Fifteen
G arret stormed through the halls of the Palace. The whispers of Ayla’s appearance had been bad enough. When he’d returned home to find those rumors confirmed by her absence, the entire situation had become so much worse.
She would have confessed, of course. Ayla’s idealism had always been her greatest fault. By now, Mabb would know that she had broken the geis. By now, Ayla had ruined him.
He assumed that Mabb would be secluded somewhere in her private apartments, privately rejoicing in his downfall. Instead he found her among her fawning courtiers, laughing and talking, animated by some manic inner drive.
“Garret!” She moved to him as quickly as her heavy gown would allow, eyes sparkling with crazed light. “I was hoping to see you this evening!”
He studied the faces of the courtiers carefully, but their vapid masks gave away nothing. Likely they did not notice the change in their Queene’s behavior. They saw only her glittering exterior, and the things she would give them. Parties, banquets, little favors when they wished to slight their neighbors or gloat over their relationship to the Queene.
When he was on the throne—when Ayla was on the throne—things would be different. Mabb’s favorites would find themselves in far less comfortable situations, and the new crop would worship their monarchs, as subjects should.
For now, though, his sister was Queene, and he bowed to her respectfully. “Sister, have you seen my mate this evening?”
The change that came over Mabb was immediate. She whirled away from him, her skirts snapping like vipers behind her. “Guards! My audience is over for the night!”
Garret followed her without being told to. The servants they passed on their way to Mabb’s private chamber scurried out of their way. They, like Garret, had spent enough time with her to guess her ever-changing moods.
Only when they were safely locked in her room did she address him. “Why was she here? She spoke directly to me, in front of all of the Court. It was a mockery!”
“She confessed to you in front of the Court?” Though she was foolishly brave, Ayla was not a fool.
The frown on Mabb’s face told him all he needed to know. Ayla had not confessed. Ayla had come here and, what, tried to gain his sister’s favor?
He cursed silently. If his sister did not know what his mate had done, plans could still proceed.
“Confess?” Mabb laughed. “What could she have confessed to, besides her bedraggled state and ugly clothes? You didn’t buy those for her, did you?”
Her pride must have been wounded deeply for her to stoop to such a barb. “Where is she now?” he asked.
“I sent her away.” Mabb flounced to her dressing table, reaching for a vial of perfumed oil. “I do not care where she went to.”
He paced to the secret door; the panel was ajar. “Did she leave with an escort?”
“I would not waste my guards protecting your…pet.” Mabb scoffed and opened the bottle, sniffing delicately. “What do you think of this one?”
“I think you have made a very foolish mistake.” He came to stand with his hands on her white shoulders.
Her gaze met his in the looking glass, anger giving way to confusion, then concern. “Garret, you’re trembling.”
It happened so much faster than he’d have ever dreamed. In all his years of planning and imagining, all his carefully constructed fantasies could have never prepared him for how beautiful, how incredibly freeing it was when the moment came. His hand closed over one of the daggers in her hair. She turned, face frozen in shock, a horrified plea ready to burst from her lips. It died, as she did, strangled by a tide of angry black that spilled from her throat. Her life force gushed liquid, falling to dead leaves on her gown.
She clutched at him as her limbs shriveled and twisted like vines left to die in the snow. That unnerved him; he’d always planned on poison, so that he wouldn’t have to watch it happen. Still, he remained stoic as her brittle fingers caught his garments, trying to drag him into the beyond with her.
But there is no beyond to go to, sister, he thought, and for a moment felt real pity toward her. What must it be like, to pass from one world to another. From this world, where she was never meant to be, never meant to be mortal, to a place that did not exist. To be forced from one plane with no other to turn to. To leave, with no destination. Because it did not exist.
With a last, rasping breath like wind through frozen branches, she fell back, curled onto herself and darkened, an empty husk inside her fine gown.
It was finished, in the space it would have taken her to scream for her guards. It was finished, and there was no undoing it.
More troubling now was Ayla’s disappearance. Perhaps she’d run to her Darkworld lover to escape her fate. His fists clenched at his sides at the thought, and he stalked out of Mabb’s bedchamber. He would rather see Ayla dead than see her with that creature.
He calmed himself before he exited to the public rooms, and nodded to a passing servant. “Her Majesty would like to be alone for the rest of the evening.”
The servant bobbed her pretty dark head and continued on her way. She did not know that she spoke to the Royal Consort, soon to be ruler of the Faery Court, once the last obstacle was removed from his path. Now that she had run off, perhaps fled the Lightworld altogether, that would be far easier.
He had planned to rule through Ayla, use her as a puppet. She did not have the knowledge or the ability to run the Faery Court. But now, his path to the throne was so much clearer. He would not have to rule through a Queene. He could break with tradition and rule in her stead.
The Dragons might give him problems. The creatures were too clever for their own good. He would put it about immediately that the Darkling who’d infiltrated the border had been disguised as a Dragon messenger. He even had the creature’s cloak to prove it. That would cast enough suspicion toward them to suppress any allegations they would make, at least until after the coronation.
