Court the Fire (Son of Rain #3)

by Michelle Irwin

  If I could get just a few minutes alone with him, without any of the fae or Evie in the room—a few minutes alone with him and the instruments that were locked away in the toolboxes in the room—I could get Lou all of the answers she would need later on as the truth sank in.

  I would enjoy it more than I probably should, but I didn’t care.

  “Evie, Fiona, Mackenzie, I want all of you out too.”

  “I’m not leaving you here,” Evie said as she moved closer.

  I’d relented about her coming to Bayview, but I couldn’t do it on this. She did not need to witness the things I planned to do to Dad. He’d taught me interrogation techniques too well, and I planned to use every one of them on him to find out exactly what had happened to Lou while she’d been locked away and injured by their hands.

  If Evie witnessed the interrogation, she would surely think me a monster.

  “Don’t argue with me.” My jaw was so tightly clenched that I could barely open my mouth enough to force the words out. “Just go! I don’t want you to have to live with the memory of what comes next.”

  “Clay, don’t do this,” Dad said. “Don’t let them go. You have to see how wrong they are—just look at the damage all of those creatures have done already. We wouldn’t even be here if it wasn’t for fae trickery.”

  I couldn’t believe Dad would even try that old routine on me after everything that had happened. I’d been at the fae court and had been welcomed like a guest despite how many fae I’d killed and wounded over the years. Yet when I returned to my supposed place in the world, I was treated like a criminal.

  “Do not push me,” I said with a clear warning in my tone. “You’ve done more damage than any of them. More than enough already. And they are not creatures!”

  His face grew red. “Everything I did was for you. For our family. I did it so that you didn’t have to be freaks.”

  “I don’t care! You’re the one that destroyed our family and it’s time you owned up to it. You are dead to me.” The words were as final a statement as I’d ever uttered. As far as I was concerned, I would have no further relationship with him after I found out what I needed to learn about all that Lou had endured.

  “Just be careful,” Evie said, resting her hand on my shoulder for support. I stood straighter as a result of her touch, drawing strength from her just like I always did.

  Confident that Eth and the fae would keep her and Lou safe, I turned my attention completely to Dad—at least until an exclamation from Eth drew my attention to the door.

  Dancing right on the space between the human and ethereal planes, and pushing his way through the crowd into the space, was a fae in a large, hooded cloak. He was vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place exactly where I’d seen him before. When he moved through the room, he flittered quickly in and out of the ethereal plane, no doubt confusing any in the room who couldn’t track him between planes, but I was able to follow his passage through the space easily enough.

  I was aware of movement beside me and felt Evie approach me.

  “The shadow,” she whispered to me.

  “No,” I said, wondering whether this fae could really be the one who’d been stalking her. It didn’t make sense though. Everything she’d told me about her experiences was consistent with a shadow person—unless he was mimicking one? Why though?

  When he pulled the hood back, his hair was almost as dark, and in that instant, I recognized exactly where I knew him from. He was “Rob,” the fae who’d tricked me into a job interview on the day Evie had been attacked by Lou in Detroit. He’d been the reason I was away when Lou attacked, the reason Evie almost died.

  “He’s not a shadow person,” I muttered to her. “He’s fae.”

  “Thank you for clearing the way for me,” the fae stranger, whose name was certainly not Rob, said before glancing between Evie and me. His gray eyes were the color of death, and a sickening smile twisted his lips. A shiver ran down my spine when he met my gaze.

  “Caelan, what are you doing here?” Dad asked.

  Dad knows him?

  How?

  The revelation was too much to contend with. Doubt over Dad’s motives and lies over the years came flooding back. Had he and this Caelan conspired to destroy Evie? My words caught in my throat and refused to move.

  “This has nothing to do with you,” Dad continued.

  “Are you trying to be amusing, Troy?” Caelan responded, confirming there was definitely some relationship there. But what? Could he be the enemy Dad had turned to? “You stole my daughter, caged her, and held her captive, and yet you think it has nothing to do with me.”

