Coven Keepers (Dark Fae Hollows Book 10)

by Thea Atkinson

  It was torturous, this waiting, but his greed was my ticket in. He wanted the boy enough that he was losing his grip on me as he reached for Ari. Despite the pain in my scalp, I found a way to lean into him with my torso shimmying against his clammy chest. I strained for Gus’s chest with my fingers, and when two found his nipple, I pulled and twisted as hard as I could.

  His gasp and reflexive wince gave me just enough leeway to lift my foot as high as I could with the nicely wet and clammy leather boots Ari had given me back. I brought my foot down hard on Gus’s instep and then hurdled my knee high into his groin. He let go a growling kind of shriek and yanked on my hair to pull me off him just as hard as I yanked to pull clear of him.

  It went to chaos after that. I planned to run when his hands left my hair, but I ended up taking one look at that revolting expression of his, and couldn’t move. He wanted me dead, that was obvious, but more than that, he wanted me to suffer as I died.

  Fat chance of that.

  I wasn’t about to go gentle into the hollow night. He had earned my vengeance, and I would give it to him.

  I gave him everything I had. Everything I’d managed to throw at the kraken and the grim ones, I would hurl twice that at him. Without thinking, I threw my hands to the air, calling out to the magic that waited everywhere for the taking. Sour as it might be in the human realm, it was magic still. I would sizzle his eyes to roasted nuts right in his sockets before I let him touch me—touch anyone—again.

  That was when Fran made her move, getting in the way of my harvest and interrupting anything I might manage to achieve in her defense. She threw herself at Ari, obviously hoping to grapple for her son. When she did, the boy’s coat tore, leaving it to gape open at his chest. His lumen shone so brightly it made even me freeze where I stood.

  It was brighter than I could have imagined, whiter than I’d noticed from the quick peek Fran had given me earlier. In the time it took me to process my shock, Gus had already pulled a knife from his belt. He had seen that light, too. Maybe they all had. I was aware I was gaping at him and was trying to make my feet move as the meager bit of magic I had gathered prickled my fingertips.

  Gus’s lunge was faster than my instinct. He had let me go and lunged to stab at Fran. She collapsed with a sigh to the floor. The boy in Ari’s arms wriggled like a bug as she went still. Dark fluid pooled around her. My nostrils tickled with the smell of copper and then the telltale stink of urine.

  A sob escaped me, and my throat went tight, cutting off the strangled curse that followed it. The magic in my fingers sent needles into my palm as I tried to hold onto it. And when I couldn’t, it ran down my fingers, leaving my fingertips as softly and quietly as the last breath of a dead man. Or a dead woman.

  Poor Fran.

  I found myself on the floor with her, testing her pulse. Her blood sopped into my pants at the knee.

  “She’s dead,” I choked out. “You killed her.”

  “She was useless anyway,” Gus said, turning away from me and addressing Ari. “Now give me the boy.”

  Ari shifted almost imperceptibly as he stood there. I thought he squared his shoulders, but the black shape that he was behind the bright light cast off from the boy was too bright to make out any part of him clearly. The light obliterated everything behind it. I stared at the glow, blinking against the burn of illumination. No wonder Fran was so insistent on keeping that light whole and pure. It was a thing of beauty, one that struck me dumb as I stared at it because I knew something in that instant that no one in this hollow could know.

  To most people in the room, Fran’s death would mean nothing. It was a commonplace occurrence. Uriel’s light was merely a fortunate route to a hefty sale of lumen to do Miriam knew what with.

  I knew what it meant, though.

  The boy was motherless. Fatherless, too, for all I knew. And with that magnificent light of his that seemed to grab its power from his very skin, the truth was as blinding as the glow he cast.

  I had found the prophesied human child.

  Chapter 7

  The one human child.

  My reason for being here. Sweet benevolent Miriam, the miracle that I had found him so quickly was as good a confirmation of his existence at all. I staggered to my feet, skirting Gus and weaving my way toward Ari with a careful step.

  “You can’t take him,” I said, my boots whispering along the tiles.

