by G. A. Rael
"Thank you for attending our wedding," Chase said with a stiff bow, rather than reacting to what was obviously some sort of insult. "We're honored by your presence. Aren't we, Jordan?"
"Y-yes," she stammered. She looked at Chase, desperate for guidance. She didn't think she could bow, and Corval certainly didn’t seem worthy of respect.
Corval extended his hand grudgingly and Jordan froze, not knowing how to respond without starting a war between worlds she hadn’t even known existed until a moment ago.
"Kiss his ring," Chase instructed gently.
Jordan wasted no time complying and bent to press her lips against the smooth, opaque blue stone that looked like it had been hit with a tiny bolt of lightning that left white streaks running throughout its surface. Her performance must have been acceptable because Corval moved on to looking around the candlelit room.
"Where is he?" Corval asked.
"He's not here yet," Chase answered.
Corval puffed air through his nostrils, a strangely human gesture for such a regal and imposing creature. His skin was beginning to take on a blue tone under the moonlight, but Jordan blinked a few times and the effect was gone. She told herself it was just a hallucination from the wine.
"Leave it to a demon to summon a king to his party and keep him waiting," Corval muttered. Jordan heard the sound of fluttering and caught what appeared to be a couple of ghastly shapes in her peripheral vision. When she turned around, she saw that it was only two of the flaxen-haired guests from the party, one male and one female. They had traded their professional white suits for loosely fitted robes in soft shades of yellow and green.
"He'll be here," said Chase.
Corval turned back to Jordan. "She's been drugged. How are we supposed to proceed with the ceremony if she's barely conscious?"
"It was necessary in order to bring her here safely,” said Chase. “The portal can be traumatic for human minds to experience.”
"Perhaps that's why we don't take them as mates, Luthias,” the king spat.
"I searched for a mate among the Fae and found none," Chase said, his voice twisted with false reverence. "Fortunately, the human deities were more merciful than ours and granted me one from among their ranks."
Corval seemed less than amused by his reply, but the door opened before he could respond. Hermes was there, wearing a sharp black tux with his long white hair pulled into a sleek ponytail. Jordan’s anger and betrayal from the night before—at least, she thought it was still the same night—took a backseat to relief. Wherever he went, there was trouble, and she resented the fact that her value to him had nothing to do with who she was and everything to do with who she was supposed to bring into the world, but he was a known threat. You could trust an enemy more than a stranger. Jordan's heart quickened with hope and she would have climbed off the table and run to him if she thought she was capable of getting more than a few steps without falling on her face.
“Hermes,” she whispered. “You found me.”
He looked at her, then the Fae who were gathered and finally at Chase. "I see the gang's all here." Her heart sank at his casual tone as he sauntered into the room as if he didn't have a care in all the world. "I didn't miss anything, did I?"
"Not at all," said Chase, his tone biting. "Just twenty minutes of the dwindling window of the moon's apex."
"Let's get this show on the road, then," the demon said, rubbing his hands together. "I'm a little rusty on fairy customs. Is handfasting as boring as it sounds?"
“What the fuck?” Jordan hissed. “You’re in on this?”
She should’ve known if there was a double-dealing demon involved, it was him. Finding new ways to screw her over was his favorite hobby.
Hermes turned to face her, smiling. "Do you want to do the honors of explaining, Captain Sparkles, or should I?"
"I'll handle it," Chase muttered. He leaned down and rested his hands on Jordan's shoulders like he was about to deliver news she didn't want to hear. "Darling, I'm sorry. I never wanted you to find out like this. I thought there was still time for you to get used to the idea, but —”
"Nah, too slow," Hermes said, shoving Chase out of the way. He rested his hands on Jordan's shoulders, mocking Chase's soothing tone and posture. "It's like this, cupcake. Your husband is a fairy. A prince.” He looked across the room at Lilian. “But he’s also half elf, which makes him a changeling and one of the most feared creatures on this side of the veil. Lyhel needed to be rid of him, and when Mommy Dearest over there realized her only son was a homicidal monster, she was absolutely distraught. Being the philanthropic soul that I am, I offered them both a bargain they couldn’t refuse.”
