filled me as I tore open my leather jacket and grabbed the bottom hem of my shirt, hauling it up at the hem so I could wipe my face clean of the gore.
When I could finally see, I realized it was Daniel who’d saved me from the bird.
He was standing there, watching me with an intent that raked at my senses. How the Sol had he found me? But even as I thought that, I noticed his dark blue eyes were pinpricked with a light so bright it burned me, and anything sensible disintegrated into nothing.
There was an intensity about him that hadn’t been there earlier. It was so strong, I could feel it across the short distance, like it was a vibration that was bathing my skin. But rather than freak me out, something inside me responded to it.
Blossomed with it.
Like I was a goddamn rosebud that was finally feeling the sun’s touch.
I wasn’t a rose. If anything, I was something robust. Something purposeful. Nothing so fragile as a delicate bloom, but strong like a wildflower—one born to survive whatever was thrown its way.
I’d always been strong. Cubanas didn’t raise their hijas to be weak. We were fiery and proud, passionate and impassioned. I’d been taught how to cook by the age of thirteen, knew most of the family recipes by heart at fifteen, and that was only the food—not the witchy shit. I was raised with the knowledge that, though I was a disappointment, I was a de Santos del Sol witch. I was powerful and strong, ferocious if backed into a corner…
Yet, here I was, backed into said corner, and I wanted nothing more than to fling myself into Daniel’s arms and sob.
I was many, many things, but I wasn’t a warrior.
I just wasn’t.
I couldn’t kill things or stab things. I couldn’t get out of mud that was sucking me in like quicksand.
I wasn’t made for this shit.
I just… wasn’t.
Give me a pencil, some material, and a pair of scissors, and I’d make you a goddamn dress you could attend an award ceremony in. Give me some onions, a pepper, some garlic and chicken, and I’d create a fucking feast. But survive bear traps? Kill birds with my sword?
No.
I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t. It just wasn’t in me.
Bowing my head in shame, I didn’t do what I wanted—run to him—instead, I punished myself for being weak by standing there, all alone, letting the mud pull at me.
“Gabriella,” he rasped, and his voice, Gaia, it tugged at me worse than the dirt did.
“W-What?” I whispered, peering up at him through my lashes.
“It’s okay not to be good at this stuff,” he whispered, his voice raw with feeling. “I’ll take care of you.”
I wanted to believe him but… “Are you joking?” Inside, I whispered to myself, Please don’t be joking. But it was something my brothers would do. Find me at a vulnerable moment and yank my chain.
I seriously had no chain to yank at that moment.
I was at the end of my tether in more ways than one.
His throat bobbed. “Nothing about what I’m feeling is a joke, Gabriella. Nothing.”
And Gaia help me, but I believed him.
❖
Daniel
I wanted to scream.
I felt like I could, like an endless scream could pour from my lips. Like it could soar on for eternity as I tried to expel this bizarre sensation that was inside me. I felt too full. Of everything. Too many emotions, too much pressure, too much, too much.
When I’d heard her squeal the first time, my heart rate had soared. But the second time, I’d scented blood, and something had overtaken me.
Something raw and dark and… cruel.
It wasn’t evil. It wasn’t. I wasn’t. I was the son of two admin caste Fae. My mother worked for a medic as a receptionist, and my father was a Conclave-Assembly-White House diplomat.
My family was too boring to house evil.
And yet, these feelings inside me were anything but nice. The second I’d scented her blood was the second my entire being had changed. Morphed. Transformed into something other.
I was Daniel. I was Fae. I was warrior. But more than that, I was hers.
And she was mine.
The knowledge had shuddered through me, taking me from the male I’d always been, into this creature that had demanded to see, with my own eyes, that my mate was okay.
As I’d surged above the hedges, I’d found her within seconds. Swooping down, I’d slain the bird attacking her and had taken a moment to catch my breath. To come back to myself.
But I couldn’t.
Not with her blood in the air.
Not with her fear tinging everything I could scent.
“Are you joking?” she asked me, her scowl ferocious enough to fell a lesser man.
But I wasn’t lesser.
“Nothing about what I’m feeling is a joke, Gabriella. Nothing,” I ground out, watching her eyes widen with acceptance, her body shudder with relief.
The sudden sound of wings whistling through the air became audible, and I twisted my head up and back to watch Matthew’s and Joseph’s descents.
“What the fuck happened?” they growled, almost in unison.
“I’m still stuck,” Gabriella whispered, dropping her eyes to the ground where the true challenge the maze had sent her maintained a firm grasp on her feet.
