Rhapsody (Bound to the Fae Book 3)

by J. Kearston

  With a twisting sensation in my gut, Elorie pulls me back from the bench against her, snapping the fingers on her free hand and transporting the two of us from the room.

  Chapter 17

  Cambria

  Elorie shoves me away from her the second we land, sending me sprawling forward. I catch myself before bashing my face, the rich grass pricking at my palms. A quick glance shows us near the end of the property behind the castle and the small lake, the setting sun sending colors dancing over the water.

  “You didn’t leave?” I hiss, pushing myself up, incensed. “You two should be long gone by now.”

  “You just couldn’t wait to try and take my place,” she scoffs, striding away from me. As opposed to the usual finery she’s typically decked out in, she’s in simple black pants and a dressier, flowing shirt, like she knew full well she was going to have to run. “Or to so much as allow a single day for people to celebrate the return of my son.”

  The low growl that emanates from my chest rivals that of the predators we left behind. “I was trying to give you a chance to get him out of there before they tore your heads off.”

  She doesn’t acknowledge my words, continuing a few steps forward toward the edge of the woods that border the back of the property, a hole blown through the wrought iron fence. There’s absolutely no fear of giving me her back as she strides through the gap and ahead, but it becomes clear why when I see Cody’s slumped figure reclining against the base of a tree.

  His face is red like he has a high fever, his breathing quick and shallow. Even from here, I can make out the way his dark blue irises crackle like a lightning storm is contained within them.

  “Fix him.” My eyes snap up to where she’s standing beside him, glaring at me like the very concept of her even speaking to me tastes bitter. “By the time I get him to the next city over, it might be too late, and I-“ she swallows, clearing her throat “-can’t lose him again. Not after everything, not when he’s the only one I have left.”

  My stomach flips. She really did drain her power so much that she only got him this far, doesn’t think she can handle the journey to the next kingdom. And rather than try, she wasted fates only know how much energy abducting me instead.

  That knowledge alone has my feet moving forward, but the pained look on Cody’s face has me quickening my step, dropping to my knees beside him. Even though he looks so different from the little boy in my memories, my nightmares, as I meet his familiar eyes, it’s like no time has passed at all.

  “Ria?” he asks and a sob sticks in my throat.

  It’s the nickname I used at the club that the guys first found me in, a way to keep the memory alive. A place immune to the horrors of Faerie and I could pretend that he was right there with me, calling after me as we hid away from the world.

  “You came back to me,” I mouth more than voice, tears clouding my vision.

  “Enough,” Elorie snaps, bringing us back to reality. “Can you heal him, or are you not even good for that anymore?”

  Cody’s lips press into a thin line and the earth beneath us trembles. “You’re always saying such mean things about her.”

  Elorie blinks. “What are you talking about?”

  Cody tries to push himself up to sit a bit higher, panting, but it’s clear the movement costs him as he grimaces. “Even though I couldn’t open my eyes, I could hear you. All of you. What you and Dads would argue about like I wasn’t there, what they did to punish Ria when you weren’t around-“ briefly, he glances at me and then away “-and the songs she’d play before that rush of energy hit me, just when I thought I’d fall asleep for good.”

  “She did this to you,” Elorie seethes, and by the hatred in her icy glare, it’s clear she regrets coming to me for help.

  “It was an accident. I pushed her; we were just kids,” Cody replies so easily and I swipe my arm over my face, trying to see straight.

  Clearing my throat so I can speak, I take a breath. “Let me see what I can do.”

  “If you try anything, I will do more than slaughter you, girl,” Elorie threatens, ignoring the way Cody stiffens. “I will take each of those pets you love and tear them apart in front of you until you’re begging me to kill you.” She kneels down, bringing her face even with mine. “And I will refuse. You will be forced to live with that agony until my final breath, just so you can feel a fraction of the pain you’ve caused me.”

