When he saw me, he exhaled a breath, but then his eyes moved to my head, and he lurched to his feet. In three quick strides, he stood over me, then crouched and swept up the wadded sweatshirt.
“Heya, Cole,” came a chirpy voice, one I hadn’t heard yet.
A girl with long brown dreads walked over to us. She crossed her arms as she peered down at me. A ray of sunlight caught on her skin that was freckled and had the copper sheen of someone who spent their days outdoors.
“Hi, Sam,” Cole said, fingers scrabbling over the chains wrapped around my legs. I couldn’t tell if he was pretending to adjust them or really adjusting them.
“I never thought I’d get to see a real faerie.” Sam’s gaze roamed over me. There was more curiosity than animosity, but still, my muscles flexed.
“Step back. She’s dangerous,” Cole snapped.
Did he really think this, or did he sense my fear?
Her forehead puckered. “She doesn’t look dangerous.”
“Don’t you know faeries’ looks are deceiving? They’re like swans…attractive but vicious as hell.” His eyes flashed down to me, as blue and deep as the lake. “Didn’t you hear she almost killed Quinn last night?”
Sam smirked. “He probably deserved it. He’s like one of those born-again religious people—more devout than God himself.” Even though Cole had told her to stay away, she walked around me like a fisherman inspecting his catch.
“Sam, seriously, keep your distance.”
“You’re not keeping your distance,” she remarked.
Cole’s cheeks reddened. “I was just making sure the chain hadn’t loosened during the night.” He unfurled his skinny but athletic body. “Better not try anything, Alice,” he grumbled. If he was trying to sound menacing, he was doing a poor job of it.
Sam’s eyebrows writhed over her eyes. “Why did you call her Alice?”
“That’s her name.”
“No it’s not.”
“What do you mean, it’s not?”
Goose bumps scampered over my skin.
“Are you serious right now? You don’t know who you caught? Shit, Cole, don’t you ever read magazines?”
“No,” Cole answered sheepishly. “Besides, it was dark last night.”
“Kiera wasn’t with you?”
“She was.”
“And she didn’t recognize her?”
“You know all my sister ever reads are surfing magazines.” His cheeks had become as colorful as the crate wall. “Can you just spit it out already? If she isn’t Alice, then who is she?”
Sam sucked in a long, drawn-out breath, as though to heighten the suspense. Or maybe it was just to irritate Cole.
“Sam—”
She smiled. “The girl you have there”—she tipped her chin toward me—“that’s Lily Wood.”
“Lily Woo—” The last letter of my name never made it out of his gaping mouth. Cole backed up as though I’d turned into a dile. “No…”
“Shit, you really didn’t know?”
Cole raked his hand through his pale hair so roughly he pulled out a couple strands. They fell, glittering like gold thread in the lines of sunlight striating the chilly, wet air. I didn’t think he’d liked me much, but I also hadn’t thought he hated me. From the dread staining his expression, I sensed that whatever pity he’d felt for me was gone. I’d deceived him, and deception was terrible. I lowered my gaze from his, hating the gathering revulsion twisting his features.
“Is it true? Is your name Lily?”
“What? You don’t believe me?” Sam stuck out her lower lip in a pout.
There was no point in pretending I wasn’t—there were pictures of me all over the internet—so I nodded.
“Told ya.” Sam’s voice lilted with pride. “You should probably go inform your mother. Unless you want me to go do it?”
“I’ve been tasked to stay with her.” His tone was so, so low. “You go.”
Guilt ravaged me, worse than after I’d accidentally gassed Quinn. It was odd to feel guilt for something as trivial as a mistaken identity. I supposed the feeling stemmed from the hurt contorting Cole’s face. I reasoned with myself that he’d trussed me up in iron chains. He didn’t deserve my guilt, but then I thought of the balled sweatshirt and the absence of my collar, and the will to despise him as much as I despised the others dwindled.
I twisted my head to mouth, I’m sorry, but he blurted, “Did you come here to finish what your grandfather started?”