Seph, with the most magic at his fingertips, unfurled his hand and blew light onto the area. Illuminating the small path, he took a quick glance around and demanded, “Where, in Gaia’s name, did the damn bird come from?”
“I don’t know,” I replied between gritted teeth, not appreciating his tone.
It wasn’t like I was the one who’d sent the damn bird to pluck out my woman’s eyes, was it?
“It wasn’t a part of the maze challenge?” Gabriella questioned, her pitch high.
“No.” I pointed at t
he ground. “That was the challenge.”
We’d taken the other corners knowing there was more danger on that side. Mazes and labyrinths were a common part of the trials, as was a weak link in a troupe. We all knew to send the weaker member to the west. It was just how it worked. She should have experienced a few trials and tribulations, but nothing more heinous than being stuck in this quicksand.
The bird?
I had no idea where it came from.
The maze was a simulation, after all. Made up entirely of magic.
As Matthew strode over to look at the creature, Seph and I worked to free her from the enchanted mud.
“See how it’s retracted somewhat where the blood from the bird has soaked it?” I pointed out.
Her face puckered. “Ew. Has it?”
“It has.” My lips twitched. “The mud wants a sacrifice.”
“Well, it can’t have one,” she muttered, then squeaked as I grabbed a dagger from my boot and sliced down my forearm. As the wound opened, I let droplets fall close to her feet, spattering the once white sneakers with my blue lifeblood.
As soon as the ground absorbed it, it began to dry up.
“That makes no sense,” she mumbled, then eyed her shoes as she leaned into Seph and hauled herself out of the mud, which could be worse than superglue once you were stuck in it for over five minutes.
“Why should it make sense?” Seph replied dryly. “There is no sense where the art of war is concerned.”
“War isn’t an art.” She sniffed. “It’s just bloodshed. Plus, don’t pretend like you guys actually go to war anymore. You’re cleaners… sorry. Hygiene operators. You go in, sweep up whatever mess a witch or human has caused, then get back out again.”
Seph rolled his eyes. “Well, aren’t you lucky that’s your new job title too?”
She harrumphed, but I saw her wince at the verbal blow.
Getting to my feet, I grabbed her chin and tilted her head this way and that so I could see the scratches on her face. She was a pain in the ass with a mouth on her, but Sol, she was my pain in the ass with a mouth that I wanted all over me.
Need writhed inside me as I rubbed my finger in my blood and reached up—
“What the fuck are you doing?” she squeaked at the sight of my blue fingers.
“Healing you,” I told her simply.
“Fae blood can heal small cuts and wounds in the other races,” Seph explained quietly, his tone calm and soothing unlike her irate one.
Her expression twisted with discomfort at the news, but she didn’t back off as I began to dab her with a few drops of blood here and there.
“They should heal soon,” I informed her, and unable to help myself, I tilted my head, leaned down and pressed my nose to her throat. When she didn’t back away, seeming to accept my need to do this inexplicable thing, her essence swelled inside me, overtaking my senses, staining everything with it until I was literally breathing all that she was into my lungs.
I could scent her magic. It hovered beneath the surface, and I could even discern why it was pink.
White and black might have seemed like two naturally opposing colors, but red and white? They were the most natural of opponents.
Red was intense, the color of fire and blood, strength and determination.
White was restful, the color of peace and innocence, purity and light.
Her power wasn’t pink. It was a merging of red and white.
“W-What are you doing?” Gabriella asked at my prolonged sniffing of her, and though I knew she wanted to demand I answer the question, it didn’t come out as a demand. Her request came out breathy and like a whisper.
It was the exact opposite of everything she’d shown us thus far.
Ignoring her, I ran my nose along her throat once more, absorbing her scent. When one of my brothers approached, I growled under my breath, and only stopped when they clapped a hand on my shoulder and squeezed.
“Just relax into him, Gabriella,” Seph instructed, his tone soothing.
“What’s he doing?” she rasped.
“He’s scenting you.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. It’s not something we do often,” Seph lied in an attempt to calm her, but I could hear his confusion and felt no desire to further explain what was going on with me.
How could I?
I didn’t know what was happening either.
At his words, I felt her relax a little. That she trusted Seph should have irked me, but it didn’t. Not when his words had enabled me to do as I’d needed—scent my fill.
When I was ready to back off, I opened my mouth and dragged my teeth along the tender flesh I’d been smelling. At the touch, she whimpered, and her knees gave as she stumbled into me.
I held her tightly in my embrace, loving the feel of her there, her soft curves against all my hard lines.