  Fran’s blood had made my pants grow cold, and the way the material clung to my knees as I headed for Ari made me feel queasy. I tried not to think about her lying there. Tried not to look at the way her arm strained away from her body as it reached for her son. A peculiar lump lodged in my throat that wouldn’t swallow down no matter how many times I tried. My peripherals marked the shape she made on the floor, and my belly began to quiver deep inside. With Fran gone, the boy was alone. Vulnerable. And he had no one to rescue him like Freya had done for me.

  I levelled my chin, directing my gaze toward Ari. It trembled for an instant, but I managed to master it.

  “Give him to me,” I said with dead calm. The tone surprised me with how commanding it was in the face of a strange sense of hurt I couldn’t name. I tried to tell myself I felt grief for Fran, but that didn’t sit right. I’d barely known her. It was the futility of it all, I decided. Instead of being smart about saving her son, she’d been desperate, and it’d gotten her killed. Just like desperation would get me killed if I wasn’t careful.

  I breathed deeply, pulling in the calm as though it were air. Whatever the emotion was or from where it came, it didn’t matter now. What mattered was that I had found the boy, and I was whisper close to finishing my quest. I’d be damned if I would let Gus, or anyone else, get in my way.

  With a purposefully detached gaze, I took in the boy as he hung beneath Ari’s elbow. I was amazed that the kid didn’t squall or squirm. He just let the brigand hang onto him as though he were nothing but a sack of dirty clothes. Even when Gus grabbed hold of the boy’s boot and tugged, and Ari wrenched the child away, the little guy just giggled, acting as if it were a game.

  My stomach went cold, and something burned in my throat.

  Gus. The bastard. He would not ruin this for me.

  I faced the broad-shouldered brigand with feet splayed wide. Two seconds, and I could find my balance. Come at me, I willed. Come straight at me, and show me what you got.

  “Leave him alone,” I said.

  “What do you care what happens to him, boots girl?” he asked, eyeing me with thinly veiled hatred. “Way I see it, you got about three days before you go dark yourself. You looking to steal his light from me?”

  It was Ari who answered, and his voice dripped with threat.

  “Nobody’s going to steal his light,” he said. “It’s mine.”

  “It’s not yours,” I heard myself saying. “It’s his.” I pointed directly at Uriel in case they were too stupid to understand who I meant.

  I wanted to tack on that the boy’s light belonged to everyone in the hollow, too. That it would be the salvation of us all. But I feared that might muddy the waters. They wouldn’t understand that the witches weren’t going to steal his light, not the way these humans wanted to.

  And even if I could get that through to them, what would these greedy brigands know or care about balance? All they wanted was to satiate their own needs and desires. The simple truth was I wouldn’t let anyone get in my way of seeing the boy safely to Avalon. I’d take out the entire shelter with magic if I had to. I could almost imagine the celebration when I brought Uriel home, the way the entire coven would embrace me and tell me I did well. I could imagine that light of his powering the entire hollow. I’d be a hero. Accepted.

  “Pass him to me,” I said to Ari. I stretched my arms out like I imagined a mother would. “You can have everyone else. Just give me the boy.”

  Inwardly, I grimaced at how calloused I sounded. Not much better than them. But the salvation of the entire hollow hinged on the outcome of t
his standoff, and I couldn’t let my emotions complicate the facts.

  Ari cocked his head at me and moved subtly away from Gus as though to indicate he might be planning to bolt into the night. It seemed to make his army of brigands nervous. They began to gather around, fidget. One of them edged closer to Gus, who was squinting at Ari with hatred flaming his nostrils.

  “He’s mine,” Ari said. “Finders, keepers.”

  I took a small step toward him. “He’s a human being,” I said. “He’s not some object to be owned.”

  He snorted. “What world have you been living in?”

  As much as Gus hated me, it seemed his greed for the boy overtook any interest in hurting me. I felt him shove me aside as he inched toward Ari with the obvious intent to muscle the boy from Ari’s arms.

  “You haven’t been around long enough, Ari,” he said. “You haven’t earned that much light.”