"A replacement," Jordan said shakily, looking at Chase. He wouldn't return her gaze. In fact, he didn't seem to be looking at anything in particular.
"A for effort, C minus for taking this long to figure it out," said Hermes. "He might not be a real boy, but he'd look, eat, sleep and laugh like the real thing, all with the added bonus of doing his chores when asked the first time and minding his P’s and Q’s. And of course, not cutting his girlfriends up and burying them under the basement. It was a fair trade, wasn't it, Lilian?"
Lilian was looking directly at Jordan, her eyes shining with tears she was too proud to shed. "I did what I had to do. It was a hard choice, but the only thing I've lived to regret is that I didn't make it sooner."
Jordan turned to face Chase, clutching his sleeve. "Why didn't you tell me?” she gritted out. “I knew you weren’t human. I knew something was wrong, but not this…”
Chase didn’t answer. He just stood there, unresponsive. Jordan didn’t know if he was too ashamed to answer her or if he no longer saw reason to bother, but the possibility frightened her either way.
Hermes snapped his fingers, drawing her attention back to him. "He won't give you the straight answer. He's been putting it off all this time because he knows if you figure out what a freak he is, you'll abandon him just like his parents did."
"We did no such thing," Lyhel seethed.
"Sure, you put the baby in a basket and left him on a nice family’s doorstep, but isn't it the same thing?" Hermes taunted, turning back to Jordan. “You know how I like to diversify my portfolio. When Mama Fae needed a place for her wayward offspring to go while things cooled off at home, I knew opportunity was knocking. One mother wants the perfect kid, another can't get rid of him fast enough. And thus, a beautiful relationship was formed."
"You've been working with him this entire time," Jordan said, staring at Chase in disbelief. She had thought Hermes's betrayal was the worst pain she had experienced, but it was nothing compared to this. "Our relationship, our wedding. Did those things mean anything to you?"
Chase turned away from her, silent.
"He's clearly in a pensive mood," mused Hermes. "I'll be fair and confess that he does love you. It's just that your meeting wasn't as accidental as it seemed. Being a Fae-Elven hybrid—sorry to be blunt, Corval, but it's hardly a secret and we're all among friends here—the little prince wasn't born with a mate like the other Fae.” The king looked like he was about to explode, but he stayed silent as Hermes continued. “I usually don't make deals on top of deals, but I needed a hybrid for the ritual and he promised to serve me if I'd find a mate for him. I told him he'd have to wait for a while and be okay with sharing, but I had someone special in mind and he agreed."
“You planned this?” Jordan asked, more horrified by that revelation than all the others. “You said the consorts were chosen a long time ago. You said it was fate!”
“Honey, I am fate,” Hermes answered. “I’m as old as the stars themselves.”
"So you used us both," Jordan said through gritted teeth. “Why am I even surprised?”
“Good question. But it’s very cute when you pretend like you have things all figured out,” he sneered. “Keeps things interesting.”
“Why are we here?" she snapped. "How is leaving me in this place going to fulfill your plans
for underworld domination?"
"It's not," he admitted. "But it'll keep you both out of the way and out of Michael's reach for the time being. I try to keep you sheltered from the play-by-play, but things are heating up out there.”
"What about the others?" she demanded.
"You'll get to see them soon enough," he promised. "For now, consider this an all-expenses-paid honeymoon. My gift to you. Oh, and you need to be married in the eyes of the Fae to stay in the Glen. It's a green card type thing. None of this had to be nearly as traumatic as it's turning out to be, if Sparkles hadn't put it off for so long."
"Let's just get on with it," Corval bellowed. "I'd venture to bet that you could just blather until this Michael fellow loses his will to live if you needed to. Your voice is grating."
Hermes scowled, but for once he didn't have a witty retort. "Fine. Let the bloodletting begin," he said, picking a silver dagger off the edge of the stone table to offer it to Chase. "Your move, Luthias.”
