My eyes fluttered open to find Ryder looking down at me. His gaze dipping to my bloodstained lips a moment before he leaned in and stole a kiss while Gabriel's grip remained tight around my waist.
The taste of Gabriel's blood danced across my tongue as Ryder's piercing raked over it like he was lapping it up. There was something about it which I knew was supposed to be wrong, but it felt so sinfully right that I just wanted more and more.
He pulled back with a dark smile that made my toes curl and I glanced at Gabriel to find him watching us with a smile of his own. That was something I never would have believed I'd witness. Ryder Draconis and Gabriel Nox smiling as they shared me. It felt kind of like looking at the devil as he offered me a deal and sealing it with a kiss. It should have been seven shades of wrong but all I wanted to do was dive right in and sin with them until the fires of hell consumed us.
The first rays of the sun spilled over the horizon and Gabriel tipped his head back, his eyes lighting with excitement as he released his grip on me.
"It should only take me a few minutes to replenish my magic," he said as he stripped out of his coat and sweater and I took them from him, biting into my bottom lip as he revealed his tattooed chest and his wings burst free of his back. "I'll meet you over at the well."
I stepped closer to Ryder so that he had room to take off and we watched as he shot into the sky with several beats of his powerful wings.
"Why am I getting the impression that you're hot for him with his wings out?" Ryder asked me in a devilishly low voice as I continued to stare after Gabriel who was now little more than a speck amongst the clouds.
"Because I am," I replied with a smirk as we started walking.
"That's such bullshit. If I transformed you wouldn't be getting all wet for my scales, would you?"
"Maybe not," I agreed. "But you can seduce me with hypnosis whenever you want so it's not like you haven't used your Order to your advantage for sex."
That seemed to satisfy his irritation and he reached out and took Gabriel's clothes from me as we walked on through the silent campus. By the time we made it to the well, Gabriel was waiting for us and Ryder tossed his clothes back to him as we moved to look over the edge of it.
"What's the plan?" I asked as Ryder cast a Faelight down into the dark and the wet walls of the well were illuminated in the orange glow as it descended.
"The guy is blood starved and crazy. He has no magic, so he shouldn't present much of a challenge assuming he doesn't get the jump on us and bite one of us," Ryder replied casually, like heading down into the dark with an insane psycho with a desperate thirst for blood was no big deal. And maybe it wasn't for him. Maybe this was a Saturday morning regular occurrence for the bloodthirsty leader of the Lunar Brotherhood, but I was having trouble forgetting how fucking terrifying it had been the last time I'd been down in those tunnels with that monster.
"I say we cast a net of vines and lead him to us," Gabriel said, offering me a hand as he climbed up onto the lip of the well and I hopped up beside him.
"One of these days we're going to go on a date that doesn't involve murder holes or psychopaths or risking our goddamn necks for something we don't even fully understand," I joked as I looked down into the dark.
"I don't do dates," Ryder muttered.
"Good. Then I can just take Elise alone," Gabriel replied. "Though I have to say that a sit down dinner sounds dull as fuck when you compare it to our usual lethal games."
"Maybe," I conceded, holding out my other hand for Ryder.
He took it with a roll of his eyes as he climbed up beside us and Gabriel cast a disk of earth magic for us to step onto before lowering us down into the cold, wet, depths of the well.
My skin crawled the lower we got, and I released my grip on their hands so that I could cast a bubble of air magic around us to cut off the stench of rot and death down here. I had wanted to put a tip in to the FIB about the bodies that King had thrown into the well, but after the five of us had ended up down here and killed Nightshade, it had seemed too risky to draw attention to the place. Besides, they'd been doing a terrible job of investigating King and all the things that had been going on around here since before Gareth's death, so I wasn't exactly brimming with faith in the authorities in Alestria.
When we reached the bottom of the well, Gabriel kept the disk of earth in place beneath our boots so that we didn't have to stand in the death-filled water beneath us as we faced the stone wall where we knew the hidden doorway lay.
