“I don’t want to…”
I sighed. “Gull—”
“—no, why do you want me to leave so badly?”
I paused. “If anything happens to me here, I need you to run away and find a portal to Earth. Go back to my mothers… I need you to tell them.”
“You can tell them yourself.”
I shook my head. “You aren’t going to listen to me no matter what I say, are you?”
“I didn’t come here to run away at the first sign of trouble. I may be a pixie, but I’m not about to let some huge, furry freaks drive me away without a fight.”
I smiled at her, then thought for a moment. “Alright, fine… you can be Ginger.”
She frowned. “Ginger?”
“Ginger Spice? Because you’re by far the bravest of us.”
“Was Ginger the brave one?”
“I don’t know about brave, but I always wanted to be more like her. Now I kind of want to be more like you.”
Gullie smoothed the back of my neck with her hand. It was warm, and soft, and sent affectionate prickles racing through me. “You can tell me more about that later, after we’re done with all this.”
“Why don’t you both get a room?” Mira whispered.
“Why?” Gullie fluttered over to my other shoulder, “Wanna join us?”
Mira cocked a quizzical eyebrow, then grinned. “Careful what you wish for, pixie.”
“I hope you’re not planning on leaving me out of this party?” Mel put in.
“Definitely not,” I said. “Now all we need to do is get Ashera to like us, and our Girl Power squad is complete.”
“Let’s do a good job today,” Mira said, “And she just might.”
The conversation fell to a quiet lull, and I noticed then Ashera had been whispering almost this entire time. A soft, green steam had begun to rise from the bowl in her hands. She wasn’t kneading its contents anymore but mashing it with a grinder. Ashera then looked toward the circle in front of her and pushed out an ancient fae word I didn’t understand.
A freak wind rushed past her, tugging at her hair and racing toward the candles, turning their light green as it passed over them. Someone whispered off to the left somewhere, but when I looked, there was nobody there. A moment later I heard another whisper, and another, and another.
There were people everywhere, it felt like, moving in on us from around the clearing. I couldn’t see them, but I could hear them, and I could sense them. The skin along my arms broke into goose bumps, the hairs on the back of my neck stood on their ends, and before long, I saw the first few lights begin to manifest around us.
They came within the trees, little wisps of light—most of them blue, or pale green. They hovered close to the circle, spun around it, then shot around Ashera, the moon children, us. They seemed playful, curious, like we were a strange new thing for them to explore. Ashera hadn’t stopped whispering, but it was clear she wasn’t controlling them—she was talking to them; asking questions and getting answers.
She’d asked for silence, so I didn’t ask the questions I wanted to ask. I wanted to know what these things were. Were they spirits? Ghosts of the dead? Watching them play and dance made me think of will-o'-the-wisps back home. I had never seen one, but I had heard of them before, and these beings seemed similar.
“You, Prince,” Ashera called out, the word prince spoken with contempt.
Cillian turned to face her. “Yes?” he asked.
“We are almost ready to begin. Do you come here freely, and of your own will?”
“I do.”
“Do you accept there is a foreign spirit burrowed within you?”
He nodded. “There is.”
“Do you ask the spirits of this sacred forest for aid in removing it? Understanding that you will be indebted to them whether they are successful or not?”
“Spirits, I ask for your help… I will be in your debt.”
The will-o'-the-wisps converged on the ritual circle Ashera had created, shooting toward it like bullets but stopping short of entering it. I watched them all hover at the circle’s edge, their collective light illuminating the snow, the trees, and even the faces of the moon children across from us. The whispering abruptly stopped, replaced with a kind of soft humming sound that sounded almost like song.
It was beautiful… quiet at first but gaining strength and volume as the moments passed. The melody suddenly split, breaking into a harmony that rose, and fell and floated in a kind of fluid motion. The spirits bodies began to pulse, their lights brightening and dimming with the music. It was mesmerizing. I didn’t want to look away from it.