This time I was hurt. I looked away, shaking my head from side to side, my hair picking up dust from the floor, against which I still lay like a worm.
He snorted. And then he just stood there, glowering down at me.
A deep, loud growl erupted from somewhere and shook the earth. I spun my head toward the makeshift window. I would know that sound from anywhere. Kajika. What were they doing to him? I writhed, the chains rattling around me as I tried to wriggle out of them.
Another loud keening sound rose.
I managed to roll onto my side. I needed to get to him.
Hands pinned me down. Cole’s eyes settled on my hand that flared with Kajika’s elevated pulse.
“Why does only one of your palms light up?”
Another bone-rattling growl reached me.
Kajika, if you can hear me, scream yes!
I waited and waited but he never yelled yes. There was one more sharp cry, and then silence. The worst kind of silence. My palm had stopped flaring. I fought the chains, but they didn’t magically skid off my body. I was trapped.
Please be alive.
“It’s not dust, is it? It’s some sort of connection to your boyfriend.”
I cursed my impotent vocal folds as I turned beseeching eyes toward Cole, pleading him to go check on Kajika.
Yellow rubber Crocs squeaked, coming to a standstill inches from my own feet. “What’s not dust?”
Kiera was back. A spray of red adorned the front of her lavender t-shirt. Please let it not be Kajika’s blood. But who else’s would it be? Unless Kajika had managed to injure one of his captors…
I raised murderous eyes to her face.
“Morning, Lily.” She insisted on my name, seemingly bitter she’d gotten it wrong.
“When he screamed, one of her hands lit up,” Cole explained, getting back to his feet. “I think she’s somehow connected to the other faerie.”
Kiera frowned. “I remember Nana telling me about these magical bonds faeries could establish, but it wasn’t with other faeries. I think it was with humans. As a way to keep an eye on them to better kill them.” Her tanned forehead creased a little more.
I noticed a spot of blood at the edge of her hairline. A violent chill raked through me. Where had all this blood come from?
“I need to double-check with Mom. She’d know.”
“What do you need to double-check with me?” Charlotte was back too.
I half expected Quinn to enter after her, but the door didn’t reopen.
“Cole suspects she’s linked to the man,” Kiera said.
“You mean, a tracking bond?”
“Yeah. That’s the one Nana referred to.”
“Kiera’s right. Faeries like to mark their prey,” Charlotte said. “But the mark only takes to human skin.”
“Which would mean the man is human,” Cole said.
“He heals each time we cut him.”
My stomach twisted. They were cutting him?
“He’s way too strong to be human. You should see what he did to—” Kiera stopped midsentence and brushed the back of her hand against her forehead as though trying to wipe away phantom blood.
Maybe it wasn’t Kajika’s.
How I hoped it wasn’t.
“He might be strong, Kiera, but he didn’t react to iron,” Cole said.
“Like Mom says, he’s probably a human-faerie mix.”
“Mark my words, I’ll find out today what he is.” Charlotte’s pale, unblinking eyes swept over wher
e I lay. “Cole, baby, go rest. Kiera will take your place. I’m going to see if Pete’s managed to make the boy more responsive.”
“You might have to wait a couple hours. Pete got a bit carried away after…the attack.”
I felt my lashes hit my brow bone. At that moment I didn’t even care that I still had lashes. All I cared about was what this man—Pete—did to Kajika.
I was done being useless. Skies be damned, I was a faerie, not a worm. I had dust. Dust they couldn’t seize.
As Charlotte gave Kiera pointers about what to do with me, Cole waited by the door.
“No one comes through here until we understand why they’ve come,” Charlotte was saying. “Until we understand all they’re capable of, okay? If you need help, raise a roll of thunder, and I’ll come.”
What a convenient means of communication…
As I looked at Kiera, an idea materialized. I studied the shape of her jaw and eyes—both a little rounder than her brother’s—and memorized the slight prominence of her ears, which stuck out of her curtain of uncombed, white-blonde hair.