"I don't know how I opened it before," I said tentatively as magic rushed to my fingertips in anticipation of seeing that crazed Vampire again.
"You have to scream, baby," Ryder said in a teasing tone. "I'm sure we can make you do it if you need help?"
"Scream?" I asked, glancing at Gabriel for confirmation and he nodded.
"Maybe it was a failsafe in case any of the poor fuckers who were tossed down here weren't quite dead yet," he said darkly. "If they started screaming, that psycho would be able to get to them to finish them off."
"That’s...disturbingly practical," I muttered as I looked back at the wall and drew in a deep breath.
As I released it in a scream, I felt a tingle of magic rush through the air around me and a few moments later, the sound of stone grinding together came from the wall before us. It didn’t take long for the stone archway to appear leading down into the dark tunnels.
Ryder stepped straight into the dark, tossing up a Faelight casually as I glanced at Gabriel before following behind.
"Here, kitty, kitty, kitty," Ryder mocked, making little kissy noises as he clicked his fingers together.
"Please tell me you don't own a cat," Gabriel muttered. "I seriously can't see you being a responsible pet owner."
Ryder laughed darkly, turning to look at us over his shoulder just as movement shot through the darkness beyond him.
"Watch out!" I yelled, throwing my hands up with a blast of air magic, but the Vampire was moving too fast.
He crashed into Ryder with a rabid cry of excitement, his teeth sinking into his wrist a second after Ryder managed to cast a wooden bat into his other hand.
He slammed the bat down on the Vampire's head with as much strength as he could muster while weakened by the venom but the haggard looking Vampire clung on with all his strength.
I shot forwards in a blur, leaping onto the Vampire's back and forcibly wrenching him off of Ryder by a handful of his lank, blonde hair.
The Vampire cursed me, lunging backwards so that I was slammed between his back and the brick wall of the tunnel, my skull colliding with the bricks and making my thoughts scatter as I lost my grip on him.
A huge fireball burst from the Vampire's fingers in the next moment, shooting straight towards Gabriel who met it with a torrent of water.
Ryder cast a net of vines into place behind the crazed Fae as he threw all of the magic he'd just taken at Gabriel in a desperate bid to escape this place.
Despite how little time he'd spent drinking Ryder's blood, he was clearly powerful and Gabriel grunted with the effort of fighting him back as their power met and steam billowed all around us, blinding us all.
"We're trying to help you!" I yelled as I spun my hands before us, whipping up a wind to suck the steam from the tunnel and wincing as it washed over me, hot enough to scald.
The Vampire's magic faltered and Gabriel's water crashed into his chest, knocking him from his feet so that he tumbled back into the net Ryder had cast.
"I'll tear your throats open and bathe in your blood until my veins sing with power and I can burn him for what he did to me!" the Vampire roared as he tried to fight his way out of the vines, but Ryder had control of them and they writhed like snakes as they bound him up so tight that he couldn't move at all.
Ryder cast a wooden blade into his hand and his upper lip peeled back as he stalked forward like he was planning on finishing him off.
"Wait," I breathed, catching his arm as I stared down at the wil
d, dirty man at our feet as he fought and panted, baring his teeth like he really did want to rip us apart with them. But I'd had a taste of bloodlust myself when my reserves had run out and I'd been left without anyone to bite and it was like a physical pain. The bloodlust was enough to drive you crazy and the longest I'd ever had to suffer it was a day. I couldn't imagine how I'd feel if I was denied blood for years. "Let's just knock him out and dump him at a hospital," I begged.
"He tried to kill you," Ryder snarled like that was the worst crime imaginable and I didn’t doubt that he’d gladly bathe himself in blood for me time and again if that was what it took to protect me. I fucking loved that about him, but I didn’t feel it was necessary now. "Twice now."
"I know," I said, my grip tightening on his arm as I could see that primal need to protect me in everything from the tightness of his posture to the rage in his eyes. "But I'm okay. And he clearly didn't choose to be locked up down here. I don't think he deserves to die."