He found that when he reached the Palace gates, he was reluctant to leave. What a strange, possessive feeling was inspired by becoming King. Foreboding nagged him as he stepped across the threshold, into the streets of the Lightworld. He crushed it down.
The throne awaited him. All that was left was to claim it.
Left. Another left. A right. Through a sharp bend.
A man with wings. I see a man with wings.
Ayla shook her head, swiped at the dirty air before her. She stumbled over the hem of her gown for what seemed like the thousandth time, crashed to her knees in the mire.
He will destroy you.
She pushed the Human’s warning behind her, climbed to her feet with a cry of pain that came as much from her aching legs as from the gnawing hole in her chest, as real as if someone had cut her heart out with a knife.
A knife. She had no knife. No weapon. No defense. She could easily die here, in the Darkworld, without anyone to know or care.
And whose fault was that? Throughout her life she’d done all she could to keep distance between herself and the world outside of her. Those who had wished to protect her—Garret and her father—she had rejected. Those who could have been friends, she’d bristled to. There had never been a lover, a confidant, never anyone to wonder where she’d gone.
A lifetime spent trying desperately to be a part of and apart from a world that would have happily been done with her years ago.
The water rose over her feet, weighing down her gown. The life of fine things and comfort that had lasted all of a day became more of a weight on her now than it had been before.
A part and apart. Left in the middle, as always.
Ahead, she saw the water shadows she’d memorized before. Water kept its own secrets, and they could be learned by careful observation. Now, these gentle ripples reflected in eerie black-blue on the dim wall of the tunnel pointed her to the Darkling.
If he’d survived. No, he had survived. If he had not, Garret would have found her by now, gloated to her, beat
her. But if the Darkling did not want her, then what? She’d given up her world forever, and she could not survive in the Darkworld with a Guild mark on her body.
That was not true; she could survive, but it would be another hollow existence. Her heart had grown less fond of those, now that she found she had a heart.
Left, into deeper water, up to her waist. Something bumped her below the surface, and she hastened her step as much as she could, wading through the muck.
The Human healer had been just that; Human, foolish, as likely wrong as she was right. There was more than one male Ayla could name who had wings. It might not be the Darkling that would be her doom.
At the mouth of the tunnel that would bring her at last to Malachi, her stomach went weak. She pressed the heels of her hands hard against her cramping middle, willed the nervousness away. Had he felt this way, when he’d come to her?
She gritted her teeth and moved on protesting legs through the resistance of the water. She’d set out to make this journey, and she would not let a moment of doubt stop her. She hadn’t so far.
The door to the dingy room he lived in blended so well with the concrete of the tunnel wall that she almost missed it before the water shadows lapped upon themselves and commanded her back. She stood for a long moment, the damp creeping up the thirsty fabric of her gown, hands flexing in the air on nothing. Then, timidly, she stretched a hand out. Her fingers had scarcely brushed the rusted metal when the door swung open with a deafening screech and Malachi grabbed her, pulling her into his arms without a word, crushing his mouth over hers.
Her dirty, wet gown slapped against his bare legs; it did not matter. Her hair tangled in front of her face and he had to push it aside; still, he did not stop, did not set her on her feet again. The door closed, though she did not feel the strength of his arms leave her for even a moment.
Of course he would not reject her. He had followed her into the Lightworld, had risked his mortal existence to find her. How could she have expected anything else?
They were bound, by some strange, indescribable force, had been since the moment her touch had made him mortal. Now, that bond caused an ache in her that made no sense; now that she was close to him, their separation seemed more painful. Now that he touched her, it seemed they would never be close enough.
He carried her to where the Human slept, although he was not there now. The little alcove was empty, aside from a pile of torn blankets on the bare concrete. Malachi set her down there, ripped the filthy gown from her body.
With Garret, it had all happened so fast as to cause her to panic. The suddenness of this did not frighten her as much as it excited her. If she closed her eyes, she felt she was falling. If she opened them, she felt she would break apart.
His hands were on her everywhere, and hers on him. His body, so strange and ugly in comparison to the smooth, lean lines of a Faery male, was surprisingly exciting to the touch. The hard rounds of muscle beneath tightly stretched skin teased her fingertips as she dragged her hands down his arms, his chest, his stomach. She gripped that part of him that made him male, and a harsh sound wrenched from his throat. She opened her wings and let him push her back onto the blankets, where he fell between her legs.
He was huge, longer and thicker than Garret had been. She rose to meet him, the breath forced from her chest as he filled her.
Her world compressed to the maddening push-pull of him moving in her, the hot, coiled serpent of pleasure that pulsed and tightened in her. She screamed and panted and clutched at him, and he, just as ferocious, clutched back, his fingers digging tight into her hips, holding her impaled on him as he surged even deeper into her. Her body spasmed around him, and she jerked, gasping for breath, twisting in his grasp, lost under waves of feeling too intense to be pleasurable, too pleasurable to be painful.
His movements quickened, battering inside of her, as if he sought to break her apart. Then, with a shout, almost disbelieving, he bucked, lifting her hips off the blankets, and she saw the tree of her life force flare bright white, ignite into flame. She held him as he collapsed on her, crushing her to the blankets. He shuddered inside her still; she could feel the beat of his heart.
