by A C Wilds
Picking my hand in the air to silence everyone, I say, “Put away the dicks guys. There is no reason to attack each other when we don’t even know what’s going on.”
“The Changer is right, Acalon. There is no reason to let this bring us to a fight, control your jaguar,” she tells her mate, in the most loving, but demanding way. I think I might get along with her fine if I can get Cass to be on board.
“I’ll go find him. The rest of you get inside. There is much to go over,” Gunn says. He was the last to join our group but has seen the most. Once the assassin for the Dark, he was used just like we all were by these monarchs.
Shax and Grey come up on either side of me, keeping me close and protected. I see the same formation of Izzy’s men, as she rolls her eyes. I smile, and she catches it. She smiles right back. Yeah, I am going to like her.
The magic shield is buzzing around us, as we get closer. I put my hand out to touch it, and Izzy sees the movement.
“You can see it?” she asks with raised eyebrows.
“Yeah, can’t everyone?” I ask. It is so bright I don’t know how anyone would miss it.
“No, it’s invisible to almost everyone. I guess you’re one of the few,” she responds. Reaching out, she places a hand on the shield. It responds to her in moments, wrapping around her hand, and greeting her like an old friend. She sighs in contentment and produces a door large enough for us to all walk through.
Once we are on the other side, I see what is truly behind the shield. It isn’t a mountain range at all, but a bustling town. Shops line the cobblestone steps. There seems to be a fair today, as merchants have set up tables with large silk canopies shielding them from the sun. I can smell the delicious aroma of cooked meat, and it reminds me of the festivals I used to attend in New York.
“What is this place?” Shax asks, with amazement in his voice. He looks just as in awe as I am.
“This is Solaris. A town of refugees that have fled both the Light and Dark. I founded it after the war. People needed a sanctuary to hide from the wrath of your mother,” Izzy says as she gives Shax the once over. She is trying to determine if he is trustworthy. She’s taking a big risk letting him come here.
“I had no idea,” he replies.
“That’s the point,” one of her mates responds. This one is darker than Acalon. He has eyes so blue they look like the oceans in the Caribbean.
“Maybe you should introduce your mates so that we all know who we are talking to,” I say, to Izzy.
“Right, sorry. Acalon is the tall, moody one. He’s my alpha. Zolin is the one who just spoke, and Tenoch is the less talkative of my guys."
They are all gorgeous but do nothing for me. My guys are everything. I get that Izzy feels the same way.
We make our way through the town, down the cobblestone streets. My stomach rumbles with how hungry I am, but I don’t have money. I don’t even know what the currency is in Faerie.
Tenoch taps me on the shoulder and hands me something that looks like a kebab. I smile at him in gratitude.
“I thought you’d be hungry. It’s about a 20-minute walk to the main house, and it could be a while till the cook gets a proper meal ready for us,” he says, extending the meat toward me. I take it almost greedily and take a bite. The juices in the meat drip down my chin, but I have no shame. The flavors hit my tongue, making it do a dance of happiness. It is the best thing I have tasted in a while.
“This is amazing, thank you,” I say, in between bites. Looking around, I can see we all have our own kebab, and I think Grey is making moaning sounds, which does a weird thing to my core.
“Don’t you want to know what it is?” Zolin asks, with a smile on his face. It must be something I’m not going to like.
“Um…no I don’t want to know. Let me just think it’s beef or lamb please,” I reply. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Noli laugh, yeah this is definitely not beef or lamb.
Directing us back on the way to the house, Izzy starts to talk about how the town came to be. It’s a sad story, but one I needed to hear. It confirms what I thought was happening here. Nothing good can come from allowing the Queen to continue her rule.
“We escaped the last war with only about 1,000 Fae. Our numbers dwindled to next to nothing. I was able to have them flee to this part of the realm, and resurrected the barrier to keep us safe. It was about 30 years before we were able to leave. Nothing was safe, and the Queen is relentless in her search. After a while, she must have forgotten about us, or her direction changed, because there were less and less search parties looking for us,” Izzy explains. She looks in pain, reliving that time, must have been difficult for her.