Ryder hesitated for half a second as Gabriel moved to stand on my other side.
"She's right," Gabriel murmured. "I can't quite see why, but I get the strong feeling that he's important. I don't think we should kill him."
"For fuck's sake," Ryder muttered, like not killing someone was the worst thing that had ever happened to him. "Fine. But if this comes back to bite us in the ass, then don't say I didn't warn you. And I’m dosing him with a memory draft before we leave him anywhere. No fucking way I'm letting him go to the FIB with memories of my face in his head just waiting for a Cyclops to pull them out.”
He dropped down in front of the snarling Vampire and caught him in his gaze before snaring him in his hypnosis. The Vampire collapsed within a few moments, rendered unconscious by Ryder's gifts and some of the tension ran out of me instantly.
We quickly turned and headed out of the tunnel, Ryder using his vines to drag the crazed Vampire along in our wake and Gabriel used his magic to raise us back up out of the well again.
The sun was bright above us as we stepped out onto the courtyard outside the Rigel Library and I looked around nervously just in case anyone might be around to see us dragging a guy who looked at least half dead across campus.
"I’ll go get a car so we can drive to the hospital just as soon as Ryder's erased his memories," Gabriel said and I released a breath as Ryder proceeded to wrap the Vampire up like a burrito so it was impossible to say for sure that there was a body inside the vines. I mean, I dunno what else we could say it was, but I guessed we could pretend it was a severed Dragon dick or a roll of Griffin turd or a giant tampon.
"Do you think this will be enough to stop King from performing that ritual on the next full moon?" I asked hopefully as we walked across campus, just three assholes covered in muck and blood and dragging a body along behind us. Nothing to see here.
"I think so," Gabriel agreed with a smile but Ryder didn’t seem too happy about that.
"Even if it is, it doesn't help us figure out how to get rid of him for good," he muttered.
"And I still don't know what happened to Gareth," I sighed, the joy of our victory wearing off as I thought about that.
Besides, after Roary getting arrested and the price Lionel wanted Dante to pay for his and Rosa’s freedom, it was pretty hard to smile about anything for any length of time. I refused to accept the idea of him having to father children he wouldn’t have anything to do with, but as it stood I had no fucking idea of how we were going to get him out of following through on it.
"We can use the spyglass to read the rest of the Magicae Mortuorum," Gabriel said with a determined look. "If there's a spell in there that shows you how to steal the magic from other Fae then I'm hoping there's one that tells us how to undo it too. And I’m willing to bet that without all of that stolen magic, King really isn’t all that scary at all."
"Do you really think so?" I asked hopefully.
"Either that, or there will be some dark spells in there that we can use to really fuck him up," Ryder suggested and I wasn't even as against that as I should have been.
I might not have had the exact story about what had gotten my brother killed, but I knew for a fact that King and his cult and his fucked up magic stealing ways were to blame somehow. Gareth was too caught up with them for it not to be. So for now, my focus was clear. I was going to do whatever it took to bring King to his knees, unmask him and avenge my brother's death. If it took dark magic to do it then so be it.
There was no price too high to pay for my vengeance.
The night of the Solarid Meteor Shower…
I ran back through the trees and up the hill towards the main campus, leaving the sounds of the party behind me at the lake as I spotted the Cafaeteria up ahead. I'd wasted time down there, but in a way I was glad to have had a final moment to see the people who I'd once been able to call my friends. It was a quiet kind of goodbye with a finality to it which made my heart twinge with regret. But really, I'd always planned on leaving this place and forgetting about this city. So in the long term, I doubted I would have stayed in contact with anyone I'd gone to school with here. But the definiteness of knowing that I really was cutting these ties for good made me kind of sad.
I’d always wanted to escape this place, but I could admit that it wasn't all bad here. I'd had friends for a while and there were good memories from my time at Aurora Academy which I would carry with me wherever I ended up.
