Reign of Rebels (Half-Blood Huntress Chronicles Book 4)

by D. D. Miers

  Put my finger on it… Oh, hell, why not? I tapped the edges of the painting, rapping on the frame like I was looking for a secret door. Then I found one. It was just a spot of energy, like someone with magic stuck on their fingers had touched the frame in that one particular place. I pushed my finger into the residue, and it sank into the frame. In a flash, the painting had disappeared, and I was looking into a larger-than full sized mirror. The glass was old, warped in places, showing the gold leaf behind it in others, and once it was uncovered, magic shone through it like I’d thrown a switch.

  I activated it and found myself staring into the face of the new king of the Unseelie Sidhe. His expression flashed from shock to fury, and he launched himself at the mirror, just as the magic was terminated and it went dark.

  “I hope that wasn’t your endgame, Darling, because the army on the other side of that glass would have killed you without remorse or effort, and then they’d have run over Grayson and the shifters just for the hell of it.”

  Tryst was holding his side but standing on his own two feet…sort of. He swayed and I helped him into the nearest unbloodied seat. “You’re pretty nonchalant for a man whose treason almost got him killed.”

  He scoffed and dropped his head into his hands. “You have no idea the sacrifices I made for any slender connection to Arcadia. You decide to go meet your dad and Fairy opened itself to you, giving you everything so many of us deserved and lost.”

  "You have a portal to the Dark Court in your office, and you want me to feel sorry for you? Fuck you, Trystan. You've had enough of my loyalty and patience."

  His head shot up, and his eyes met mine. "Do you really think I would've kept that if I'd known the Hunters could use it against me?" Tears rolled down his cheeks, and I realized he was more deeply upset than I'd ever seen him. His frustration and hurt, for once, weren't an act. "I just wanted a piece of home, and now I've lost you, who have been the only piece of Fairy I could touch in centuries."

  He sighed, and his whole body seemed to sink further into the chair.

  “They tried to kill you Tryst. I’m sorry for what all the Fae keep doing to you. I wish you’d have told me about the doorway.”

  “Would you have told your father, or worse, made me open it for you?” His eyes burned into mine. “Would you have put the shifters safety, or your convenience, ahead of my wishes? That portal is mine! It was in my family for centuries, and you walked in today, and suddenly, I owe you that information? I owe you this piece of my history because you said so?”

  I reeled at the hatred in his words. “I never meant…”

  “No, you never do. After all, it’s just the broker, that magicless Fae who runs a strip club. Nothing I say or do matters until you need me, or you think I’ve consorted with your enemies…That your enemies should be mine, even though your people, your father, are the only ones who have ever wronged me.”

  “I know.” My lack of argument shut him up for a moment. “I want to kill Lothar for letting this happen to you. I want you to have his crown, Tryst, and not just because I thought we were friends. It seemed a proper retribution for you, and all the disenfranchised Fae you protect.”

  “You thought we’d actually win against the Dark Court?”

  “Well, I don’t usually start fights I don’t think I can win, Broker. I thought you knew that about me already.”

  He laughed, and there was pure joy in the sound. “And here I just thought you liked collecting castoffs.”

  "Maybe I did. Maybe I just happened to see how much better it is to collect kings." And just like that, I knew he was on board, for the time being. He'd been completely sincere in his righteous indignation, but I knew in a moment that could change. It was precisely the reason I'd first thought he'd be the right Fae to lead the unpredictable Unseelie Fae.

  Lothar might have even helped out the cause. The scars couldn’t hurt, Caorach reminded me, and I agreed. He’d survived a blitz attack from the Unseelie King’s hunters. If he could survive the king himself, his crown would be earned.

  Ten

  “My God, Tryst, do you want this or not?” I was almost yelling, but we’d been sitting at the conference table for over an hour and his demands, or rather, his demand had not changed.

  “You want a puppet king, I want a true royal as my wife. That way, neither court can challenge me.”

  Gray had stood a few minutes before and was pacing behind me, growling softly whenever Tryst mentioned marrying me.