“Who was the Fae who told you of my presence?” I ask, curious to see who else knows about me.
“It was actually a couple of someones. Our old friend Maz and Nora, the witch in the light,” she says. My shock must show on my face. That bitch better not be here.
“Where is she?” I growl out. My hands start to crackle, and the air around us gets hot. I start to pull power from the guys. Shax steps in front of me before I can explode.
“Azra, calm down. There are innocent Fae in this market. Look around you,” he says. I turn my head and see the people of the town eyeing the newcomers with suspicion. A child runs out of a building toward its mother laughing, and my powers die instantly. I can deal with Nora later.
“Why is she here? She helped hold Noli. I won’t have her a part of this rebellion. I’d rather see her dead,” I spit out, looking at Izzy to try and defy me. I’m standing my ground on this one.
“Az, she’s my mother,” Noli says, coming up behind me. I spin around to face her with shock in my face. What else is she keeping from me?
“What the fuck Noli? Don’t you think you should have told me this before? It keeps getting worse, all the lying you are doing. Two fucking years we lived together. I trusted you with everything. Now I find out you’re a witch, and your mother works for the Light? I can’t deal with this right now,” I say, crushed. My heart feels like it’s in a million pieces. I feel so betrayed.
Walking away from them, I get lost in the crowd. I hear Izzy tell the guys to let me go, that I am safe, but I know I have only about a ten-minute head start. I flutter my wings and push off the ground taking to the sky. Now that I have all of my mates, using my powers have become second nature. All I need to do is refine my control.
I don’t go too high, just enough to scale the buildings. The town from up here is just as beautiful. The stores give way to bigger homes, and people are walking to and from wherever they go.
I land on the roof of one of the tallest buildings. It’s probably the house they were speaking of, as it’s the largest.
Sitting on the edge, I start to contemplate my life. The truths and the lies. There is still so much I don’t know, but I am determined to get it all straightened out.
Chapter 2
Discovery
Azra
It doesn’t take long for Grey to find me. He flies up from the street below, where I can see the rest of the group go into the front entrance. Izzy tells a guard something, and he hops on a horse going back the way we came. I hope he is going to collect Cass and Gunn. It’s starting to make me nervous that we all aren’t together.
“Are you done sulking?” Grey asks, landing next to me and taking a seat.
“I’m not sulking. I’m pondering,” I reply, looking into that beautiful face. Gods, he is irresistible. I lean into him for comfort, and he puts his arm around me. The scent of him gets my heart racing — ocean and the crisp air of the night. His wing comes across mine and pulls me closer to him.
“You are. You’re making a big deal out of a secret that you wouldn’t have believed. Hell, if that fucker Josie would have told me she was Fae in the beginning, before she trapped Logan and me, I would have laughed in her face. Nothing could have convinced me this was all real. I had to see it for myself,” he says, trying to get me to understand. We were both taken
and trapped, but Grey was forced to be a slave and a changeling hunter.
“It still hurts. She is my best friend. How can I trust her again? And her mom? She had Noli in that purple bubble thing. You saw it when we fled the Light,” I remind him. I was out of my mind with worry and guilt that day. Now I am confused and angry.
“There is probably a good explanation. I’m not sticking up for this chick, but everyone has a story, and you didn’t give her a chance to tell hers,” he says, pulling me closer and kissing my head. I turn my head and grab his shirt, sealing my lips on his. I need to feel close to my mates again. The pulsing need has my reaction to this kiss, setting me on fire. Grey and I haven’t been together since I turned him, and I replay that memory a lot in my mind.