I started jogging as I passed the Cafaeteria, heading towards the Rigel Library and cursing to myself as I looked at the huge clock which hung on the side of it. It was almost ten o'clock and I needed to set up my 'death' and get the fuck out of here well before midnight when King would summon me to take part in his fucked up ritual in the woods.
I had everything I needed hidden in the Dead Shed, concealed behind some old boiler parts that didn't look like anyone had touched them for years. It had taken me weeks to construct everything I needed, my 'body' taking the most time and effort.
I'd managed to talk my way into an advanced healing class and I'd studied with the dedication of a bitch in heat as I learned how to do all kinds of things like re-grow limbs and replenish blood. I could create flesh and grow hair and had used that knowledge to help me create a freakishly realistic corpse. I'd added my own blood to it just in case anyone decided to check up on my DNA, but lucky for me, we lived in Alestria. Everyone knew that the FIB didn't waste money on coroners performing post-mortems to look into deaths with gang connections. And I planned on there being enough evidence of gang involvement to get my so-called body sent straight to the crematorium right after the official identification had taken place.
Even so, I didn’t want there to be any chance of anything going wrong. I needed time to set everything up just right so that there was no room for mistakes. And once it was done, I needed to shift and fly the fuck away. I'd gone into Alestria this morning, drawn out some cash from the account that Gabriel Nox still paid a thousand auras a month into and bought myself enough clothes and supplies to set myself up for at least a few days.
I'd gotten myself a tent last month too and I planned on spending at least a week sleeping in it somewhere until I figured out where I wanted to start up my new life. I had an old fashioned paper map of Solaria with me and a dice which I was going to use to decide my fate so that there was no way anyone could predict my moves. I'd throw the dice on the map and head wherever it landed using the numbers on the dice to tell me how many days I should wait before I moved on. I didn't know where I'd end up, but I intended to keep tossing that dice and moving from place to place until I arrived somewhere that felt like home. Somewhere I knew Ella would love.
I hurried up the path, jogging out into the Acrux Courtyard with my goal in mind. I needed to get this show underway and get the fuck out of here.
Just as I made it to the empty space in the centre of the courtyard, a flare of light in the sky overhead made me pause and look up as the first meteor streaked across the sky, leaving a blazing tra
il behind it which made my heart throb with longing. That right there was real freedom. Not a single thing in Solaria could turn that majestic chunk of magic from its course. It was a law unto itself.
A soft smile pulled at my lips as it shot across the sky and I decided that I'd chase it when I left. I'd been practicing concealment spells that worked with more light than dark recently, practicing my magic until I'd figured out how to shroud myself in clouds instead of shadows. When I took off into the sky in my Pegasus form, I'd be completely hidden in the heavens and I could chase the Solarid Meteor Shower towards the horizon and fly until my wings gave out. It had been a long time since I'd flown for longer than a few hours and I was really looking forward to stretching my wings.
A shadow shifted in the sky above me and I turned slightly just in time to see a blast of water crashing straight down from the heavens.
I threw my hands up with a cry of panic, just managing to get an air shield up before the torrent of water slammed into me, but the force of it was still enough to knock me from my feet all the same.
My elbow cracked hard against the cobblestones and pain ricocheted through my arm as my blood was spilled.
I gritted my teeth as I threw all of my strength into maintaining that air shield and gasped as a pair of heavy boots landed on the cobblestones right in front of my face.
The assault of the water suddenly cut off, but my moment of relief was short lived as I found myself staring up through my air shield at an utterly fucking furious Gabriel Nox with his chest bare and wings spread wide behind him.
"I warned you what would happen to you when I caught you, Faeker," he snarled, the low light behind him meaning his face was hidden in shadow, but I could just make out his eyes flashing with fury and a promise of violence. "You really picked on the wrong Fae when you decided to come after me for money."
"Wait," I pleaded, more of my magic pouring from me as I fought to maintain that shield between us, knowing it was the only thing keeping my ass safe right now. "I'm sorry, I was desperate, my sis-"
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