  He glanced toward Mackenzie and extended his wings wide to either side of his body, almost like an opened-armed invitation to her.

  “Everything will be perfect now, sweetie. Daddy’s here.”

  If Mackenzie was his daughter, that meant Caelan knew Fiona as well.

  There was something vital I was missing, but with the rapid speed the conversation was moving at, I didn’t have time to work out what it was.

  Caelan, Fiona, and Mackenzie spoke with each other and, as they did, Mackenzie moved further from our group and into an almost no man’s land. All I could focus on was the widening area that I had to defend, and how it made everyone weaker. I needed to gather the group together again, or the danger would increase for every one of us.

  An instant later, I heard a fluttering of wings beside me. Risking a quick glance in either direction, I saw that the three fae guards who’d accompanied Fiona and Aiden had flanked me with drawn weapons. I breathed a little easier knowing that at least I had backup. I would have been happier if it was Eth, but he still had his hands full trying to care for Lou.

  While I was running through the various scenarios in my mind, Caelan shifted back onto the ethereal plane and moved around the room. He flicked his wings with such ferocity that it was hard to watch him closely, but I tried as best as I could while still keeping most of my attention on Dad.

  As soon as I saw Caelan’s intention, I shouted a warning to Eth, but it was too late. Caelan knocked Eth off his feet and pulled Lou into his hold, pressing the tip of a long, curved knife against her throat.

  Fuck.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  “FATHER, DO NOT do this,” Mackenzie begged. “This is not right.”

  Caelan laughed, the sound like a crackling fire. “Not right? I have lived at the mercy of Fiona’s whims for years! I have rushed back to her side every single time she has asked me to. No matter how much I gave her, it has never been enough. I want her to know the true meaning of suffering—I want her to know real loss.”

  He forced the knife closer to Lou’s skin, and I saw genuine fear in my sister’s eyes. The fear—all emotion—drained away as Caelan murmured something into her ear and she grew compliant in his hold.

  I have to help her.

  “I have tried to show her for years just how easily I can take her fledglings from her. In fact, this one here has been one of my biggest allies in making Fiona pay, but now that she knows what she is, she is no longer of value.”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked with a growing sense of dread. The memories of Lou attacking Evie while Caelan distracted me played over and over. It wasn’t a coincidence?

  “He is referring to the fact that he sent Louise after Lynnie,” Aiden said.

  He sent Lou after Evie? How?

  “I don’t understand,” Evie said to Aiden. “I thought Louise came after me because she believed I’d taken Clay from her. And you,” she turned on Caelan, and the fire around her body coiled tighter with each word—he had to see the danger she posed, “you hunted me and killed people I cared about.”

  “It is something we have suspected for a while,” Fiona said, “but we have been unable to get confirmation. Understand that when you were at our court, I had no knowledge of the link you could offer to my family. Only once you left and Aiden requested the resources to help find your love, did
I even begin to comprehend your importance to my family. When Aiden explained that Clay had saved your life, I found new hope that maybe he had grown into the young gentleman I always hoped he would be, despite the hatred he had been raised with.”

  Dad was about to say something, no doubt more bullshit and lies, but I wanted to hear the rest of Fiona’s story, so I warned him to stay silent by straightening my aim and closing my finger around the trigger ever so slightly.

  “As soon as I knew you could be a link back to my fledglings, I tried harder to find Clay. If he could see past your nature and understand you were not dangerous despite his strong Rain heritage and the upbringing he had . . . I guess I hoped that maybe one day he would be able to see past all of the prejudices instilled in him. Of course, at that stage I was only partly right. Two of my best guards almost lost their lives when they found him in Salem.”

  Her words made me recall the fae Eth and I had encountered on our way back to our hotel after meeting with the local operatives. How different might things have been if I hadn’t adopted my usual shoot first and ask questions later approach?