“Az, keep it up, and I’m going to take you right on this roof,” he whispers into my lips. Taking my bottom lip between his teeth and biting down. This causes me to hiss in pain as I climb over his lap. Straddling him. We are so close to the edge of the building. The fear of falling adds to the rush, I need him inside me. I push him back onto the floor, and unzip his pants with a quickness I didn’t know I possessed. My wings are still out, and I curve them into us for some privacy. His cock springs out, looking so delicious. Hunching over, I take him into my mouth, lavishing in the taste of him. He doesn’t allow me to suck him for long, unzipping my pants, and I wiggle out of one leg while leaning over him. It causes us to break the kiss he pulled me into, and I almost fall, but it will be all worth it in about three seconds.
I’m already wet for him, so when I place him at my entrance, he slides right in. Leaning back, I let him stretch me into bliss. Moving my hips forward, I fuck him with all the passion and anger that I have been carrying around.
He lifts my shirt and starts to play with my breasts. Cupping them in his hands, he makes sure every last inch of them is touched. My nipples are two sharp peaks, and when he leans up to place one in his mouth, I moan out in pleasure.
“I wish we had more time to explore and take each other to the edge, but I need to come inside of you. This urgency is killing me,” he growls out.
His words trickle over me in excitement. The fact that he could want me so much makes me wetter than I than I already was.
I pick up my speed, rocking us both back and forth with such intensity, it feels like we are going to fall off the edge.
Grabbing my hips, he growls out his orgasm, pulsing inside of me. He reaches for my clit when he finishes, and I follow him soon after, screaming out his name, and not caring who the fucking hears it.
Flying back down to the front entrance of the house, we are greeted by a pissed off looking Shax. He is standing in the doorway with his arms crossed and a scowl on his face.
“What’s wrong, Cat? Pissed someone else got your cream?” Grey says with the biggest grin on his face. I stifle a chuckle because it was pretty funny.
“Shut up, Bird. I’m pissed because those two idiots haven’t come back yet. This is no time to be separated,” he says, looking off the way they came in.
“Didn’t they send someone to get them? I saw some guards leaving before,” I say, turning and seeing what he is looking at. The gates to the manor are open, and there is a sentinel positioned at the entrance. I can hear the bustling of people and horses, but don’t see my guys anywhere.
“They sent two guards, but no one has come back yet. I’m starting to get concerned,” he says. His brows are knotted, and his jaw is clenched. As alpha, it is his role to make sure we are all safe, and right now we feel anything but.
“I’ll go take a quick look around from the sky, and see if I can find out where they are. You take Az inside, get her showered and changed, she needs it,” Grey says, stepping out of my reach because my hand went to smack him in the back of the head as soon as that statement left his mouth. Always the joker.
He flaps his wings and is gone before either of us can argue with him. I turn toward Shax and place my hand inside his. Pulling him away from the door, we walk into the manor. It is not what I expected. It is more cozy and homey than the previous two places I have stayed at in Faerie. The foyer is done in dark woods with intricate moldings on the walls and ceilings. The floor is some sort of copper colored stone. The whole thing is pulled together by the moss colored walls. It looks more like a hunting lodge than a house for a leader.
“Hey Az, can we talk?” Noli asks, walking out of a doorway to the right. She looks like she has had a shower and a change already. I want nothing more than to go soak in a tub somewhere, but we need this talk.
“Yeah, we probably should. Lead the way,” I reply. Looking up at Shax, I plead with my eyes for him to understand. He gives me a tight smile and a kiss on the forehead.
“I’ll try to find you something to eat, and then we can go upstairs and rest a bit,” he says, looking over at Noli with a bit of a death stare. Shax is a big guy, and his power is so strong that I imagine he looks a bit intimidating. To me, he’s just a pussy cat.
Noli leads us into a lounge that looks like something out of a turn of the century parlor. The carpet underneath my feet swishes as I walk over to the couch near the fire. The walls here are done in light blues, with a white carpet. My shoes are leaving muddy tracks as I go, but I can’t be bothered to care. I’m so tired.