  “I earned a fair bit, I’d say,” Ari countered, taking one more step back as Gus advanced. “Who saved your asses from the grim ones? If it wasn’t for me, you’d all be dead right now.”

  “I’d say we never had trouble with grim ones until you came around.”

  The boy was dangling not two feet from me. I could just let Gus lunge for the boy, then make my move when Ari was trying to fight Gus off. But that might put that boy in danger. I had to be careful if I wanted to get Uriel into my hands safely. I had to be crafty for the boy’s sake. He would need protection, and not just from this human band of brigands. If word got out that a few humans had possession of a child with this kind of light, the Fae coven—and its cousin the Dark Fae Coalition—would do whatever they could to get hold of him.

  Swinging my gaze to Ari’s, I tried my best to edge Gus away to the side as I did so. I had to play it smart. I had to wheedle the boy away from them.

  “What are the lot of you going to do with a kid?” I asked. “Do you even know what to do with an infant?”

  Ari peered down at Uriel as he hung beneath his arm. “Obviously more than you do,” he said. “If you think this thing is an infant.”

  “He’s not a thing,” I said. “His name is Uriel, and he needs a lot of care.”

  Gus snorted. “We don’t have to take care of him for long. Like I said, I know a guy.”

  He made a move toward Ari and was stopped by one frigid look from the tall man. It was only when Gus flicked a furious gaze to mine and then down to my hand that I realized I had grabbed him by the crook of the elbow and pulled his arm back as he charged for the boy. I let him go and shoved my hands in my pockets to keep them from betraying me again.

  Gus crossed his thick arms over his chest as he stared me down. I lowered my gaze and toed the floor with the tip of my boot. Suitably contrite, I thought. I might yet fool them into thinking me powerless if I kept it up.

  Gus made a satisfied grunt as he regarded my seemingly timid demeanor. Then he turned to the man holding the boy.

  “So what, Ari?” he said. “You think it’s yours? It’s ours,” he said. “The whole group’s. We can fetch a pretty penny for it.”

  My fists clenched in my pockets. “He’s not an it,” I demanded again. I felt my nails bite into my palm.

  Gus looked at me with disgust, and I glowered at him.

  “Well, he’s not,” I said.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Gus said. “His lumen can pay for an entire year’s worth of supplies. Hell, it might even be able to buy me a nice place uptown.”

  Ari hoisted the boy higher on his hip. “He’s valuable,” Ari said, and I noted with a sense of victory that he had used the proper pronoun this time. It was short-lived, however, as he put both arms around Uriel and pulled him possessively against his chest.

  “I think we can fetch a higher light price than what you can get.”

  Gus scratched his chest with a casual movement that made him seem somehow more threatening.

  “You saying I think too small?”

  Ari didn’t seem fooled by the man’s casual air. He looked ready to bolt.

  “I’m saying we’ve never found a lumen as valuable as this one for as long as I’ve been with you. Have you ever found one this bright?” He must have squeezed Uriel a little too tight, because the boy started to whimper.

  Even in the dim lighting, I could see Gus’s jaw seesawing back and forth as he considered the question. “No,” he finally admitted. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t have a good imagination.”

  “I’ve seen your imagination at work,” Ari said, sidestepping Gus and several brigands who had drawn close. “It runs to the filthy and perverse and not much further.” Ari swung his gaze to mine. “How many more of these do you have?”

  “I don’t have more,” I said. “I didn’t have him in the first place. He’s just a boy brought here in desperation by his mother. I keep telling you he’s not—”

  “Not an it,” Ari said. “I heard you the first time.” He looked down at Uriel with panic as the boy started to cry, and then he pulled a filthy kerchief from his pocket and stuffed it into the boy’s mouth.

  My mouth twitched as I imagined how the rag would feel. I wondered vaguely if he could breathe around it, if it tasted foul. I had to cross one foot over the other to keep from storming the man and yanking the filthy rag free. I settled for muttering under my breath with not-so-quiet complaints that set the rest of them adding their own nasty comments to the mix.