My fingertips tingled, and I noticed streaks of light beginning to pull away from me and move toward the circle. Mira, Mel, and even Gullie were producing these streams, but I didn’t think any of us meant to. It wasn’t long before Toross, Jaleem, Lora, Praxis, and even Ashera were joining in, the magic within them bubbling up and funneling into the ritual circle—into the Prince—like he was calling it himself.
Only he wasn’t. I could see the confusion on his face. He’d never experienced this before, and it had caught him by surprise just as much as it had me.
The Prince slowly spun around, watching the spirits as they sang to him, for him. He was suddenly bathed in light, and it played on his face, painting it in shades of blue and green, and heightening his already breathtakingly gorgeous features. My heart swelled at the sight of him in this light, and in my mind, an earworm took hold.
If you wanna be my lover…
I shook my head and smiled at no one, then I heard the grumble of thunder, and the record scratched. Turning my eyes toward the source, I saw it; the Veridian. It was just an impression against the dark sky, a patch of thick clouds barely visible from across the top of the tree line.
Seeing it there made my heart move in completely the other direction. It sank into my stomach like a hot ball of fire, triggering a sudden release of adrenaline that made my limbs shake.
“There it is,” I whispered to Gullie.
“Right on cue,” she said, “We were right about him.”
“I was hoping it wouldn’t come.”
“Me too.”
“The ritual is ready,” Ashera called out. “Let us begin.”
“Do it quickly,” Toross barked, “The Veridian comes.”
Ashera turned her head to her wolves. “Create a perimeter,” she said, “The circle must not be broken.”
Lora nodded, and with a grunt to the other two, the moon children took on their wolf forms and moved toward the Veridian. They didn’t go too far, never entering the tree-line, but they were far enough away from us that they’d be the first line of defense against whatever came out of the dark.
I took a deep breath. “I think that’s my cue,” I said.
“You stay right here,” Mira said, “Let them do what they’ve been told to do.”
I shook my head. “I can’t just stand here and wait. I have to help.”
“I will also help,” Toross said.
“Must you?” Mira asked.
“Unless you have a problem with this?” he replied.
Mira rolled her eyes, took a step forward, and clasped her hands together. When she pulled them apart, a long, white, gorgeous recurve bow appeared in her hands. With a flick of her wrist, she manifested a quiver filled to the brim with arrows.
“Fine,” she sighed, “If you must engage the darkness, I suppose I also should.”
“Look at them,” Mel put in, “Preparing to fight as a couple. Isn’t it cute?”
I jabbed a finger at her. “You put those heart eyes away.”
Melina drew a dagger from her belt, a smirk spreading across her lips. “A few weeks back you were complaining the fae have no hearts. Now you want to stifle our emerging feelings? Make up your mind.”
Gullie floated over to Mel’s shoulder and held onto her hair. “Yeah, it’s not very human of you, is it?”
Mira’s eyebrow went up again
. “She’s right, you know.”
“Yes, I know she’s right,” I said, “And you know I love all of this and all of you. There’s just a lot going on right now, okay?”
“You’re forgiven. Now, how about we get ready? That storm is going to get here very quickly.”
I turned my eyes up at it again. It already looked like it had crossed half the world to get here. The wind was picking up, rustling the tops of the trees. Furious streaks of lightning whipped around inside of the clouds as they descended, followed loosely by rumbling thunder. I turned my eyes on the Prince, and for a moment we locked.
He didn’t speak. Instead, he pressed two fingers against his heart. I mimicked the gesture. There was no time for words, no room for further comforts. It was time to fight.
The Veridian was coming, bringing with it what felt like the end of the world.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
All hell broke loose fast. No sooner had the Veridian fallen upon us that the first Wenlow came lumbering out of the tree line. It was fast, large, covered in white fur and armed with long, curved claws that dragged on the ground as it ran. It flashed its giant, gagged teeth, its huge, cavernous mouth spreading from one side of its face to the other, but the worst part was its eyes.