“Daniel?”
Matthew.
I grunted.
“Daniel, we need to talk.”
“About what?” I ground out, not particularly wanting to do anything other than scent my woman.
Just the thought sent flashes of triumph raging through my body.
Me.
Who’d never even wanted to commit to anything other than hookups so I wasn’t tied down when I attended the Academy.
Sol, what was going on with me? Why did I feel such glory when I thought of Gabriella in that way—my woman. Mine.
“The bird…” he reasoned. “I need Gabriella to study it.”
“Why?” I tightened my hold on her. “It hurt her.”
“It was supposed to. It isn’t an ordinary bird, and it’s already starting to decompose.”
That grabbed my attention with both hands. “So soon?” I rasped, moving back and away from the enticement that she was, because that news was beyond bizarre.
Staring down at the corpse, I saw that it was already starting to putrefy. Maggots and worms and countless other bugs began to crawl over the cadaver, eating its flesh and tearing into its entrails before our very eyes.
Gabriella gagged, so I grabbed her, taking the excuse to hold her in my arms, and turned her face away from the sight.
“No, Dan,” Matt said softly. “I need her to examine the body before it disappears entirely.”
“Examine how?” she rasped, her head twisting out of my hold so she could look at him.
“Can you figure out who sent it?” he queried.
Her brow furrowed and she fell silent as she puzzled through what he asked. “I’m not sure,” she murmured after a few minutes.
“Can you at least try?” I pressed, tilting my face down as I tipped her chin up.
She bit her bottom lip as she stared into my eyes, and when she did? It was like the rest of the world became white noise.
What the Sol was happening to me?
I’d never been one to be led around by my cock, even if I’d had my fair share of conquests. But this was beyond surreal.
“I-I can try, yeah,” she agreed on a whisper, her eyes trapped by mine once more. And that was the only thing that made this bearable.
If I was blown away, then she was just as caught up by the same wind.
“Okay, let’s try it,” Matthew prompted when the two of us just stared at one another as though the answer to life itself was written on the other’s face.
I tore myself from her grasp and carefully herded her toward the body I’d only just shielded her from. The maggots were gone now, as were the larvae. Half of the corpse had been eaten and the bones were no longer just peeking through, but had been rotted straight through to the core.
She gulped at the sight and gagged once as she squatted close to the body. I moved behind her and murmured, “You can rest against me so you don’t have to kneel on the ground.”
“Thank you,” she rasped.
Seph and Matthew moved around her too, circling her as she tried to do something she wasn’t even sure how to do. I didn’t have much hope, not after
what her mother had said about her not having been the best student. Though, I had to admit, how she worked the wind to help her in a bout was definitely fascinating—she couldn’t be that crap at casting if she was capable of doing that, could she?
I watched her as she gnawed on her lip and her body shook with a tremor before she spit, “Why can’t I fucking do this?”
“Maybe because there’s little to help you? Not much wind, barely any light, and what there is, is Fae. The earth isn’t real, it’s a sim—”
“We get the point, Seph,” I said drily, then I fluttered my wings. It was a false wind, but maybe it would help.
She hummed. “I can feel that.”
Seph and Matt, seeing what I was about, fluttered their wings too.
Just three fairies fluttering their wings around a bird’s corpse—not much to see here, folks.
I rolled my eyes at the thought, but when I saw her hands begin to glow, excitement whirred through me.
She tensed against my legs before her body began to vibrate, and the glow began to spread, moving to encompass the bird, and to cover Matt, Seph, and me.
The air around us was turbocharged. Throbbing in time to her heart. It tinged the gloomy path where we were standing with a raspberry hue, but more than that, I could hear her.
She wasn’t saying anything, but the magic? It had a language of its own.
She was prodding the bird, studying it in a metaphysical sense. I could see her chanting incantations here and muttering cuss words there. Normally, I wouldn’t have heard or seen either, but within this orb of light? Her spells were written in the air, glowing gold and hovering around her as she worked.
For me, the pink glow was comforting. But for Seph and Matt? As I glanced at them, I could see the sweat beading on their brow, and the exertion on their faces as they did nothing more than flap their wings to stir a false wind for her benefit.
Was this what had happened to me the first time I’d been held within the glow?
Was she binding them to her as she had me?
When she grunted under her breath and the glow disappeared, I blinked, taken aback by the sudden retraction of not only the magic, but also the light.
“What is it?” I rasped.
Faeling for Them: An Eight Wings Academy Novel: Book One Page 15