  With the grumbling all around, I might have missed the way Ari swore, except he swallowed up the distance between the two of us in three steps. I had to brace myself to avoid leaning away in the face of his furious posture.

  “What you don’t understand,” he ground out, his face just inches away. He was close enough I could see the black stubble on his chin and the wisps of hair that had fallen loose from his man bun and were now clinging to his cheeks. “Is that everybody here is either a possession or a possessor.”

  His nostrils flared for one instant before he backed away again as quickly as he had stormed in, seeming to realize he was close enough for me to make a grab for Uriel. “If you hadn’t just stepped off the boat, you would know that.”

  I knew when he said it that he was keeping the details of my arrival to himself. Instead, he chose to allude to the possibility that I was merely coming from some other part of the country. I had the sense that he thought that piece of information was as good a bit of currency, though probably not as much as he valued the boy he held in his arms.

  That could spell bad news for me later, depending on how the rest of this scenario played out.

  I snuck a look at Gus to see what his reaction was. I wasn’t surprised to discover he wasn’t remotely interested in me anymore. He was still looking at Uriel with a greedy set to his jaw. When he caught Ari’s gaze again, he pointed at the boy.

  “So maybe we use him to buy a little shop,” Gus said, pressing the point again as he dug his finger into his ear, twisting as though itching it could help him think. “We buy a few girls—”

  “See?” Ari said. “There you go, thinking small again.”

  “Then why don’t you tell me how big you think?” Gus demanded. Even in the dim light of his lumen, I could tell his face was flushed in anger. He was losing his patience, and I had no doubt that was a dangerous thing.

  I watched with a sort of horror as a slow smile spread across Ari’s face. “The coven keeper has a house on the other side of the city.”

  Coven keeper?

  My spine went rigid as I tried to keep my thoughts from crossing my face. I needn’t have worried. Everyone’s attention had gone to Ari. Gus’s most of all.

  “You think she’ll pay for that little bastard?”

  Ari shifted Uriel from one hip to the other. “I think she’ll pay the highest light price.”

  “Shit,” Gus said. “There’s no way she’s going to give us all new lumens. Not in exchange for just one. That would be a horrible trade. I would never do it.”

  Ari made a sound that ind
icated exactly what he thought of Gus’s intelligence. “The kid is young, remember,” Ari said. “Think of how many years he has left. I bet he’s never used one single watt.”

  “Even more reason to just use him up.”

  “Have you looked at your lumen lately?” Ari said. “I don’t think it can take killing a kid. I know mine can’t. The price is much different than taking light from those who are already dying. Heck, that’s almost a kindness, don’t you think?”

  I didn’t think so, but I kept my mouth shut. I was still waiting for the perfect opportunity to flip this in my favor.

  “What are you suggesting then?” Gus said, irritation creeping into his tone.

  “That it’s safer to let someone else do that part,” Ari said, “and we just reap the benefits.”

  It was atrocious what they were discussing. The death of a child in exchange for a little bit of light. I couldn’t bite my tongue any longer.

  “You’re revolting,” I said, and they turned their eyes on me. “Well, you are.”

  “Where are you from, darlin’? You’ve got no light yourself. You’ve either used it all up or you’ve done some pretty revolting deeds to extinguish it. Either way, you didn’t turn dark. That means you’re different.”

  When I squirmed in my boots, their collective snorts seemed to indicate they thought it confirmation of my nefarious deeds. I started to argue and realized it would put me at risk of more questions. Better to let them wonder.

  Gus planted his hands on his hips. “So we leave the rest of them here and just take this brat?”

  Ari shook his head. “And waste all our hard work? No,” he said. “We take them all. Just like we planned. But we head to the better part of town after we sell these ones.”

  Gus nodded thoughtfully, his bald head glinting in the light of his lumen.

  “I’ll send the runner,” he said, nodding at one of the men on the periphery of the group.

  The boy turned, scanning the crowds with a leisurely movement. In the end, he slapped a girl on the backside, gripping her ass cruelly before shoving her ahead of him and pushing her toward the door. I thought I could hear him chuckling as he followed her.