They were deep black sockets, with nothing inside them.
No anger.
No joy.
Just darkness and hunger.
Lora, who had clearly gained rank after I’d beaten Praxis, was the first of the wolves to attack. The grey wolf threw herself at the Wenlow, her fangs barred, her fur bristly and sharp. The other two followed, hurling themselves into the fight behind their leader.
Instead of becoming paralyzed, Lora leapt onto the creature paws first, slamming against its chest and clamping her jaws down on its shoulder. It staggered back a couple of steps and went to peel her off with its claws, but Praxis bit down on one of its arms, and Jaleem grabbed the other one. Together, the three wolves took the Wenlow down with a mighty thud and began taking large bites of its flesh, spraying its blue blood all over the snow.
“Yes!” Gullie screamed, “Take that, asshole!”
Excitement rippled through us. The Wenlow wasn’t getting back up, and the more the wolves tore into it, the less it struggled. They were doing it. They were killing the creature, and they’d done it almost effortlessly, coordinating their attacks to make sure it couldn’t hurt them, but they would kill it.
“Do not celebrate yet,” Toross said. My uncle had moved a little closer to me. He pointed at the trees beyond the wolves. “Look.”
Lightning was striking more frequently, now, the rumbling thunder reaching us almost immediately after each strike. As each lightning bolt streaked into the woods, it offered a little illumination in an otherwise pitch-dark area. There, in the dark, were more shapes lumbering toward us, moving quietly, slowly, relentlessly toward us.
My mouth fell open a little. “There’s… so many of them,” I said. Each one of them a human lost to Arcadia.
“We must tighten our perimeter,” Toross said, “They are slow, but they will overrun us quickly.”
“Will they paralyze us?”
“Moon children have a resistance to their magic, but… yes. If we don’t act quickly enough, they will be impossible to resist.”
Nodding, I took three steps toward the wolves, but Toross caught my arm. “You wait here with the others,” he said, “I’ll go.”
I frowned at him. “Do you see that mark on my hand?” I asked.
Toross turned his eyes to the glowing tattoo on the back of my right hand. The circles and half-circles glowed with inner light, flashing brightly with each lightning strike as if they were reflective. “This mark is exactly why you must be protected.”
“I’ve already faced the Wenlow once before,” I said, “Their paralysis effect hardly worked on me then. I’d be surprised if it works on me at all, now.”
“You cannot be sure of that.”
“No, but I won’t know unless I get over there. You need to protect Mira and the others. You are the second line of defense, understood?”
He scowled at me. “You are the third… I can order you to stay here.”
“So, order me, then.”
Toross’ face screwed up, but he released my hand. “Keep them safe, uncle,” I said, and then I turned around and threw myself against the floor, wearing my predator’s aspect before my hands could touch the ground.
I broke into a sprint, racing past Mira, Melina, Gullie—the Prince. I headed straight for the trio of wolves that had just downed the first Wenlow. More were coming. They weren’t trying to keep themselves hidden, and they weren’t exactly hurrying to get to us, that meant they’d reach us one at a time.
Good.
They would be easier to deal with that way.
Ashera’s voice climbed above the chaos erupting all around us, and she began invoking the spirits of her ancestors to help her rid the Prince of the invading spirit. I wanted to turn around, to look, to help, but I had to focus on what I was doing. We all had a job today, and I had to do mine the best I could.
Keep the Wenlow away. Let Ashera finish. Save the Prince’s soul.
By the time I joined Lora and the others, the creature they had felled was well and truly dead. Its tongue was sticking out of its huge mouth, its white fur was covered in blue blood, and many pieces of its flesh were missing. The wolves moved a little closer to the edge of the forest, making a firm line between them and the exorcism taking place behind them.
“Listen to me,” I said, as I came up to Lora, “They’re going to come at us one at a time, so we’re going to take them down one at a time, and we’re going to do it quickly, before their magic can paralyze us. Understood?”