  Komodor, who sat at sat across two chairs, simply stared across the table at Tryst. His demand had followed Tryst. He was already a king, and if a nobody exile like Tryst could ask for my hand in marriage, so could he, and I had to give him the same courtesy. If I dated Tryst, I had to date Komodor. If I slept with him, the same.

  But I had no intention of sleeping with, sharing blood with, or marrying either of them.

  "This is wrong, my lords." It was the first Geallta had spoken in our meeting. "It is wrong to force Morgan to do things she doesn't want to. She's a free woman, and you are both treating her like this is old Arcadia. We had done away with the old ways before I was sent to the oubliette. Please," she broke down and wept. "Please do not make us the monsters who harmed us."

  The silence was long and uncomfortable as we watched her weep into the tissues Booker handed her before returning to his post at the door. Tryst got down on his knees at her side and placed his head in her lap.

  "The Unseelie have come for Morgan once already, Geallta. I know no other way to protect her than to have her be married to one of us." He winked at Gray from almost eye level to the table top, looking up over my shoulder. "Of course, it would be much more enjoyable if it was me."

  Gray leaned over and placed his palms on the table on either side of me.

  “Okay, boys, you can just put those dicks away for now, and measure them when I’m not in the mood.” I slapped at Gray’s arm and jabbed a finger at Tryst at the other end of the table. “I’m not some helpless Fairy princess in a tower, remember?”

  “But the assassins keep coming for you, and now the hunters? Who do you think gave Chthel the idea to attack you?” He stood and flanked Geallta the way Gray stood with me, arms folded across his chest.”

  Gray scoffed, but I agreed. “Lothar has nothing to gain but war against his people for attacking me. Komoor, has the magic I released to the Light Court affected the Dark?”

  “Not that I have seen, nor have there been rumors, except among the hunters themselves, who have said they hear the call of wild magic again.”

  Tryst chuckled, but his fingers went to his stomach where the worst of the scars were. “The first thing I saw when I tried to stop you from opening the portal, was the shock on Lothar’s twisted face. I don’t think he commanded the attack on the club.”

  I shuddered. "He was surprised to see us, and then he was enraged like we'd broken into his house."

  “Because you had. That portal was keyed to the Light Court. I would never have voluntarily let the Dark Fae into the club…present company excepted.” His fists clenched and unclenched at his sides, and I was glad I hadn’t told him yet, the magic I’d used to heal him.

  Gray had taken his seat at my side again and was thinking, his face closed off to me as sometimes happened. Once, I’d complained, and he explained he was having an internal conversation with his beast. He’d seemed embarrassed, until I reminded him that Caorach was always in my head, often offering unsolicited advice, or goading me to unnecessary violence.

  "Well, it's a weapon," he'd said with a shrug. "My beast is more than that and less. He's part of me, and without him, I wouldn't be whole. Sometimes, I must consider what the shifter part of me needs, or what's best for the pack, and it's the cat who's the alpha, not the man."

  He was considering the pack then, I was sure, his brow furrowed as he considered the alliance he’d made to the Fae. “None of the Fae can be trusted, can they?”

  I sighed and took his hand. “Yes, and n
o. There’s a very specific set of rules the Fae follow, even if humans don’t always understand them. But for a Fae to cross over to the Dark Court and try to start a war, that’s treason to any side. Lothar is vicious and violent, but he has a code of honor that he wouldn’t break.”

  “At least not so close to his own coronation,” Komodor added. “If his people caught him using treachery, they would tear him limb from limb.” He was in an almost jovial mood after seeing the headless hunters and learning his redcap had survived. I hadn’t even helped with it, by the time I joined Gray at his side, he was smearing the poisonous blood from his blade over his wrist to sear a tally mark among others on his muscular forearm. “The Unseelie are, frankly, more honest than your own court, Princess.”

  But knowing it was dissenters in my own court didn’t solve the problem. I’d been dealing with them for over a year with no end to the conflict in sight. “Still, we don’t know who is behind all this, and Lothar is the enemy we can see. Komodor, if Tryst contracts in blood to nullify your servitude to the Dark Court and declare the goblins their own people, will you support him?”