He came to his senses and rolled to his side, dragging her to lay atop him. He wrapped his arms around her, then his wings around them both, closing them into the dark.
The alarm went up just before morning broke. Garret had waited all night to hear it. Now, it seemed like the death knell that it was, but meant for him. He removed that thought immediately. His plan would not fail, not now when he was so close.
At the knock on his door he rose from his place beside the fire, cast a look at the carefully rumpled—but not too rumpled—bed, mussed his hair and unfastened his robes. Cedric and six of Mabb’s private guards hovered at the opening, their faces grim.
This was what Garret had been practicing for, as he sat at the hearth. The stricken expression came to him as easily as if someone had painted it on. “Gods, what has happened?”
“Your sister, the Queene, is dead.” Cedric’s eyes were rimmed in red, awash in tears. The weakling couldn’t hide his sniveling devotion to Mabb even when carrying out his official duties.
Garret clutched his chest, stumbled back. “No. No, it cannot be.”
“I am sorry, Garret.”
He smoothed his hair back, forced tears to his eyes. “But Ayla…she is all right?”
Cedric looked past him, into the apartment. “I do not know. I expected to find her here. We must secure her, before the Assassin finds her.”
“Assassin?” Garret let his eyes grow wide, forced some tears. “Are you saying that Mabb, that my sister, was assassinated?”
Cedric nodded, once, sharply. “That is why we must find Ayla and secure her. She is your mate, is she not?”
“Yes, of course she is, but…” The taste of the declaration on his tongue was sweeter than the air in the Upworld. “But she was at the Palace. I sent her there for her own safekeeping, after the Darkling…”
“Ayla was not at the Palace. It is possible she fled.” Cedric had never been the smartest of Faeries, and he clearly struggled to follow. “You say that Ayla was at the Palace last night?”
“In Mabb’s private chambers, when I left them.” Garret took a shuddering breath, which surprised him with its intensity. He was better at his role than he had expected. “You cannot possibly believe that Ayla—”
Cedric held up a hand to stop him. “It is imperative that we find her. Do you know where she would have gone?”
Garret had to hide his smile behind his hands in a display of weeping. It was all working out so much better than he’d planned.
Sixteen
I n her sleep, the harsh lines of anger that so often contorted her face disappeared. Malachi wasn’t sure if it made her more familiar or more alien. He touched the soft skin where her wings met her back, and they twitched where they lay folded against her body, as if they would spring alive of their own accord.
Such strange things, bodies. When she’d come through the door, he’d wanted nothing more than to hold on to her, to prevent her from leaving. But his body…now that had wanted to drive into her, to pound, to punish her for letting him go, to make a mark on her that would label her as his for all time. When it was over, though, he realized he hadn’t wanted to hurt her. He never wanted to hurt her. And then he’d been ashamed and fearful that he had done just that.
She stirred a little on his chest, such a slight weight against him, but comprised of so many sharp, jutting parts. He shifted her to his side to lie in the curve of his wing and rest her weight there, and her eyes came slowly open.
The two small, thin lines of light that sprouted from her forehead twitched and glowed white. He reached out to touch one, but her hand got to them first and smoothed them back against her hair. “My antennae,” she said, but he could barely understand her.
“What does it mean, if it glows this way?” He pointed to them again, and she ducked
her head, said something he could not make out.
He touched her hair, smoothed it down, over her wings. Occasionally they looked at each other, and she would smile, almost shy, which seemed absurd after what they had just done.
It was enough. Strangely it was enough to lie in the quiet with her, to have the assurance of touching each other. He tried to remember his talent for languages, but it was gone. He could only say her name, and it didn’t sound right from his lips. But it made her smile.
He thought she’d fallen asleep again when she spoke. “I cannot…go back.” Her faltering speech was clearer, as if she concentrated harder to get these words across in the mortal language. “No home.”
He tilted her face up to his and kissed her. And what a strange impulse that was, to press your mouth to another’s, to want to do such a thing. “You will stay with me. Your home is with me,” he whispered to her, and pulled her hand to rest over his heart so she would understand.
Where that home would be, physically, remained to be seen. Keller would return soon. The niceties of mortal interaction would prevent Malachi from demanding that the Human keep them both there, as much as he wished to. He would have to find a place for both of them to be safe, and he feared it could not be in the Darkworld.
They could live on the Strip. He had seen other mortals doing it, sleeping out of the way of the foot traffic, begging for food and scraps. It did not look difficult.
Keller would not turn them out before Malachi made his decision. The Human was too honorable for that. He also had connections that might find alternatives for Malachi and Ayla. There were benefits to knowing someone like Keller.
“There is so much you do not know.” She touched the side of his face, hers filled with pity.
He dropped his wings, letting the faint light from the workshop enter their seclusion. A dark stain on her cheek, that he hadn’t noticed before, crumpled a tight fist in him. “What is this?”
She combed her hair quickly over the blotch, her fingers tangling in the snarled mass. He gripped her wrist and forced her hand down. “What is this?”
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