Now I needed to figure out if, wrapped in all this iron, I still had control of my dust. I fisted my hands, trying to sense the pulse of magic, but located nothing. There was too much metal around me.
I’d done it last night. Granted I hadn’t been encased in this much iron. I waited for the door to bang shut behind mother and son to try harder.
Come on…
I closed my eyes and tried again, focusing inward. The fire in my veins seemed to burn hotter as though it too were whooshing through my body in search of my hiding dust. Sweat beaded on the nape of my neck, and still, I’d achieved nothing.
I tried again. I would try as many times as I needed to.
A slight tingle pricked my fingertips.
I sucked in air, and the movement jostled the chain around my wrists, smothering the prickle and searing a patch of already-sensitive skin.
A foot pressed against my writhing hands, gave a slight shove.
My lids flew open.
“Don’t try anything.” Kiera twirled the slender arrow coated in dry blood and stuck it behind her ear as though it were a pencil.
I lay statue still, feeling for my dust again. This time it came more swiftly, or perhaps I recognized it quicker.
They’d said the Woods were harder to kill, and in a way they’d been right. We were bred and raised to wield wita like humans wielded guns. And since Negongwa had lifted the limitation he’d placed on our dust, my stock was bottomless. Which was good, because I would need a lot of it to put my plan to execution.
I reached for my dust again as I concentrated on the plan sharpening in my mind.
18
The Illusion
An hour into Kiera’s watch, the girl with the dreads came back.
Kiera laid the boating magazine she was reading down on her lap. “Mom said no one should come through here until we know what the faeries want.”
“She sent me to collect some of the good stuff. Apparently, they’ve run out.” Sam waggled her brows and tipped her head toward the makeshift hothouse.
“Already?” A frown gusted over her face. “That was quick.”
Sam glanced at me as she pushed back the heavy plastic curtain. The scent of warm soil and dewy leaves snaked through the warehouse. Did they know about their ancestors’ scales? I imagined they did, because they seemed well versed in faerie history. Then again, they didn’t know about hunters, so maybe I gave them too much credit.
A short moment later, Sam emerged from the indoor greenhouse. “All done.” Instead of leaving, she approached us. “Do you really think more of them are coming like her friend said?”
“He also said that Catori girl was one of us, but that’s clearly a lie. She’s marrying that one’s”—she tipped her chin toward me—“brother. No Daneelie would ever get with a descendent of Maximus Wood, no matter how rich or powerful he might be. It would be like a Jew marrying a descendant of Hitler. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.”
“Maybe he’s forcing her to marry him? Lily, is your brother—”
Kiera slammed her magazine shut. “You got to be kidding me, Sam! You think she’d tell us the truth? She’ll just shake her head. Besides, Catori isn’t one of us. Quinn met her. She’s not.”
“Quinn could be wrong—”
“Sam!” Kiera exclaimed.
Sam raised her palms in the air. “Fine. I’ll shut up.” Her dreads swung around her face as she turned and finally walked out.
After she left, I strained to hear more incoming footsteps, but the only noise was that of a car rumbling by. It soon faded.
Deciding the time had come, I took a breath and forced myself to tremble. It wasn’t hard to fake. Unlike Kiera, who wore a puffer vest over her hoodie and a pair of roomy sweatpants, my jeans did little to ward off the chill in the air.
The chains around my body rattled, which made the Daneelie spring to her feet. The magazine hurtled to the floor, flopping like a dead fish.
Kiera’s navy eyes narrowed on me. Her hair, which was as white as lupa fur, hung like window sheers around her dipped head. I increased my shaking, gritting my teeth as the chain on my wrists jiggled and sloughed off skin.
“What’s wrong with you?” she asked roughly.
I let my eyes roll to the back of my head and saliva dribble from the corners of my mouth.
I must’ve put on a convincing show, because she muttered, “Shit.”
I waited for her to sound her thunder before moving on to the second step of my plan.