  The goblin scratched the thin, wiry whiskers on his chin and picked at a wart while he pretended to consider his options. Spoiler alert… There were none. His people were tired of answering to the over-landers, and Komodor was tasked with ending the indentured service, no matter the cost.

  "I will help you, if you take a blood oath to grant us freedom today, at this table."

  Tryst slammed his fist down on the table. "So much for not making me a puppet king, Morgan. You're already calling the shots, and I haven't even agreed to risk my life yet."

  “Then do it without the goblins. This is the cost of their alliance. I didn’t engineer it, and I don’t really care what you do, aside from my personal belief that no one should be indentured to anyone else. We all know the greatest risk comes to me, and if you agree to the goblins’ terms, Komodor’s redcaps. I know you well enough to have accepted that you won’t put yourself in harms’ way willingly, Tryst. Think about that as you question my support.”

  Eleven

  His face blanched and Geallta pressed him to take his seat and consider his options. She still spoke so softly that were any of the rest of us completely human, we wouldn’t have been able to hear her. It wasn’t out of secrecy, just part of her healing from her time in the horrific pit the Light Court nobles had fashioned to steal magic from their prisoners.

  “Fine. You are correct, the goblins are a proud people, and their alliance is too valuable to cast aside for my own pride. But you must consider both of us for marriage, Morgan. If not for our strength, then at least for your own safety.”

  Gray strode from the room without another word, leaving me feeling hopeless to solve my relationship problems. Tryst knew I didn’t want him. Komodor didn’t care if I wanted to be with him or not. Both of them saw me as a means to attaining more political (and literal) power. And while Tryst might find the task of being with me more enjoyable, our prior affair had been fleeting, punctuated by his betrayal of me to zealots within my old coven.

  No. I couldn’t be with Tryst, not unless I learned to sleep with one eye open and was constantly vigilant in protecting my magic.

  Komodor was more honest, but he was a goblin, difficult to look at without having to think of sex. He’d admitted that Fae women, with their smooth skin and only two legs and arms, were lacking in the eyes of goblin men. If it weren’t for my increased power and my station, marrying him would’ve been a prison sentence. With my ‘extra attributes’, it still meant a life of celibacy, married to a creature who was as repulsed by me as I was him.

  All I wanted was to be with Gray. No power necessary, no rank or titles desired.

  “I’m going to grab Grayson and bring him back in here. Let’s put the marriage talk on the back burner and figure out how to get the Dark throne and the goblins freedom with the lowest casualties.”

  I stood, and the men stood with me, Komodor bowing low, Tryst managing to stop smirking for the briefest of moments. Ugh. Men. Can’t live with them, can’t burn them off the face of the earth, I silently complained.

  Why not? Caorach’s reply almost startled a laugh out of me. It had been quietly sitting in the sheath down my back since we’d made sure there weren’t any more hunters lying in wait.

  Because we need them to procreate, unfortunately. So, not killing all the men off, or we all go extinct.

  There was a different kind of silence in my head, and I knew the demon of my demon-blade was considering my reply. It was more unnerving when it did that, reminding me that it wasn’t just wild magic, but a real consciousness in the blade that was bound to me, like a slave.

  One day, it finally replied, you will be powerful enough to create life itself. Then, perhaps, we can kill all the men.

  For the first time, it occurred to me that Caorach might be female. I’d always simply called it…It, refusing to anthropomorphize it or empathize with its bloodlust. I filed the thought away for later but couldn’t ignore the trill of agreement in my head as Caorach listened to my thoughts.

  "Oh, Goddess, it would be my luck to be bound to a bloodthirsty female sword. Explains the temper tantrums."

  There was no answering trill in my head. The blade might always be there, but I’d learned that didn’t always mean it…she, was listening. But the moment I simply accepted that my sword was a living, if not breathing thing, I felt another lock snap open, or maybe snap into place, strengthening our bond. Perhaps Eowynn was right, and our eventual oneness was inevitable.