"Actually, it's Chase." He turned around and dread filled Jordan's gut, mingling with nausea. She suddenly understood why Chase had been so uncharacteristically sullen. The others, even Hermes, appeared clueless, but Jordan knew from the moment those eyes met hers that her Chase, Luthias, or whoever he really was no longer had control of the vessel.
"No," she cried, reaching for him as he rushed forward. To her dismay, he went straight past Hermes and plunged the dagger into Corval's chest. Chase ripped the blade out and the giant stared in shock for a moment as blue smoke began to leak from the wound.
"Let's see how you do without your king," Chase sneered.
"Corval!" Lyhel's cry of agony split the room and made the glass in the ceiling quiver. She fell to her knees as he did and he slumped against her. She stroked his hair and sobbed desperately, pleading with him not to close his eyes.
The other Fae had their attention locked on Chase. Blades slipped from the long, flowing sleeves of the guards who looked like twins as they faced off against the real Chase. Jordan now recognized them as two of the other mysterious wedding guests. Lilian cowered against the stone wall and Hermes stared at the unfolding disaster in complete stillness.
Jordan found herself frozen, too, as she watched the plume of smoke billowing out of Corval's chest begin to fill the room. There was blood leaking out, too, but not nearly as swiftly as the smoke. A butterfly emerged from the wound and joined the smoke, followed by another, then by small clusters of fluttering creatures in all hues. Jordan blinked hard but there was no chasing away the hallucination. The butterflies were peeling off of Corval in droves and what was left of his dwindling flesh was now an unmistakable shade of blue. He hadn't been wounded long enough for that awful shade to be explained away by asphyxiation.
The sound of metal clashing drew Jordan's attention and her shock wore off when she realized that Chase was locked in battle with the king's guards. She dove off the table and ran to him, but Hermes grabbed her arms and held her against his chest.
"Let me go," she screamed, thrashing wildly to make up for her lack of muscle coordination. As the haze in her mind wore off, she began to realize that the others, including Lyhel, had the same light blue sheen to their skin. All of them except Chase. When she looked back at him, his hair was longer and his ears came to an unmistakable point, even from a distance. She couldn't tell if it was her imagination, but he seemed taller, too.
"It's not him!" she cried, straining against Hermes. It was a futile struggle, but she couldn't just stand there while they killed her husband for a crime he hadn't committed. “You don’t understand!”
Either the other Fae didn't hear her or they didn't care. It was hard to blame them when the imposter was coming at them so viciously.
"She's right," Lilian cried, diving into the fray to put herself between them. "It's not him, he —”
Before Jordan could cry out to warn her, one of the Fae's blades sank into the older woman's chest. Lilian froze before falling to the ground. The guard who had stabbed her seemed to pause a moment in regret before rejoining his friend.
Chase didn't even blink.
"Stop it," Jordan pleaded, going limp in Hermes's arms. Even her power seemed beyond her reach, thanks to the eldenberry poison. “If you let them kill him, I swear, I'll turn myself in to Michael and you’ll never have your baby. Don’t think I won’t find a way.“
Hermes's grip weakened. It was just enough for Jordan to break free. She ran to Chase, past Lyhel who was sobbing over a pile of ash and broken butterfly wings, and put herself between Chase and the guards. It was nothing short of murder to put Hermes in a position where he had to kill or let her die, but she knew it was the only way the Fae were ever going to stop attacking.
"NO!” Hermes cried in a demonic roar that made him seem like the thing he really was for the first time since he had pulled her out of Paradise. The guards seized suddenly and their mouths gaped unnaturally before a technicolor rainbow of butterflies exploded from them. Jordan watched in horror as the winged creatures began to peel off the guards' skin in droves until there was nothing left of them but two piles of ash. Pieces of dead butterflies rained down from the smoke-filled ceiling, so thick with blue and green haze that the moon was barely visible above.
Jordan was so transfixed on the consequence of what she had done that she barely noticed the bloodied blade pressed against her throat. Hermes was in front of them and Lyhel's anguished cries were the only other sound, aside from the blood rushing in Jordan’s ears.