She made me wait a long time, but in the end, she indulged me. Her hands filled with blue sparks. The sky darkened and then thunder cracked.
I shook harder, and she crouched, grabbing onto my flailing shoulders, trying to pin me down. I concentrated on filling my hands with dust. Once I was certain I had enough, I flung my fingers wide, dispersing my dust into the air like confetti.
Kiera blinked as though she could feel it settle over her face, and maybe she could. When I was young, I’d done it to Dawson to play a trick on Veroli…I’d disguised him as my father. In retrospect, it had been a cruel joke to make poor Veroli believe my father had come to visit. My father wasn’t the type to “hang out,” at least not with us. He was way too busy visiting all of his concubines. Anyway, after Veroli had stopped hyperventilating, Dawson had commented that my dust felt like cobwebs.
Car doors slammed outside. More than one person was coming. Kiera whipped her face toward the door. The second it opened, I activated step three. I threw my glowing fingers wide again.
Dawson was right; dust did feel like spiderwebs.
Kiera turned back toward me. “What the—”
Her eyes—now gray—went as round as bowling balls. I understood her shock. It was strange watching your own face stare back at you.
Several people rushed toward us.
And now, onto step four. I dispelled just a sprinkle more of dust into Kiera’s gaping mouth. She coughed. It would burn the lining of her throat just enough to make it impossible for her to talk. I couldn’t have her looking like me but speaking. It would ruin my—hopefully—clever ploy.
Loud voices resonated around the building’s low ceiling and metallic walls, and then arms hooked under Kiera’s and yanked her off me. She was coughing so hard I half expected her to throw up a lung. A man with bulging, blood-splattered arms and a bloody plaster over his cheek grabbed the chair and smashed it into Kiera’s face.
The sight of my face getting smacked made me flinch.
“I got the key!” a woman with boy-cut, red hair shouted. She dropped to her knees and fit it into the lock at my ankles. Her movements were brusque, choppy, but fast. In seconds, the length of chain had been unwound from my body. I held out my wrists. She fumbled with the keys.
Come on. Come on.
I looked at Kiera, around whom they wound the chain. The iron links skimmed a patch of bare skin on her collarbone. It didn’t catch fire like mi
ne. Thankfully, the man wrapping her up didn’t seem to notice.
The woman dropped the keys just as Cole burst into the building. His eyes zeroed in on fake me and then on real me. He seemed to hesitate a millisecond before running toward real me.
He pushed the short-haired woman aside and swept the keys off the floor. “What happened, Kiera?”
I worried my lip so I wouldn’t have to talk.
He fit the right key into the lock and was about to twist it when he caught sight of tendrils of smoke rising from the chain.
Shoot. Shoot. Shoot.
His wide eyes narrowed to slits, and he removed the key.
I shut my eyes and squeezed them tight. If I could’ve banged my head against the concrete floor, I would’ve. I’d been so close.
So freaking close…
When I opened my eyes, he was still staring down at me.
“What are you waiting for?” the woman yelled at him, trying to steal the keys from his clenched fist.
“That’s not Kiera.”
“What do you mean that’s not Kiera?”
“I mean. It’s. Not. My. Sister,” he said through clenched teeth.
The woman frowned at him, then at me. “What the hell are you talking about, Cole? It’s Kiera! Get that chain off her.”
She tried to wrestle the keys from him and then he got to his feet. “STOP! Everyone stop! The faerie played a trick on us!”
Silence filled the tumultuous room.
“What trick?” the man with the stained gauze on his cheek asked.
“What’s happening, Cole?” his mother asked, moving carefully toward him.
“Lily’s somehow making us think Kiera is her and that she’s Kiera.”
Gasps and whats ping-ponged around the building.
Cole stalked toward his sister and pressed a piece of chain against her chin. When no flames erupted, the man securing the chain released her. Cole returned to me and rattled the chain on my wrists. Sure enough, my skin bubbled and smoked, dispersing the scent of charred flesh.
Raging Rival Hearts Page 11