  I checked the bar, eager to tell Gray that I’d just learned my sword was a manhating she-demon. Anything to take our minds off the decision I had to make.

  Gray had tried to do the same, breaking up with me to be a better alpha, to pick a true mate from the pack, but we barely made it six months before we gave up on giving up. He was a good alpha, powerful and disciplined and honorable.

  That wasn't me. I was the scrapper, the impulsive one, the survivor who'd learned sometimes you've got to be selfish to make it work. It wasn't in me to give up the only true love I'd ever known for politics or safety.

  That’s your answer then, Caorach chided me. Stop fighting yourself, and fight the ones attacking us. It is perfectly acceptable t kill your enemies instead of living in misery.

  And for the first time in recollection, I wholeheartedly agreed with her, no reservations. I chose Gray, for better or worse, with vows before the gods and our friends, or made only in my heart. Grayson Xenos was my past and my present. No matter what else came of the craziness that seemed to bombard us constantly, he would be my future.

  We’d already tried to live apart, it hadn’t worked. But he needed to know that no matter how the Fae tried to manipulate my position, or how the goblins and Tryst tried to use fear for my life to tie me to them, the only one I wanted at my side while I changed the world, was him.

  With my heart in my mouth and my stomach flitting with butterflies, I checked the bar, then the security room, looking for Gray. I wanted him to know…no, needed him to know first that I would fight the Unseelie, the goblins, even my own damned father, but I wasn't marrying anyone purely for politics.

  Booker hadn’t seen him, neither had either of the pretty boys behind the bar. The butterflies in my stomach turned to stone, and I raced back to the dressing rooms, praying Gray had decided to interrogate them about the infiltration.

  Kersey, Tryst's headline, looked concerned but shook his head as he told me he hadn't seen Gray in weeks. None of the dancers had seen him, nor had the girl at the coat check when I ran back to the front again.

  Too worried to stop by the office to ask Tryst or Komodor for help, I ran out the front door, drawing Caorach as I did. Her hum in my head was as worried as my own scrambled thoughts, but the song helped me focus as I scanned the parking lot and road before pressing my back to the brick wall and moving around the side of the building into the narrow alley.


  At first, the corridor between the old buildings seemed empty of everything but trash and the stench of old piss. As the shadows darkened, my pulse quickened, and Caorach’s song fell silent, allowing me to listen for signs of life…or of trouble.

  Amidst the chill and stink of the alley, I felt the heat from the far end, near the loading dock. Relieved, I jogged back to the rear entrance to chew him out for scaring me, when I nearly tripped over his body.

  The moment I inhaled to scream, the rich coppery smell of Gray’s blood hit my nose and slid down my throat, and I gagged and threw up bile, adding to the puddle forming of body fluids, his blood and the dead hunter next to him.

  I pounded on the door, my screams tearing up my burning throat, and dropped to my knees next to him without waiting for an answer. His pulse was weak, his heat dying as I ran my fingers over him. I tested for more wards, but Tryst had apparently not worried that I’d be working magic out behind the building amongst the dumpsters. I felt the earth beneath the concrete, a thin, spidery network of roots that were strong enough to survive the weight of cement.

  They reacted to my nature magic, thickening and reaching up toward sunlight until the concrete cracked and they pushed their way through, forming a web of weeds and roots that continued to enlarge as they twisted around themselves to form a cocoon of sorts. I gently guided the plant life under Gray's still body and closed the pod around him, sealing him in as the giant green cocoon began to glow from inside, the light seeping out at the edges until even they sealed, and all that was left for me was to wait.

  Somewhere between calling the sickly plant life from beneath the piss-coated concrete and the cocoon ceasing to pulse and glow with the magic of the Goddess, I became aware of bodies moving around me. in the mix of distant voices were Booker, and Tryst, and Komodor’s rusty barking as he gave orders to his redcaps to search the area.

  But the hunters had disappeared, leaving their dead behind. The only magic I could feel was my own. Even the dead hunter’s blood was gone, taken in by my plants as they grew, strengthening the healing I called for Gray.