  “Any potential reunion between the two of you could have paved the way for Clay to learn the truth,” Aiden said.

  “And that would have reunited mother and son,” Caelan snarled. “This would have given her exactly what she wanted! So of course, I had to stop it.”

  “Stop!” Evie shouted. “You were using me? All of you?”

  I wanted to run to her, but I couldn’t risk Dad doing anything stupid if I didn’t have the gun trained on him. While I stood as guard dog of the group, Caelan gloated to Evie about how easy it had been to follow her around, how having something touched with his magic was easy to track. It made no sense, and just led to still more questions for me.

  “I don’t understand what any of that has to do with Lou,” I said.

  “Somehow Caelan has been able to forge a link with Louise,” Fiona said. “I don’t know how or why, but I believe he might be the reason she has doggedly pursued Evelyn for so long.”

  “But why would you send Louise after me?” Evie asked. “Why would you come after me at all? I don’t even know you.”

  Caelan frowned before giving a small, incredulous shake of his head as he addressed Evie’s question. “Exactly how conceited do you have to be to believe this has anything to do with you?”

  “It was Clay.” Fiona’s voice was full of sorrow and resignation. “You wanted Clay to suffer.”

  All I could think of was that once again I’d brought uninvited danger into Evie’s life. The apparent shadow, who’d killed Zarita and who knows how many more of Evie’s supposed victims, was only on her tail because of me. I glanced at her ready to apologize, but Caelan was talking again, taunting Evie. “All I wanted was for him to feel the sting of the same fate you forced on me, Fifi. You made me live for years without my true love—without you. He would have suffered even more if Louise here had been just a little better at her job. I did everything to make it easier for her. I laid traps for the phoenix and ensured she was on the wanted list for multiple murders. It should have been easy for Louise to go in for the kill or for the phoenix to kill her. Either would have given me the satisfaction of knowing that I’d taken your child away from you—the way you took mine from me.”

  As Evie searched for answers, Caelan taunted her, and her aura reacted as I expected it to, tightening and raging hotter until the base of the flames was almost blue. Her anger pushed her toward him step by step. By moving closer to Caelan though, she was moving away from the protective area the three fae guards and I formed.

  “Evie, don’t,” I warned, stepping slightly closer to her and reaching for her while still keeping the gun trained firmly on Dad.

  “At least I was right about one thing,” Caelan said. “Destroying the phoenix would have destroyed you. Your love for her, it weakens you. It will be such fun to watch you fall to pieces once she is dead.”

  I couldn’t take it anymore. I couldn’t blindly ignore him threatening Evie and Lou. I swung the gun around on him and placed my finger over the trigger, ready to pull.

  “Threaten her life again,” I warned. “I dare you.”

  Caelan took a step closer to me, pressing the knife against Lou’s neck so hard that droplets of blood formed against the tip. She whimpered in response, and I wondered why she didn’t react and use her training to fight free of the hold. Unless it had something to do with the way Caelan had whispered in her ear.

  Dad turned to Caelan. “Leave my children out of this.”

  “You had less objections when you had me bind her magic.”

  “What . . . what are you talking about?” Lou asked.

  “Daddy did some bad, bad things when you were young, did he not?”

  “I did what I had to,” Dad said without any trace of apology or remorse.

  It confirmed my biggest concern that at some point, he’d realized that she was Lou, his daughter, and yet he’d still continued to torture her. In the corner of my eye, I saw Eth pull himself off the floor and silently start to make his way toward Caelan. As soon as I noted the movement, I ensured my gaze didn’t give him away.

  “Including having me wrap up all of her perfect fae elements and leave her effectively human.”

  “That is when you captured her, was it not?” Fiona asked. “You bound her to you when you bound her magic. You have been present within her mind all of these years?”

  “Does it not burn you up that I have spent so much time guiding her through life? However, she is useless now that you have this knowledge. The two of you took my daughter from me,” he said, leaving his hand wrapped around Lou’s throat in a chokehold and pointing the knife between Fiona and Dad. “Perhaps I should show you how it feels.”