Lora stared at me, her muzzle dripping with blue blood. She couldn’t talk like I could, but she could growl, and she did, making her point clear. Lora wasn’t going to take orders from me. None of them were. I wasn’t their Alpha, and they could give a shit that I was Ashera’s third.
The pack’s refusal sucked the wind out of my sails. Before I could speak again, the three wolves were on the move, dashing directly into the trees and going after the next, nearest Wenlow. I stared at them as they took it down, watching them act in concert to drop another of the horrible beasts.
They were trained killers; efficient, brutal, and swift. All three worked in tandem with each other, one of them setting up the blow for the next to deliver, who then set it up for the next. It was a train of savagery, and it was always on time—until Jaleem tripped up and fell as they rushed over to their third target.
I dashed toward them, watching from a distance as Lora and Praxis circled around their fallen packmate, trying to get him to stand up. One of Jaleem’s legs wasn’t working. I could hear him yipping and yelping, telling the others to go on without him, but they weren’t listening. Meanwhile, the Wenlow were closing in—slowly, inevitably.
I howled to get their attention, trying to warn them that they didn’t have time to debate things, but they wouldn’t listen to me, either.
“You have to move!” I yelled, but my voice fell on deaf ears.
One of the Wenlow picked up the pace, having spotted the pack and decided they were easy prey. Its sudden burst of speed and enthusiasm made me nervous. They had been slow until now, not too eager to engage, but this one was rushing through the woods, its mouth gaping mouth wide and open, its claws dragging on the ground.
I charged past the wolves and headed straight for the Wenlow, feeling the wind rushing through my fur and past my whiskers. When the creature spotted me, it paused, then reared like a bear, straightening its hunchback and making itself easily half a head taller than it had been a moment ago.
I could feel its paralyzing magic trying to reach me, breaking against the edge of my senses, but it didn’t slow me down, and that caught the creature by surprise. When I launched myself at it, I didn’t go for the neck or for an arm, but for one of its legs. I wrapped
my teeth around its knee and used its considerable size to swing myself around the creature, my fangs rending muscle and bone as I went.
As soon as I let go of the beast, it fell onto its other knee. Once I’d recovered, I hurled myself at it again, leaping at it from behind and snapping my jaws down hard on either side of its neck. I could taste its blood in my mouth, its flesh under my tongue—it was a cold, metallic taste that reminded me all too much of what my own blood tasted like.
The creature struggled with me for a moment. It tried to push itself up, tried to grab hold of me, but its was already in a great deal of pain, and it didn’t have the right coordination to reach me where I was right now. I kept my mouth clamped around its neck, feeling the flow of its blood as it gushed out of the wound and went dribbling into the snow underneath us.
Up ahead I caught the trio of wolves staring at me. Jaleem had gotten up, but one of his back legs was curled up under him. The other two were staring at me like they wanted to attack me. Instead, Lora turned her head to the side and barked at Jaleem. The smaller wolf then started hopping away, heading back toward the ritual circle which continued to glow off in the distance.
The Wenlow under my jaws stopped moving, the final spurts of its blood spilled out of its throat. I let go of its throat and was about to approach the two wolves, when Praxis and Lora charged in my direction, their fangs barred, their teeth full on display. I backed up a step, preparing to defend myself against them, but instead they went whizzing past me and threw themselves at another of the white giants that had been about to sneak up on me.
They were changing their tactics. I couldn’t see the other creatures anymore, I couldn’t hear them, couldn’t sense them. I could just about smell them, but I wasn’t sure if that was enough. Panting, I leapt off the fallen beast and joined the other two wolves as they tried to take down a fourth of these things.
Praxis, the large, dark wolf that he was, slammed into it like a wrecking ball, knocking it off its feet. But when it came time to get back up, he struggled. Lora, now that the Wenlow had been dropped, went to grab hold of one of its arms while I dashed around it and sank my teeth into the other.
Marked (The Coldest Fae Book 3) Page 18