"Please," Jordan said weakly, her eyes frozen open as she watched the demon approach. "Don't do this."
Hermes’ white hair had come loose and was turning black at the roots and the ends, like ink was spilling down from the top of his head and soaking up through the bottom of his strands. His skin was unusually pale and his features were shifting as a deep red leaked into his green eyes. He was becoming a photo negative version of himself.
"Plead all you want," Chase purred in her ear, pressing the blade deeper into her throat. "It turns me on.”
"I wasn't talking to you," she spat, her eyes fixed on Hermes. She could get away from him anytime she wanted, but she knew the moment she did, Hermes would kill him and Luthias without a second thought. “It's your fault he's like this, Hermes. Separate them.”
"I can't," Hermes said, his voice foreign. He was taking on an accent, but it wasn't one she recognized.
"Why not?"
"He was supposed to be in a coma," Hermes muttered. "That obviously isn't the case. He's been feeding off Luthias’ energy.”
"Off of hers, actually," Chase said, pressing the knife in deeper to run his tongue along the line of blood that appeared on Jordan's neck. “It’s in his nature to be bloodthirsty. Wasn’t hard to fuel those instincts while I was still buried deep in his subconscious, and with enough time, I broke free.”
A cry of rage escaped Hermes' throat as he lunged, but he jerked to a stop as Chase’s knife cut into Jordan's throat.
"Another step and her head's gonna be hanging off her neck. I mean, that doesn't bother me, but something tells me you want her intact."
Hermes' fists clenched at his sides. "If you hurt her again," he said in an almost mechanical voice, “there's not a hole in this universe small enough for you to crawl into where I won’t be able to find you. I'll give you a crash course on torture that makes your little snuff films look like home movies, and that's just for the warmup."
"Sounds fun," Chase laughed. "See, the thing is, I don't really have it out for Jordan. In fact, once all this is over, I might make her my main squeeze for a while till I get bored and make her a movie star, just like Jess. What I’m actually interested in is revenge. The gumdrop king, mom, even the halfling brat who's been wearing my skin, they were all just appetizers for the main dish."
"Me?" Hermes asked. The sarcasm in his voice made him sound like himself for a moment. "I'm touched, but you're a little out of your league."
"You stuffed a fairy into my h
ead for sixteen goddamn years," Chase seethed. The knife was pressed against Jordan's jugular and if it went any deeper, she’d have a problem. “You never thought I'd come after you?"
"No, I didn't," Hermes admitted thoughtfully. "In fact, I can safely say this is the one thing I haven't seen coming in all my years of existence. No human mind could remain intact after so many years of paralysis. Then again, that was my mistake, wasn’t it? Thinking you were human."
"That's right," Chase said, laughing almost giddily in satisfaction. "Can you guess what I am, cat boy, or do you need a little help?"
“Let’s see… no supernatural gifts to speak of, bloodlust sans the fangs, an inflated ego, and a persecution complex coupled with extreme entitlement,” he listed. "To be fair, it's hard to tell the difference between a misogynistic frat boy and a psychic vampire."
Chase gripped her tighter. Jordan would have put in an appeal for Hermes to stop agitating him, but she was afraid if she spoke, he would make the final cut.
"Laugh all you want. I might not be able to kill you, but I've been watching through his eyes long enough to know how much she means to you," Chase said in the tone one child taunting another. “I know something you don’t know.”
“The stupid little bitch doesn't even get that you're doing all this for her, does she?” the monster taunted. “You play frenemy while she fucks these other guys, and you tell yourself it's fine because in the end, she always comes back to you. But it's not really fine, is it?"
Hermes watched him through eyes that weren't his own but weren't quite yet someone else's. It wasn't just his appearance that was different, it was his entire demeanor, from his voice to the way he carried himself. The sarcasm and ego were gone and Jordan barely recognized whatever was left.
"So you're good at pretending to be Luthias and eavesdropping on conversations that aren't meant for you,” said Hermes. “Considering that he's the sentient equivalent of a cardboard cutout, that's not terribly impressive."
"Jordan here sure seemed to think so," he chuckled.