  I almost open my mouth to argue that she was the one that murdered my mother after she saved Cody’s life during her pregnancy complications instead of being grateful, that she stole me away as a way to grow her power long before it became a necessity to try and bring her son back. But any woman that spits on that kindness and slaughters people as a thank you when they try to help can’t be reasoned with, and there’s just no point.

  She’s chosen to hate me and there isn’t enough energy in the world for me to convince her otherwise.

  Placing my trembling palm on his cheek, I close my eyes, leaning forward to rest my forehead against his. I don’t really need to, I just...I want whatever contact and memories that I can soak up while I can. As soon as I heal him, Elorie will whisk him away and I might never see him again. Sure, she might come back after the changeling situation is resolved, ensuring she holds her throne and her kingdom, but that doesn’t mean she’ll bring him back when she does. For all I know she might have a secondary home; it’s not like I’d have been told. I might truly never see either of them again. I won’t miss her in the slightest, but I’ll need to make my peace with the fact that this might be the last time I lay eyes on my brother.

  But he’s alive, and that’s enough.

  Mentally, I reach out to him, assessing the damage. But there aren’t any physical wounds to heal, no infection to clear up. My eyes fly open and I lurch away from him, severing every form of physical contact as soon as I realize what’s going on. I barely manage to turn my head and scramble a few feet away before my stomach starts heaving.

  “What is it?” she demands, not getting any closer. “What’s wrong with him?”

  Coughing, I make my way back near them, keeping a good bit of distance away. “He’s overloaded.”

  “What does that mean?” she snaps, gritting her teeth and no doubt debating stabbing me just for annoying her.

  Whispering, I refuse to look at anything besides the ground. “That it took a massive influx of energy to wake him up, but his body isn’t built to contain that much long term. It’s too much; he needs to burn off some energy and quickly.”

  She glances at Cody sharply. “Use your abilities. Now.”

  But his eyes are clouding over from the fever, all of that excess energy creating a secondary layer inside of his body, making it harder to access. The tears are openly flowing down my face again, because I know there’s only one way to help him at this point.

  And I’m not sure that I can bring myself to do it.

  “I can’t,” he whispers, fisting the grass beside him, clearly trying. Sweat trickles through the pale blue hair at his temple as he closes his eyes, concentrating and trying.

  It’s clear the moment that it clicks for Elorie, the color draining from her face. “No,” she murmurs in horror that matches my own. Turning a furious glare in my direction, she clenches a fist. “You’re lying! You just want to reclaim what I’ve siphoned from you out of spite.” Her eyes are turning manic, but by the way her gaze flits between us before wrapping an arm around her stomach, even she’s aware that she’s grasping at straws. “No.”

  Cody thumps his head back against the tree trunk, opening his eyes with a look of calm resignation. “It’s okay,” he says to her, taking a few more breaths. “I’m okay.” But it’s what he doesn’t say that hurts more. Not that he’s okay, but that he’s okay with letting go, of finally getting the rest he’s been denied for so long.

  Tears track down Elorie’s cheeks, glistening in the waning light. She’s tragically beautiful, everything you’d imagine in a fae q
ueen; no glamour necessary. It’s just a shame that it takes a breaking heart for a bit of that to finally shine through.

  “Help him.” She turns to me, hatred still burning away behind her tears.

  I don’t move at first, and she’s suddenly there, blade to my throat as she hauls me up, shoving me at him and screaming. “Help him, damn it!”

  I don’t bother stifling my sobs now, the look Cody gives me shattering my heart into pieces. There’s no fear in his eyes, just forgiveness. For what happened, for whatever might happen now. He simply gives me a small, sad smile before closing his eyes, trusting me implicitly when I haven’t done a damn thing to earn it.

  My hands shake as I cup his jaw, the heat from his skin burning at my already sweaty palms. Leaning down, I gently press my lips to his forehead, lingering for as long as I can get away with; both to delay the inevitable, and as an apology.

  The knife breaks skin as I lean in, and I ignore the warm beads of blood snaking down my skin, the way Elorie hovers behind me. Closing my eyes, I feel out the toxic overload of energy, the way it’s merging with what should be there until it’s a chaotic mess.