“So, spill it,” I say, rubbing my hand over my face and leaning back into this ridiculously comfortable couch.
“It’s a lot more than just this one talk, Az, but I need you to know that I didn’t do it to hurt you. I was scared, and you had no idea who or what you were,” she says. Her eyes are turned toward the fire, looking like she wished she could be anywhere but here.
“I know that it would have been a hard sell, but, Nol, I’m your best friend, or at least, I thought I was. You mean everything to me, and now I feel like everything we had was a total lie. How am I supposed to trust you if you knew this, or suspected this, about me? What if I could have protected myself? I was stolen from my life because of something that was pre-determined for me. And you knew.”
My words must hit her because the tears start to run down her face. She turns away and walks to the window. I can feel her energy seeping out of her in sorrow. It feels like wet snow in your shoe.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know what else to say, except I’m sorry.”
“You can start with why. I know I’m being a bit of a bitch right now, but you need to make me understand why you would keep this from me.”
“My life…hasn’t always been the easiest. I was given up when I was a baby. I was raised by a coven deep in the woods of Virginia, where we kept to ourselves. Since I was little, I have always been told to hide. Hide my powers, hide what I am, hide from people I don’t know. Hellebore was the perfect place. There was no one magical or other there, and before you came, no one knew about it at all. I was happy, we were happy — I didn’t want to fuck that up.”
“So you are a witch then? A powerful one?”
“Yes, and yes. I am supposed to be your witch, that’s what I was born for. It’s the reason why I was taken from my mother. She feared I would be killed. To save me, she faked my death at birth. Everyone thought I was dead.”
“Why would she choose to do that? I now know I’m fucking special, but what makes you special too?”
“I’m your link between the magic in you and your mates. I will be the reason you can kill Michael and Lucifer; without me your power will be too great, and you will kill us all.”
“Well…fuck,” I say, staring at her with wide eyes. This doesn’t sound like a happy reunion at all.
She reaches into her pocket and pulls out an extremely large diamond. It’s the same one that was on Nora’s table when I had my reading.
“She gave it to you?” I ask, looking at her for the truth. I hate that I doubt her, but there are so many reasons not to trust her.
“She did, she was the reason I was in that dungeon when you came. She helped me escape Michael,” she says, turning away from me a
gain. Noli goes over to the corner of the room where there is a bunch of bottles that I can only assume are alcohol. Pouring both of us a glass, she walks over to the couch and hands me one. I press it to my lips and inhale. It smells like honey and flowers. Tilting the glass up a bit, I take a tentative sip. The explosion of honey hits my taste buds first. It is sweet and bright with just a hint of a floral aftertaste.
“This is amazing. What is it?” I ask, taking another sip because it’s so good.
“It’s Fae wine. Good, isn’t it? I got drunk on some the first night I was taken. The hangover is a bitch, though,” she says.
A pang of guilt hits my stomach. This is all because of me. Her mother got her out of danger once, and I brought her right back into it.
“I didn’t mean for this to happen. I’m sorry, too, I can’t help but feel like I fucked up both of our lives,” I confess.
“This was all in the hands of the fates. We tried our hardest to stay away, but it would have pulled us back regardless of what we did. It was never up to us,” she says, leaning her head back onto the couch. I mirror her image and look up at the ceiling. It’s painted to mirror the setting sun. The colors all swirl together, making it look hypnotizing and breathtaking.
“I was so scared for you. When I saw you in that bubble, I thought my heart was going to burst. It was my worst nightmare come true,” I say, tears falling down my cheeks. “But now you are telling me there was nothing that could have been done? I feel about one hundred times worse.”
“We are both in this fucked up situation. We just have to find a way to make peace with it now. I’m the daughter of the most powerful witch in Faerie, and you’re the reason why I was born. I was created to help you figure out your powers, to hone them, to make sure that you are capable of changing Faerie into what it should have been all along. I believe we can do this,” she says with eyes so bright, I can see myself in them.