  “No!” Dad and Fiona both shouted it at the same time.

  While Caelan gloated, Eth edged closer still. No doubt he would soon overpower the fae and we’d have control of the room back. I was confident that Lou would be able to handle the knife that was threatening her when Eth made his move. Just because she was in shock didn’t mean she’d forget years of training when the shit went down. I was just worried about the other unknown factors in the room. The last thing we needed now was for Dad or anyone else to fuck things up.

  “Take the phoenix,” Dad said. “Do whatever you want to it, but don’t hurt Lou.”

  The instant I heard his suggestion, I lost control. I leapt at the man who’d raised me and pressed the barrel of my gun against his forehead.

  “No one is going to do anything to anyone,” I snapped, ready to pull the trigger if he dared try to argue.

  A second too late, I saw my mistake. Lou knew about disarming an opponent with a knife, but only because Dad had taught her. He’d taught us all how to disarm various weapon-holders. My rage had led me straight into a trap, and he took full advantage. Not even half a second had passed before he grabbed at the barrel of the gun and twisted it sharply back around onto me, meaning to bend my wrist until I had no choice but to relinquish my hold.

  Because I’d seen the trap soon enough to attempt to avoid it, I was able to hold onto the weapon through his initial strike, but he was relentless. He wrestled for the gun, trying over and over to twist my arm around. I ignored the other movement in the room as I struggled to keep my fingers on the grip.

  After a moment, he relaxed his hold. Not wanting to fall into another trap, I moved the gun backward, but then, lightning fast, he struck out again, twisting the grip in my palm and loosening my hold. The moment he had it in his hands, he aimed it recklessly at Caelan and Louise, but he didn’t take the time to line up the shot properly and the shot missed by a good few inches.

  Evie shouted something, but I was too focused on the fight in front of me to turn away. If I allowed Dad to keep control of the firearm, we’d all be done. While he was focused on the gun, I made my move, reaching for it and grabbing onto the grip. The action caused Dad to tighten his hold and he squeeze
d the trigger.

  A small gasp, almost noiseless in the commotion drew my attention to Evie. A burst of red coated the ground in front of her. It was enough to tell me something was seriously wrong. Disregarding the fight for the weapon that I’d been so intent on only moments earlier, I turned to cover the distance between us to make sure she was okay.

  Time seemed to slow down, although everything still moved at normal speed as I raced to her.

  It was like a bad dream where I couldn’t move fast enough. My limbs wouldn’t untangle quick enough to get under her falling body.

  The sound of a third shot broke the air and, behind Evie’s falling body, Caelan took a shot between the eyes and slumped to the ground, releasing his hold on Lou as he fell. Eth swooped in to grab Lou, but even before he reached her, a burst of bright blue light erupted from her body.

  From within the light, a set of wings extended from just below her shoulders. They were almost translucent and appeared shaky—like a butterfly that had just emerged from a cocoon.

  Even as the flash of her aura erupting into life faded from my eyes, an image smashed into me with enough force to send me to my knees. The chill of air passing through a dank cell. The menacing presence of black-cloaked figures. Glinting athemes and murmured spells.

  I tried to ignore the wave of visions—memories . . . whatever the hell they were—out of my head long enough to reach Evie, but I couldn’t ignore the pain of a thousand cuts that shot up my arms. Each slice of the blade that had ripped through Lou’s flesh as a child echoed over my skin as the visions of her past rushed through my mind. Lou whimpered in Eth’s hold. My eyes shot to hers, and I was struck by the agony swimming in the ice-blue depths.

  Less than a second had passed since the darkness of her childhood memories had shot through me and stolen my breath, yet it was a moment in time that changed everything. With the release of Lou’s fae traits and the visions that raked my mind in response to the release of power, there was no longer any possibility of denying our true heritage.