  And I breathe.

  A long, steady inhale, a slower exhale through my nose. Again and again, I try to mentally navigate through the lightning storm raging inside of him, severing only what I’m absolutely sure is volatile until I’m left with murkier waters to navigate, small static that easily blends into his innate energy.

  I triple check every single molecule in his body, ensuring I didn’t damage an organ or nerve ending. Then I do another sweep, paranoid. Absolutely terrified, I open my eyes, pulling back to look at him.

  His eyes are closed, the color gone from his face. His shallow breathing is gone, his chest still.

  My hands cover my mouth as the air leaves my body, driving the blade deeper into my throat from the movement as my shoulders slump and silent tears run over my fingers.

  When his eyes blink open and he sucks in a deep breath, I don’t even hesitate to smack his leg, lashing out in my relief before I throw my arms around him. Elorie removes the knife as I lunge forward, my face buried in his shoulder.

  “You jerk,” I cry into his shoulder as he wraps an arm around my back. “Don’t scare me like that.”

  He chuckles softly into my hair. “Like you would have passed up an opportunity as perfect as that.”

  “So he’ll be alright?” Elorie reiterates and I pull away from Cody long enough to assess him again, just to be sure.

  “Yeah, he should be okay now, I think.”

  She offers him a hand to help him to his feet and the emotional rollercoaster I’m on sends looming dread pooling back into my stomach. I push myself off the ground, eyes locked on him. He releases her hand, face tight as he realizes she’s about to take him away too.

  “Thank you.” My shock at her words has me glancing her way the same time I hear Dorian’s voice cry out in warning. Her hand falls on my shoulder as the other draws back to thrust the knife in her fist into my belly.

  My back crashes into the tree from the impact, the breath knocked from my lungs, but the explosion of pain doesn’t come. I get a face full of pale blue hair, pinned between me and Elorie.

  “No, no, no,” I cry, wrapping an arm around his chest to support him only to get a handful that I wasn’t expecting.

  Elorie slumps in my arms and I sink to the ground with her, only to look up...and still see her standing there, a dagger sunk to the hilt in her stomach. I meet her hate filled, shocked gaze the same moment Atlas steps in behind her, drawing a blade quickly over her throat before she can recover.

  Tilting the head of the body in my arms, I quickly press my wrist to their mouth, knowing blood will heal changelings far quicker than I can transfer energy, especially while my heart is hammering and I can barely tell which way is up. But they don’t bite into my flesh, and onyx eyes don’t meet mine.

  Dorian’s bright blue eyes shine back at me as the illusion of Elorie starts to fade from his features, his blonde hair coming into view as he rattles in a breath and croaks, “Teleporting isn’t any better when you’re the one doing it.”

  I don’t know how I even still have tears left in my body. Rather than answer him, I close my eyes, putting all of that energy I just siphoned from Cody to use. It’s far easier to heal a physical wound and I make quick work of patching Dorian up, pressing a palm over his stomach to keep as much blood in as possible until I’m done.

  “Way to wait until the most dramatic moment possible to develop your ability.” I bend down to kiss him before lifting his shirt to ensure I healed the damage, my hand still wet with fresh blood and making me uneasy until I confirm with my own eyes.

  “The boobs were just a perk,” he groans, sitting up and I run my clean hand through my hair to brush it out of my face.

  “You don’t even need to consume energy to mirror someone; that’s going to be confusing as hell,” Atlas states, eyeing Cody like he expects him to turn on us at any second for killing his mother and unsure how he’d handle the situation if it came down to that.

  Pulling his shirt back into place, I can’t bring myself to let go of him yet. “Don’t even have the eyes as a giveaway. He’s going to change into me to see if he can seduce you, you just wait,” I tease and Atlas goes stock still.

  Lucien crouches beside me, one arm resting on his thigh and the other stealing my chin so he can inspect the damage to my throat. “You haven’t healed yourself yet.”

  I scoff. “Excuse me, but I’ve been a little busy saving Dorian from bleeding out and my brother from exploding.”

  He simply stares at me, waiting, and I sigh. Closing my eyes, I pull a bit of energy from the earth beneath me, humming softly to coax it along and feeling like an idiot that’s just singing and obliviously lost in her own world while bodies drop around her.

  When I open my eyes again, Lucien’s are still hard. My confusion at his anger tapers off into understanding as he lifts my arm, inspecting it. A series of marks each about one inch long coat from fingertip to beneath the sleeve of my shirt, and a quick look reveals a similar situation on my other arm. Tiny brands burned into my skin, a series of twisting knots all interconnected into a web that wraps around the larger marks carved into the back of my hands, the scars still upraised compared to the new ones that sit flush with my skin.

  “Fuck.”

  But they feel different than the tethering marks that bind me to the guys, less...intrinsic to my being. They feel more like tattoos rather than anything constricting.

  “Ria?” Cody tentatively asks, eyeing the men around me cautiously. It’s clear that I’m not freaking out, but seeing as two of them just tag team murdered his mother, I can understand his reservation.

  He glances back at the castle, at the bodies littering the lawn between it and us. At the changelings and the guards that are starting to appear in the distance. He’ll be safe; the crown prince back at last to ascend to the throne that’s rightfully his. But the four of us have the blood of a freshly slain queen on our hands.

  We were hunted for trying to assassinate the queen before, but there would be no arguing our innocence now.

  “Yeah?”

  “Stay?” Just a single word, and yet it means so much that I struggle to breathe. “Let me help you,” he pleads.

  Looking around at the death and destruction, at the place that acted just as much as his prison as it was mine, a wave of exhaustion and relief settles into my bones so deeply that I doubt I’ll ever be rid of the feeling. I meet each of the guys’ faces, searching for their reactions, but they look just as weary as I am.

  We might be able to survive on the run as we have been, but it’s none of our first choices for a life. If we run now...there’s no coming back from it, and I doubt even Cody would be able to convince people of the lie that we were innocent.

  “I don’t want to run anymore.” Getting to my feet, I wipe my bloody palm on my thigh, looking at the guys once more for co
nfirmation before meeting my brother’s relieved face. “Let’s go home.”

  ***

  The following days are hell. It doesn’t matter that the marks on my arms ensure I’m aware of the changelings, as we discovered when one decided to try and chew the arm off of a fae that stormed into the castle demanding answers. That small symbol heated until I couldn’t ignore it anymore, like a supernatural alert system.

  It’s different than the one with my mates; those just give me a vague sense of their direction when we’re already near each other, making it easier to find them in a crowded room. These, on the other hand, I just curse that they aren’t buttons to remotely activate shock collars, because it would make my life a hell of a lot easier than having to track them down. Thankfully though, now that they aren’t being starved to death and the woman they despised with every fiber of their being is dead, they’re relatively easy going.

  Every time Cody repeated his story to someone, it made my gut twist. But he sells it flawlessly, spinning things to blame the closest dead guard beside her body, that the man tried to capitalize on the chaos to enact his own revenge. Because though he doesn’t know who is who, he’s heard plenty over the years in his comatose state. The muttering dissent of guards and servants, the quiet resentment that thrived in the shadows.

  Not a single guard protested the story, though I’m sure half of them must know better, were in the room when she grabbed me. But whether it’s from their mutual dislike of the woman, their relief at Cody taking the throne, or secretly wishing that they were the ones to do it, no one calls him out on the tale.

  “How long before we head out?” Atlas asks, grunting as he helps haul some more rubble out of the hallway, chucking it onto the pile as reconstruction carries on around us.

  I wipe the sweat from my forehead. “Another few days, I think. That way we aren’t immediately bolting and starting any rumors, but we need to get the changelings set up; they’re getting restless.”

  As if on cue, Loki collides with another changeling a little ways down the hallway, their game of tag resulting in even more damage and making everyone around us groan in annoyance.